THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
ABBREVIATIONS/TERMS
KA: Key Animation
While I already enjoyed the first movie, given what I briefly heard about this sequel, I was ready for it to step up its game and become something greater. I’m not sure if it’s exactly “greater”, because this movie, in more ways than one, was extremely experimental, chaotic and wild in its nature. It’s like Mob Psycho II Episode 5, where it’s just a pure spectacle to behold, but not only Hakuyu Go is holding the strings here; Be it the abysmal schedule, or just the need to push a Fate/Grand Order adaption to a new level of experimentation, director Kazuto Arai decided to turn the second Fate/Grand Order Camelot movie into a playground for some of the biggest animators out there.
▶ Video KA: Hisashi MoriThis is not simply recruiting a bunch of animators through contacts and having each of them animating one cut, no: Arai decided to give certain animators selected by him entire segments of the movie, not only allowing them to animate large portions but also storyboard and direct their sequences entirely. Ryota Furukawa entirely storyboarded and key animated Mash against Lancelot, Takumi Sunakohara was in charge for Tristan against the assassins, Itsuki Tsuchigami handled the battles against Gawain, and Hakuyu Go, mastermind behind Mob Psycho II Episode 5 and Fate/Apocrypha Episode 22, dealt with the content centered around Agravain. Hakuyu Go in fact went the extra mile and also heavily assisted in the climax, drawing the rough layouts for roughly +130 cuts giving it the visual flair Arai wasn’t able to create himself. Add to the mix a bunch of other animators filling the gaps these monsters couldn’t handle, and as a result you have something which can be called a true sakuga spectacle.
▶ Video KA: Weilin Zhang (Hakuyu Go's part)▶ Video KA: Bahi JD (Hakuyu Go's part)▶ Video KA: Hakuyu GoThe experimentation and the range of different styles in each fight is insane, either with strong background animation, emphasis on scale, or just unique direction with very aggressive sound direction in some parts. Sometimes it was decided to take an occasional breather, in other parts we got a breathless two minutes sequence like the fight between Bedivere and Gawain, completely animated by Itsuki Tsuchigami.
▶ Video KA: Itsuki TsuchigamiBackground, line thickness, texture, character art couldn’t care less with consistency, changing at whim depending on the artist, although it kinda got away with it, because each artist is just that good, successfully establishing his own style aggressively. There was no overarching presence above, limiting each person working here, this is individual artistic freedom in its strongest form. The legend of Arthur in the end of the movie was also depicted by a Danish studio, Sun Creature, as if the movie doesn’t have enough artists on board already.
▶ VideoHowever, it’s difficult to say that this movie, even as grandiose as it is, is necessarily good. With every artist making his own short movie within a grander story, it certainly can bite itself in the ass, as none of the individual segments are willing to compromise. In fact, with so many breathless moments, the movie is equipped with, it was certainly difficult to attribute special meaning to each of them, especially if you are an anime-only like me. I got the gist of the story, I also got the general idea of most of the Knights of the Table Round, but I can’t help but feel like I miss some background information and emotional attachment to each of them. The movie doesn’t really give you time to breathe, let the characters breathe, if anything, it continued to deliver one spectacle after another, and while I certainly was amazed by how good it looked, it didn’t feel truly special. Especially as a whole, this movie is a big mess, a chaotic product born out of insanity. It disrupts how normally animation productions take place, endorsing individual madness.
▶ Video KA: Kai IkarashiBut even if it’s a mess overall, and pretty much a giant sakuga MAD if you want to put it bluntly, it doesn’t change that in this movie, we saw some of the best works ever of some of the greatest artists in this industry here - this movie was a spectacle to behold, and I did like the final conclusion a lot. Bedivere’s journey came to an end, and he was finally able to atone for his sin in front of Artoria. This movie is not a masterpiece, not the greatest, but it still is for me, a very good movie, some of the craziest experimentation I saw in anime movies so far, and I’m glad to have watched it.
▶ Video KA: Fei Hung, Satoshi Hattori, Vincent ChansardI also recommend reading this [article](https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2022/01/14/fate-grand-order-camelots-chaotic-spectacular-disruption-of-anime-production-standards/ ) from Kvin about the production of this movie, I also got a lot information for this review from that article!
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