[Fate/Grand Order]
If
Fate/Zero was an A-tier studio adapting B-tier material, than
Fate/Grand Order is a C-tier studio adapting D-tier material. Or, in other words, this is the director of
Gosick, working at a studio you've never heard of, adapting the story a mobile game. Taking into account everything I've just said, I don't think there's much to be gained from criticising a work which no-one had high expectations for. That said, there's still a handful of issues that I think need to be raised, even judging this anime by it's own low-standards.
The first thing that struck me about this work was the sheer laziness of the direction. It felt as if every single scene was staged in the dullest, most thoughtless way possible. There is nothing conveyed by the cinematography, which is to say that there is no attempt made to create visually interesting shots. Generally all the characters are just arranged on straight lines, and the scenes are often shot at a flat angle with no depth. It's simple case of pointing the camera towards whatever needs to appear on screen:
The writing is sub
Fate/Stay Night-tier. I couldn't have imagined that this would star a blander protagonist than Shiro, but here we have a character who is literally a cipher that's no agency, no desire, no motivation, no traits. Hollow. As you'd imagine, he has some fantastic dialogue:
Does she look okay to you, mate? She's been crushed to death by rubble. I find it hard to believe that she's alive, so your comments are
bizarre at best.
So if this is shot poorly, the characters are thin and the dialogue is terrible, than what is the appeal? Well, this is fanservice for
Fate fans, featuring some "what if" scenarios that will no doubt tickle their interests. I mean, I'm sure everyone has been dying to know "What if Lancer was actually a Caster?" - riveting stuff.
If this is just an excuse to watch your favourite Fate characters duke it out, then
at the very least you'd expect the action to be good because this show has literally nothing else to work with. Unfortunately,
Grand Order fails to deliver even on this most basic of elements. I understand some people have said that "well, at least the action was decent" but I think this isn't true at all. Can you explain what makes these action sequences "good"? Are they creatively shot? Well animated? Is the choreography interesting? Are their any stakes? Are they surprising? The answer to all of these is - not at all. They're as flat and dull as the rest of the production. Sometimes the show threatens to have a well animated scene, such as this
one, but even that piece of animations looks unfinished, as if some of the in betweens haven't been completed.
What a waste of time.
Just five days until AOTY 2017.
