Fate/Grand Order: Moonlight/Lostroom

It should be noted that if you're anime-only, it is impossible to watch this in order. It fits between Pseudo-Singularity IV: Salem, which does not have an anime, and Lostbelt 1: Anastasia, which also does not have an anime. If you actually want the story leading up to this, play the gacha, it's available in English. (Though I'm told the Babylonia (Singularity 7) anime isn't half bad if you ignore the camera's butt obsession and a subpar final boss fight.)

Moonlight/Lostroom is a beautifully directed and animated character study of Ritsuka and Olga Marie. There's not much of a plot to speak of besides this, but ... it's well worth your time. And again, DO NOT WATCH IT unless you have finished Arc 1 of the game's main story, and preferably Arc 1.5 (though I note that you can completely skip the Agartha Pseudo-Singularity - and should, because it sucks).

Okay, there's not really much of a point in writing this since the reviews above mine have already thoroughly explained what this entire Special is about but I'm going to go into a more in-depth explanation of what the hell was going on throughout the anime

MAL guidelines say not to include summaries and that the synopsis is already written but did you see how ridiculously short the synopsis was when this anime is one of the most 'confusing' Fate anime with so many of you leaving such a low rating because of that


MAJOR DISCLAIMER:
FIRST OFF, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS
SECONDLY, PLEASE DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ... WANT DYNAMIC SICK ASS FIGHT SCENES. YOU'RE BETTER OFF WATCHING ANY OTHER FATE ANIME.


Basically to summarise again, this Special takes place after Epic of Remnant which is essentially Chapter 1.5
Moonlight/Lostroom is the 'prologue' for Chapter 2, Cosmos in the Lostbelt. So I'll be frank, you WILL NOT be able to understand ANY DAMN THING if you do not play FGO / if you do not know the story leading up to Epic of Remnant.

Before Epic of Remnant, it was Chapter 1, Observer on Timeless Temple which is basically Solomon's arc.

I suggest you recap yourself first before watching as many people are already confused af despite playing FGO

[Here's a link to a reddit thread that compiled all the stories into multiple separate threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/6yk9ql/story_summary_compilation/]
Credits to Fou-kun

Now, with all the major shit and the singularities settled (Epic of Remnant and Temple of Time)...
The Clocktower or more precisely, the Mage's Association wanted to split Chaldea but some Magus family clutched and purchased Chaldea before the Clocktower could get their dirty hands on it.
Lostroom is basically a room that has all things 'lost', memories, beings etc we don't really know exactly
But basically, Olga, Romani and Lev were conversing. Those 3 are deceased, Olga got killed by Lev (watch FGO First Order), Lev (defeated by Romani and Ritsuka), Romani (Solomon using Ars Nova and 'erasing' himself)
Since Romani is technically 'non-existent' (because he 'erased' his entire existence with Ars Nova), you can say Olga is talking to Lev and Mashu only.
That's also the reason why Mashu said that Olga could not be replaced at the beginning and near the ending she said that 'We only made it this far thanks to you, after all, it was you, Olga that acted as our navigator and allowed us to eliminate the singularities in France, Rome, Okeanus etc
Remember. Romani was the one that was with them throughout all the singularities, not Olga.




Now that I've explained why Romani wasn't there, I'm going to explain what Olga, Lev, Romani, and Mashu were discussing about.

Also, I never mentioned Mashu, why was she there when she's not 'lost' well, that's because the character inside the room before Ritsuka entered was the Mashu inside Olga's memories. Yes, the first portion was about Olga.
This is important, Lev (Demon God Pillar Flauros) conveyed his ideals to her, the part about the pebbles. He chose to remove them instead of carrying them. The pebbles were the burden of humanity.
So he asked Olga if she would be the one to carry that burden.




Then, Lev left as Ritsuka walked in. It was at that moment where you can sort of relate to in Chapter 1-2.
To be blunt, you can relate it to when Ritsuka defeated his/her first Demon God Pillar Flauros (aka Lev). I'm guessing Lev walking out as Ritsuka walks in is a sort of symbol for when Lev was defeated by Ritsuka.

That doesn't really matter, however, Olga didn't answer Lev when he left (haha rhymed) and Ritsuka sort of just interrupted them (again, can relate to Chapt 2 Fuyuki when Flauros was defeated)



So moving on, Ritsuka enters the room and talked to Olga. That was kind of like transition from Olga's "memories" to Ritsuka's current state. Ritsuka is basically trying to solve some insecurities about his worth and the meaning for all the experiences that he'd gone through up until now, with some words of advice from his servants and Mashu of course.

Ritsuka has a history of falling asleep all around Chaldea, it's probably because of his constant rayshifting that his dreams sometimes become extremely vivid and real in a sense. He has an enormous amount of servants and we all know alot of things can happen in his dreams, even a potential singularity can occur in his dream. Naturally, as @ap1001 said in his own review, it comes to the point where Edmond Dantes has to occasionally enter his dreams to help him out.



Alright, with that, I'm going to explain Olga's part. The whole scene with Olga fighting alongside Ritsuka as a Master is just a delusion she's created to justify her existence and deny her death. It never actually happened. Once she actually meets Ritsuka in the room she realizes the truth and is able to leave the room and return to reality (where shes dead).
And therefore, she left the room.



Then, Ritsuka asked Mashu 'Who was that again?' and before Mashu could answer, a voice spoke to him:

"She's nobody"
"She's someone that couldn't reach this future"

Right after, Ritsuka was thrown into a Fuyuki-like place where he witnesses like 6 servants including Saber Alter get destroyed by this one dude with a shield (Yes, Tate no Yuusha is a FGO reference)

That shield hero was Gaylahad, he's the one that fused with Mashu and disappeared after giving Mashu everything he had.
Galahad told him that he was about to meet a fate even more fucked up than the fate Goetia would've brought them (incineration of the world)
He showed Ritsuka that fate was worse in the future because the world would literally be a blank sheet, no life, nothing.
He also said that the King of Magecraft, Solomon once said 'You would be happier by not doing anything'
Because it would be better if there was something to incinerate, at least there would still something..

Galahad said that humanity WILL cease to exist one year from now. Because we saved the Human Order.

And with that, Ritsuka heard Romani call him to wake up.

Then we see some being in the room watching him, I have no idea who or what that was but I have my own suspicions.

Afterwards, we see Mashu meetup with him and we get a glimpse of the new Director, a short chit chat session and finally...


We see a chair with the 10 Rings.



-



I hope I didn't confuse you even further but that's how it is.

They were also talking about CHALDEAS, SHEBA and the TRISMEGISTUS.

Basically, to summarise

CHALDEAS - the thing that sees the future and past of the world (aka the soul of the world), the one that Lev incinerated Olga with by throwing her into it.

SHEBA - The machine that can see into the near future (The current era) it can also look abit into past eras tho much harder

TRISMEGISTUS - Basically helps with rayshifting and it assists alongside LAPLACE in the real-time analysis of phenomenon observed via SHEBA.

LAPLACE - Sees the past, stuff that isn't recorded down in your history books basically, it can look into the 'forgotten' past or 'hidden' past

and then we have

FATE - the thing to summon servants

As a breakdown, Solomon was the first servant, Galahad was second followed by Da Vinci being the third.

That's probably also why the 3 of them 'knew' each other pretty well.

Finally, a common misconception.

Noticed that I put an apostrophe whenever I mentioned Solomon 'erasing' himself?
Solomon didn't erase himself, his NP, Ars Nova basically fulfills everything he's set out to do.
Like how Buddha was the one and only being to achieve enlightenment, Solomon's NP is the same in the sense that he achieves enlightenment by completing everything.

It forcibly terminates Solomon's every unfinished business (including the Human Order Guidance Protocol aka Goetia which unravels said treeman into constituent Pillars). A side effect of it does, however, make Solomon utterly without attachments and so unreachable for summoning from that point onwards.

So, Solomon did exist but he isn't related to anyone at all (which is impossible) therefore making Solomon exist but non-existent in people's memories and in history.

NOTE THAT I SAID SOLOMON ONLY.

Yes, ma boi Romani will NEVA BE FORGOTTEN



With that bois, good luck with rolls coz SOLOMON and GALAHAD will be our up and coming new servants
(Im lying jk)







This review was written on 01-21-20 and may be outdated. I may have changed my rating due to various reasons.

First thing first please be patient with me because English is not my native tongue,
Why would I need to play a mobile game just to understand the Fate grand order story?
In manga, it's totally different because you can control your pacing and your time but with a mobile game specially a forced online game? That's understandable but that's another thing to pour your time in another type of media just to connect the dots.if they make a manga from this game I might reconsider and able to catch up from the plot, settings and multiple new or revised characters just like they did with ... Gilgamesh in Babylonia anime his personality is way different from his counter part in the Fate/stay night series.But for now marketing a mobile game using anime show is confusing to tell a story unless they can explain or execute it enough that a newcomer will understand.