We talked about how adaptations for Jojo Part 4 and 5 would turn out as adaptations when Part 3 ended in the past and now we shift towards the expanding Fate Grand Order animation projects that could be on the horizon.
Because there’s a couple things to be hopeful about but also things to worry about.
Solomon is getting animated, I’m not sure whether or not it’s going to be a 24 episode series or 12 but the latter would make more sense as there not as much happening aside from a ton of material farming off of the demon pillars. Said pillars of course get dealt with a grand army of servants from each singularity busting in to help you and that certainly would be a scene to watch animated, but group scenes haven’t been the animation’s strong suit especially when it’s action oriented. If Episode 0 was any consolation though, exposition episodes regarding Roman’s past can definitely be put up in a better light with visuals to match instead of a static phone screen and text crawl so there’s hope in that. There’s less to fuck up, basically.
So what exactly are the things capable from the animation team? Let’s establish a couple things here, what the animation project can decently accomplish are the following:
- Make a ton of fanservice: This was basically what most of Babylon was.
- Animate some really cool Noble Phantasms. Was the actual substance of Babylon.
- Do some decent exposition: Episode 0 is what this point is directed at. As mentioned above, text crawling does less than what we can see.
And here are the expectations of what they cannot do
- Stray away from fanservice: It’s hard to take things seriously when Ishtar ass is filling the screen, lamentably.
- Do large-scale battles without CGI: One of my larger complaints about Tiamat and lahmus.
- Not animate demonic beasts without CGI: They gave me a bad feeling of how things would go from the start. It’s a bit understandable in Babylon’s case because it’s a full scale war against them.
- Botch the ending with some original scene with Guda being relevant: Thankfully we won’t need that because it happens organically in Part 2’s plot
Lostbelt 1 replaces our utterly charisma-oozing focal points that are Gilgamesh and Merlin and replaces them with some more easily flawed characters or at the very least have some screentime not dedicated to hyping up how great they are and further void the other characters of any depth and moments to shine if they’re not flashing their asses to us. The fanservice will be exceptionally toned down now that we don’t have Mash, Ana, Ishtar, and Eresh bits to stare at at any given moment. At most, Atalante Alter’s outfit will probably bear the brunt of the ass and crotch shots, at least not until Mash gets to fight again. It would not be beyond my expectations for an Anastasia bath scene where Kadoc gets embarrassed might happen though. Romani and Da Vinci are replaced with Loli-Vinci, Gordolf, Holmes, and Meuniere. Which I feel make for a more entertaining, and diverse cast of narration since, while operational, they’re a bit more chatty than Roman. Roman’s comments are informative but always end up with him being insulted and Goredolf tends to quip back with better banter. Meunire also adds to the human element that most Chaldea scenes pre-Part 2 prologue lacked.
Aside from having those nice Crypter meetings voiced, the Crypters are without a doubt the highlights of Part 2’s story and it goes without saying having actual antagonists being part of the plot is miles better than dealing with singularities with their own problems and goals. Instead of Kingu, we get Ana and Kadoc scenes in the matter of switching perspectives between our Shadow Border team and the villains, which would make for a good change of pace. Servant-Master bonds were always the most entertaining parts of Fate character-wise and the dynamic is a goddamn breath of fresh air compared to what we get between Guda and Mashu. Just having some other perspective of characters at all is a big win to building up tension and setting up motivation instead of the usually one-sided motivations singularity villains have. Siduri is one of those examples of non-servant characters getting to get some screentime but Patxi was actually a pretty good lens into Lostbelt 1 and is one of the better NPC characters of Part 2’s plot. The large glaring flaw in the penultimate battle against Ivan where he, like Tiamat and Gorgon, gets even bigger and we get an equally large golem to try and fight back.
I feel that a Part 2 Prologue would work incredibly well as an animated two part OVA with its interiors and the lack of large effects, unless they go really cheap and make CGI out of all the Oprichniki. Part 2 probably has less things going for it to fail unless they neglect Kadoc and Ana and overuse CGI.
This last paragraph wasn’t planned but the reaction to most of the Crytpers in Part 2 have been pretty entertaining to read whenever I’m unfortunate to scroll past an FGO post on social media or Youtube. You’ve got probably 15 year olds kids reacting pretty vehemently towards anything that breaks their self-insert fantasies. Puts a bit into perspective how large Fate has grown into something that these sorts of people get into. I’d post some examples but they aren’t too hard to find, actually, that’s a lie. With the advent of Olympus’ story chapter, people have finally changed their tune about the Crypters so the teenage angst against them have subsided but there’s still probably some of that if you dig up some for a cheap laugh or two.
Lair of the Idle 