YMMV / Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia

• Anticlimax Boss: The rematch with Gorgon in episode 15 only lasts for a few minutes, which is a stark contrast to her appearance seven episodes earlier. Since a lot of fans were hoping for another epic clash, this time with Ana involved in the fighting, many were disappointed by how quickly it was ended. While there are some reasons it's justified she would be weaker and the whole point of Gorgon was that she was a Bait-and-Switch for the real Big Bad Tiamat, the fight is so quick that it begs the question why the fight didn't last longer, especially when the final fight with the other goddesses lasted almost an entire episode.
• Awesome Ego:
  • Merlin is completely egotistical, believing he'll outshine every other Caster Servant, but, at the same time, he is a Grand Caster candidate and one of the most famous wizards in history. Even now, years after he was first released, Merlin is widely considered one of the best—if not the best—Servant the game has created. If the show's version is on par, his ego is likely justified.
  • Gilgamesh also fits despite it not being to the same degree as his Archer self. He's wiser and more mature as a result of having settled down to rule Uruk, but he's still extremely arrogant and supremely confident in his skills. The combination of his ego in conjunction with his additional maturity ends up making him even well-liked by people who hate his Archer version!
• Continuity Lockout: Because this singularity is the penultimate event of the game's first storyline, it is expected that viewers know what had happened in the past singularities and the major twists such as the supposed identity of the Big Bad and the name of the Heroic Spirit inside Mash and her true Noble Phantasm. The latter part is expected to be explained in the two film adaptations of the Camelot singularity, the first of which was released in 2020.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Siduri technically already was a fan favorite thanks to her role in the game as well as her appearance as shopkeeper in an event, but the anime caused her popularity to explode. Being able to see her as a character capable of emoting (she had just a single portrait in-game) and interacting with other characters and the environment led to her capturing many people's hearts, and her death was one of the biggest Tear Jerkers in the whole series.
  • Similarly, episode 8 took Leonidas and Ushiwakamaru and cranked their popularity up to eleven. Both of them got even better showings against Gorgon than they did in the game. For the first time, fans got to see both of their Noble Phantasms in their full glory. Furthermore, Leonidas was able to deduce Gorgon's true identity, something he hadn't done in the game, and Ushiwakamaru was given a Heroic Second Wind that was animated beautifully. After their showings, many players immediately vowed to give one or both of them their spare Holy Grails, while many elsewhere began calling for both Servants to receive animation updates.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Siduri confusedly waving her hand to copy Ishtar's own white flag movement in episode 3 was funny. Siduri repeating that movement in episode 15 after being transformed into a Lamhu is heartbreaking. Especially since this let Fujimaru and Ishtar realize what happened to her much more explicitly than in the game.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Merlin brags that he's so good he'll make every other Caster Servant obsolete. He said that in the game too, but that was before he was available to players. This trope comes into play because Merlin had infamously been the biggest Game-Breaker in the game for nearly three years by the time of airing.
• Memetic Loser: After episode 17, Ishtar ended up joining the ranks of Aqua and Ristarte as being mocked for being a Useless Goddess.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Assolute Demonic Rear: Bootylonia^Explanation There have been quite a few ass shots thrown in throughout the anime, almost at a rate of Once an Episode.
    • Ishtar's feet^Explanation Ishtar became a huge favorite in the anime foot fetish community due to her barefoot attire and attempted foot-kissing contract, so many other viewers started jokingly praising Ishtar's feet everytime she came up.
  • Ishtar's dizzy face◊^Explanation Ishtar first made this face after being offered a wagonload of gold and gems if she would defect to Uruk and Chaldea's side in the conflict. She was torn between greedily lapping it all up and worrying that she was being conned, hence the dizzy remark. It's since been used as a reaction image, and has led to comparisons to a certain other useless goddess.
  • Fujimaru deploys Harem Protagonist EX.^Explanation The fact that Fujimaru chooses to simply flirt with/complement Jaguar Warrior instead of fighting her (and the fact that Merlin actually knows this is a thing he can do) builds on the out-of-universe assumption that the Player Character of FGO just has to be at least a really good Chick Magnet to handle his/her (potentially hundreds of) Servants. This gets another Call-Back when he finally confronts Ereshkigal, in that after the climactic fight between Mash and Ereshkigal, it only took him reminding her of their private conversations to reduce her into an inelegant blushing wreck.
  • NO JUSTICE BOMB 0/10 ^Explanation Episode 11 contained a fan-favorite scene from the story arc, in which the protagonist, realizing that Quetzalcoatl cannot be defeated and isn't evil, is lifted by Ishtar to over 200 meters, and either gets incredulously thrown off or embraces the silliness of the situation and shouts the name of a lucha libre move as they fall onto Quetzalcoatl. The anime not only played the scene very seriously, it relegated the impact to a cut-away shot that skipped over Quetzalcoatl saving Fujimaru from his fall.
  • Useless Goddess Ishtar^Explanation Episode 17 shows the long awaited scene when Ishtar reveals she lost Gugalanna, resulting in Gilgamesh calling her a useless goddess and later being forced to carry a tablet that says the same thing. Doesn't help that Ishtar's crying and whining is very similar to one of Aqua's breakdown, the originator of the useless goddess meme.
    • It isn't Ishtar's fault she lost the Bull of Heaven, it's Ishtar's!^{Explanation (spoilers for Fate/strange fake)}  It's strongly implied that Ishtar didn't actually lose the Bull of Heaven herself, but rather that Filia, Ishtar's incarnation in Fate/strange fake, summoned it from the Singularity to attack Gilgamesh and Enkidu. She saw it as a setting not connected to anything, so she figured it would do no harm to bring it from there. Oops.
  • Our quartz made this possible ^Explanation Fate/Grand Order is one of the highest-grossing mobile games of all time, if not in the #1 spot. As a result, they have a vast budget to work with, and going by the fan reception of the anime so far, the size of their budget really shows. Granted, part of the series' high quality is the number of people who volunteered to work on the project, but this kind of project needs a huge budget behind it. It's also a bit heartwarming in a meta sense, because it's helped some players come to terms with the amount of money they spent on the game if it could fund something as good as this adaptation.
• Moe:
  • Ana. Especially when sweets are concerned. Her reaction to the butter cake◊ was heart-meltingly adorable.
  • Ereshkigal may as well be the reigning queen of this trope. The CM for episode 13 even consists primarily of a series of clips of her blushing furiously.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Gilgamesh's laughter, as always. Fans were absolutely delighted to hear him laugh uproariously in episode 3.
• One-Scene Wonder: All the Servants in the montage of previous Singularities for both episode 0 and 1, as one of the few glimpses at Servants not in Babylonia getting a dedicated cameo.
• Pandering to the Base: The anime adaptation of the Babylonia singularity is clearly meant for Fate/Grand Order fans since it was voted as one of their favorite storylines in Part 1. Newcomers, including some Fate fans who never played the game, are a bit confused about what's going on. The First Order OVA and Episode 0 are there to give them the basics of the main characters and setting, but even then, it's still ideal if the viewer has actually played the game.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: While he is one of the series's most popular characters, Gilgamesh's ego tends to rub some people the wrong way. In comparison, his Caster incarnation shows emotional maturity and intelligence while still retaining his ego, therefore making him much more likable than his Archer incarnation.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Gorgon's emergence in episode 7. She bursts forth from beneath the ground and rises into the air, dwarfing the ziggurat in Nippur. Even people who had played through the Singularity in the mobile game were shocked by the sheer scale.
  • The arrival of the Lahmu upon Gorgon's death and Tiamat's awakening in episode 15. What was thought to be the Big Bad of the Singularity turns out to have been working in alignment with a much stronger entity — who wastes no time in birthing abominations that run amok and wantonly kill any humans they find. Even veterans of the mobile game were surprised by how creepy and brutal the episode was.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: Episode 0 spends most of its first two thirds on lengthy exposition and developing Marisbury Animusphere, a Posthumous Character.
• Tainted by the Preview: Or rather, tainted by the overseas distribution. Due to a new joint streaming deal, Funimation was the one getting the streaming rights to the series first rather than Crunchyroll as expected (Crunchyroll will instead be receiving episodes a month after they air). Keep in mind that Funimation has had no role in any of the Fate series before now, meaning that Crunchyroll, the platform that has almost every Fate anime (though, by the same deal, Funimation has since gotten nearly all of the Fate anime series to stream themselves), has to wait a full month before streaming to their subscribers, meaning viewers either have to pay up for Funimation, or seek 'alternative methods' to watch it. Fans were not happy about this, as it means that, like when Fate/Apocrypha was made exclusively available on Netflix, the show is not as conveniently available for them to watch as prior entries of the franchise. Though, to be fair, it's not as bad as Apocrypha, since it's still going up on Crunchyroll (unlike Apocrypha, which remains exclusive to Netflix) and they don't have to wait for series to finish entirely before having any legal means to watch it. Keep in mind that this was all prior to Crunchyroll taking over Funimation's brand.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: A big selling point for the series, even before it started airing. As noted here, an all-star team of staff was assembled and given a notably extended production time to work. Just about every action scene, regardless of length or significance, is well-animated. Character acting is frequent in quieter scenes. Visually, the series is polished to a shine.