Set during the game's Cosmos in the Lostbelt arc, this series depicts Chaldea's struggles to reverse the bleaching of Earth as they're hampered every step of the way by one little problem: Ritsuka Fujimaru, humanity's only hope for survival, is a complete ditz.
The comic was adapted to a 34-episode series of animated shorts by Studio DLE, premiering on New Year's Eve 2022 with further shorts released weekly every Tuesday on the Fate/Grand Order YouTube channel
. An official English translation of the shorts, under the title You've Lost Ritsuka Fujimaru, began release on Aniplex USA's YouTube channel in July 2023, with the New Year's Eve special on July 3rd (a Monday) then following the original's release schedule thereafter (once a week on Tuesdays).
Also see Learning with Manga! FGO, the first Fate/Grand Order webcomic, which also pokes fun at the game but in a different direction.
Tropes featured in the series:
- Bait-and-Switch Silhouette: The Silhouette Quiz segments of the anime feature a silhouette that appears to be something relevant to the episode, only to end up being something completely out of the left field. For example, episode 3's silhouette appears to be the sandwich Heracles was eating, only for it to turn out to be a Siberian cake. Episode 5 subverts this where the silhouette resembling Yu Mei-ren really is Yu Mei-ren, with the caption asking the viewer if they have a problem with that.
- Beige Prose: Fujimaru has writer's block for his mission reports on Lostbelts. Sei Shounagon eventually encourages him to just write up his basic impressions of everything in Russia, which just turns into one-word descriptions of almost everything from "Emo" (Kadoc and Anastasia) to "Fluffy" (Patxi) to "Super scary elephant" (Lostbelt Ivan the Terrible). In a later episode, Ritsuka dumps the job on Douman, resulting in the opposite problem when he writes with the Antiquated Linguistics and Purple Prose you'd expect from a Kabuki script.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Episode 21 sees Nightingale and Asclepius taking preventative measures against sickness, instructing Fujimaru and Mash to wash their hands, gargle, and be incinerated by Kiyohime's Noble Phantasm.Nightingale: The Virus will be gone if we incinerate them in high temperature for a while.Fujimaru: I'm the one who will be dead here!
- Came Back Wrong: It turns out that Yu Mei-ren using her Noble Phantasm too many times has this effect, as she finds it harder to regenerate and makes her really short or overly tall. Xiang Yu calculates that her next regeneration will have her be absurdly wide.
- The Cameo: The Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA version of Illya appears in episode 10 when Fujimaru goes through the magical girls that Chaldea has.
- Character Exaggeration: The entire point of the manga is that Bunny-Ears Lawyer Ritsuka Fujimaru is depicted as far more air-headed and clueless than he is in canon.
- Covert Pervert: The punchline to chapter 10 is Meunière has been spying on Nemo in the vents the whole time.
- Credits Gag: The anime credits usually feature Fou energetically running in place like in the game's loading screen as a remix of the main theme plays. Episode 10 features Fou plodding along in despair while humming an off-key version of the theme because he's too depressed at being called a Magical Girl mascot by Blackbeard. Episode 20 similarly has Achilles running in place instead after being summoned to power the Storm Border, replacing Fou entirely.
- Crossover Cameo: The animated series briefly returned for Fate/Grand Order's New Year's 2024 stream, consisting of short scenes interspersed with Japanese kanji occasionally popping up that eventually spelled "ヤマトタケル" — or in English, "Yamato Takeru". Cue Takeru showing up in The Stinger asking for rice, with Fujimaru and Mash having no idea who they are. This is immediately followed by a Smash Cut to Takeru's Servant reveal trailer for the game.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The comic strips are only in black and white. Bonus panels have a Splash of Color and the anime completely forgoes being monochrome.
- Dub Induced Plothole: The central gag of episode 8 is based on Tsuna's summoning line, where he claims to only be good at "cutting down oni". Ritsuka misinterprets this as meaning he's no good at cutting anything but oni, resulting in a welcome party with pre-sliced, bite-sized food. However, the game translated the summoning line as "slaughtering oni", and the translation of the anime matches that wording without doing anything to adapt the joke, resulting in nonsense.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Nemo approves of Fujimaru's idea to implement some kind of garden in the Nautilus and Nemo Farmer to add to the Nemo Series because lack of fresh vegetables is a fairly notable hazard for sailors.
- Establishing Series Moment: The first chapter starts off right in the middle of Holmes' exposition on Chaldea's location in the Cosmos in the Lostbelt prologue arc as the Chaldea crew drives off in the Shadow Border... only to be carried off the rails from the game's script by this comic's version of Fujimaru who repeatedly tries to guess that they're somewhere in Japan. Holmes plays along with it and tells him it's somewhere higher than Japan, but Fujimaru keeps getting it wrong to Goredolf's consternation as the Straight Man. This establishes how the comics will adapt the game's story and the kind of humor going forward for the rest of the series.
- Every Device Is a Swiss-Army Knife: Bedivere's prosthetic arm is revealed to have a dozen tools crammed inside by Merlin from toilet paper within the forearm to each finger being a tool like fork, knife, ballpoint pen, and an actual army knife.
- Everything Explodes Ending: Chapter 12 features Maid Altria Alter showing up and exploding everything as cleanup for all of Fujimaru's unused inventory. Fujimaru then complains that endings where everything explodes are the worst.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: This comic is about Ritsuka Fujimaru who does not get things (or who is lost by situations).
- Exposition Beam: The Grail's ability to inform Servants about the era they're summoned to is parodied when the Knights of the Round Table start frantically arguing over whether to follow their classical signs of respect for Altria, or to follow the overly complex rituals of Japanese professional culture. It happens again when Kintoki tries to stop Tsuna from slicing a pizza during his own welcome party, only for Tsuna to say that the Grail told him about pizzas when he was summoned.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: The series aversion is parodied as the Knights of the Round inexplicably have knowledge of modern business etiquette given to them by the Grail. This includes what business card cases to carry, which none of them even have.
- Ill-Timed Sneeze: In Episode 21, Nightingale and Asclepius are trying to stop a cold from spreading. Both have taken proper hygienic precautions... but Asclepius sneezes anyway, because he's Patient Zero. Nightingale wasn't aware of this, and Asclepius' attempt to deny it is ruined because Kiyohime is a Living Lie Detector. The episode ends with both girls chasing him.
- Lighter and Softer: It skips the first storyline to go directly into the second storyline of the original game and keeps itself strictly to the in-between segments of the story when Chaldea has downtime at their Wandering Sea base to maintain its light humor.
- Mid-Battle Tea Break: Fujimaru falls asleep in the middle of a Singularity expedition while they're battling wolf people. Because FGO is a turn-based game, neither side can actually fight until Fujimaru gives Cú Chulainn and Mash his commands. The Servants eventually light a campfire out of boredom and start snacking with the enemies because they've got nothing better to do.
- Not So Above It All: While Fujimaru's ditzy moments are the focus, the other characters aren't immune to having their own stupidity-induced troubles either.
- Occidental Otaku: Episode 27 has Oberon fanboy over Mochizuki Chiyome to the point of talking like a Valley Girl due to her being an actual ninja and asks her to teach him some Ninjitsu techniques (which also includes the Prescence Concealment Special Class Skill of the Assassins), all of which are used against Merlin. Though considering his true identity, it's unknown if Oberon really is an otaku or if he's lying through his teeth yet again.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Fujimaru and Mandricardo start talking to each other but then get caught up in their own internal dilemmas (the former has forgotten the Servant's name because he uses "My Friend" so often and the latter thinks the Master doesn't want to bother with him) that they just start apologizing to each other on the spot after confirmation bias says that this is indeed what the other is here to press at.
- Or Was It a Dream?: Some Singularities in the main game take place within Fujimaru's dreams (or by abducting him through his dreams), begging the question of how he physically retrieves Holy Grails from them. This series provides an answer in Episode 19: the Holy Grail quite literally pops into existence beside Fujimaru's pillow before he wakes up. Everyone is naturally baffled.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Servants are already canonically treated as tabletop RPG characters, but this series takes it further. Unlike the various serious adaptations of Grand Order, this is literally the world of the mobile game. In one strip, Mash, Cú Chulainn, and a few werewolves are forced to stand around staring at each other until the sun goes down because Fujimaru fell asleep before inputting commands, meaning the turn-based battle can't progress.
- Shout-Out: While the Silhouette Quiz is generally inspired by similar segments in other shows such as "Who's That Pokémon?", Episode 11 directly shouts out to Pokémon by presenting a perfect circle that turns out to be "a pudding seen from above". note
- Super-Deformed: Everyone is presented in a cute art style, which extends to even the werewolf enemies who have a much simpler and less aggressive face.
- Transforming Mecha: Fujimaru gets it into his head that the Shadow Border has to have a secret transformation into a mech that will also combine with other mechs and Mash also soon believes the same. Da Vinci, of course, did not add one because her adult self regarded combining mechs as implying that the original was imperfect but doesn't have the heart to tell them. Holmes deflects it by claiming it's a secret but tells da Vinci in private that she should add a transforming function sooner than later.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Assassin of the Nightless City freaks out the moment Fou pops up in front of her, thinking he's a cat and kicking off Episode 10.
- Yaoi Fangirl: Implied with Osakabehime who takes a picture of Fujimaru and Mandricardo aggressively apologizing to each other.
