Fate

A Fate/Grand Order Movie With A Good Story? | A Review of Wandering; Agateram

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The only thing more annoying than stupidly long light novel titles is unnecessarily wordy Fate titles. I bet it’s half the reason this franchise seems so alienating to newcomers. With so many spinoffs, the franchise never seems to have an easily identifiable starting point. Even the ones that are generally agreed to be the essentials are criticized for not being flawless adaptations of the original visual novels.

Nothing has quite been more perplexing in the series’ tenure than Fate/Grand Order, the mobile game which has spawned numerous animated adaptations of varying quality. I reviewed F/GO Babylonia last year, praising it as one of the most visually impressive shows in years, though its story had problems.

As I understand it, F/GO‘s story in the mobile game has been… iffy. Some early arcs are abysmal, the later ones get better, and there are some stories that flat-out retcon established lore of the universe. Needless to say, fans of Garden of Sinners or Tsukihime, which traditionally take place in Fate‘s universe, have been left wanting by the direction of the brand.

When it comes to animation, the producers of these adaptations seem to cherry-pick which arcs to animate, and different studios try their hand at bringing these stories to life. Babylonia, the first huge adaptation, skipped straight to the last “singularity” of Fate/Grand Order‘s first arc. This week’s review is of a film set before that TV series.

Fate/Grand Order THE MOVIE Divine Realm of the Round Table: Camelot – Wandering; Agateram… Over a full line for just the title… I’m not mad I’m just disappointed. BUT! As for the movie itself, I’m the furthest thing from disappointed. I really enjoyed this film, which is baffling because apparently some diehard fans of F/GO really don’t. Why?

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You Need To Check Out This Monogatari-inspired Short Story!

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My good friend, “Sad Scientist,” is an awesome writer and two years ago he wrote a short story called Scorpion Grass. It was a supernatural mystery set in Japan following two high-schoolers trapped in their school during the holiday break of Oban.

For two years the work went unfinished. Sci had made some changes on a whim and ended up erasing the original ending (happens to the best of us). Thankfully, I still had a saved copy of the original story, so he got to work editing it and perfected it. And now he’s created his own WordPress to publish it.

We all have our inspirations and Sci’s are works of modern fantasy such as Monogatari and the works of Kinoko Nasu (Tsukihime, Garden of Sinners). My love for modern fantasy is well-documented so I was all on-board. I encourage anyone looking for a good read to check out his work. Fans of Monogatari will surely get a kick out of it, and it has enough of an identity on its own that you’ll be itching for more when you’re finished.

Scorpion Grass, by Sad Scientist

Artwork by @MeltyDub on Twitter.

Thanks for indulging in my shameless plugging of my friend’s work, and as always, I’ll see you next time!

A Review of Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front – Babylonia

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It’s the end of Pride Month and I’ve somehow managed to waste another one not talking about any gay anime. Mostly because my review of Given went up like a week before June, just missing the cutoff. Because I haven’t seen any other gay anime since then, I’ve no choice but to review the second gayest thing: Fate/Grand Order.

Depending on your priorities, or patience, or standards, Fate/Grand Order is either one of the coolest or stupidest things. The highly successful mobile game based on the world created by Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon is a multi-arc saga almost as dense in itself as the Fate Universe is normally.

An overabundance of adaptations, spanning novels, visual novels, and comics is nothing new. Alternate universes, alternate timelines, slice-of-life comedies, cooking shows – Fate has something for everyone. Much like there is no definitive Ghost in the Shell, there is no definitive Fate (huh, it’s almost poetic when you phrase it that way).

I love the world Kinoko Nasu created. Just read my review of Lord El Melloi II’s Case Files and you can tell how much the universe resonates with me. On the flip side, I’m not the biggest fan of Grand Order. I think it lacks the substance that made other stories like Fate/Stay Night, Zero, or Garden of Sinners so incredible.

The short version: Grand Order, to me, feels like Fate trying to be Doctor Who or some other show about time travel. It indulges in some of the franchise’s less commendable habits all while feeling like a vehicle for fan service. And the biggest surprise… is that I didn’t hate this show.

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An Obligatory, Arbitrary List of Anime Fight Scenes

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While not necessarily in vogue among anime critics lately, it isn’t hard to find rankings of very specific subjects within the community. “Top 10 Strongest Anime Characters”, “Top Ten Anime Villains”, “Top Ten Anime Couples”, etc. And of course, who could forget the perpetually memed “Top Ten Anime Betrayals,” which I don’t think I’ve ever seen created unironically.

However, while overdone, it has never felt like the kind of thing that anime critics do begrudgingly out of some unspoken tax as per the job. After all, anime has a lot of cool shit and fights are no exception. It’s only obligatory so far as such a thing is relatively easy to create and an ample excuse to ramble about things we like. That’s half the reason people like me become critics anyway.

So in no particular ranked order, here are a few my favorite anime fight scenes.

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My Top Five Anime of 2019

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Last week I raved about the best film of 2019, Penguin Highway. Initially, I wanted to get a head start on a new multi-part series of reviews but things take time. January tends to be a time to reflect on the previous year anyhow so why not keep the ball rolling. I watched more shows this year than I have in a while and there are still more which I missed, but for now, here are my top five TV anime of 2019.

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A Review of Demon Slayer

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While pondering what to write for the last two weeks of November, I wondered if I could actually watch all of Demon Slayer in just week. After all if it would feel wrong to end 2019 without watching it. Friends of mine with all manners of different taste have been telling me how great it is all summer. But given the long hiatus between starting shows like Dororo and Shield Hero and finally finishing them, I wondered if I could pull it off.

Turns out it was pretty easy…

This week reminded me that I can still binge a show when I put my mind to it. It helps when the story in question is just that good. From Ufotable, the masters behind the best of the Fate series and Garden of Sinners, comes one of the best shows of 2019, Demon Slayer.

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A Review of Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files

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Worldbuilding is something I get unusually excited about when it is done a certain way. I’ve often ranted about shows like Kekkai Sensen, which depict the supernatural chaos, yet systems of government designed to efficiently counter the chaos. There is a multitude of minor elements of world-building that excite me but it is exceedingly difficult to put into words why. The closest I get is saying that I love the idea of order applied to an unnatural society

Kinoko Nasu, the creator of Fate/ Stay Night, Garden of Sinners, and Tsukihime, has written works tailor-made to cater to me. He has created a modern fantasy universe the complexity of which rivals the works of Rowling and Tolkien. In fairness, the Nasuverse is bloated, with so many alternate universes and different creative minds, but there is still beauty in the chaos.

This past summer, studio Troyca’s Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files gave me this episode-to-episode joy built entirely on showing off how cool the world is. What I thought would be another misfire in an already packed franchise turned out to be one of my favorite shows this year.

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