Review of Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front - Babylonia

Reviewer's note: This is my 3rd entry into the Fate/Grand Order spin-off works, but 17th in the Fate franchise overall. ✪ Genre: action (swordplay, gunfights), contemporary fantasy, magic (spellcasting), seinen, speculative fiction (time travel), superpower ✔Positive Aspects✔ ◧ Animation: even though this series was created by Clover Works, it certainly follows the design standards set by the previous studios - it is based on a combination of colors of moderate to low saturation/medium to high illumination, with an ancient rural environment and vast, breathtaking landscapes that are a tad muted in comparison and against which the characters are beautifully "popping out". ◧ Character development: it took the series about13 episodes before it started building the characters up. After that, it starts to successfully disentangle the deuteragonists' and the former-antagonists/current allies' seemingly conflicting motivations and intentions behind specific actions. Admittedly, the series could have done a far better job in filling in the former-antagonists/current allies' background histories, especially given the fact that they're incredibly impressive and powerful as individual characters. Also, I love the idea of many different characters, from various civilizations, coming together for a common purpose.

On a side note, I was not persuaded by Ritsuka Fujimaru's (the male protagonist) skillset and his supposed leadership prowess, and as such, I found unwarranted most of the credit that was given to him.

◧ Plot: even though the general premise of the Fate franchise is retained, magicians searching for the omnipotent magical artifact called "Holy Grail", is reimagined in a remarkably fresh manner. Specifically, one magician and his servant are traveling through time into the late-Neolithic period, 4.672 years to be exact, in order to prevent the end of humanity right then and there.

◧ Soundtrack: generally, a pretty decent one that is based on a collection of songs mainly from new age, Japanese pop/pop-rock, and orchestral pop music (slow tempo for non-combat scenes, uplifting mid-tempo for combat scenes).

✘Negative Aspects✘

◧ Action sequences: even though Clover Works is clearly influenced by Ufotable's amazing choreographies just like Lay-Luce and Silver Link before it, specifically, in alternating between various camera perspectives (first-person, second-person, third-person) coupled with different camera 'heights', the utilization of quick zoom-ins/outs, and the Michael Bay-influenced, heavily distorted & slowed down sound effects at the beginning of and moments before the impact of high-energy attacks, the end result is simply not as crisp as that of Fate/Zero, let alone that of U.B.W.

I had a genuinely hard time following the movements and the damage dealt by the parties involved in combat, which is a major turn-off for any action fan.

Overall: Despite its underwhelming action sequences, the series seems to me to be one of the better titles of the Fate franchise.

P.S. For further reviews of the Fate franchise, please take a look at my profile.