English Dub Review: Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia; “Awakening”

 

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

With the Lahmu chasing after the injured Kingu, Fujimaru and the crew chase after the stolen Grail before it can reach Tiamat and spread further destruction. 

Our Take

The unfurling of the depravity of the Lahmu continues, as their speech starts to become more comprehensible. They gleefully drone on about how they enjoy killing humans, reiterating the phrase like a talkative child. This just places them further along the disgusting horror spectrum, taking the tone of the show along with it. Their abject and unexplained distaste for humans also extends to Kingu, though not for very long.

After stabbing and extracting the Grail from Kingu, the Lahmu place him on at number one on their kill list and chase him into the forest. Kingu spends his escape questioning his birth and lamenting his fate, growing wearier by the second. He eventually gives up but is saved by a Lahmu that goes rogue. This Lahmu is the transformed Siduri, who saved Kingu simply because he looks like Enkidu. 

Kingu is heavily portrayed here as a tragic villain, who spent his life manipulating others and finds himself manipulated in the end. Kingu is, however, by his nature, a duplicitous and conniving jerk, so any tragic revelations that befall him don’t evoke any sympathy. Perhaps it’s not intended that we feel bad for Kingu, but rather take the example that was made of him as evidence of the terrifying, primordial nature of this new villain. 

Though with that said, there’s an aspect of sadness still at play here, and it seems to regard Enkidu. Enkidu’s story, however, has been told entirely in passing from tidbits given by the relevant characters and has never been fully detailed. I think the writers intended you to intuit it from having prior knowledge of The Epic of Gilgamesh. While I have some familiarity, asking everyone in the audience to have it seems like kind of a big ask. 

There are potent elements of what would be a truly sad story present. How Siduri overcomes her disfigurement and gives her life for what appears to Enkidu. How Kingu, hosted in Enkidu’s body, has vivid memories of Gilgamesh and Siduri that he can’t explain, evoking unwanted emotions in him. It’s all very effective, but the backstory that underlies it is cobbled together from passing fragments, which produces a less compelling result. 

The Lahmu that stole the Grail gets a power-up, sprouts wings, and flies off to give it to Tiamat. Ishtar flies off to intercept it, and Quetzalcoatl summons a couple of prehistoric-looking birds to tow everyone else in pursuit. I’m guessing she’s always had these birds available to her, so why didn’t she use them to help transport the party until just now? Either way, an aerial battle breaks out against the resilient winged Lahmu, ending in an epic combination attack where Quetzalcoatl spins out the Lahmu and Ishtar grapples it with her legs and slams it into the earth like a pro wrestler.  

As soon as they neutralize the Lahmu, an attacker emerges from the Persian Gulf and liberates it. The assailant is an undead corrupted Ushiwakamaru, created by Tiamat. Initially surprised like everyone else, Fujimaru immediately then identifies this Ushiwaka as an enemy and sets out to kill it. There easily could’ve been a cliche scene here where Fujimaru might’ve believed this was the real Ushiwaka and spent a good five minutes having another semantical conversation with it, but fortunately, we jump right into the action. 

The battle with the tainted Ushiwaka is the visual highlight of the episode. This Ushiwaka has the original’s trademark speed and launches into a lightning-fast, thrilling sword fight against the just as infamously fast Quetzalcoatl. Mash also joins the battle, this time showing off some cool new techniques to keep up with the pace by incorporating some shield-based martial arts in her rushing defensive offense. 

Ishtar uses her remaining magical energy to land a fatal blast against the Ushiwaka, another one emerges from the gulf and multiplies. After some more impressive swordplay from Quetzalcoatl against the army of Ushiwakas, Fujimaru gives his energy to Ishtar, who then shoots out a large multi-beam attack to eliminate all of the Ushiwakas as once, and for good. This battle might not have been the most visually innovative, but it easily had the most teamwork and cooperation between everyone, which is a refreshing tactic to behold. 

We finally get to see what Tiamat looks like, and her appearance is somewhat unconventional. She looks like a standard female demon/succubus, but she has some swathes of pink in her coloration, along with abnormally-shaped pupils. It’s a surprisingly modern anime villain design, but more than that, she’s mostly humanoid in appearance, in contrast to the bestial visages of the previous antagonists. This is most likely to fall in line with her billing as of the “Evils of Humanity.” She is, from what we’ve heard so far, born from humans and made to destroy humans. Her destructive nature would also explain the similarly misanthropic nature held by her children, the Lahmu.

The winged Lahmu delivers the Grail to Tiamat, unleashing more of her power. Through a debriefing with Gilgamesh, we all learn that the encroaching muddy ocean water turns anyone who touches it into an evil clone under the service of Tiamat. To further compound the severity, the ocean levels are steadily rising. The gang decides to end this all by going straight for the source of this catastrophe, Tiamat herself. 

Even amongst the heightening disaster, this episode is a good concentration of everything this anime has been so far: thrilling, high-end shonen-esque battles partnered with fragmented, apocryphal backstories. Maybe with this new supervillain, the ensuing adversity and drama will bring out some more much-need details for the latter of those two.