There's a cold, crushing type of hopelessness to the gacha anime adaptation - the type to eschew all cohesive tenants of the form in the name of a singular end product that can be marketed towards fans of said franchise in the pursuit of more profit. So it is that again and again, we see mediocre products churned out in anime to satisfy that core audience. Kantai Collection, a barely tangible story smashed up by subpar animation, needless convolution, excess of characters without any motivation to highlight more than the handful of main boats, and weak battle scenes to prop up the rest. Azur Lane, more of the same but four years later. Girls' Frontline, more of the same but two years later and with gun girls. Between the Sky and Sea, absolute nonsense in every sense. Granblue Fantasy? Granwho?
Even the handful of exceptions to this are in their own weird spot. Princess Connect! Re:Dive makes no illusions about being a contentless show to simply get lost in its food and comedy-related shenanigans, and the animation is on-point, but it only gathers deep enjoyment from its premise by the second season. Umamusume: Pretty Derby also only evolves in its second season, with the first being more of the same generic gacha adapation staleness. And how to forget the tragedy of Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story, brilliantly adapting a weird, dense, inexplicable gacha game story into a surrealist anime plotline for its first season that hilariously derails itself by the second season in a production that could only be kindly stated as "troubled"? And of course, you can like, even love gacha game anime adaptations. But there's a cynicism and coldness to nearly any of them that makes it impossible to see as anything but calculated.
And so we get to Fate/Grand Order. Fate, a franchise already impenetrable enough with its numerous storylines and subfranchises (many set in the same universe, all sharing the same general lore), now has a gacha game thrown into the mix, one arguably surpassing the popularity of all other Fate properties to where it's perhaps what a number of people may default to thinking of when thinking of Fate. It is also no less impenetrable, and due to both its status as a gacha game and the poorness of being adapted throughout its history, is maybe even moreso. If you're an anime-only person, you've already lost with Fate/Grand Order. The first arc of the first part of F/GO's story received a very poor adaptation. Six arcs later, you have a two-part movie deal, both of which are very poor with questionable adaptation choices. But wait, the arc after that actually got adapted before that, and is a TV show (it was mediocre). And now the final arc of the first part has a movie adaptation. There's also an anime-original special that takes place between Part 1.5 and Part 2, mildly interesting on account of it being 30 minutes of nothing but talking heads. What about arcs 2 - 6 of Part 1, or anything else? No, don't worry about it.
So let's forget the notion entirely that this is meant to appeal to anyone who is not already submerged into F/GO's story. It has everything a fan of Fate/Grand Order could love and dream of. Impressive animation, with cool CG to highlight the monstrosity of the demon pillars (itself easier to look at than the PS2-esque CG animation of Babylonia). Fight scene after fight scene. Lots of cameos! A number of those cameos even get to use their cool Noble Phantasms! Huge, emotional climatic moment after huge, emotional climatic moment! All (nearly, at least) of the plot beats in the game are matched here! It's everything that anyone could have ever asked for.
Everything delivered in such a calculated, cynical way that it struggles to get any enjoyment out of me. Where to start? The animation is very good, but the technicality of it loses an emotional resonance that can't be achieved otherwise; compare this to even a technical masterpiece in the same franchise like the Fate/Stay Night: Heaven Feel's movies, all beyond impressive-looking but using those visuals as a driving emotional and subtextual force for its themes. The entire second half of the movie feels like one big ending scene, which is very exhausting and draining (fine for the game, terrible for this). Fight scene after fight scene might sound cool, but there's a reason very few media is able to pull it off: you need some kind of levity at some point, which this movie never offers. This leads into a broader pacing issue, something every single Fate/Grand Order movie has had, but this one suffers from especially badly, even compared to the terribly-paced Camelot movies. Most of the cameos aren't voice acted, which is a logistical issue that can't be solved realistically, but still is noticeable
The huge emotional moment after huge emotional moment aspect is particularly terrible. It works in the game, coming off of multiple arcs told through a visual novel format with increasing stakes, odds, and tension, with deep character bonds formed throughout. Without most of that, what else is in this movie but 90 moments of poorly-conveyed emotion? It's not that it's done bad, but it's so incomplete that it doesn't even matter. And when I said nearly all of the plot beats get covered?
In the end though, it'll certainly appeal to many F/GO fans, perhaps even former F/GO fans, perhaps even some other Fate fans or general consumers of action films. It has done its purpose as a way to adapt an arc in the story to bring more attention to its franchise and convince more to play it, especially if you've never played the game before yet are watching all of the F/GO anime for some reason. It really doesn't matter how cynical the product is, even with the labor of love put into it. Even badly-made gacha game adaptations can still succeed in its intentions. F/GO has especially got it made, the Solomon movie succeeding in its goal of continuing to propel the cash cow franchise for years to come. As a piece of media among many to watch, nod my head along, and go "Oh huh, that was cool that they showed off
43.5 out of 64 users liked this review
