YMMV / Carnival Phantasm

• Awesome Music:
  • The frenetically happy opening, "Super Affection."
  • The ending, "Fellows" by Masaaki Endoh.
  • "Final Dead Lancer", played at the end of episode 11.
• Cargo Ship:
  • Apparently, Assassin has developed strong feelings for the gate of the temple he's been charged with guarding. Cargo Bodyguard Crush?
  • A lesser example in the same episode is how quickly Rider takes to her granny bike, even giving it a name within seconds while blushing the entire time. Quite possibly also a Continuity Nod to Fate/hollow ataraxia where she offers Shirou anything in exchange for borrowing his bike (though that was because she wanted a better bike. He had a racing bike and she had a Granny bike, which would break if she rode it at the top of her Riding Skill).
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Sakura getting beaten up by Shinji in episode 6? Not funny. Sakura being sent to shovel the snow off the roof without any extra layers of clothing while Shinji stays in a warm house? Not funny. Sakura falling off the roof? Funny!
  • It gets even funnier when she leaves a Sakura-shaped hole in the snow, followed by Shinji opening the window to rapid-fire berate her, ending with an offhand demand that she go get the latest Shounen Jump magazine.
  • Grail-kun. It's not that he's a Jerkass Genie who only has one suggestion for everyone, that being to kill people with a knife; it's that he looks like a Moe version of the Grail. Not the cup or something as idealized: the hideous, grotesque, deformed thing that's implied to be Avenger's womb, as seen in the Heaven's Feel route. And the skit featuring Grail-kun are played like a Once per Episode part of Doraemon. Having Sakura's voice actress doing the voice probably didn't help either.
• Fanon: That the hand that Saber is reaching for at the end of the ending theme is Irisviel (and that Irisviel is lined up with the Fate/Zero cast).
• Genius Bonus: Berserker thinking Lancer is a dog seems completely random unless one is familiar with Irish mythology, where Lancer serves as a replacement for a guard dog that he killed.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • It is extremely appropriate for Rin and Akiha to be sharing a table with Azaka Kokutou during the episode 12 epilogue.
  • Aoko's moments with Shiki; apparently, due to the relationship between both their respective VA's (Kotono Mitsuishi and Kenji Nojima), cue the later adaptations of Sailor Moon...
    • Similarly, Aoko's Plan H being a reference to Hikaru Genji became much more hilarious after the release of the Servant Murasaki Shikibu in Fate/Grand Order, as Murasaki is the author of Genji Monogatari.
  • Berserker using Lancer as a Noble Phantasm (somehow) is strong against Archer. First, guess how the Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors works in Fate/Grand Order. Second, Jason's animations in the game show how Berserker got so good at throwing people at enemies.
  • Berserker turning into a "Berser-Car" machine like a Transformer, after Grand Order revealed how the Gods of Olympus Heracles descends from were actually alien super machines.
  • Speaking of Grand Order, the first Lancer death involves him being in a deadly game of Blackbeard. In the game, Blackbeard is a Rider-class Servant (under his real name Edward Teach) and mostly took over Lancer's Butt-Monkey role. And in the sequel Fate/Grand Carnival, he is subjected to the same Blackbeard game by Ereshkigal.
  • Another Grand Order example: Lancer's Butt-Monkey status here is largely ironic considering he's regarded as one of the best Stone Walls in the game. It can be argued that his Caster form avoids this specifically because he's not really Cu Chulainn at all — he's Odin using Cu as a vessel.
  • Rider claims to have an "Airhead" skill in episode 6. While this is untrue for her, Astolfo in later Fate incarnations has Evaporation of Sanity as an actual Skill.
• Informed Wrongness: In the date scenario where Shiki and Shirou choose Arc and Saber over dating all the girls, they get berated by them for not saying much sooner how they felt about wanting to make all of them happy and choosing the main heroines over them. And this comes after the other girls started to go all Yandere on them for not being chosen in the first place.
• Les Yay:
  • Taiga in response to Saber Extra/Red Saber's outfit. After Saber Red comments that she deliberately dresses in a skimpy outfit, Taiga proceeds to ogle her.
  • Caster is still romantically involved with Souichirou, but also has a Stalker Shrine to Saber and an obsession with dressing her up in various outfits.
• Mainstream Obscurity: The explosion in the Fate Series popularity ended up completely overshadowing Tsukihime, which is a far cry from the two franchises being given equal billing here.^note To note, Carnival Phantasm predated the release of both Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works], which boosted the popularity of the Fate franchise to new heights. By comparison, Tsukihime's proposed sequel and remake had both been in Vapor Ware status for a long time. It would take well over 15 years for Tsukihime to get new content. It was not until a decade after the series' release that the reboot of both the visual novel and Melty Blood finally came to fruition. It wouldn't be shocking if many viewers' knowledge of Tsukihime is limited to specifically just this series. Quite tellingly, the sequel series pretty much focuses on Fate Series (specifically Grand Order), and doesn't include many references to Tsukihime.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "LANCER/RANSA GA SHINDA" ("Lancer died!") and the response "KONO HITO DE NASHI!" ("You aren't human!"), for Lancer's many deaths. Also used in Fate discussions when Lancer is treated as a Butt-Monkey. Gets a reprise in Fate/Grand Carnival where it's not class-limited, every incarnations of Cu Chulainn (including Caster and Berserker/Alter) gets killed hilariously and quickly enough, and the first phrase evolves into "CU CHULAINN GA SHINDA!!"
  • Related to the "Unlimited XXXX Works" meme from the original Fate/stay night, episode 9 created a new version out of the moment when Shirou keeps inserting coins into the Unit Lion to make it go faster: UNLIMITED COIN WORKS.
  • The entire "Saber Alter Maid" sequence in episode 8 has gone on to be one of the most famous sequences in the entire show, with "I'm a cute goth-loli maid waitress, sir!" being practically a meme in and of itself, one used even well outside Fate circles. It got to the point that F/GO's 2017 summer event featured an entire version of Saber Alter as a dedicated reference back to it.
  • "Rolling Caster Speedwagon" from episode 7 is also a bit of a meme in gif form. Especially since it doesn't even need to be sped up.
  • Saying that this is the best — and only — Tsukihime anime.
  • Grail-kun scenarios. Pick any other mundane/silly topic, complain to Grail-kun and have it drop a solution: Kitchen knife with fancy name.
• Moe: Caster, to the point that both Shirou and Rin don't even recognize her when they see her with out her trademark cloak.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Shirou's awesome moments are preceded with him declaring, "Trace on!"
• Never Live It Down: A lot of the behavior exhibited by characters here became nigh impossible for fans to forget about in later installments.
  • After her spotlight in episode 7, a lot of viewers began finding it hard to take Caster as seriously, primarily due to being depicted as an adorkable otaku. Doesn't help matters that the most well-known product in the Nasuverse, Fate/Grand Order, makes numerous reference to her behavior here such as a love for making models, desire to dress Altria in cute outfits, and some of her more adorkable traits.
  • Lancer's status as the Butt-Monkey of the series. No matter how well he does in an installment, he will always be remembered for the meme he birthed. Even when he ironically became one of the hardest servants to kill in Grand Order, he still is stuck with being the fool of the Carnival, or they still find a way to bully Lancer despite his benefits in the game (most commonly, sticking his feared teacher that could bully him no matter how many times he avoids death: Scathach).
• Nightmare Fuel: In an oddly-serious moment for such a lighthearted series comes a scene from episode 6 where Shinji tries to rape Sakura. That's right, we get to see as Shinji pins his sister down on a bed and simply smirks and laughs as she struggles to escape and begs him to stop. Even after Rider bursts through the door with Rule Breaker in hand to signal to the audience that things are going to be ok, the horror isn't over yet as Shinji is represented as a Sinister Silhouette with a big Slasher Smile still laughing and moments away from having his way with Sakura right before she stabs him.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • For as funny as the entirety of Berserker's First Errand is in episode 5, it's hard to forget Leysritt and her brief contribution before she gets dragged home.
  • The extra Lens in the Five Len Cats segment, especially Spotted Len when she crawls out from under the kotatsu and scares the crap out of Shiki.
• Quirky Work: A fair few might characterize CP as one itself, since it's a goofy, unabashed gag show which uses a pair of dark psychological horror visual novels as source material. However, much more notable is that a couple episode themselves rely on references to other Quirky Works, and these are so obscure outside of Japan that the vast majority of non-Japanese viewers are likely to miss the references entirely.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The BGM track "Event Taikai", which first appears as the theme song for the Fifth Holy Grail War game show, is a ripoff of "76 Trombones".
• Tear Jerker: Episode 6. Sakura continuously accepting her abuse at Shinji's hands (except for when Shinji attempts to rape her at the end; then she starts crying for him to stop) and refusing Rider's protection, all because she rationalizes it as Shinji still being the sweet kid he was when they were children. We also get a brief flashback of them first meeting as kids (also with the reminder that Tokiomi gave her up to Zouken) and it does appear that Shinji Used to Be a Sweet Kid. Young Sakura still having toys and playing with them despite what Zouken is doing to her also reminds you that abusive families still try to act like normal families in disguise.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The intro alludes to Hisui finding a possessed sword and Kohaku pretending to be a martial artist secret agent from the source manga, but neither event was adapted.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Carnival Phantasm is an interesting case, having released in 2011 but based on a manga that ran in 2004 to 2005, making it a showcase of the Nasuverse of the mid to late aughts.
  • This is perhaps most evident in that all of the Nasuverse properties get about equal billing, rather than the Fate Series completely dominating, since Fate/Grand Order wouldn't launch for another few years. The 2021 sequel would make up for this, at the cost of jokes about any Nasuverse series other than Fate, reflecting the post-Grand Order hierarchy where, until the release of the Tsukihime remake later that year, most people knew next to nothing about the rest of the Nasuverse beyond the Neco-Arc memes.
  • The funniest instance of this is in its Running Gag of Lancer always dying. It made sense at the time, being based on how Lancer dies in all three routes of Fate/stay night without ever really getting to show off his skill despite being strong on paper, but after FGO's launch seems like a non-sequitur, given his massive pile of defensive skills making the most common joke about him being that he's now practically unkillable.
  • Sakura's portrayal is also odd to a modern fan, being presented as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who actively seeks out bad situations to play the Damsel in Distress in, since she sees her role as a passive victim as the only way to win audience sympathy. When the original manga ran, she was by far the least popular of the three main heroines, being relatively unknown compared to Saber and Rin since few were familiar with her route (being the only one to not get some form of adaptation at the time) and those who had played it often considered her to be a bland receptacle for abuse. Heaven's Feel has since received a big-budget trilogy of movies, so just about everyone in the fandom is at least somewhat familiar with that route, and though she's still likely the least popular of the three, Sakura's fandom now is nothing to sneeze at.
  • The depiction of Tsukihime is very rooted in the pre-remake state of the franchise, with said remake even getting its then-ongoing Development Hell referenced in the HibiChika Special. Aside from the differing character designs and voices, the prominence of characters that weren't included in the remake like Len, Nrvnqsr Chaos, and Riesbyfe would confuse modern fans. Sion is also depicted as part of the Tsukihime cast because of her prominence in the mostly-Tsukihime-focused Melty Blood, when, especially after she was also left out of Type Lumina, a more modern fan would probably associate her more with her appearances in Grand Order.
  • The Koha-Ace segment of the HibiChika Special has the series Art Shift to artist Keikenchi's style and focuses primarily on the Tsukihime cast with a few cameos from Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero. Nowadays, Keikenchi's simplified chibi designs with circle eyes and pointy limbs is far, far more associated with Grand Order's recurring GUDAGUDA cast, to the point where a modern viewer would probably be wondering when the Mini Nobus are going to show up.

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