Posted by  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
「新しいヒトのカタチ」 (Atarashii Hito no Katachi)
“The New Humanity”
Say what you want about Nasu — there is plenty one can — but one thing’s for certain: he’s not shy about raising the stakes. There’s really only one value in an anything-goes fantasy setting like Nasu’s Fate universe, in which exceptions seem as numerous as rules. It’s in taking the ‘anything’ and really ‘going’ all the way with it, to truly embrace the outlandish and run with it, riding the emotional high without thinking too hard about it. Which is why, immediately after Ana goes Leeroy Jenkins on the Gorgon raid boss, we immediately move onto SUDDENLY ZOMBIES.
And of course, nobody as much bats an eye.
I’m quite fond of Ana (we’re definitely supposed to be, sympathetic backstory and all), so I’m a bit miffed that we hardly get to mourn her heroic sacrifice after she went and did a, as Fate fans would call it, ‘reverse-Emiya’. But I get it. We can’t stop here. After the Sisyphean task of pushing the meandering plot boulder up Babylonia mountain we can’t just let it roll back down again. Maintain the tension! Keep things moving! Don’t let them stop and think about whether it’s strange for Quetzalcoatl to be a shark onee-san!
Though perhaps they packed a wee bit too much plot into this episode. I feel like the rise of the lahmu could have used more impact. Sure, in animation they were suitably creepy (occasional derp art aside). But perhaps the horror of their lahmu apocalypse could have been left to linger for a while longer. Wouldn’t it have been more effective, perhaps, to have ended the episode in the middle of the slaughter, to let it hang for the week, without having the lahmu inexplicably retreat or the heroes getting to counterattack?
Perhaps this is one of those times FGO‘s game mechanics actually help rather than hinder the story. In the game, the lahmu were some of the most frustrating mob enemies the game had at the time, each fight was something of a slog, and meanwhile in the narrative cities were getting slaughtered while you were grinding through each fight. The player really got to hate the lahmu, in every possible way. Except, of course, that one lahmu that stubbornly refused to attack you and just ran away. I wonder if that had as much impact on anime watchers as it did on game players.
Speaking of game mechanics, next week is supposed to be a recap episode, so Kingu has to stay shivved for a while in our downtime. Yes, even in the anime, we have extended maintenance.
Ahh that dreadful Lahmu invasion. God I hate those things!
Stheno and Eurayle scene reminds me of the part where they dive into Medusa’s backstory in HA.
This episode was very depressing… Loli Rider dies, pretty girls get killed left right centre and Siduri….
Very depressing…
Ohhhh it’s about to get real depressing once the cute Rider is coming back to collect her overdue headpats.
The weird creatures instantly made me think of the chryssalids from XCOM. The differences became apparent later but for a while there, they were really close.
Oh God the Flaming Horse used to reference a Beast/Evil of Humanity must be who I think it is.
All monsters have been dis-serviced, I. mean they seam soo weak compared to their game counterparts.
And now this adaptation has missed it’s chance to give us real nightmares with how they handled the Lahmu.
I’m not sure if it is a shame or a good thing.
Lahmu’s aren’t particularly strong even gameplay wise They’re just annoying to kill because there are tons of them, they come with debuffs and they’re health pull is huge.
Nooo, Siduri! Only native I cared about. Well, Gil is Gil and the rest are basically canon fodder. Everyone else that aren’t natives are summons besides our two heroes.
From this point on, it’s just a game. As in there’s a specific goal to finish. Can’t say what happens to Urk has any significance besides what Romani tells us. Just knowing this is FGO means there is little chance for either of the two protagonists to be killed off. I think there is little chance for a reward besides a job well done.
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’m not 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.