Reviews for Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front - Babylonia

I'm really enjoying the FGO characters for me, everyone is having a good development in the story, my favorite characters are. Ana: I really like her shy way. Ishtar: I liked the style of the very charismatic character. Mash Kyrielight: She is a very interesting character and I really liked her look. Gilgamesh: For me, the best FGO character so far, I liked his new personality. The animation of FGO is breathtaking, with stunning visuals and intricate details that bring the world of FGO to life. The fight scenes are particularly impressive, with fluid movements and dynamic camera angles that make them exciting to watch. The music is alsonoteworthy, with a beautiful soundtrack that enhances the emotional impact of each scene.

Overall, watching FGO has been an excellent experience that I would highly recommend to any anime fan. The combination of an engaging storyline, well-developed characters, stunning animation, and beautiful music make it one of the most enjoyable anime of 2019.

FGO: Babylonia successfully captures the magic of the game and expands upon it in a magnificent way offering an enjoyable experience for both newcomers and gacha heads. Simply put, it’s one of the best game-anime adaptations I’ve ever seen. This isn’t just my Type-Moon bias talking. The show packs a punch. Unfortunately, due to fears about the complexities of the Fate series, many people did not get to experience this gem. To calm any concerns, Babylonia tells the story of the 7th Fate/Grand Order singularity and is able to be watched and enjoyed without having seen or played the previous ones. The singularities are pretty self-contained anduntil Camelot, the 6th singularity, which will be receiving a series of films this year, the story doesn’t really hold much weight anyway.

You will need to have watched Fate/Grand Order: First Order OVA which will act as a prequel of sorts to the entire game, as well as FGO Babylonia episode 0. Both of these will give much needed context for newcomers and enable you to get the full experience.

For a video game to anime transition one of the most important things is how a studio can bring to life talking heads on a screen while remaining faithful to the game’s story and tone. FGO’s story is told in VN narrative, yet Cloverworks were able to masterfully recreate and expand upon powerful scenes we’ve come to know and love from the game. The pacing throughout feels excellent. There’s never a wasted moment. If there’s not a battle going on, there’s a slice of life moment that really adds to the characters and gives them characterisation. The only negative comment I’ll make on pacing is that episodes 19-20 feel a bit on the rushed side. There were some powerful moments from the game that did not make it into the anime. This could be intentional, could also be a result of having 21 episodes instead of 24.

In addition to superb writing, characterisation and world-building, Cloverworks have put together some of the best animation of the decade. In fact, many battles in the anime rival the popular “unlimited budget works” of Ufotable. There are several contenders for fight of the year within the show and CW can’t be commended enough for their work here.

Other technical notes include amazing sound design, gorgeous background art, consistent character models and an amazing OST.

In conclusion, FGO:Babylonia is a criminally slept on anime that if it had been made by Ufotable, would have seen insane levels of popularity. Due to concerns about the watch order of the fate series and the fact it’s cloverworks, a lot of people slept on this. Do not make the same mistake. Give it a shot, you won’t regret it. FGO Babylonia gets 10 grails out of 10.

It’s been several years since the gacha game Fate Grand Order made its debut. Now in this new decade and Sony is practically sitting on a gold mine. In fact, reports have been shown that the game made into the 3 billion figures in global player spending in 2019. That’s a whole lot of 0s. Ranked as one of the most popular global gacha games, FGO’s destiny is the inevitable anime adaptation. Let’s talk Fate Grand Order. To get the obvious out of the way, viewers don’t need to absolutely watch the previous Fate shows or play the game. Sure, it can enhance the experience butFate Grand Order is perfectly watchable if it’s your first entry into the Fate universe; although I do recommend watching at least the prologue or OVAs. Taking place in the A.D. 2016, Fate Grand Order Babylonia chronicles the adventures of Ritsuka Fujimaru and his partner Mash. Their journey takes them to Mesoptoamia where they make sinister discoveries. Fate Grand Order Babylonia is designed to celebrate the game but also tell a story with mythological elements and uniting heroes for the beloved fans.

And when watching a Fate show, you have to remember that there’s many terminologies to remember, some that imperative for the show’s overall purpose. Fate Grand Order also personifies its cast that makes each and every single character stand out in some way. With such a large cast, the anime did have to make work to fit the overall tone of the story. Director Toshifumi Akai knew the monumental task at hand and had to make this into at least a 2-cour show. With 21 episodes, Fate Grand Order sets sail from the first episode to showcase the human side of our main leads, Ritsuka and Mash. As with most Fate-related shows, character chemistry is an important part to connect the cast together. Ritsuka and Mash shares a relationship built on their companionship. They share a common interest with but also looks after each other’s’ well-being. Essentially, this pair is a living proof of how important trust can bring two characters together. Ritsuka himself also goes on to become a central figure to dealing with the conflict at Uruk, a city led by the famed and prideful king, Gilgamesh.

Oh, you’ve heard of Gilgamesh right? Maybe you’ve heard him from one of the previous Fate franchises or perhaps from the actual historical king in ancient textbooks.

He’s the ruler of Uruk and as you may expect, he is a central figure in this iconic city from Mesopotamian mythology. Compared to his other incarnations, Gilgamesh still retains some traits of his character but in this show, he is more compassionate and caring towards his followers. The alliance he forms with Ritsuka and Mash also shows that unlike his previous characters, Gilgamesh realizes he cannot accomplish everything solely by himself. In essence, this version of Gilgamesh takes on a more heroic role compared to the “Big Bad” he made himself famous for in previous animated franchise. Taking a step back though, you should also come to understand other characters such as Ana, Merlin, and the Three Goddess.

The three Goddess is a trinity of beings with extraordinary abilities. Consisting of the members Ereshikgal, Quetzalcoatl, and Gorgon, they represent absolute power and a unity of divine strength. The first half of the show focuses on Ritsuka and Mash trying to defeat and recruit them as part of Gilgamesh’s grand plan. While the fight themselves are predictable by story nature, it’s still very important to understand the purpose. Individually, these Goddesses have unique character personalities such as Ereshikgal’s pride or Quetzalcoatl’s playfulness. Character bond between these Goddesses and main protagonist Ritsuka is also important as Ereshikgal grows closer to him and vice versa.

But let’s also not forget other prominent characters such as the famed Ishtar. Making herself famous with her “Rin-face” and similar personality, she plays an integral role in the main story. One of the fascinating things about Fate Grand Order Babylonia is being able to get us to invest into its cast, and for this instance, Ishtar is a breakout character. She exemplifies the behavior of a Servant but also crosses into the realm of humanity with her behavior. It’s one of the more curious elements of the show that get us to see what separates humans and Servants. This is somewhat opposite of Enkidu, a Servant who values animals and nature more than humanity. Every Servant in this show is an enigma, with more lore that are explored in the game. But as a setback, the anime adaptation had to make time and cut loose some background storytelling. That just can’t be helped.

Fear not as I’m sure most of the audience should be able to understand the fundamentals of Fate Grand Order even if you’ve never touched the game before. The anime does an excellent job at characterizing the main cast such as Ritsuka. He’s even more aware of his decisions with logic and acts more human under extreme circumstances. Other characters such as Mash gets an upgrade to showcase their fighting abilities. Rather than being a tank bot like in the game, Mash delivers offensive power during her fight. Even Ushikwakamru manages to get a badass upgrade in the show in one of her most iconic battles. Watching Fate Grand Order Babylonia assures that the audience will experience a journey aimed for anyone, both newcomers and the hardcore fans.

Artistically, the Fate franchise has jumped between Unlimited budget productions made possible by ufotable to mediocre disappointment such as Fate/Apocrypha. And oh, who can forget about Fate/Extra Last Encore, the show that decorated with absurdity and surreal choreography. Where does Babylonia stand in the Nasuverse? It’s not too easy to answer because everyone will have different perspectives. The main selling point is the combination of 2D and 3D animation during intense fight scenes. This applies to later episodes in the anime where the heroes fights boss entities together similar to the game. According to an article from the animation staff, many of the season’s animators are young but are able to bring their storyboarding skills to the table. One thing to do take notice is how the show’s setting is able to grace us with the mythological setting. It feels like we enter this new world with the characters during their journey. The anime does far more than just telling and showing but rather giving us a tour of the world. Uruk itself is decorated with its rich culture and the civilization that lives on its lands. And course, we can’t ignore the character designs. Fate has been known for some extravagant and colorful visual designs especially for its prominent characters. Gilgamesh and the Goddess Alliance falls in this category with their distinctive looks. They have the look of divine entities, to be worshipped, and holds a commanding presence over others. And like most of Fate shows, there’s also room for running gags such as Jugarman’s animalistic-like characteristics or the tsundere fashion of Ishtar.

It feels like every year or so, we get a Fate adaptation that fans will talk about but some will shake their heads in disappointment while others accept it like a gift from the Gods. I’m pleased to say that Fate Babylonia managed to become a show that welcomes all viewers with open arms and one that is enjoyable from beginning to end. Now that we have the Fate goldmine flourishing, can we get something like Fate/hollw ataraxia adapted next?

I feel like I should write a review because I kept hearing that this arc was going to be really good but now I feel like the recommendations were biased from FGO players since I watched this as someone who only enjoyed the Fate Zero adaptation, and the FSN VN and adaptation and never touched FGO. I guess this is an unpopular opinion but I really liked the cocky Gilgamesh from FZ so I was excited that he got his own anime, but was disappointed that this Gilgamesh is completely different. He still has hints of cockiness but it's definitely dialed back a ton, which I'mnot a fan of.

The story is really weirdly paced, and also weirdly spread. I'm not sure how the FGO game works but the story feels like an adaptation of various quests in the game that partially complete themselves as the plot goes on, in addition to continuing from other quests that were already finished in the game. It's spread across a lot of different plot points which definitely feel like they all eventually reach the same place but as an anime-only it's really boring to watch everything progress at a snail's pace and only getting bits of each plotline.

The sound design was pretty good until they started showing off some of the more powerful moves in recent episodes, then they try using more impactful sound effects but it just turns into earrape which is really unpleasant to listen to.

Visuals are great, not Ufotable quality but still better than most anime I see. There's way too much fanservice though, it's really annoying having a fight scene focus so much on girls' butts, even if it is just for a few seconds each fight, it's definitely distracting and meant to pander to waifu enthusiasts despite being a bad angle for the camera to be at and taking away from the action of the fight.

Fanservice in general is kind of the problem I had with this show. I feel like it's way too moe compared to what I was expecting with FZ and FSN, and I'm probably missing or straight up disliking a lot of in-jokes with the FGO community. It's just that as someone who was expecting some serious plotline, it got annoying with all the fanservice, the turning point for me giving this show a chance to actively disliking it was one of the main antagonists just being an FSN side character in a onesie.

Maybe it is a good adaptation like everyone else says, IDK, but if you're coming in expecting a good show that stands on its own like FSN or Fate Zero, I think you'll be really disappointed. However it did kind of give me the same vibe as Apocrypha so if you enjoyed that I think you'd probably enjoy this show too.

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 littleholes 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.

So far this anime is doing its job greatly. It step-by-step follows the original game's storyline and presents it with smooth animation, decent art and nostalgic music. As an FGO game player, I sincerely know how this singularity is very outstanding, even when compared to the old Fate classics. But I'm afraid the anime may ruin it, like how the anime of Fate/Extra is being butchered. I'm glad they don't. With 21 episodes, there is no doubt the story will not be scrammed. Not much detail is waived, so even anime-only watchers should (or eventually will) understand what's going on. What's better is that each episodehas at least one dazzling fight scene to not let you fall asleep by the slow-paced plot. The experience is sublimed by its steady art style.

Currently, the only downside of this show will be the characters, as they are not fully comprehended now. Yes, including our not-beloved protagonist, Fujimaru Ritsuka. He works better as a cameraman than being an actor.

But anyway, whether you want to see some good-looking fights by CloverWorks, read one of the few good stories in this gacha game, or just want to have some Fate fan-service when you are having your supper, this anime is worth a try.

Looking at the review section, I decide to try out writing a review as well. Well, this is my first anime review, and I feel like I’m already handling a strange case, but okay. (TL;DR at the bottom.) I can’t help but feel that the general ratings for FGO: Babylonia is incredibly inflated. Many ratings of 9 or 10 are given, but they’re from fans of the game. And the reviews given are either full guidelines of how newcomers should enjoy the anime, or fanboying praises that upon closer look still don’t warrant an 8+ score. So I decide to give a lower score in the hopesof making it balanced as all things should be. I had played FGO since the server opened, and dropped it when the game entered mid-part 2, where I realized my time and money were meaninglessly taken away. In some ways, I do have the warrant to talk about this.

To begin with, FGO: Babylonia (originally chapter 7 of the game) was written to expand on Gilgamesh’s lore: it was supposed to show the time he lived in, how he was when he was still managing his kingdom, and expand Fate series’ lore about the Age of Gods. To elaborate, Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero relied heavily on Hollywood history, alternate historic interpretations, and metaphysics. This wasn’t a problem when you were doing a modern age survival game, but when FGO comes talking about saving humanity from fucked-up histories it become a problem: they had to heavily modify the world’s history to make the characters’ stories make sense, and for the rule of cool as well. This essential means they are going to set up their own history, myths and rules. Some people already feel like the history is getting butchered at this point, but this is still not a serious problem.

The problem is the way they did it. The story spends tons of dialogues building rules out of cheap philosophical ideals that sounds cool on paper, while not trying to have accurate reflections or correspondences to the history we know of. This essentially makes it feel like a generic isekai world, complete with magic, waifus, monsters and a “normal person” type protagonist. That is still okay, but then they slap “in the ancient times of human history, the protagonist fights alongside heroes and legendary figures to save humanity” on it. That tag line feels nothing but a bait now, and history fans walking into the series are going to be disappointed, big time.

Since I just said it feels like a generic isekai world, let’s talk about the protagonist, Fujimaru Ritsuka. Oh boy, the protagonist is full of issues. Nicknamed Gudao (Gudako for the female version) by the game’s fandom, Ritsuka is designed to be a player insert — he’s your camera in the game. In fact, he is essentially supposed to be you, since you can even change his name, gender, and choose all his dialogues. This direction determined that:

1. He’s going to be a normal person, supposedly. He’s not going to be good at fighting or have some sharp character traits. He’s just going to have things that run well on every player insert: kind, caring, determined, and a generally good person. Basically the bog-standard for every generic isekai. Since FGO had multiple writers, some did try to give him a personality, but the personality they decided on Ritsuka were different, so in the end it’s still a jumbled mess that you can’t tell any personality from. I’d even say Riyo’s Gudako is a better character than Ritsuka in the actual story. For people who don’t know what Riyo Gudako is, she’s Ritsuka from a parody manga of FGO, and she molests Mashu for fun.(It was played for laughs in Riyo’s manga, so maybe it actually wasn’t that bad.)

2. He’s going to have good popularity. In fact this is taken to absurd levels considering what kind of people he’s dealing with: legendary warriors, heroes, witches, kings, elders, gods, goddesses, demons, evil spirits, killers, monks, psychopaths. They have completely different ideologies, beliefs and minds, and sometimes the heroic spirits are sworn enemies with each other, yet they all fall in love with Ritsuka at the same, and they all get along because of Ritsuka, a Japanese teenager who was unemployed before coming to Chaldea. There’s nothing “normal” about this. Maybe Ritsuka secretly has the superpower of supernatural popularity. Or wait, it’s just power of harem protagonist.

FGO likes to talk big to justify this. It likes to say that because Ritsuka is the last Master in the world, and because he is just any average human, he represents humanity itself, and falling in love with Ritsuka is a symbol of love for humanity. And regardless of the ideologies held by those heroes and gods, they all still love humanity somehow. I don’t know why but if you are playing FGO right now you would believe in this justification, but the moment you drop the game you’ll find out how much of a bullshit it is.

By this time the fans of the game might already feel like I’m somewhat biased against the game. I mean, I was disappointed in it and stopped playing, so it makes sense that the story might be just ever so slightly better than I’m describing it as. But Hey, I’m probably not more biased than the reviews that give the story a 10 and spends the entire review telling people not to hate the story for this and that. MAL is not an objective rating site for animes by any stretch, but I think countering biases towards the anime using biases against it makes for better overall objectivity.

Back to the topic, Ritsuka is a character made to be you, who’s not really a character. Basically a wish-fulfillment machine. When adapted into an anime, you get a main character who has no special trait, who will be loved by everyone in-universe but loved by no one outside it.

You might ask: what about Mashu? Well I’m just going to tell you that she gets no character development whatsoever in this part of the story, period. She’s just going to be a generic Kohai type character for any anime audience. That said, i’m still not sure on how much development she got in the entire game.

What about other characters? Well, in the original FGO game, every chapter has a character quota that the writers need to fill. It basically means you want a certain amount of characters to show up and participate in the story, so that the players have incentives to spend their sweet money rolling for all of them.

Oh, about rolling for characters, some people say that FGO, along with other gacha games, are glorified online casinos. Although FGO is indeed one of the most cash-grabbing of gacha games, I personally don’t think it’s that bad. I mean, in a real casino you can try to use deception and game theory to take money away from others, and since it’s real money lucky people get their money back. In FGO you just throw your money in until your shiny golden waifu pops out. You don’t take money from others, only that money is taken from you to give you some (perhaps disproportionately cheap) entertainment .

Back to characters. The problem of the quota is that there are a lot of characters who will appear, but won’t get developments and won’t do much to the story, like Leonidas and Ushiwakamaru. For the players of the game, they subconsciously knew the existence of this quota, therefore they don’t expect characters to do a lot, and it’s a pleasant surprise to them when actual character developments are going on. This runs contrary to the expectations of an anime-only: every hero and legendary figure that appears is supposed to have a significance, like they do in FZ and FSN. If one just dies several episodes after they get introduced, with very little display of character, people aren’t going to get sad, they get disappointed. Because why do you introduce the character if they are just a lot of nothing? A more important problem is joke or reference characters that simply aren’t funny when they are adapted to anime.(like Juguar Man, and the decision to make Ishtar and another goddess partially Rin)

Now let’s talk to the story. One of the strengths of stories in Nasuverse is worldbuilding, but that totally fell flat in FGO: Babylonia. In FSN and FZ, you get Mystics, Functional Magic, Magic Association, Church, True Magic, Executor, Holy Grail, Alchemy, etc. In Kara no Kyokai, you get Alaya, Death, Root, Origin, and other lores relating to some interesting philosophical aspects. The worldbuilding felt deep and infinite, and helped make the characters and fantastic battles in the story feel real. But what do you get in Babylonia? You get the lone city of Uruk, and some woolly-wobbly about Mesopotamian mythos. The fact that Uruk is still an agricultural city using only basic tools while Gilgamesh, who’s not a servant yet, has golden weapons in his Gate of Babylon (remember how FSN said the servants’ noble phantasms were manifestations of beliefs accumulated from the passing down of legends?) and has built massive cannons on a fortress wall hundreds of kilometers wide, shows how little consideration was put into the worldbuilding. And according to side materials, he’s still got that Indian spaceship from FZ in his treasury. How are you supposed to say Gilgamesh is a wise king with a straight face?

The players of the game can’t notice the worldbuilding problems, because they had Chaldea lores and previous chapters, but for anime-onlys this only serve to make the setting more like that of a generic isekai.

Then there’s the pacing. The pacing is incredibly dull for two reasons. The first one is due to Nasu’s tendency to constantly spew out expositions. When the worldbuilding is good, like in other works of Nasuverse, those expositions are okay. But as the worldbuilding is almost nonexistent in this show, you still get expositions that are just plain intolerable. This combined with the slow start the FGO players are comfortable with (because they still have gameplay) just makes it incredibly hard to watch more than 2 episodes before falling asleep.

Another reason is that because CloverWorks had a lot of budget (from the money players threw into the game, of course), they want to replicate every detail, and keep all the slow parts there. What they don’t realize, and what many people who give this show a 9 or 10 don’t realize, is that less is more. The attention to pointless details and the overly flashy battle can’t make the world appear more real, because they lack the subtle connection to the story or characters. They simply make the story lose focus.

FGO:Babylonia might be better if it was only 12 episodes long, the useless characters got removed and the pacing was tighter, but the Fate fandom is especially rabid about keeping the story same as original. What the rabid fandom doesn’t realize is that it was just a mediocre story at best in the original game, and it’s only going to get worse if adapted to anime unchanged. But as a change in the script in episode 10 resulted in strong backlash from fandom, they’d probably not risk it again, and it’s too late anyways.

I’m quite confident that I’m a pretty chill guy, and since it’s been a while since I dropped the game, I though I would not be too harsh on this. But on the course of writing this, I got angrier and angrier as the frustrations all came back to me. FGO had moments of awesomeness, but those are few and far between, and you had to go through a lot of crap to get there. Worse off, after a few times you realize they’ve been reusing the same formula over and over again. The worst part is when you found out you were part of the religiously mad fandom who blindly praised FGO to Heaven. You realized you had attacked and hurt someone because they disagreed with your faith that Nasu wrote the best stories in the universe. You realized that you kept harassing your friend to play/watch FGO and when they actually watched/played and made a bad comment about it you said “if you hate it don’t play it, stop whining.” When I quitted playing FGO, I made these discoveries and cringed for myself. I got even more cringed watching the 10 rating comments of this, so I wrote this review.

TL;DR

Story: 2.

Worldbuilding, convoluted character relationships, attention to every servant, conflicting philosophies. What you get in Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay Night and Kara no Kyokai simply aren’t there. Worse off, the pacing is terrible. Maybe not as low as a 2 but it’s getting there.

Art: 8.

Not much to say. Character art was what enabled FGO as a cash grabber.

Unfortunately it’s all the more sad considering the better animes get less budget.

Sound: 6.

Some say it’s good. Some say it’s bad. It’s just there and it honestly doesn’t matter.

Character: 2.

This is just going to be plain disappointment for people that came straight from FSN and FZ. Majority of the characters that show up aren’t going to matter. You can compare it to a glorified isekai story, complete with a protagonist that has no personality and gets affection from all characters. The fact this is about actual historic gods and heroes and the protagonist is representing the entire humanity actually makes it worse.

Enjoyment: 2.

If you watched and think “it’s not my cup of tea,” don’t worry. You are not the person with bad taste. This anime is not enjoyable for anime-onlys.

Overall: 2.

There are four kinds of people who praise FGO’s story. Actually there are many kinds, but most fit into these four:

1. Mad believers of Nasuverse

2. Casual people who haven’t actually watched many good animes.

3. People who are following the claims of mad believers, or just don’t bother disagreeing.

4. Poor, poor old fans of Nasuverse desperately trying not to give up on Fate series. Seriously, drop that game. It’s what’s standing in the way of Tsukihime Remake.

What makes an anime good? Well, we can answer this by asking what makes a story good. There are many aspects to a story. Characters, dialogue, world building, originality - the list goes on. There are also many aspects of a story that are only present in visual media - specifically animation. While it is hard to pinpoint what makes animation good, "you know it when you see it" is a pretty good rule of thumb. I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia fails on every single level of story telling. Allow me to explain why. First,let's talk about the plot. Saying that this animated adaptation of the Babylonia singularity of the popular "Fate/Grand Order" gacha game has a plot is like saying that a piece of white bread has flavor. Technically, by the literal definition of the word - yes. It's true. Fate/Grand Order - Demonic Front: Babylonia consists of an endless series of inane events that make me question if anyone working on the project gave a singular planck length of a shit about it. I anticipate this review will be quite lengthy, so I will not bore you with the details. The entirety of the story can essentially be summed up in one sentence. "3-5 bland protagonists fight a gigantic, oversexualized female villain with gargantuan breasts." I shit you not, about 90% of this series fits this exact sentence. The other 10% is filler. This filler consists of

{figure 1}

• People walking

• People talking

• People walking while talking

• Female sidekicks blushing while talking to the male protagonist

That's pretty much it. You could watch the 21 + 1 episodes of this, or you could read the above summary and understand the entirety of the program.

Now that we've got that out of the way, I'd like [like is a strong word, prefer would probably be more appropriate for this context] to talk about the dialogue. This should be a rather brief talking point. Pretty much every piece of dialogue in this god-forsaken script fits in one of three boxes.

{figure 2}

[1] Refer to bullet point 4 of {figure 1}

[2] Characters saying a load of garbled nonsense while fighting each other

[3] Characters saying a load of garbled nonsense while not engaged in any particular fight

I can't stress enough how insufferable the dialogue of this adaptation is. To be fair, this is probably an accurate representation of the experience one endures while reading the dialogue of a virtual novel gacha game written by developers that know that >99% of players will not read a single line of dialogue - and those who do are already spending hoards of money- I mean virtual currency that holds no tangible value on the game. In most Fate anime adaptations, there's a standard amount of weird anime dialogue that sounds kind of cool and meaningful but is really just fluff when you think about it for a few seconds. In this, it's the whole thing. No line in this entire 11+ hour slog holds any significance, whatsoever.

Author's note: The length of that section was unfortunate.

Let's take a brief detour to discuss the world building. Luckily for the writers, this takes place in a pseudo-historical setting! Looks like the work's been done for them. Unfortunately, this is not quite the case. While even the most amateur of writers could utilize a historical setting with a modicum of competency, the writers of this anime defy the odds, and fail to do so. I wouldn't even know that this was set in Babylonia if it weren't for the title of the series, in addition to the slew of historical names and locations they drop in. There is essentially no tangible trace of the fascinating history of this period of human history, or the geographical details of this specific story's setting. >90% of the scenes take place in generic dirt fields, or inside buildings that vaguely conjure an image of ancient civilization. Would it really have been that hard to throw in a famous monument here or there? Not to mention the historical figures, which are as stock standard as they come. The utter incompetence of the writing team is baffling in this department. Pseudo-historical ancient civilization is one of the easiest tricks in the book. Yet they bungled it.

Originality? It's Fate/Grand Order. Come on now.

Before we get into what is regrettably the longest section of this review, I'd like to briefly touch on the animation. In the handful of reviews I've read for this series online, I've seen several claims that this is some of the best animation that the Fate series has to offer. Reading these reviews genuinely made me question my sanity. It's hard to convey with words how fundamentally incompetent and incohesive the animation is. There are moments [however brief], which are genuinely good looking. However, these moments of beauty are overshadowed by the gargantuan mountain of canine manure that is everything else. It's important to understand that there are essentially three different styles of animation, all of which occur [for the most part] simultaneously throughout the course of this adaptation.

{figure 3}

[1] Normal animation. I won't pretend to know how anime is made, but if you watch any anime from the last decade, you know what I'm talking about. This style is reserved only for the protagonists [with a few exceptions] and looks the best.

[2] Static backgrounds. As far as I know, Static backgrounds are a fairly standard implementation in modern anime. However, the backgrounds of this series are reminiscent of the kind you would see in a mid-2000s children's show, such as Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters or GX. This art style is utterly incohesive with the first, and sharply detracts from the experience. The colors are much less vibrant, and the details less specific than the style used in [1].

[3] 3-D models. These are god awful. Most of the swarmy demon enemies are animated with this method, and holy fucking shit is it distracting. The first style of animation looks like it's somewhere around the 24 frames per second range, which is completely normal for an action anime. This style looks like interpolation on steroids. It is impossible not to notice it. Every time you see something that is animated like this, it draws your attention away, as your eyes are attracted to areas of the screen with higher frame rates. This is incredibly distracting, as I don't want to be looking at the swarm of enemy demon tigers while the protagonists are supposed to be the subject of a given scene. This style is also often used in tandem with even more vibrant colors, along with a sort of shimmer.

While this description is not nearly sufficient to relate the visual experience of this series, I hope that it provides the reader with some sense of how incompetent the animation was.

Alright - one more thing I'd like to touch on before getting into the long part. The fucking sound design. Every single sound effect just sounds like someone took a fart and boosted the base and reverb. It adds to the unending list of things that take you out of any semblance of an experience that the show possessed, and reminds you that you are watching an anime based off of a gacha game based off an erotic visual novel that is old enough to engage in consensual intercourse.

Ok. fine. I'll talk about the characters. My entire review for this was initially just going to be a paragraph on each of the characters [more specifically, why they suck], but I decided to lengthen the review to include a few other topics after the excruciating experience I had to sit through. If you don't want to read about each of the individual characters, I suggest that you scroll down to my summary. I promise this is the last section.

Ristuka Fujimaru - The most bland and uninteresting protagonist to ever grace the world of anime. And yes, that includes Shirou Emiya of Fate/Stay Night [Studio Deen adaptaion]. Holy fucking shit is this guy boring. I don't even have anything to say about him because there literally isn't anything. His only personality trait is that every girl wants to fuck him. I guess it does well at catering to the male incel weeb target audience. Every lonely weeb with no personality loves these sort of characters.

Mash Kyrilight - Do I really need to say anything? Play Fate/Grand Order for 2 minutes and you'll know the entirety of her character. The most interesting thing she does for the first 9 episodes is flash her panties during her fight scenes, but after that point she doesn't even do that. She shields the other characters from getting zapped a couple times, and gives weird uWu looks at Fujimaru, but other than that she's pretty useless. Her boobs also look like water balloons which is pretty funny. I like her crotch window too, super cool costume design.

Ana - Proxy Illiya loli bait. Looks 8 years old and ties people up while wearing a leotard that says "stare at my crotch you horny incel." I liked it when she died.

Archer [Ishtar] - She's literally just Rin in lingerie without a personality. Out of all the main cast, she probably does the most cool stuff during fights [kind of like being the fastest snail], so that's cool I guess. Oh, did I mention she's wearing lingerie? It's a really cool character trait. I like the parts where she hits on Fujimaru and shows her panties to the screen. Super interesting and original. Breaking new ground for the Fate franchise. One of the main antagonists is her alter ego except by the point that they introduced that plot point I had literally 0 investment in the show so I can't say I payed all that much attention to whatever the fuck was going on.

Avenger [medusa?] - My favorite character. Her tits are funnier than a Chris Rock comedy special. She's literally just an 800 foot tall tentacle serpent lady with absolutely GARGANTUAN boobs. Like it's not possible to describe how gigantic and funny they look. I think her scenes were supposed to make me horny but all they made me do was laugh. She also dies like 3 times.

Caster [Gilgamesh] - Never in all my life have I seen a more beta version of Gilgamesh. He only uses his weapon wall thing like twice and it looks like shit both times. He gets merc'd by exhaustion somehow by Ishtar's alter ego shithead, which is fucking pathetic. His mongrel count is shockingly low - I don't think any other adaptation of him has said it this few times. He has absolutely no presence and is a disgrace to the Gilgamesh name. Even the Deen adaptation did a better job than this.

Enkidu - I have no fucking clue what was going on with this character. They had some sort of plotline with Gilgamesh and being a fake or something but I honestly couldn't give less of a shit. Their fight scenes were all really lame and their dialogue was flatter than my chest.

Fou -

Lancer [Ishtar alter ego] - She shows up a couple times before her fight scene when Ishtar switches to her. I think I was supposed to be intrigued by it but I was just mildly confused. During her fight scene she's a cgi skeleton for some reason. Looked kinda cool in the opening shot but after that was dinky as all hell. When they defeat her she returns as her normal self and every time they do an Ishtar pantie shot they also do one of her, which is also in addition to mash, and Ana - that episode was like 90% panty shots.

Leonardo Da Vinci - Big forehead. Is just kinda... there [during the scenes with Roman]

Merlin - He's kind of cool and surprisingly not very horny, even though he's an incubus. Looks pretty neat and isn't oversexualized. 5/10 character.

Wetzel Pretzel [Rider] - Another horny girl with no clothes on. Shocking. She looks like a clown because of her costume design, and her voice actor is mind mindbogglingly annoying. Every scene she appeared in made me want to peel my eyes out and my ears off.

Romani - The best character in the entirety of the Grand Order universe by far. Has some cool lines and doesn't annoy me. Looks neat. 6/10.

Tiamat - Literally looks like a Pokemon. I don't know how they animated her this poorly. Basically just a more cgi looking version of Avenger. Big tits, not interesting, funny as fuck. Her horns are kind of cool. Maybe would be a cool Yu-Gi-Oh! card.

Welp, that's it. That's my review of Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia. In summary? Don't watch this. If you're horny, just watch some hentai. This is that weird in between where its only appeal is horny stuff, but it isn't hentai so why bother if that's what you're looking for. It also perpetuates anime stereotypes of submissive women that are only viewed as sex objects because that's what the target audience wants. 0/10.

I tried watching FGO over my own great interest in the original fate series. Without any warning nor any proper precaution I jumped right into this and found myself drowned, suffocated by it's intense waves of cringes and bad writings. This anime is what happens when you try to take the core gimmick and characters of another good story, and then plastered some cringe, fanservice, genderbender fetish, odd camera angles, and bad writings all over it. It is so bad that the act of watching it is a punishment on it's own. Story 1/10 It is a decent enough story in a context of a moneygrabbing online casino disguised as a "game". It is enough to make this fake casino to be considered "fate enough" to continue on making cash out of middle aged men with gambling problems. However as for an adaptation into anime or any kind of artistic medium, it is pathetic. The nerve of them thinking that it is decent enough to enter any kind of art form other than online casino is insulting. It is as if they are thinking that any kind of pathetic story, covered with enough fanservice and otaku-esque "comedic" writings would be enough to be called as "decent" anime. Well, looking at the reviews here, they might be right.

Art 8/10

What immediately sets my hype up and high for this anime is the art. It just looks good. Very good. But if only that's enough...

Sound 7/10

Likewise with the art, they pay a little bit of extra attention to the music and it's good enough.

Character 2/10

They are NOT believable. None of the characters form any kind of resemblance to any kind of person you'd believe to exists. These characters exists in a marketing form like "hey, I'm your typical marketable tsundere, make sure you get me in the next overpriced full of scam gacha" to bait you off spending extra to get them and imagine that kind of character saying this and that. Those people who made those bait sure knows how otaku think. It is dreadful watching these characters act. Credits to the seiyuu for being able to pull the voice off these fake, over the top, unbelievable character.

Enjoyment 1/10

I am not enjoying this at all. The fact that I am watching once a week really helps. I can't imagine myself binge watching something like this. I am currently watching just for the sake of finishing it and making a proper unbiased review. But it seems like even that would be too much for me.

Overall 2/10

The fact that it bears "fate" title on it just makes me want to puke. I wonder how many of the FSN fans truly love it from the narrative aspect of it and not just from the cool aspect of it summoning heroic spirits. Looking at how much good reviews this is getting, I'm truly in doubt now. If you love FSN and want to watch this because of that, I warn you to look at yourself fist, do you consider yourself a normal human, or a full blown otaku, exists just to be a fodder to the predatory nature of present day anime. If you consider yourself the former, stay away from this both in anime form, and it's original "game" (glorified online casino) form.

** Visual orgasms and ear rape inbound ** Fate/Grand Order – Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia is from a hellish gacha game Fate/Grand Order, which I unfortunately didn’t play yet. You don’t need to play the game before watching this. What I would recommend is to watch Fate/Zero and the prologue Fate/Grand Order as they explain how the system works and what has happened before hand. ---- Art ---- Visually an absolute shit AND a masterpiece! Let me tell you first that the CG is absolutely demonic and that’s why I didn’t rate this anime a 10. On the other hand, the hand drawn shots are absolutely amazing.The fighting sequences follow up as smooth as butter. The animators love to throw some but shots into the fights and that is absolute amazing. The way weapons are used is so satisfying that it looks more than simply wacking bad creatures. It gives importance to the use of noble phantasms. They are meant as trump card and that is presented in a visually stunning sequence of blasts and explosions.

---- Sound ----

The sound effects are there to enhance the fight, but at a certain moment the bassdrop when something happens gets annoying. It isn’t really a problem but they could have made better use of it.

---- Voice Acting ----

What was absolute amazing was the voice acting. Every scene, battle or speech felt so good. When you hear Ritsuka talk about good being a good goddess or when he buys Ishtar is simply marvelous. The speeches of Gilgamesh gives me goosebumps. You can almost feel Gils raw power. Or when Mash nervously talks about marriage is just so cute. Ishtars va was super good to, her highlight is when they were in the underworld and the gate asked who the best girl was. You can definitely hear that the VAs had fun voicing this.

---- Characters ----

ALL LOVEABLE, ALL BEST GIRLS AND BOYS. Yeah I can’t say much more about it. The characters fit so well in the anime and their growth, although subtle, is amazing to see. But for the apocalyptic setting, they all seem a bit to happy sometimes. The scenes which are laid back gives a relaxing feeling and melts away anxiety, like the scene where the whole team had diner together. It feels warm and wholesome and melts away anxiety and stress. At other times, like in battles you can feel their tension and battle spirit. When I think about the battle with Spartacus I still get goosebumps. The characters feel very much alive and warm and actually convinces you they are characters and not just a drawing.

Ritsuka: Ritsuka is the master we would wish for in Stay Night. He knows what his duty is and tries to carry that out with all his might. He’s soft on the inside and also on the outside. He is just a soft boi. But he can also be levelheaded. He is an admirable character with love for those around him. He isn’t idealistic but he isn’t naïve either. He is a well balanced character.

Mash: she is best girl. With her big shield she will protect her precious master from dying, time after time again. As a demi-servant she has some nice ass-sets which can be admired in battles. I wished to see some more interaction from here as she almost becomes a single line character.

Ishtar: useless but very cute. Well you can worship Rin as a goddess now. She is a lovely goddess who brings humor to the battlefield. She should be faired as the most useful goddess and owner of the bull of heaven. She will absolutely wipe the ass of anybody she fights with. She is cute and cares about her people. Perfect tsundere.

Quetzalcoatl: yes it took me a few episodes before being able to say her name. A goddess of all that’s good and of the sun. And that is clearly visible in her behavior as she just beams with confidence and happiness. Her last battle was simply a visual orgy.

Merlin: dickwizard.

Gilgamesh: if you have seen Stay Night or Zero then Gilgamesh is extremely enjoyable in this version. This absolutely tyrannical ruler will seize your heart. He gives off the aura of a marvelous leader. He is levelheaded, hot, smart, powerful and an absolute chad. His reason and speeches are that of a natural ruler and his action of a king. The way he treats Isthar reminds me of how Kazuma treats Aqua and it totally understandable. I would love to see more of this version of Gil. It was also adorable to see how he cared about Siridu.

---- Story ----

The story is pretty straight forward and let it tells itself. There are no side distractions or unclarities which makes watching the story unfold really relaxed. It is about a master, Ritsuka, who tries to save humanities future by eliminating threads in the past. This time it happens in the age of gods, where gods still walked along humans.

Ritsuka, together with his (underaged) servant Mash, goes on a journey like adventure to stop the goddesses from wreaking havoc and restoring the future. How this story unfolds in an all-out battle against primordial gods and the extinction of entire regions is absolutely thrilling to see. The best part is that this isn’t a simple story of good vs bad (the main premise is) but it is a lot more nuanced. It does however rely on “bad guys turn good guys” but it doesn’t get annoying.

---- End ---

Fate/Grand Order Babylonia is definitely one of the highlights of anime 1019/2020. Visually amazing, top notch voice acting and great characters. Also a waifu granting device. On top of that if you play the game, it would greatly enhance your experience as the anime gives much more lore and background to the characters playable. After every episode I had the feeling that it was my favorite episode. I have a blog where I write how I feel about every episode. I would recommend it to most people who like anime in general.

I have watched every fate series. This fate series is so overrated by those fans. I don't think it worth the hype. If you can't accept other's opinions, don't read reviews. Story 1/10 The story of this series is covered with a lot of fan services. Man, we don't need fan services on this series. The pace of the story is soooo separated and slow and also full of meaningless conversations, it is so boring to watch. So, there will be few episodes that are doing nothing. Art 1/10 It was OK at the start but when it comes to the battle part... The CG of this series isso bad. Are they that poor to make a better CG?

Sound 4/10

Well, the OP and ED 1 are the only good things of this series. The sound effects are so annoying especially when Kingu is using his skills. Maybe they are trying to make it epic and cool but obviously they failed.

Character 1/10

- Fujimaru is the most boring main character ever. He is just a machine with 0 personality.

Enjoyment 1/10

It is so difficult for me to enjoy this series. Just a word to describe: BORING. It is even worse than the time that I was watching fate apocrypha.

Overall 1/10

Bad story and poor-quality art are enough to give this series 1/10 marks. I can't believe it has 7.84 on this website. Not trying to be rude, the 2006 FSN and even Fate Apocrypha are better than this. Overrated. That's all.

I must say, after the anticlimactic reunion of Nanatsu no Taizai Season 4 and myself, I was extremely excited and happy to have the time to binge this anime finally. First off, this anime is an adaptation of the Fate/Grand Order Mobile Game and was voted for adaption amongst the 6 other singularities by FGO players. There are two prerequisites to watching this anime. Fate/Grand Order: First Order and Episode 0. Any other Fate series are not needed to understand the anime. The story sticks very closely to the FGO Visual Novel, which I very much enjoyed. It revolves around Fujimaru having to solve the mystery ofthe Seventh Singularity, obtain the holy grail, and save humanity.

Babylonia is arguably one of the best singularities in the game in terms of story and character development. I highly recommend you read the FGO VN though not a must. If you're new, DO NOT BINGE THE VN PLEASE. The way things work was also explained here and there in previous singularities, though Babylonia did a good job of reiterating for the sake of newcomers.

By context, every singularity is a stand-alone which only prerequisite is the Prologue and Singularity F - Fuyuki also known as the First Order but it would be very helpful if you’ve read and understood everything.

Anyways,

We have a few main characters in the anime,

Fujimaru: The master of Mashu and the MC. The primary purpose of him in the entire anime and series, in general, is to watch how he grows as a master. If you're pissed because he's weak as fudge and can't even fight for himself despite trying to fight for others, don't be. His job is literally to give Mashu orders in battle, talk to everyone and collect as many alluring servants as possible, that’s the point of the game. He is the manifestation of the greatest harem and reverse harem king ever lived and a charismatic individual that slays the Tsun in Tsundere like no tomorrow

Gilgamesh (Caster): Please do not be disappointed by this character. Let me tell you that the Gilgamesh you know and love is entirely irrelevant to the Gilgamesh in this anime. Gilgamesh (Caster) is not the same as Gilgamesh (Archer), which appears in Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay Night, etc. The one here is less arrogant and way less selfish, but don't worry, he's still the Gilgamesh we know and love just with a slightly different personality. You can say he's more responsible because he still has a kingdom to manage.

Mashu: Fujimaru's partner or, in a sense, his sidekick. She's a demi-servant and works alongside Fujimaru in his adventures.

Merlin: The omniscient carefree immortal wizard. He may seem like a lovely person in the anime, but don't be fooled.

Ana: A cute but extremely powerful servant. She plays a vital role in being an affiliation to the goddess Gorgon who is being possessed by the Beast Tiamat.

Romani: The person in Chaldea. He's the one that relays information to Fujimaru and gathers information from Fujimaru to help save the world.

Enkidu (Spoilers): Currently being possessed by Kingu. Said to be a child of Tiamat, but he is not a reincarnation of the god slain by Marduk.

Ishtar/Ereshkigal, Gorgon/Tiamat, Quetzalcoatl. The three goddesses in the Goddess Alliance.

Ishtar and Eresh are my number 1s simply because both of them = Rin.

Rin is my number one waifu and best girl in the entire franchise. You can say Ishtar and Eresh combined = Rin's tsundere personality.

Ishtar is more of the tsun side being more cold, arrogant and slightly abrasive while Eresh is more of the dere side being more shy, affectionate, and flustered. I can see why most people like Eresh more because well, she's cuter. But imo both are equally hot af and since they're one people in one person, Ishkigal best girls. Number ones waifu (if u get what i mean)

The main reason why I enjoyed the anime was because of the epic fight sequences. Seriously, some might not say it's as good as some of ufotable's works on the Fate series, but heck, I thought this was equally good. The dynamic fight scenes, extremely dazzling frames in between cuts, the fantastic camera tracing, close up transitions, and fucking cool effects. It may not be Demon Slayer level animation, but it sure as hell speaks for itself.

With Delightworks' seemingly unlimited budget, it was only natural a production of this standard was made possible. Another thing to note was the fantastic voice acting and soundtracks oh and the fucking amazing audio and SFX. Other than 2 of my favorite voice actors starring in the anime, namely Ueda Kana, the voice of Ishtar and Rie Takahashi, the voice of Mashu, the other voice actors did amazing jobs with portraying the charismatic, charming and elusive nature of the characters.

The thunderous effects in the fight sequences to the rhapsodic element that builds the ambiance, I absolutely adored it.

With amazing art style, animation, and eargasm sound effects that literally gives u eargasm, I highly recommend this anime.

This review was written on 01-29-20 and may be outdated. I may have changed my rating due to various reasons.

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 KingGilgamesh 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.

This is a fantastic adaption of the Babylonia arc from FGO. It's a must watch for FGO players. However, if you've never played FGO, don't watch it, because it won't make any sense. Here's a bit of backstory. Fate Grand Order is a mobile game which makes a ton of money. It's also a game which really respects its players. Therefore, they decided to make an anime of one of the chapters in FGO as fan service. As fan service, it's fantastic, giving us a lot of epic moments and animating the battles that we wished we could have seen in motion. It also expands onsome of the characters. Episode 8 legit made me cry.

But because it's made for fans, and the fans pretty much chose the last chapter of the main game to animate, it can't possibly make sense to people without the background. It'd be like picking up the seventh book of a series and expecting to care about the characters and plot. Nobody would start Harry Potter by reading Deathly Hallows, for instance.

Yes it's not friendly to new-comers, but I don't think it was ever supposed to be. Players of FGO have spent a lot of time (and money) on the game. This anime is a thank you to players for being so invested. If you want to get something out of this anime, please go try the game. It really is fantastic. If you don't have time to play the game... well there's really no need to watch this anime, either. This timeline doesn't connect with any of the other timelines, so you won't lose out on anything.

"Hey, that's hell you're walking into" The Fate Series is undoubtedly one of the biggest franchise in anime, and to even start it, seems to be a very daunting task. When I decided to start my journey on the Fate Series, I got taken aback by its storytelling. Whether it is Unlimited Blade Works or Heaven's Feel, Fate has one of the most captivating stories out there to tell. So when I heard that Babylonia is getting an anime adaptation, I was so hyped. Among the many singularity stories in FGO, Babylonia was one of the best due to it being written by Nasu ( Thecreator of Fate/stay night ), so I had my expectations of this adaptation. But my god, I did not expect it to be this good.

OVERVIEW:

Babylonia is the 7th singularity, which is an unobservable region that does not exist within Chaldea's recorded history. Fujimaru Ritsuka and Mash Kyrielight are tasked to fix this singularity that takes place during the Age of Gods in Mesopotamia, and we follow them on this journey.

STORY: 9

Though the first few episodes may come as slow and boring to some people, I especially loved the world building. The way they showed how Fujimaru and Mash manages to find allies and win battles after battles is relatively satisfying to watch. But then the 2nd half of the story kicks in, and its just packed filled with plot twists and actions. Even as a person who have played through the game, there were times where I was taken aback, as the anime have improvised on some scenes and flashed out others.

ART: 9

Cloverworks was the one that animated Babylonia and I got to say, I'm impressed. In my mind, Ufotable had always been the best studio for outstanding animation but Cloverworks really did make Babylonia into something special. Some of the fight scenes were just pure eyegasm, with BEAUTIFUL impact frames and smooth animations. The character designs are also very faithful to the ones in game, and I dare to say some are better :)

SOUND: 9

The OSTs in this anime is just phenomenal, and a personal favorite of mine is ' absolute demonic front '. Sometimes, just by having the OST in the background, it manages to elevate the scenes to up to a whole new level. This anime also introduced me to a very talented singer, milet. The EDs by milet " Tell me " and " Prover " are now two of my favorite songs to listen to. The OP is also a banger. And not to forget the sound design for some of scenes are just out of this world and so enjoyable.

CHARACTER: 10

I have always been fascinated by Gilgamesh ever since I saw him in FSN. So to see him again in this series is a treat. Caster Gilgamesh showed me a different side of Gilgamesh that I liked more than the archer variant. His wisdom, the way he treated his subjects made me respect the character more than ever. In addition to that, Gil and Enkidu's relationship is by far one of my favorite in the Fate series, so to see it fleshed out in the anime is just pure fan service for me. Even the side characters like Ushiwakamaru and Leonidas are made much more enjoyable compared to the game. And not to forget our favorite support Merlin is also here along with two Rin Faces, Ishar and Eresh that all of us can appreciate. The dynamic between Mash and Fujimaru is also one that I really enjoy as both of them really love and care for each other. Other characters like Quetz and Ana and Siduri etc, all of have their moments to shine. This is one of the rare cases where I enjoyed the presence of every charter in the series.

ENJOYMENT: 10

I really enjoyed this series. This is one of the anime where I hated having to wait one week for the next episode. Episode 19 was something special to me, some say its rushed ( and I understand where they are coming from ) but the combination of the animation, characters, soundtrack really got me emotional. Thank you Cloverworks for adapting this story so well :D

OVERALL: 9

If you are already interested in Fate DEFINITELY give this a shot, you won't regret it. However to those without having any background knowledge of this anime, I suggest putting it on hold first. Yes it is not impossible to enjoy this anime without any prior knowledge, but it will definitely affect your enjoyment of this series to some extent. I think the reason why some of us really enjoyed this series is due to the fact that we are already invested in it. So if you haven't started your journey on the main Fate series yet, this is prime time to start! Give it a shot, and you may be surprised how good it is xD

Stanning Gilgamesh. Fate/Grand Order : Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia is the isekai of the Fate franchise. Well. Technically. The only word that I could use to describe this is “awesome”. I actually didn’t plan to review this at all because I don’t know how to make it spoiler-free. But I’ll try my best. So if you like Gilgamesh and want to see a kinder side of him. This is where you go next. And if you want to see Rin wearing a hot outfit. This is where you go next. This is also where you go next if you want to see one of themost adorable pet ever along with uncensored pantyshots of a certain girl who has pink hair ( sorry. Had to say it ).

Another cool show flexing the budget of CloverWorks and the chaotic neutralness of the fate series. No idea where ufotable went, but CloverWorks clearly pulled this off. I thought I was watching another Fate series powered by the animation of ufotable, lmao.

Very fun. Very cool. Must watch if you’re trying to consume the entirety of the whole Fate Series. You cannot miss this!

Best Fate anime I never believed somebody could do better than Ufotable, but here it is in it's perfect glory The story is from one of the fan favourite's chapters from the game, the art (especially on the NPs) is out of this world. The sound design is also top class. There's no need to talk abouthow good the characters, this is a Fate anime, you know they're amazing. AND, they're also actually brought forth really well here It really brings you into Babylonia, gives literally everybody their time to shine, and leaves you with unforgettable dream like memories The only con would be the delays, but they're so muchworth it when you see the work that gets put into this.

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, genericindeed. 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 episodeseries 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 Babylonia prove that mobile gacha game can be adapted to an anime that only an anime viewers can follow, understand and love the series. You don't really need to know other fate franchise series to start Babylonia although it would be good to watch Fate Grand Order First Order to understand the world of FGO settings. Babylonia was voted by fans as one of the top stories to be animated. it was love by fans by and far and someone who play the game it is actually a very good stories since it is written by Nasu. Babylonia focus on telling theStory of Epic of Gilgamesh. Where in this timeline after his journey seeking the herb of immorality, he became the mature and wise king, at times ruthless and yet approving of human natures. The Supreme Wise King "the one who saw everything". In this singularity his era was attacked by demonic beasts and demonic goddess. He shows his strength by governing as wise king to his people instead of a hero raging personified power which his archer form are introduced in fate stay night routes and fate zero. Yes those 2 are different.

Cloverworks did an amazing job adapting this and i wish this could be 24 episodes because it is worth to be the same length as Fate Zero. This is afterall the story of Epic of Gigamesh.