Considering that Fate/Grand Order is widely considered to be one of the most successful mobile games of all time, one would think that more of the game’s chapters had been previously adapted to the screen. You would be wrong – previously only the game’s prologue has received an adaptation. At long last, though, one of the game’s final chapters (at least before the current sequence), the Babylonia chapter, has finally been adapted to the screen.

F/GO ADFB sends protagonist Ritsuko Fujimaru and Mash Kyrielight back to the dawn of Western Civilization, to Babylon – which is currently being besieged by demonic hordes, with the defense being lead by a generally less douchy Gilgamesh.

Of all the various arcs, oddly, Babylonia might be the least newbie-friendly. The story is somewhat intended to play with your preconceptions of Gilgamesh as a character and as alternatives to “Saberface” characters, this arc features a variety of alternatives (Ishtar as a Rin-face and Jaguarman as a Taiga-face), with each character having the personalities of the characters they’re modeled on. Ishtar works fine on her own, but the entire joke for Jaguar-man is that she’s just Taiga in a Jaguar-print kigarumi with cat-ears – and that might go over the heads of people who haven’t seen Fate/Stay Night.

Other than that, the writing on this show is fantastic, and does a tremendous job of building the stakes as the series goes on. The animation is also exceptionally good across the board, along with some sound design in the action scenes that will give your speakers (and subwoofer) a workout.

That said, this doesn’t feel like the ideal jumping on point for Fate/GO. I’d recommend the prologue anime first, and then either the original Fate/Stay Night series, or Unlimited Blade Works to get some familiarity with Rin &Taiga.

Fate/Grand Order ADFB is available for streaming on Crunchyroll, Hidive, and Funimation.

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