Ah, the Fate series. No doubt the largest component of the Nasuverse and probably the most famous and well-regarded as well. I already looked at Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works (an adaptation of one of the three routes in the original Visual Novel) and the first season of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (the magical girl alternate universe spinoff) but the franchise is much, much larger including broadly acclaimed Fate/Zero (a prequel to Stay Night), parody Carnival Phantasm, just plain bizarre entries like Hollow Ataraxia, games and stories that are beloved despite a lack of official translation like Extra and CCC… the list goes on but right now the biggest single title might be its gacha game entry Fate/Grand Order.
For those not familiar with the game, the basic setup can be got either from “Episode Zero” of Babyolnia here or through a double-length special called Fate/Grand Order: First Order, which doesn’t really have enough meat to it to warrant its own review.
The general idea is that the Player Character (Canon identity: Ritsuka Fujimaru) is brought to the remote and isolated Chaldea Security Organization, a group of mages aiming to protect the future of humanity from aberrations in the timeline, as a candidate Master, meaning he has the qualifications to summon and form a pact with a Servant, similar to how the Holy Grail War of Stay Night ran. Ritsuka isn’t the only candidate, though. In fact, he’s more of an afterthought until a disaster, likely sabotage, puts all of the other potential Masters out of action.
In the midst of the disaster, Ritsuka makes a contract with a girl, Mash Kyrielight, who befriended him in his brief time in Chaldea and who also contains a Servant’s essence within herself, allowing her to unleash her full power. Together the two of them, supported by the remnants of Chaldea, have to face down against a number of Singularities – disturbances in history that will ultimately cause all humanity to end in flames if they aren’t corrected. And, if that wasn’t enough, there’s clearly an unnatural culprit behind it as well, a mastermind who will have to be faced after the seven Singularities are corrected.
Babylonia is Singularity #7, the penultimate episode in Grand Order’s first main storyline, and the one that they chose to adapt to an anime series, without any thought given to 1-5 and with 6 handled as a pair of movies that the Babylonia anime doesn’t expect you to have watched. In all honesty, while this sounds backwards saying it here, it was probably pretty smart. By virtue of existing in entirely different time periods, each Singularity does tell its own contained story, and Babylonia’s is the biggest and the best, comfortably fitting the 24 episode running time. I think any of the other Singularities would have overstayed its welcome in series form if given as much, and the running time to get through all of them and do Grand Order in order would have been patently absurd. So, at the outset, I’m open to getting anything we need from them in flashback or montage form.
As such, our story begins in earnest when Ritsuka and Mash are dropped off, having time-traveled back to ancient Mesopotamia in order to set right what the real villain, Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Show (the “King of Mages” Solomon as he is occasionally referenced), set wrong.
They arrive to find a prehistory under siege by monsters known as Demonic Beasts. After a brief encounter with a magical flying Rin Tohsaka who identifies herself as the goddess Ishtar, our intrepid heroes find a guide who offers to take them to the fortress city of Uruk. However, the guide, Enkidu (another figure from the local mythology) actually leads the team astray, and they’re saved from being lured to their doom by the arrival of Merlin. Yeah, the Merlin from Arthurian myth. What of it?
I suppose now is as good a time as any to address one of the critical conceits of the Fate franchise and probably the one that Babylonia here expects you to take in stride: Heroic Spirits. Essentially, in the Fate setting, individuals that perform actions worthy of legend can be recorded by a mysterious (or at least “explained far elsewhere”) system known as the Throne of Heroes. The Throne transcends time, and thus the spirits encoded in it can be summoned to any era, either by a deliberate summoner (as in the Holy Grail War of Fate/Stay Night) or as the immune system of human history itself. Given what big threats the Singularities are, strays are likely to manifest during them, and in any case we’ll typically be paling around with individuals from different points in history and foreign mythologies as well as the era natives. Just something to take in stride.
Merlin leads the party to Uruk proper, and to his boss, King Gilgamesh. If this immediately worries you, you may have seen Fate/Stay Night. However, here in Babylonia he’s older (not that he looks it), wiser, and basically acting as the sour and prideful linchpin of the good side. He puts the Chaldeans to work helping with Uruk’s defenses and daily needs, while they meet and get along with the other Servants that remain under Gilgamesh’s command. These Servants are Leonidas (of Spartan fame), Ushiwakamaru (A samurai warrior, here rendered as a young lady with a bizarre and revealing fashion sense) and Benkei (Ushi’s loyal retainer, a warrior monk). Merlin also brings in another Servant, referred to as Anna, who Fate veterans may note looks an awfully lot like a child version of Medusa… probably because that’s exactly what she is. The show, however, does not expect you to know this for a good long while.
The team helps around Uruk long enough to gain Gilgamesh’s favor and be sent on a real errand: retrieving the Tablet of Destiny that the king lost. Sadly, the attempt only turns up more mysteries as they learn about the forces trying to destroy mankind in this era: the Three Goddess Alliance, believed to consist of Ishtar, Tiamat, and an unknown foreign goddess. Together they besiege Uruk on all sides, though Tiamat, as the mother of the Demonic Beasts, is the most pressing military threat. The goddesses, particularly Tiamat, are also helped out by Enkidu (identified as a fake and calling himself Kingu after the first of the mythical Tiamat’s children) from before.
Eventually, Tiamat attacks the wall that protects Uruk’s land herself. During the battle, it’s revealed that she’s not actually Tiamat, but rather Gorgon, the fused form of the three sisters known as Gorgons, summoned to this era by the real villain’s meddling. Though she may be a fake Tiamat, she’s still extremely powerful, and in the battle Leonidas is turned to stone and Ushiwakamaru, who delivers what would have been a fatal blow if not for Gorgon’s relative immortality, is defeated handily and presumed dead. Benkei, in shame, withdraws. The audience is let in on the fact that Ushi is taken captive by Kingu and there provokes him enough in a battle of words to be spared being digested as fuel to make more Demonic Beasts. The worse fate that awaits her will be a long time coming.
With Gorgon needing to rest up after the battle at the walls, effectively repelled for the time being, the race is on to seize some sort of advantage by neutralizing the other members of the Three Goddess Alliance. Ishtar is the first mark, because she seems fairly non-malicious and is known to be possible to bribe. Ritsuka manages the negotiations, and learns that Ishtar was never actually a member of the Three Goddess Alliance, but rather was protecting people in her own collateral-damage-causing gem-stealing way.
With Ishtar as an ally, the team has to them face off against the mystery goddess, who turns out to be Quetzalcoatl (per Mesoamerican mythology, interpreted as a blonde lady blending Mayan warrior and Luchador influences. Just roll with it, Fate goes easier if you do). Quetzalcoatl’s strategy is to personally raid Uruk for a set number of warriors each day, but when the team gets to her lair (resisted by her goofy yet extremely competent sidekick, Jaguar Warrior), it turns out that Quetzalcoatl, while a member of the Alliance, is herself a fairly good goddess who is taking care of the warriors she “kills”, trying to save as many humans as she can from what’s coming in her own way. Realizing this, Ritsuka elects to not destroy the artifact that is the source of her power, and instead does his best to win her over with words and a show of lucha trust. It works well enough, and Quetzalcoatl agrees to stop her attacks on Uruk and cooperate, as far as the terms of her alliance with the other goddesses allows, with the defense against Gorgon. This involves delivering the building-sized Axe of Marduk, a weapon known for being Tiamat’s bane, to where it might eventually be used against Gorgon.
On their return to Uruk, another problem presents itself: Gilgamesh has died, seemingly from either overwork or some manner of curse. However, because they’re in the age of myth and legend, this is a solvable problem: the party just has to go pay the Underworld a visit, and there bargain with the goddess Ereshkigal for Gilgamesh’s release.
The getting there is actually surprisingly easy, with the connection to the underworld being found in the city that was investigated for the Tablet of Fates earlier (Ritsuka having almost stumbled in at that time) and the passage through Kur to Ereshkigal’s lair being guarded by seven gates that dispense with the normal afterlife sorting to ask passive-aggressive questions comparing Ishtar and Ereshkigal.
Because, it is notable at this point, the two goddesses are deeply connected. They’re sisters and share the same sort of temperament… which means they’ve taken on a linked manifestation. Throughout the last couple arcs, Ishtar and Ritsuka have talked late at night, but in those chats (which have been pretty good character building) not only is Ishtar not acting quite like herself, but now and then a hint slips of another form, Blonde Rin, besides the familiar Ishtar. This is because nighttime Ishtar is, in fact, a manifestation of Ereshkigal. Ereshkigal is the third member of the Three Goddesses Alliance, but like Quetzalcoatl she’s not exactly malicious; rather she hopes to gather souls in her realm in order to protect them from what’s coming. While a fight against her is necessary, as with Quetzalcoatl before her, she’s brought around to more or less throw in her lot with Chaldea.
With that done, the stage is set for the counter-offensive against Gorgon, which is ultimately down to an elite strike team of major characters going into her lair in order to face her after it’s cracked open with the Axe of Marduk. Gorgon is initially too much for the heroes to handle, but Anna steps up, revealing her true nature and taking down her psycho other self. Kingu arrives too late to save Gorgon… but it turns out that what seems like a decisive victory is only the beginning of humanity’s woes.
The ocean turns black, magical energy surges, and out to sea the real Tiamat appears, a vast and looming calamity, awakened by (as Merlin realized too late) the fact that Gorgon was connected to her, and the pain of Gorgon’s death coming across that bond ended Tiamat’s slumber.
Tiamat’s very appearance in the mortal world births countless monsters, the “new humanity” called Lahamu and… these things are creepy as hell. Not only do they look like crooked-limbed hybrids between mantises and Nyarlathotep with really good dental work, they also have a signature cackling laugh, a sadistic demeanor, unnatural twitching motions, and a steadily growing understanding and linguistic ability that reveals they have more than enough mental capacity to be culpable for their cruelty and misdeeds. The Lahamu surge over the land, slaughtering whoever they find, and while Uruk can defend itself to an extent (Gilgamesh having foreseen this or something like this) it’s only a matter of time before the endless waves of them spawning from the black mud of Tiamat overwhelms the world such as we know it. The Lahamu make bloody sure everyone knows just how much they’re bad news – they even mock, torment, and nearly kill Kingu despite his loyalty to his mother Tiamat, calling him a failed prototype.
The heroes attempt to sally forth and take on Tiamat’s core, which takes the form of a bound humanoid woman. During this process, we encounter what remains of Ushiwakamaru – blackened and insane, filled with hatred, converted to Tiamat’s side, and encoded in the sea of life that is Tiamat so infinite copies can be born and reborn as long as any part of her exists. The core of Tiamat is defeated but… that turns out to have been a stage one that was only holding the disaster back, as her true form, a mountain-sized beast, emerges from the waves thereafter.
Kaiju Tiamat approaches, and if she deletes Uruk and exterminates its people, that’s that: the foundation of human history is gone. The situation is made more complicated by the fact that Tiamat literally can’t die: since she’s the primordial goddess of all life, anything living is proof that she exists and sustains her. A plan is drawn up to bypass this ability by dropping her into Kur, the land of the dead where nothing is technically alive to fuel her, but Ereshkigal needs time that humanity doesn’t have to prepare the trap, meaning that it’s a desperate fight to do anything to slow down Tiamat’s advance.
And, from there to the end of the show is basically one giant action scene. Quetzalcoatl gives everything she’s got to hinder Tiamat, Benkei reappears to restrain the central Evil Ushiwakamaru and die together with his master as they’re burned away in the blast. Even Gorgon (actually Anna now with Gorgon’s form) comes back to lend a hand, and while Tiamat is dropped into the Underworld, that alone doesn’t make her not invincible.
Instead, we get a desperate fight against Tiamat and her swarms of Lahamu as she struggles to climb out of Kur and back to the world of the living. Pretty much everyone pulls out their biggest and baddest moves, and it’s a case where we even have to go through multiple layers of deus ex machina to have a chance. Gilgamesh appears in his powered-up Fate/Stay Night style form and delivers a massive attack. An old man who gave cryptic advice earlier in Babylonia and was suggested to be more than he appears returns and reveals himself to be the First Assassin, able to render Tiamat mortal at great personal cost.
Ultimately, while it costs almost everything that anyone involved the fight had (including the fact that there were scarcely 500 survivors of Uruk… which was 500 more than Gilgamesh initially noted in his foresight of these events), Tiamat is put down, and with her defeat, the “Holy Grail” (manifestation of magical energy causing this nonsense) is secured by Chaldea and the foundation of humanity, perhaps battered and bruised, still stands. The end of at least this arc of the story.
So, some comments on Babylonia before I go and give it a final grade.
First the show looks really good. Maybe not quite as great as Unlimited Blade Works, but there’s a lot of effort in the animation with rather beautiful settings and some really great motion, especially in the flow of the action. Now, to the cinematography, the camera really does like to keep Mash’s rear end in frame and you darn well know why… but the shots overall are still well-composed and it’s not even a fraction as uncomfortable and distracting as the camera’s interest in Vividred Operation, a show that I ultimately came to love to pieces despite its somewhat troubling fanservice.
Second, the pacing is pretty well done. This is a show in which a lot happens, with several major arcs to deal with all the suspected members of the alliance and the second half dealing with all the phases of taking on Tiamat and the Lahamu, but it could have been condensed further. I don’t, however, think that doing so would have been a good idea. The show takes 24 episodes and it needs at least the majority of that in order to tell its story without rushing. These characters are set up so that you care about them. We get at least a few good scenes with Leonidas where we see him as a father to his men and something of a mentor to Ritsuka, so when he makes his last stand against Gorgon, you give a damn about him. We have a few really good conversations with Ushiwakamaru where she bonds with Ritsuka and talks about herself and her wishes and regrets, so that her defiance when imprisoned is something to cheer on and her twisted psyche when she’s been corrupted something that hurts the way it should. The real lead characters – Mash, Ritsuka, Ishtar, and Gilgamesh – also get a fair amount of time and development. The time-travelers perhaps less so: Ritsuka is a pretty average hero and Mash as of Babylonia has already been through her big arc, but we at least see how these events affect them.
And, helping the show feel epic, there are a lot of grace notes and sub-elements that didn’t really rate for a quick review summary, but that have an emotional impact. For instance, we spend a lot of time with a character named Siduri – she’s one of Gilgamesh’s retainers, one he actually seems to rely on, and the one who helps the Chaldea characters get situated in Uruk. She continues to aid and guide them until the endgame, when she’s taken by the Lahamu and her rescue becomes one of the objectives in fighting them. However, by the time the team gets there, she’s been converted into a Lahamu herself… except she retains enough of her personality to subtly help Ritsuka and friends and to ultimately give what’s left of her life protecting Kingu because she sees the real Enkidu in him and knows how much Enkidu meant to her king. This ultimately pays off in the epilogue, when Kingu/Enkidu and Gilgamesh do reconcile.
And, admirably, for all the loads and loads of characters you could list, the show keeps enough focus. It knows who’s important and interesting to watch, and staggers the involvement of several of the side characters in such a way that episodes don’t get too overstocked trying to follow a lot of lines.
While I do largely respect the show, though, there are a few moments that feel like the pointless filler missions in the game, places where maybe you could have straightened out the meandering plot when adapting it to a new medium. It is, for better or worse, a very faithful adaptation of the Seventh Singularity from the game, with Nasu’s love for complicated magical explanations and a game’s need for miscellaneous busywork both preserved.
For all that it is, I’m going to give Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia a B. It’s not quite on the level of Unlimited Blade Works; it tells a vastly broader story that doesn’t quite make the same level of connection. The fights are grander and the stakes are higher, but it doesn’t shine quite as bright. For all that, though, it is solid work. As an action show, I think it’s wholly satisfying on its own, and I don’t think that newcomers to Fate/Grand Order would be too terribly lost (though some backing in the Fate franchise to have an idea of what Heroic Spirits are might be in order).
As for First Order, the special I touched on at the beginning… it also does a fair job of getting some starting investment in Mash and Ritsuka, but there’s just not enough there for me to feel good about the prospect of giving it its own review or even a formal letter grade. It’s probably just best to say here that if you want to get started with FGO’s anime outings, First Order is a perfectly watchable natural starting point.