Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia

Fate Grand Order, the CGI dilemma, and the strange development of Ritsuka.

When this adaptation was announced, I was excited. However, I cannot say the same after seeing the entire adaptation. Although Fate Grand Order Babylonia arc has a good story, it made three mistakes. First, as a vivid fan of the whole Fate series and as a FGO player, I expected them to use the adaptation to expand the background of the characters, their relationships, reasons, for example, Tiamat, Quetz, Enkidu, Gilgamesh to name a few. I was hoping that they would add some new story to aid the plot and fill in the little ... holes left by the game's stages and, in some cases, the game plot choices. Unfortunately, this never happened, and you can notice unexpected behavior in some parts of the story without any previous explanation. The production only focuses on adapting the same game story. They did not add any new content, but they did remove some parts. Also, to understand the plot, you must have a little knowledge of FGO setting and the other singularities. Furthermore, they used three episodes as summaries and one more with a special (repeat). I cannot forgive that.

The second mistake is the horrible 2D - CGI mix. Even if I love FGO Babylonia, I cannot say that CGI models are great. They are awful in most scenes. I need to be honest with all of you; perhaps the most acceptable model is Tiamat Dragonic Beast. The rest of the models are very average and don't fit the production and budget for the game that gets a lot of dollars a month. I do not accept some comments like "they will polish some visual errors in the BD." As an animator and character designer, we deliver something to a screen as a final product because it will have a wider promotion.

On the other hand, the biggest mistake is to add broken lines and inconsistency to Ritsuka. In the game, you use the character as the conduit between the servants and the player. However, the player's choices do not dramatically affect the plot. Following that order of ideas, in the adaptation, the writer tried to make him the great hero. For me, as a player, in the singularities arc, it has no meaningful use. It may have some use if you think you are Ritsuka and if you play the game for that reason alone and not for the servants. I'm sure 99% of players are more interested in servants than this character because he has no traits. You (Ritsuka) pay for the servants and not for your development, keep that in mind.

Also, this changed some characters like Hassan (he needed more screen time and a little explanation of who he is), Gilgamesh (the cartoon behavior at the end), Gorgon (Avenger, the plot never explained what she did when she destroyed Tiamat's horn), Ana (died without glory), Enkidu (lost much of the progression and growth that can be noticed in the game). These characters were only used to make the MC shinier. Ritsuka is an important character but it cannot be the most important character because the story is not centered on it. You (Ritsuka) do not have traits, so trying to play a role with strange growth is a writer's mistake.

Finally, although all those mistakes that drove some fans away, they can be accepted, and ignored. I mean, I enjoyed the story. Maybe the reason is that I follow the game, and I enjoyed the main essence of the plot, so I am biased, very biased. However, they wasted a great opportunity to adapt something that could have been called epic. As a fan, you will enjoy it no matter the mistakes or my comments as a casual viewer, maybe not because it is needed some extra info to understand the plot. Sadly, I cannot give it a better score because when I love a series, I am very critic.

The truth is that I don't understand why this anime is called fate, or dares to be part of the saga, because this is anything but fate.
Since the beginning of fate grand order with his first movie the truth did not call me much and even bothered me the idea of ​​a holy grail war call it "technological" between many quotes since it deviated quite a lot from the thematic base of any fate, but I still gave him a chance.
The beginning of the anime, the truth that I liked very much had a very good animation and I really liked meeting King ... Gilgamesh in his origin and civilization in his time, even though I still did not like the idea of ​​turning fate into an "animus" of Assasins Creed since it is basically the same, but at least the development they were carrying out babylonia's denteo seemed good.
But everything went to hell when they began to show the true nature of the characters.
The protagonist if we are the worst I saw in the fate saga, at least it is the worst, although I do not know if he gets the heels of being a bad character to shirou, returning to fujimura is simply disastrous super flat personality, ideal equal of stupid that of shirou, and zero contribution of utility both to the development of the story and within the group of the protagonists.
Now it turns out that they turned fate into a damn harem with fanservice (excluding kailed prism that is clearly a parody so never take it seriously to anime, which still has better development than grand order and better story) where fujimura being someone without any strength defeating powerful enemies with the "power of the will to save everyone", please enough of animes cliches, and above recruiting goddesses to your harem. The truth that my expectations with this anime were not high but still had faith and simply ruined it.
Even Gilgamesh destroyed them in their entirety, from being an antogonist with good character, personality, credibility and development, to a simply pathetic character.
I will simply try to forget that this fate existed since it lacks all the essence of the fate that I really love.

After watching fate stay night, i wanted to watch more about fate and its universe. Then, i started to watch FGO, which is acclaimed by the popularity of its game around the world. As a person that doesn't have played the game, it's kinda of obvious i wanted to know the story from the beginning, and here lies the first problem about FGO adaptation, it doesn't seem to care about explaining the trouble that forced fujimaru and mash to travel all this time, neither it shows much about all this adventure.

Additionally, fujimaru is a poor main character without a single trace of personality, generic ... indeed. The point is that not only fujimaru isn't a great MC, but supporting characters as mash or the godddesses aren't great too. Fujimaru doesn't fight, he just come with the old and not so good speech of the MC to persuade the goddesses to join his side, in counterpoint to emiya and some other masters of stay night. Oh the goddesses, poor characters that just need some motivation of the MC to join his side and "fall in love".

When it comes to positive points, seeing Gilgamesh alive is nice and it develops the character as a great governor, commonly with his relationship with enkidu. The animation in some episodes like the one against gorgon is high level. After all, if you're looking for something as good as the main series, i might say that FGO doesn't hit this level.

This show is for F/GO fans who have completed the Babylonia chapter. You'll definitely struggle to get the full enjoyment out of it if you haven't played the game. Very faithful to the game, but gets a little unevenly clustered as expected when you shove a massive chapter into a standard anime formula.
In short: "It looks fine" - Scott the Woz

Story:
There are certainly pacing issues which take some of the immersion and emotional connection away from the story. The story is strong having come from one of the most fleshed out chapters in the game, but is WAY too packed for a standard ~21 episode ... series where certain episodes have to cover a whole arc. Unless you are a god tier director, you may be better off adapting Babylonia as a manga.
Art:
t's Fate. Maybe on the cheaper side compared to other Fate series, but it's still Fate. Wait til you see the episode 17 CG boss as a bonus.

Sound:
"It sounds fine" - Scott the Deaf

Character:
The characters are a bit shallow even for anime standards. Some characters are better than others, but some of the main cast suffers from typical the plot driven main character(s) with a lack of interactions. Oh, but the Lahmu are nicely fleshed out, rather ironically.

Enjoyment:
Surprisingly OK given my cynicism above. It doesn't drag or give you a migraine, it's just a regular anime series. Just don't expect it to be revolutionary.

Final notes:
Overall, it's nothing special outside of a pretty sweet fanservice reward for diligent players.

Fate/Grand Order/Absolute/Demonic/Front/Babylonia started off promising, but has become almost as terrible as Fate/Apocrypha.

Having played the game, I must tell you that the Fate/GO story is not well constructed, and anyone saying you must play the gacha game to understand is vastly overselling this show and it's predecessor. In the game, you fight giant tentacles and there's a lot of goofs and gags. 4/10.

The way they have rid the plot of the "Holy Grail War" is one way that this show has lost credibility in the Fate franchise. There is now only one master fighting with his guild of 3 star servants for survival against a ... foe who's design is beyond wretched.

While the music is fine, I must say the dubstep "bwap" noise is my favorite sound.

Mashu is terrible.

Overall I'm giving this show a five because of Gilgamesh and how cool he is. Thanks for reading.

The MC is weak and no function at all. In almost fight scene the MC just a watcher and do anything but scream, scream and keep streaming to motivate others. What the heck is that? For the story line is good and the animation also so good but the characters built is disappointed.

For those who seek for a strong or OP main character, I do not prefer this but for those who seek enjoyable fighting and epic scene without realistic character built its okay. You guys can proceed.

Others, I loved the fight scene, but I do think the epilogue after the Tiamat fight was ... lacking a bit. It really didn't feel like they gave enough time or weight to the fact that you just downed a primoridal goddess that just wiped out Mesopotamia. Felt like they were just "mission accomplished, straight to the light hearted character dialogue now".

I will say that I enjoyed Merlin's speech about being the only person who will fully understand you and Mash's journey though, while the world will never even know. That alone skyrocketed my appreciation for his character.

Finally, I like the most Quetzalcoalt or the Ushiwakamarus. They are insane.

This review will have SPOILERS BUT I'LL LET YOU KNOW IN TIME.

Animation:
1) For the first 9 episodes, the animation is absolutely brilliant. From battles, to action and to casual scenes, everything was a work of art. Every episode surpasses the previous one in terms of visuals. However, from episode 9 onwards the visuals get downgraded and I have no idea why. It was a major let down because the anime set the bar extremely high after so many episodes with such incredible visuals. It's such a shame to have the 2nd half of the entire season with fights that were poorly animated
2) boobs ... without nipples is lazy animation and will never look good
3) CGI was overused on pointless occasions (ex: random people walking around) and it broke immersion constantly

Sound:
1) sound volume is not optimized: the sound effects are way too loud compared to sountrack and dialog
2) I didn't like the soundtrack, particularly an english song. It just doesn't fit a show that's 100% japanese to all of a sudden have a random language coming up and rocking the music
3) Ueda Kana's voice range cannot keep up with a dark character that she was assigned to. SPOILERS: every Dark Ereshkigal's line with more than 3 words, Ueda Kana's voice cracked and sounded awful. I love her Tohsaka and Ishtar's voices and I feel that the sound team did her wrong.

Characters (SPOILERS):
1) Ishtar doesn't have enough of Tohsaka's personality
2) Ishtar's design is obviously inspired by Tohsaka but the nakedness doesn't suit her at all. I don't mind fanservice but to see her constantly in her underwear is something that does not feel right
3) PLOTHOLE: Ushiwakamaru is the ONLY servant that is not aware of his "future"/legacy. No reason is given for this fact. Only on the 8th episode does she remember who she is and why is she a heroic spirit without any reason for this sudden memory gain.
4) To have a servant based on Leonardo Da Vinci and give it 3 second appearance per episode is the biggest waste of a heroic spirit I've ever seen
5) blonde hair on a character based on Tohsaka is a crime

Story:
1) I love how they took the time to give a short history lesson about the time period and civilization
2) unfortunately the pacing of this series is not consistent. I was really hyped until the 6th episode. That's when the story slows down and characters decide to talk a lot and repeat themselves or do things that no one really cares about. This only ends at the last second of the last episode.
3) too predictable (I didn't even play the game and I guessed most of the events)
4) between most episodes, things happen that the viewer must fill in using his imagination
5) SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT FORWARD - Leonidas and Ushiwakamaru's sacrifices looked terrible for Fujimaru because he just stood there watching his allies fight on their own
6) Ishtar refers to Fujimaru as the 1st friend she had. Instead of thinking of Mash or Dr. Romani, he thinks of Ushiwakamaru. Logic? None.
7) hated how Jaguarman got pushed aside to "team B" because she's clearly more powerful than any servant
8) 80% of the anime goes like this: Fujimaru has an enemy -> enemy is super powerful -> enemy is a woman -> Fujimaru decides to talk -> woman enemy blushes and joins the harem... not harem, sorry. The team. I meant the team. Joined the team.
9) Awesome reference to the legendary line of Emiya Shirou "People die when they are killed".

As I said, by the 5th episode I was hyped like crazy because the show had a lot of potential and I liked the general direction it was going but unfortunately it's not more than a 6/10 for me.

Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia is an anime with rather disappointing story with slight pacing problems, boring main characters, but also boasts of amazingly, stylishly animated battle scenes that are guaranteed to get your blood pumping.

While I believe the anime brushed up the fgo game storyline quite a bit(being a player myself,) I still found it quite lacking. Sudden resurrections without any good explanation, tons of exposition heavy mechanics that only pop up at the eleventh hour, and an obligatory focus on the boring, bland, fairly useless main character add up to a pretty unsatisfactory narrative.

Fujimaru Ritsuka is the fgo game player's proxy, ... and thus, is an unremarkable character. The anime maintains him as the main character, but instead of using him as a pov character, proceeds to insert him into forcibly as a crucial component in many climactic battles. Note that he is not a magician, has almost zero abilities, and only became a "master" by chance. No. He is not someone you want as the main focus of the story.

Personally, I wasn't much interested in Mashu either. But being a "servant," she is at the very least more interesting and powerful than Fujimaru. To be honest, the whole Kalutea team is pretty boring.

The rest of the cast were great, though, especially the Fate series favourite, Gil!

But story and characters aside, the battle scenes were mind-blowing. I don't want to get into specifics(spoilers!), but suffice to say that though the battles were a little sparse in the first half, they are more than enough to keep the viewer hooked, waiting, waiting for the next one. And when the battles pick up in density in the second half, wow! It's a roller coaster ride of amazing visuals, bombastic sound design, on-point seiyuu acting, fluid animation, creative camerawork, roaring action, and just overall great, great fun!

Google the episode summaries and watch the ones with battle scenes. You will not be disappointed. The story is more of a pass for me(despite being a game player :P). But the battle scenes, the battle scenes are a MUST WATCH!!!!!

As a long hardcore fan of nasu's writing I was excited to see one of my favorite fgo part 1 arc getting animated. But at the end fgo Babylonia anime left a bad taste in my mouth.
Story : now I won't spend paragraphs to explain entire story, you can find summaries and watch the game cut scenes on YouTube to get s grasp on the story. But for the adaptation story is really confusing if you're unfamiliar with fate. It skips a lot of information about general world, magic systems and information about servants in general. Skipping fan favorite scene of king Hassan cutting ... tiamat's wing with fujimaru just fucking talking to her like holy shit entire fanbase was waiting for this and director thought "oh you knew what would be great guys? Replacing climax of the story with mc talking to final boss" I'm still pissed off about the ending. Anyway story in general gives more insight to Gilgamesh and her life I thought sol parts were kinda comfy and that's pretty much it, there's barely any character development here

Characters : in fgo you can talk to characters and get some insight to their personalities and mindset and in game they skipped a bunch of dialogue which causes characters feel dull most of the time, main character ritsuka serves practically as a camera in the game so I wasn't really expecting much.

Art: it's mostly good but sometimes faces feels kids uncanny, cgi tiamat and gorgon were terrible, is this where all the gacha bucks went? And the thing is after knew episode tiamat was 2d so what changed? I really don't know this showbahd a weird direction

Sound : it's obvious the guy from apocrypha is working here all this bass boosted ewe rape sound when a character leaps in a massive speed and something explodes your ears will scream in agony if if you had ear phones.

I’ll try to be succinct and direct. The character designs are fantastic (minus one LARGE exception), though this is unsurprising given that comes right from the Fate franchise. The fight scenes, though always very short, are an absolute treat to watch as they are incredibly fast-paced, full of memorable angles (the director is clearly an ass man with the poses that all of the girls take while fighting), and impactful sound effects to really hammer home the whole experience. If this show was just the fight scenes, or if they at least had more of them, this would truly be a top tier show.

Instead, ... however, the storyline is absolutely ATROCIOUS in how dull it is. The MC talk-no-jutsus his way through basically every conflict, with everyone finding him beyond charming despite his one-dimensional character. Almost every battle ends with some inexplicable Deus-ex-machina-type resolution that makes you wonder why things were even done the way they were in the first place. Also, Gilgamesh is just not as charming in this as he was in Fate/Zero, though it was at least nice seeing him again.

In the end, you have to sit through a lot of boring dialogue and simplistic plot developments to get to what is (other than the final battle) truly impressive fight scenes that you really wouldn’t want to otherwise miss.

Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia or should we call it Fate/Grand Order: Deus Ex Machina?

First things first. Spoilers ahead. Spoils will focus on the last third of of the show.

Don´t get me wrong. The first 2/3s were kind of enjoyable. You fight the alliance of three godesses to safe Uruk. During the episodes you get the usuall treatment. Some charakters die, some switch sides and now help the protagonist etc.
During the "final" fight against Gorgon aka Tiamat, Ana reaveals her true identidy, kind of, and makes the biggest sacrifis and dies (?) and so does Merlin. Or at least the both vanish.
But ... oh shock. Gorogon wasn´t the final boss. It is the real Tiamat. And oh boy now the show turns south.

So the real Tiamat joins the scene.She has the Holy Grail now. Sure thing she is even more powerfull than all the other before. Thank god she is out in the sea and takes several days to reach Uruk. How convenient. This means our party can create several plans to stop her.
First plan. Fly directly to her and let Ishar blast her away. And it worked, or did it? Sure it didn´t. Tiamat comes back in a even more powerful form.
Back to drawing board guys! The black stuff Tiamat creat seems to be the key. If we destroy it Tiamat can´t move and we can send here to the Undearworld and defeat here. How? Let´s just use Quetzalcoatl´s Noble Phantasm and it is done.
So Quetzalcoatl does the things. Black stuff destroyed Tiamat badly damaged. But Quetzalcoatl seems to die in the process, or did she?
Anyway. Black stuff is destroyed and the monster can´t move now. But oh boy the monster starts to grow wings now. Thats a bummer. All hope is lost. It doesn´t need the black stuff anymore and when it can fly it wont fall into the Underworld. But thank god Gorgon shows up.
Wait, Gorgon? Yeah Gorgon. The boss which was defeated several episodes back shows up again. But now it is not Gorgon it is Ana. Sadly she doesn´t stand a change against Tiamat. But at least the wings are destroyed and the monster has to walk again. Underworld plan still possible. Yeah!
Tiamat is now in Uruk and needs to be sent to the Underworld. Gilgamesh gets hit and is about to die. But Enkidu, which is good now, joins the battle. Uses all his lifeforce and sends Tiamat into the Underworld.
Finally in the Underworld. A place where Ereshkigal reings and Tiamat can be defeated. And it seem to work. But remember the Black stuff? Yeah it is back and Tiamat wins the upper hand again. How convenient Merlin shows up again. But not the Servant Merlin. The real Merlin this time. At this point I was like OK, what ever.
They start winning again. But Tiamat evolves once again into a even stronger Monster. This leads to the question. Is she a Pokemon?
Since Tiamat became stronger once again we need another protaconist to show up to help. This time it is the "old man" aka Ziusudra. But the fight still can´t be won.
But it would be Fate Deus Ex Machina if not another hero would show up to safe the day. I wonder who is it this time. *drum roll" It is Gilgamesh! Yeah he is still alive! No he isn´t. Because it is not the King Gilgamesh but the Servant Gilgamesh who felt like to join the party.
And after bringing all dead charakters back to help they finally win. Yeah.

Last episode. Quetzalcoatl shows up again. Yeah I know. What ever. And so does Jaguarman, which was totally forgotten by the plot. Time to say goodbye.
King Gilgamesh shows up again and gives the MC the Holy Grail. Which everyone had forgotten by now. Gilgi safes the day once again.

Gosh the last 6 episodes or so where so hard to watch. Everytime they seem to lose another "dead" charakter shows up to help. It became just silly.
How can anyone defend such a bad Deus Ex Machina Plot? How is this rated 10 by some guys here?

I really wanted to like this series. Because I really like Gilgamesh as a character from the Fate series, so I was excited to see him with his own show. Too bad that:

1. It wasn't really his own show (ah, you marketing demons!)
2. He was almost nothing like the guy I loved to hate from the previous installments. This was not 100% a negative thing, as the character was sometimes authoritative enough to let you glimpse some of his "king of heroes" persona.

Anyway:

Story: a real disaster. Or maybe simply not aimed to anyone who hasn't played the game, such as myself. It was so all ... over the place that more than a few times I started a new episode thinking: wait, did I skip an ep? And when finally I DID skip one, I didn't realize until I got 5 minutes into it. Deus ex machina as there is no tomorrow, random powers unheard of until the moment they are used, characters and flashbacks that pop up from god knows where (previous singularities?), an abused pattern of quest > try to defeat an enemy > win the enemy over > let's go back to the palace > repeat. This is for the first half of the season. Second half of the season, fights just get bigger. In between, endless chit chats about what means to be human, or exposition moments, which to me translated into blah blah blah authority blah blah singularity blah blah blah phlebotinum blah blah Fujimaru will you do it?? HAI, I WILL!

Art: well this was very good, except CGI moments, but I don't mind too much about that. Fights were admittedly gorgeous, even if most of the times if was difficult to understand what was going on - but this might be due to my viewing device, so I'll forget about this. Oddly enough, while most of the main characters used very similar models with the usual differences in hair or eye colour (after all, Merlin is just a Dr Romani with a different fashion sense), the NPCs were extremely diversified, so well done about that. What I really liked though was the body language of pretty much everyone, with those small movements and quirks, which resulted in a higher sense of realism.

Sound: this is generally the feature I pay less attention to, so no much to say about it. Except that the OP was cringey and particularly mismatched with the first video editing, while the endings were generally better, especially the second one. Special mention to the horrible choice of having those prehistoric birds of the American goddess flying over an electric guitar riff.

Characters: almost as bad as the story, with little saving grace, i.e. Gilgamesh (despite switching alignment, he still holds his charisma) and "Rin", who was at least funny. And then the plethora of people who were just tools to prove how magnificent the MC, by both being friends or antagonist or sometime the two things together. It goes without saying, he is nothing special. What I would have really liked was a bit more time investigating for example the story between Gilgamesh, Enkidu and Siduri, or even just more screentime for Leonardo and Romani. MC duo: NA. I really hated the Jaguar Warrior and his/her paw mace.

Enjoyment: really poor. As Ishtar says: "We have only known each other for a short time, but it feels like forever." That's exactly my own experience of time while watching the show.

Overall: With all the curiosity I had getting into the series, it quickly became a chore to do. Not sure what to do with the sequel, but I suppose it is quite far away in time, so I have all the time to slap my brain awake and watch something more entertaining.

This season of fate/grand order (if i can say that considering that is the first format series adaptation being the previous ones ovas or movies) starts basically with the wrong foot obviating literally 5 of 6 singularities with the exception of Fate/Grand Order: Shinsei Entaku Ryouiki the sixt one, like went straight to this cutting like half of the content and even if im not aware of the game in which this is based off was a HUGE skip story wise and some might ask but was maybe an decision to go in the juicy part and i would say not really and gonna try ... to expand a little forward.

The premise in general of this series i must say from all the series of fate that i have seen so far is the most ambitious and the scale itselft feel bigger than previous ones with that being said has so many shortcomings that overshadow the few good ones.

Starting character wise i cant say much just because there almost nothing to talk about the protagonist Ritsuka Fujimaru is just the cclasic sterotype, copy-paste character that have all isekai the same applies to Mash Kyrielight the chemistry between these two is also the same predictable formula and the fact that just with these two the complexity is more flat than my cutting board just says what yield on the treatment for the rest of the cast that leaving just a couple of them the rest are dull and boring.

Makes you lose most of your interest and how the story is followed because is imposible to carrying it in a intersting way with such poor characters (especially the protagonists who are the ones encompassing most of the screen time) which for even worst starts becoming slowly a freaking harem discreetly wihthout you realizing, with even some sexual planes on middle of some serious moment that just makes you asking what in the name of god the person in charge of this series was thinking are just mere fanservice without any goal besides subtract more points to the experience, such poor and conveninent approaching throwing so much potential good ideas and resources just to ending up on the same path like most crap series.

This is an sugar-coated series that might fool you at first with beautiful animations, some kinda simple desings (that many times i found being unnecessarily revealing just for the sake of maybe appeal to more simps), settings that are intersting, sound effects that were pretty dope not gonna lie serving well on the action, a choreography on the fightings that are almost always amaizings and on the other hand we have characters that are horrible to say the least and really just that weighs down all the rest.
The series tries to being serious sometimes but it just cant even when some interesting dialogs happen just dissapear in a sigh due to all the aformentioned.

Now with all the said you might think so this is a bad series and my answer would be maybe :? i will say this if you are into this kinda of formula with characters that are mediocre because that is what really are, some fancy and flashing fights here and there, fanservice and a predictible story (notice how i say it) the premise sounded good in paper but was bad not only executed but handle and directed then this is for you.
From all the fate series that i have watched this is the worst and i can see how many people could like it if you are not so demanding but for me i was hoping to get something decent which wasnt the case sadly.

Music and visuals, without those this would be 2 maybe 3/10 at best.

Its hard to express what I dont like about it but for example: The amount of 0 IQ moment isnt funny, thats something acceptable in bad RomComs.

Fujimaru is pretty much Emiya but a LOT more useless, dumb and that lead to being ridiculously annoying.

The visuals and sound effect with music are really top tier along with interesting setting and mechanics of the story so if you can get over the bullshit (that you might not see as) check it out.

Btw I really loved First Order, except for when a certain BBEG brutally killed ... my waifu.