YMMV / Fate/Grand Carnival

• Crosses the Line Twice: The Cú Chulainns all immediately dying would normally be rather cruel... were it not the return of one of Carnival Phantasm's most well known Running Gags. Ritsuka is later seen eating Jell-O cubes that resemble the Mana Prisms and Rare Prism one would get from burning all four versions of Cú Chulainn.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the pilot episode, Ritsuka stated that there are too many versions of Cú Chulainn. Not even a month later after the pilot episode, Fate/Grand Order Arcade added a fifth version of Cú in the form of Setanta who would go-on to join the main game in 2023.
  • The 2021 UEFA Euro Final was predicted by the opening credits: it's Italy (Nero Claudius) against England (Artoria)!
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Critics of the show say that Grand Carnival takes a bit too much from its predecessor, to the point where they share many of the same running gags, especially when it involves characters that were already in Carnical Phantasm (i.e. Cú as the Cosmic Plaything). As a result, Grand Carnival loses a lot of the voice of Grand Order even when using its own character roster.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Ritsuka loves Red Hare^Explanation After it's revealed that all 3* Servants and below were immediately burned, Mash questions the presence of Red Hare in the stands, only for Ritsuka to immediately get defensive and say he can't be burned, revealing he's been grailed to Lv. 100. The sheer absurdity of Red Hare of all servants being Ritsuka's choice combined with her sitting in his arms as he pets her head spawned many jokes of Ritsuka "loving" Red Hare. Both platonically and sexually.
    • Paisen approves.^Explanation Yu Mei-Ren is well known in the fanbase for being in love with Xiang Yu, a robot centaur. While many jokes have been made about their "relationship", Ritsuka's love for Red Hare has led to many jokes of her following in her senpai's footsteps.
    • Fiore also approves. ^Explanation Fiore Yggdmillennia's Servant in Fate/Apocrypha is Chiron, who appears in F/GO in his centaur form when ascended sufficiently... which means, more horse jokes.
  • Kingprotea marrying Atalante^Explanation Atalante's legend states that she would only marry someone who could beat her in a footrace. So after Kingprotea won the 100M Dash, many jokes were made about her being engaged to Atalante.
  • Finally, animated Tamamo.^Explanation One of the major running gags on the whole setting, especially the Moon Cell Holy Grail War, was that Tamamo was constantly denied the chance to get her time to shine in animation or promotional thing, with Nero constantly hogging all the spotlight (Tamamo was just relegated as The Cameo for Fate/Extra Last Encore), and she was being upstaged by her Evil Counterpart (Koyanskaya) in Fate/Grand Order's main storyline. Therefore, the sight of Tamamo finally getting an animated self resounds to Tamamo finally getting a bone thrown to her.
  • Dangerous Beast Lancelot^Explanation The scene of Lancelot dressing up in Mash's Dangerous Beats outfit and doing a terrible job at recreating the original Craft Essence's pose got a lot of attention from fans, who jokingly treat it as the ultimate Brain Bleach moment and somehow more horrifying than the genuine Nightmare Fuel found in the Nasuverse.
• Unexpected Character:
  • No one was expecting the female Ritsuka to be the main character when previous adaptations had used the male version, especially when the female version’s only animated appearances being Learning with Manga! FGO and a cameo in First Order. Additionally when the full opening sequence was released, few would expect Artemis' True giant mecha form (as shown in the Atlantis Lostbelt) to appear.
  • Helena Blavatsky in the first season, who instead of being either her Caster or Archer self from the mobile game, she's classified as a Rider like the Christmas variant from the arcade version.