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

I really wanted to like this series. Because I really like Gilgamesh as a character from the Fate series, so I was excited to see him with his own show. Too bad that: 1. It wasn't really his own show (ah, you marketing demons!) 2. He was almost nothing like the guy I loved to hate from the previous installments. This was not 100% a negative thing, as the character was sometimes authoritative enough to let you glimpse some of his "king of heroes" persona. Anyway: Story: a real disaster. Or maybe simply not aimed to anyone who hasn't played the game, such as myself. It was so allover the place that more than a few times I started a new episode thinking: wait, did I skip an ep? And when finally I DID skip one, I didn't realize until I got 5 minutes into it. Deus ex machina as there is no tomorrow, random powers unheard of until the moment they are used, characters and flashbacks that pop up from god knows where (previous singularities?), an abused pattern of quest > try to defeat an enemy > win the enemy over > let's go back to the palace > repeat. This is for the first half of the season. Second half of the season, fights just get bigger. In between, endless chit chats about what means to be human, or exposition moments, which to me translated into blah blah blah authority blah blah singularity blah blah blah phlebotinum blah blah Fujimaru will you do it?? HAI, I WILL!

Art: well this was very good, except CGI moments, but I don't mind too much about that. Fights were admittedly gorgeous, even if most of the times if was difficult to understand what was going on - but this might be due to my viewing device, so I'll forget about this. Oddly enough, while most of the main characters used very similar models with the usual differences in hair or eye colour (after all, Merlin is just a Dr Romani with a different fashion sense), the NPCs were extremely diversified, so well done about that. What I really liked though was the body language of pretty much everyone, with those small movements and quirks, which resulted in a higher sense of realism.

Sound: this is generally the feature I pay less attention to, so no much to say about it. Except that the OP was cringey and particularly mismatched with the first video editing, while the endings were generally better, especially the second one. Special mention to the horrible choice of having those prehistoric birds of the American goddess flying over an electric guitar riff.

Characters: almost as bad as the story, with little saving grace, i.e. Gilgamesh (despite switching alignment, he still holds his charisma) and "Rin", who was at least funny. And then the plethora of people who were just tools to prove how magnificent the MC, by both being friends or antagonist or sometime the two things together. It goes without saying, he is nothing special. What I would have really liked was a bit more time investigating for example the story between Gilgamesh, Enkidu and Siduri, or even just more screentime for Leonardo and Romani. MC duo: NA. I really hated the Jaguar Warrior and his/her paw mace.

Enjoyment: really poor. As Ishtar says: "We have only known each other for a short time, but it feels like forever." That's exactly my own experience of time while watching the show.

Overall: With all the curiosity I had getting into the series, it quickly became a chore to do. Not sure what to do with the sequel, but I suppose it is quite far away in time, so I have all the time to slap my brain awake and watch something more entertaining.