Awesome / Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia

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"The Wandering Tales of Shana-oh, Act Four... Dan-No-Ura Eight-Boat Leap!"

• Episode 1:
  • Being an introduction into the Singularity (and considering the limited options for Fujimaru/Mash), it is understandable that they won't be dishing this out just yet. While they made the effort of fending off the Uridimmu, the stage was primarily set to show off the powers of an (unnamed) Ishtar and the man who introduces himself as "Enkidu"—with them ripping apart the beasts with little to no effort.
• Episode 2:
  • Merlin's introduction (together with Ana), which allows them to disabuse Fujimaru and Mash of "Enkidu's" ploy and then engage him quickly. Enkidu was by no means inconvenienced by this, fighting them on superior terms—which then forces Merlin to teleport them away.
  • The episode also ends with their introduction to King Gilgamesh—who wastes no time in declaring he will test them personally with his Gate of Babylon. Quite a significant shift in his very petty incarnation (especially as he appeared in the Zero / stay night timeline).
• Episode 3:
  • The opening battle itself is quite tense, with Gilgamesh's onslaught on Fujimaru and Mash (plus a very reluctant Ana) subsequently complicated by the arrival of Ishtar. And while Gilgamesh managed to prevent Ishtar from using more powerful spells, even she almost had Gilgamesh dead to rights with a shot—until Mashu deflected it just at the right moment. Immediately after this, Gilgamesh goes back to overseeing reports like nothing happened, even dismissing everyone at court without a fuss (at least frontally).
    • Note as well Gilgamesh's demeanor throughout the entire proceedings: none of his actions were done out of caprice, haughtiness or pettiness. Even when Merlin implies Gilgamesh's dismissal of Chaldea is due to his pride, he very quickly shuts it down by pointing out that he doesn't feel like they're an asset to him because they haven't demonstrated that they care enough about Uruk yet.
• Episode 4: Jaguarman utterly thrashes Mash and Ana with playful ease after they underestimate the threat she posed because of how silly she is. Her speed and power let her juggle her opponents in the air and smash through their guards while providing no opportunity for a counterattack, showing the ferocity of a true warrior god.
• Episode 5: Gilgamesh opens the largest Gate of Babylon yet seen in a Fate anime^note though not the largest one period; the one seen in his fight with Enkidu in the Fate/strange Fake manga was even bigger. to counter the fake Enkidu's Age of Babylon.
  • The battle between Gilgamesh and fake Enkidu itself deserves enough mention. Despite being comparatively low-powered (especially considering the titanic fights these two have had), you see the weight of this confrontation on both their faces ("Enkidu" trying his damndest to ignore his clouded memories, Gilgamesh striving to not betray his troubled thoughts). It's telling that among the different kinds of Adaptation Deviation done by the anime, this one is among the most well-received.
• Episode 8: Ushiwakamaru and Leonidas hold off Gorgon's assault with their Noble Phantasms. This is especially notable because both characters use old, basic animations in the game, so this is our first time seeing their Noble Phantasms as the creators might have actually imagined them. Leonidas also gets a Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu? moment as he smack-talks Gorgon while dying.
  • Gorgon for her part, made it perfectly clear, with her many laser-shooting snake heads, that getting close enough to land a blow is easier said than done. Nevermind the fact that she was fighting Ushiwakamaru with a giant hole in her torso.
• Episode 13:
  • The fight against Ereshkigal deep within Kur is an absolute treat. The fight is extremely well-choreographed, very well-animated, and downright epic in how it's structured. But the climax deserves special mention: Ereshkigal's strongest attack goes up against Mash's Noble Phantasm, Lord Camelot. In this clash, Mash proves that with enough resolve, she can even stop the attacks of a goddess in her own territory. It also shows that Lord Camelot can even reflect attacks back at the user at the end, when it creates an explosion between the two of them and Mash remains steadfast.
  • "Ziusu-dra" shows up completely out of nowhere and severs the magical contract binding Ereshkigal to the Three Goddess Alliance. Bear in mind that severing a magical contract requires a certain kind of anti-magic weapon or ability, such as Medea's Rule Breaker. We're not told of him ever possessing such a thing, and yet he does it anyway. It's enough to make you wonder who he really is...
  • A small one, but remember when Gilgamesh laughed his head off at Fujimaru for suggesting that Chaldea would defeat the Three Goddess Alliance? Well, with both Quetzalcoatl and Ereshkigal joining them to fight against Gorgon, the Three Goddess Alliance has technically been "defeated". Looks like Fujimaru kept his word.
    • Related to this, Ishtar's help was essential in recruiting both Quetzalcoatl and Ereshkigal, and how did Fujimaru recruit Ishtar? He bribed her with 25% of the Gate of Babylon's treasures, provided by King Gilgamesh himself.
• Episode 14:
  • Quetzalcoatl and Kingu's fight, with both opponents fighting each other on more-or-less equal terms.
  • In a somber moment right before the battle against Gorgon begin, with the ending song "Prover" playing in the background, Ana reveals her true identity as she unseals her Divinity and activates her Mystic Eyes of Petrification. It's Medusa vs Medusa.
• Episode 16:
  • Ishtar really gets to shine in this episode:
    • She manages to keep up with the Bel Lahmu racing to deliver the Holy Grail (the one that had been in Kingu's body, anyway) to Tiamat without even using Maanna. Even if she is a goddess, it's still impressive to see a Divine Spirit in a human vessel manage to keep up with a monster powered by a Holy Grail.
    • Upon realizing that the Bel Lahmu is too fast for her to hit with her magical energy shots, she changes tack by grabbing the Bel Lahmu around its body and driving it into the ground. Quetzalcoatl even gives her props for her strategy.
    • When corrupted Ushiwakamaru appears, Ishtar bluffs and says she's out of magical energy. Ushiwakamaru takes Ishtar at her word, and finds herself eating a direct hit from Ishtar later — just as she was lunging at Fujimaru, no less.
    • After the above, Ishtar really is out of magical energy, but fortunately, there's a Master on hand to supply her with more. Fujimaru transfers his own magical energy into Ishtar's Magic Circuits, which she uses to fire a spread shot that wipes out all of the Ushiwakamaru clones. This leads to Ushiwakamaru conceding the fight, lampshading the fact that she fell for the same trick twice.
• Episode 17:
  • Ishtar, with the help of a Command Spell from Fujimaru, uses her Noble Phantasm, An Gal Ta Ki Gal She, on Tiamat. Unlike the game, where she travels to Venus using a gate she made for herself, she opens a rift in space, summoning the planet Venus to her, before converting it into a massive arrow of energy that she then fires from Maanna, the Boat of Heaven. When the dust settles, we see that it managed to blow a crater in the sea floor AND it one-shot Tiamat's Femme Fatale form, which had its own boss fight in the game! And, to top it all off, the entire sequence was animated beautifully.
• Episode 18 marks the directorial debut of Nakaya Onsen, key animator of Fate/Apocrypha's famous episode 22, and it shows:
  • Before the battle begins, Gilgamesh gathers up the survivors of Uruk and delivers one hell of a Rousing Speech assuring them that As Long as There Is One Man who survives, Uruk's legacy will endure. All while "The King Who Reigns" plays.
  • Benkei, or rather Hitachibou, sheds his status as a coward once and for all by mounting a quetzalcoatlus and taking the fight to Corrupted Ushiwakamaru. It ends with Benkei willingly allowing himself to be incinerated by Piedra Del Sol so that Quetzalcoatl can activate it uninterrupted and so that he can take his corrupted lord with him.
  • But the star of this episode was without a doubt Quetzalcoatl, whose two Noble Phantasms have to be seen to be believed:
    • First is Piedra Del Sol. She uses The Power of the Sun to light all of Tiamat's Chaos Tide ablaze, and it appears as molten lava for the remainder of the episode. Unfortunately, Tiamat then reveals that she can fly, which prompts...
    • Ultimo Tope Patada, the mother of all Rider Kicks combined with the above. She launches herself into orbit and takes on the power of the comet that caused the K-T extinction — yes, that's right, the impact that killed the DINOSAURS — and flies downward at incredible speed, crashing into Tiamat's energy barrier. In a scene reminiscent of Gae Bolg vs. Rho Aias from Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works], and with some help from a Command Spell, Quetzalcoatl manages to break through Tiamat's defenses. All with some of the most impressive visuals of the anime so far, and that's saying a LOT.
  • Tiamat for her part, unintentionally saved everybody's lives by reducing the damage of Quetzalcoatl's Death or Glory Attack. Had she not blocked it as much as she did there was a real chance that the explosion would've certainly killed Mash and Fujimaru along with everybody else on the planet much less Uruk.
  • Then, finally, at the very end, a familiar form erupts from the burning mud, covered by a pair of golden wings that unfurl to reveal the very familiar Mystic Eyes of Petrification. Gorgon is back, and she's ready to face down Tiamat.
• Episode 19:
  • Gorgon — or rather, Ana in Gorgon's form — takes Tiamat head on, rejecting any offers of help, in order to slow her down. She goes out in a blaze of glory, using Pandemonium Cetus to break one of Tiamat's horns from her head. It grounds her for the remainder of her advance, and indeed slows her down.
  • Gilgamesh reveals his trump card: he can control the Dingir without any assistance! He uses them to slow Tiamat's advance. Even after he's mortally wounded by Tiamat from Taking the Bullet for Fujimaru, his onslaught doesn't slow down at all.
  • When Uruk looks about to be overrun by the innumerable Lahmu, Kingu cements his Heel–Face Turn by emerging from the depths of the city to ruthlessly cut down the vast majority of the deranged beasts. He makes it look absolutely effortless, belittles them as "mass-produced trash," and then turns his attention toward Tiamat. Finally, he unleashes Enkidu's Noble Phantasm, Enuma Elish, and transforms his body into the Chains of Heaven to bind Tiamat. This buys just enough time for Ereshkigal to complete her preparations.
  • When Tiamat has regressed to her Jurassic Period form and starts corrupting the underworld, a chaos tidal wave is just about to hit the heroes when it instantly turns into flowers, with the rest of the chaos tide following suit. A familiar voice calls down and Merlin makes his grand reappearance.
  • Merlin's also brought an ally with him, the Counter Force's weapon for fighting Beasts — a Grand Servant. "Ziusu-dra" appears before her, and reveals to her his true identity: the first Old Man of the Mountain, Hassan-i-Sabbah. Grand Assassin. His rousing speech is on point, transforming from Ziusi-dra into his true form as he speaks and gaining the armored echo synonymous with him.
    King Hassan: All that begins must end. So, too, all that lives, dies, and in dying, value finds. Thy vaunted eternity is but hollow slumber. Beast of Disaster, evil born of mankind's folly, thy desperate wish that thy love not go unrequited is itself thy rejection's root. Of rank, nor station, nor the title Grand have I need. Bear witness, goddess of life, to the testament writ with mine own blade. Thou fallen god, to beasthood turned, if Primordial Mother be thy title, attend, and hear my name. From the mountain abyss, I come, and only death do I bring. I am the Old Man of the Mountain, the First Hassan-i Sabbah!
• Episode 20:
  • First Hassan giving Tiamat a concept of death is shown as him essentially grafting the lines of death on her body. The blue circles of flame we can see sort of imply this is Alaya's will manifested!
  • The Bel Lamhu are giving our heroes a rough fight as Tiamat is climbing out of Kur but then golden swords hit Tiamat's body. We then see that Gilgamesh has come back as his stronger Archer form.
  • Hassan for going Mook Horror Show on the Bel Lahmu.
  • Fujimaru gets a minor one as he powers through Tiamat's Nega-Genesis, the assaults of the Bel Lahmu, though this one counts for the whole team: Ereshkigal temporarily sealing Tiamat at the cost of her life, Mash using Lord Camelot to stop Nega-Genesis from expanding, Merlin helping create a way with Garden of Avalon, Fou warping Fujimaru near Tiamat's head at the last moment.
  • Merlin holds off the Bel Lahmu by summoning Excalibur. He instantly kills one of them with his speed and easily crosses blades with another, and then disintegrates it with a blast from his staff while it was blocking his sword. Remember that the game made clear that this is Merlin's real body, having traveled from Avalon as the barrier between it and reality has weakened enough to briefly do so. This is the living Merlin, not a Servant, and he's more than likely holding the real Excalibur.
  • Also Gilgamesh for doing an Offhand Backhand with his weapons against the Bel Lahmu trying to come back for more. This incarnation has all the power of his Archer form, with all of his Character Development, and pure focus on the task at hand, no playing around, and it shows.
  • Tiamat gets one throughout the episode as despite being hit with so many powerful attacks and Noble Phantasms, she's still going strong and even to the bitter end could have still powered through and won. In the end, she ultimately only truly loses because Fujimaru convinces her to let herself die.
  • For the first time since the Unlimited Blade Works adaptation, Ea is fired in an anime. And it. Is. GLORIOUS.