(L+CR) Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majū Sensen Babylonia Anime General Discussion

[FlareKnight]

Wow, the irrational hatred for Ritsuka is kind of hilarious . He's the main character. Somehow this blindsided people, for which I feel for them in that sense. Though maybe more sad than that is the gaming elitism. As if people should feel bad about enjoying the anime or should be enraged about it having committed the most horrible crime imaginable...making changes in adapting a story. The horror.

Maybe people would have been happier if Ritsuka was a soulless zombie who barely ever said a word and you almost forgot he was in the story. Or if the final battle was having three characters standing one behind the other chaining attacks into Tiamat's floating head. It's just sad to see the same kind of source material elitism you see from light novel or manga adaptations. The game is still going to be enjoyable and excellent regardless. And the anime can do its own thing and still be fantastic as well.

The episode was enjoyable and well done. They made pretty good use of their time and made additions that worked out just fine. Will certainly look back on this one fondly. Though I feel for what Camelot is going to have to deal with. Can't wait to see what people crucify the staff over when it comes to that one.

[shmaster]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

Wow, the irrational hatred for Ritsuka is kind of hilarious . He's the main character. Somehow this blindsided people, for which I feel for them in that sense. Though maybe more sad than that is the gaming elitism. As if people should feel bad about enjoying the anime or should be enraged about it having committed the most horrible crime imaginable...making changes in adapting a story. The horror.

And this is the type of reaction I fathom.
I am sorry, FGO player paid for this. They have every single right to complain.
And yes, this is horror. The FGO fans have my utter most pity when I saw them broken down when KH lost his best moment, and when they broke down again when Gil lost his childhood's end moment.
They don't deserve this, they just don't. Especially so when they had spent so much in the mobage.
And this is coming from a person who usually think those people who believe and in Nasu and invest in Type-Moon franchise are utter fools.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by shmaster

And this is the type of reaction I fathom.
I am sorry, FGO player paid for this. They have every single right to complain.
And yes, this is horror. The FGO fans have my utter most pity when I saw them broken down when KH lost his best moment, and when they broke down again when Gil lost his childhood's end moment.
They don't deserve this, they just don't. Especially so when they had spent so much in the mobage.
And this is coming from a person who usually think those people who believe and in Nasu and invest in Type-Moon franchise are utter fools.

Lol at least Gil got all the visual budget. I honestly wasn't expecting KH getting shafted like that though. That was just mean.


On another note, the only FGO anime I'll openly pay for are those dealing with Lostbelt 2-4, although yeah....one shouldn't have high hopes for that if it happens

[Anh_Minh]

As a player, I enjoyed the anime well enough. And I never felt like Ritsuka was merely an adjunct to Mash.

But then, I was mostly in it for Ishtar, not for Archer Gil or Hassan, who never came when I pulled for them even though the bastards were on the banner.

[Sheba]

I think few of the reasons we are stuck with Fujimaru is that he was already voiced in a audio drama, and how production commitees seems to think we are not ready for female protags or/and well developed MCs in gacha game animated adaptations. I do not excuse what happened in the last stretch of FGO Babylonia (I legit think that Djeeta episode was the best Granblue Fantasy episode of the entire series). They should have made Mashu the main lead from the start of the anime since its how FGO main story was meant to be.

[Marcus H.]

^ But that defeats the entire premise of Humanity's Last Master if a Demi-servant is the main character, especially in the Seventh Singularity.

As a non-player I may never understand why Ritsuka has been considered as just a "cameraman" by the players. However, I do understand that he suffers from a flimsy background because his story "began" with the Seventh Singularity, not Singularity F. Ritsuka may have been better rounded off as a character if they proceeded with each singularity, allowing the viewers to slowly piece together his aspirations and regrets as he meets and loses allies throughout each adventure.

[Shinji103]

I won’t say anything beyond my agreement that the hate is irrational and dumb, and the “FGO players paid for this” attitude is very elitist among other things. It’s clearly saying “you anime-only’s opinions don’t matter.”

[Thess]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

^ But that defeats the entire premise of Humanity's Last Master if a Demi-servant is the main character, especially in the Seventh Singularity.

Not really when the story is about Mash's growth and journey and Ritsuka is nothing but her accessory/plot device Master to get it started. All the Singularity 7th exists to reinforce her (and Roman's too) decision about how they are living so far because the way Uruk people carried on, knowing they were doomed to die but still ran toward that destination with pride. This allowed her to stand up to the final boss. The Singularity was meant as a final nail on their journey and decision. Each chapter builds on this though. Likewise, Tiamat was countered by Hassan (life vs death) and Gilgamesh, who represented Uruk break off the gods while she stood as the opposite of that. It was important the one who denied her was Gilgamesh who spoke on behalf of the fallen Uruk - the people who used to worship Tiamat - that's what Nasu wrote. Like it was important for Gilgamesh to tell Ishtar to blow Uruk up, it was to signify his last stand and sacrifice as a king. Instead this got replaced by soulless scenes to force Ritsuka to do something which amounted to absolutely nothing to the story except diminishing the original impact. It ruined the original climax that fans were waiting for as well.

Remember the subtitle of Babylonia? "The Chains of Heaven"? (hey hey did you know that this was the subtlitle? You probably don't after how much they shafted Kingu in the anime). What happened to Kingu because they refused to knock Ritsuka out as he should have while the cast carried on without his presence? The scene was completely wasteful and unimpressive rather than held Tiamat down for an hour, it got rushed into a forgettable action.

The climax was ruined by those changes to force Ritsuka on the spotlight, stop kidding yourself.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

As a non-player I may never understand why Ritsuka has been considered as just a "cameraman" by the players. However, I do understand that he suffers from a flimsy background because his story "began" with the Seventh Singularity, not Singularity F. Ritsuka may have been better rounded off as a character if they proceeded with each singularity, allowing the viewers to slowly piece together his aspirations and regrets as he meets and loses allies throughout each adventure.

Because they are? In fact, Nasu said, unlike Hakuno or Shirou, "Ritsuka" is just an empty stand-in for the player that's why he didn't bother with a backstory or a character arc. He/She isn't supposed to be a character just a legitimately self insert aka "You" in the game witnessing the events. Even tongue in cheek made the player stand in a literal cameraman in a meta commentary event about FGO, where the cast was filming a movie.

[Marcus H.]

The climax was ruined by those changes to force Ritsuka on the spotlight, stop kidding yourself.

I don't think it's fair to accuse me of "kidding myself" when in the same post you said that knew that I am not aware of certain details of the story.
I'm an anime-only viewer. Talking about the shortcomings of the anime in the POV of a player of FGO, especially with such intimidating vigor, is not helpful to both of us.

[Thess]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

I don't think it's fair to accuse me of "kidding myself" when in the same post you said that knew that I am not aware of certain details of the story.
I'm an anime-only viewer. Talking about the shortcomings of the anime in the POV of a player of FGO, especially with such intimidating vigor, is not helpful to both of us.

If you're not aware, the best is to stop defending it when people who do know criticize it as a poor adaptation. It's not a recent flaw, it's just a flaw that ruined the climax scenes most players were looking forward and why they voted for this. I was willing to turn the blind eye when a lot of scenes and tasteless direction was involved in the belief at least they won't screw up the climax. Boy, I was naive about the group of talentless hacks in charge of the project. At least I know the director of Camelot seems willing to commit to "Bedivere is the main character" of his movies. That's a relief because Camelot is my favorite chapter.

They changed what Nega Genesis does, how can anyone defend that?

[maximilianjenus]

It does not matter, you see it as an adaptation, he sees it as a standalone anime. And about game players paying for it, anime watchers alreayd paid the money back as this is selling 10-15k units per disc.
Too bad the game players did nto get the anime they wanted, tho.

[shmaster]

Originally Posted by Shinji103

I won’t say anything beyond my agreement that the hate is irrational and dumb, and the “FGO players paid for this” attitude is very elitist among other things. It’s clearly saying “you anime-only’s opinions don’t matter.”

And the anime only viewers are disrespectful and uniformed.
Of course it is easy for you people to day when you didn't spent a penny.
I myself hold no respect for type moon fan in general and spent the night of airing pouring salt into their wounds. But at least I have minimal respect for the huge amount of money they whaled into the gacha.

[Thess]

Originally Posted by maximilianjenus

It does not matter, you see it as an adaptation, he sees it as a standalone anime. And about game players paying for it, anime watchers alreayd paid the money back as this is selling 10-15k units per disc.
Too bad the game players did nto get the anime they wanted, tho.

But it's not a standalone anime, it's an adaptation. It's not an anime original show. Unless you're deluded or daft, you can't 'see' it as something that's not.
I doubt any "Anime only watchers" spent anything. First of, it was doing mediocre in pre-orders until they added a raffle for tickets to attend to FGO game anniversary in Tokyo Dome.

[AC-Phoenix]

Guys, you should have known it would be Fujimaru the moment he appeared in First Order... As for the anime-only watcher debate: There is a good bunch of anime watchers buying the BluRays, so you there is that.

Also, let me state: The ones who paid for this were not actually the players, but rather Type Moon. If anything you voted for this with your money, but that's about it. The ones who decided to use the profits from FGO for an anime adaption weren't the players but rather executives at type moon or wherever.
They could have as well not made an anime at all or could have made one anyway to promote the game. (Wouldn't be the first time that happened)

The thing players of gacha games pay for is a chance to get one item out of many. Not for an anime, not for a novel, no for the chance to get the item they want.

That is unless there was donate a total 200'000 Saint Quartz goal for an anime to release announced ion the past.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Sheba

I think few of the reasons we are stuck with Fujimaru is that he was already voiced in a audio drama, and how production commitees seems to think we are not ready for female protags or/and well developed MCs in gacha game animated adaptations. I do not excuse what happened in the last stretch of FGO Babylonia (I legit think that Djeeta episode was the best Granblue Fantasy episode of the entire series). They should have made Mashu the main lead from the start of the anime since its how FGO main story was meant to be.

I thought Nobunaga Shimazaki did a great job, so at least they didn't waste a talented seiyuu. Although I guess from what I'm understanding they underutilized Rie Takahashi, but I enjoyed Mash a lot in the anime.

Originally Posted by Thess

Not really when the story is about Mash's growth and journey and Ritsuka is nothing but her accessory/plot device Master to get it started. All the Singularity 7th exists to reinforce her (and Roman's too) decision about how they are living so far because the way Uruk people carried on, knowing they were doomed to die but still ran toward that destination with pride. This allowed her to stand up to the final boss. The Singularity was meant as a final nail on their journey and decision. Each chapter builds on this though. Likewise, Tiamat was countered by Hassan (life vs death) and Gilgamesh, who represented Uruk break off the gods while she stood as the opposite of that. It was important the one who denied her was Gilgamesh who spoke on behalf of the fallen Uruk - the people who used to worship Tiamat - that's what Nasu wrote. Like it was important for Gilgamesh to tell Ishtar to blow Uruk up, it was to signify his last stand and sacrifice as a king. Instead this got replaced by soulless scenes to force Ritsuka to do something which amounted to absolutely nothing to the story except diminishing the original impact. It ruined the original climax that fans were waiting for as well.

I feel like that implication was already stated beforehand, maybe in Gilgamesh's speech to the Uruk people. I might be mis-remembering. I liked Ritsuka's scene with Tiamat and Gilgamesh finishing her off though.

Remember the subtitle of Babylonia? "The Chains of Heaven"? (hey hey did you know that this was the subtlitle? You probably don't after how much they shafted Kingu in the anime). What happened to Kingu because they refused to knock Ritsuka out as he should have while the cast carried on without his presence? The scene was completely wasteful and unimpressive rather than held Tiamat down for an hour, it got rushed into a forgettable action.

I thought it was a good sendoff for Kingu, but maybe not knowing the timing of the game led me to have a different implication of the scene. But I thought it was still impressive.

The climax was ruined by those changes to force Ritsuka on the spotlight, stop kidding yourself.

Agree to disagree .

Because they are? In fact, Nasu said, unlike Hakuno or Shirou, "Ritsuka" is just an empty stand-in for the player that's why he didn't bother with a backstory or a character arc. He/She isn't supposed to be a character just a legitimately self insert aka "You" in the game witnessing the events. Even tongue in cheek made the player stand in a literal cameraman in a meta commentary event about FGO, where the cast was filming a movie.

I doubt Nasu envisioned when he developed the Mobile Game that it would develop into an anime that would require the audience POV to be more then just a simple cameraman or self-insert.

Originally Posted by Thess

If you're not aware, the best is to stop defending it when people who do know criticize it as a poor adaptation. It's not a recent flaw, it's just a flaw that ruined the climax scenes most players were looking forward and why they voted for this. I was willing to turn the blind eye when a lot of scenes and tasteless direction was involved in the belief at least they won't screw up the climax. Boy, I was naive about the group of talentless hacks in charge of the project. At least I know the director of Camelot seems willing to commit to "Bedivere is the main character" of his movies. That's a relief because Camelot is my favorite chapter.

They changed what Nega Genesis does, how can anyone defend that?

Even if you disagreed with some changes they made to the story, calling them "talentless hacks" is in my opinion very disrespectful to the time and effort the staff put into this production to make it look and sound as good as it did.

Originally Posted by shmaster

And the anime only viewers are disrespectful and uniformed.
Of course it is easy for you people to day when you didn't spent a penny.
I myself hold no respect for type moon fan in general and spent the night of airing pouring salt into their wounds. But at least I have minimal respect for the huge amount of money they whaled into the gacha.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful as an anime-only viewer. I guess I am uninformed but that hasn't prevented me from still enjoying the anime. I'm sorry that wasn't the case for people who were more invested in the FGO game.

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by shmaster

You'll have to extremely misinformed if you believe the FGO player base is not the biggest Type-Moon fan base currently, as well as Type-Moon's biggest income base.
If you play the slightest attention to FGO gacha earning chart and you'll understand that FGO player has every single right to brag compare to anime only fans who didn't spend a penny.

This anime came out because FGO dumped actual money into the gacha, this anime came out because FGO player actually submitted their vote.
This anime came out because of the FGO players end of the story.

And that is the big problem with the anime. Apart from a few minor changes they were afraid to make it anything other than a regurgitation of the game's "story".

[Marcus H.]

If you're not aware, the best is to stop defending it when people who do know criticize it as a poor adaptation.

And the anime only viewers are disrespectful and uniformed.

I guess there were some anime-only viewers who started arguing with the source fans. (Or that's probably some sentiment from other sites, who knows?) But lumping all the anime-only viewers into one pile is another level of vitriol. It's unnecessary.

And that is the big problem with the anime. Apart from a few minor changes they were afraid to make it anything other than a regurgitation of the game's "story".

Adaptations are a fickle thing. Anything you do will get the pitchforks and torches going. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Thess]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

And that is the big problem with the anime. Apart from a few minor changes they were afraid to make it anything other than a regurgitation of the game's "story".

Changes are fine when they are reasonable (for example Da Vinci and Mash meeting before Orleans, which was always stupid thing in game, because Mash needed to 'react' to meeting Da Vinci as InsertNameHere has no personality and she was used as an echo chamber). What isn't fine is when those changes affect negatively to the arcs and substance of the characters, the arc and story overall as it did with the anime version. I had no issue for the Stage version to move Kingu's chain climax to Kur (in the stage, Kingu chains Tiamat so Gilgamesh would use Ea when she tries to escape). That's a major change. However, because the built up was equally as heroic and important for the climax of the guy whose title is the subtitle of the Singularity ("The Chain of Heavens - Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia"), it worked well (plus that gave a bonus of Gilgamesh and "Enkidu" taking down another monster together again as the old times). Instead in the anime, they rushed it and poorly portrayed it so they can quickly brush it over to have Ereshkigal made clumsy faces for half of the episode which shows the director's poorly placed priorities. I didn't mind in the anime, for example, when the comedic reaction to Ritsuka after the trip to Kur was changed to a more dramatic fashion, either (they aren't worried about him in the game, and instead that scene is played off as a gag since he was sitting on the Tablet of Fate while the squad tirelessly was looking for it). That change was reasonable.

Yes, Ritsuka is a noncharacter self insert meant to be just the player in game. Now adaptation can choose to flesh them up into a character, nobody is saying they can't do that. What I, and others who criticize it, have the problem with is that the way the anime did it (by stealing scenes, messing up the story and character climax that the fanbase was waiting for) was godawful and ruined the experience. That's why I brought up Shimousa manga adaptation portrayal of Ritsuka as counterpoint: the mangaka managed to flesh her up without sacrificing other characters for her sake. That's a good and positive change, what happened in Babylonia isn't that at all.

[Om Nerabdator]

The deaths in this anime, feels so lacklustre, that girls death in this one literally came out of nowhere like wtf!?

[Kanon]

I can't judge how it is as an adaptation since I haven't played the game, but as an anime only viewer, my main complaint is that the last third of the anime was super rushed and there was a serious lack of explanations. I think the last really great episode was the one where Siduri died.

The main strength of the series was the animation. I'm surprised they managed to keep it at this level for the whole series, especially since it wasn't split cour. There were a couple of recaps, sure, but I still find it really impressive. I don't think another studio could have done better. What the series needed was either a better writer or more episodes. Most likely the former, because the pace really was all over the place. It felt right to me at the beginning, but that's because I had no idea how much content they had to cover.