Fate/Grand Carnival New Year’s Eve Special 2020 Review
Fate/Grand Carnival First Singular Party: The Carnival Olympia of Heroic Spirits- Flame of Mad Festival

I’ve mentioned this before, but I loved Carnival Phantasm. It not only takes characters and situations from Fate/stay night and Tsukihime for comedic purposes, it also does a lot of general comedy parody stuff. Then I recently watched Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya: Prisma Phantasm, which is a comedic parody of the Prisma Illya series. That was pretty good, but not quite Carnival Phantasm good, mainly due to it missing the Neco Spirits.

That aside, numerous folks had pinged me, including on my Twitch streams, asking me if I’d watched Fate/Grand Carnival. Naturally, anything in the vein of Carnival Phantasm is going to make we want to watch it.

* * * S P O I L E R S ! * * *

The Introduction

At the cafe Ahnenerbe Chaldea, the Servant Neco Spirit named Mysterious Neko X takes a call for a delivery, which pisses her off. She learns that a new carnival is about to begin, so she and the rest of her Servant Neco Spirits discuss the matter.

The Neco Spirits weren’t the best thing about Carnival Phantasm, but they were the icing on the cake, at least for me. As such, I did miss their nutty presence in the Prisma Phantasm episode. Thankfully, they are back in Fate/Grand Carnival, though now taking the form of the Servants in FGO.

To that end, we have a Neco Spirit for Mysterious Heroine X (Assassin Artoria), Berserker Fran-chan (Frankenstein, in female form), Assassin King Hassan, and one other, whom I was not sure of. But they filled the rolls done in Carnival Phantasm.

Nero-Fest…Sort Of

The premise for Fate/Grand Carnival is that female FUJIMARU Ritsuka and her Demi-Servant, Mash, get word from Caster da Vinci that Finis Chaldea cannot support all of the Servants that have been summoned. As such, Ritsuka will need to get rid of some. Saber Nero proposes an Olympic festival to weed out the non-hackers. Ritsuka agrees to this.

For folks who’ve played Fate/Grand Order, there have been a few “Nero Fest” events. And this episode parodies that aspect of the game, though one doesn’t lose Servants. Between game events (the different story segments of the episode), we even get the loading screen from the game.

It is impossible to show all of the Servants in FGO, but some get visual cameos. Others get small, voiced cameos. And some Servants are based on the Japanese version of the game. (Fate/Grand Order in America is two years behind Japan.) And they even have the swimsuit Servants show up to swim, including Caster Nero. Funny, fun stuff. And having the female version of Ritsuka added an element of humor as well.

Getting No Respect!

I don’t know why, but Lancer Cu never seems to get any respect. In Carnival Phantasm, he sure took a comical beating at times. And it seems that in other, comedic Fate titles, Cu doesn’t get as much respect.

For Fate/Grand Carnival, that tradition continues. At the stadium, Lancer Cu objects to Saber Nero setting this event up. However, he, Caster Cu, and Prototype Lancer Cu decide they have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, the event bars 3-star Servants, so all three get flushed. Berserker Cu finds this amusing, only to find himself flushed, despite being a 5-star Servant. Why? Too many Cu Servants. 😂

But then Ritsuka refuses to let 3-star Rider Red Hare be flushed since she put so many resources into him. I don’t know the Red Hare Servant, but the moment did make me laugh.

Saber vs. Saber

My favorite part of Fate/Grand Carnival is when the original Saber Artoria has to battle Saber Nero. You have Saber Gawain (another 3-star Servant that wasn’t barred), Saber Lancelot, and Archer Tristan come to their “king”, Saber Artoria, to be her horse for the cavalry fight event. She agrees, which meets with Saber Nero’s approval. Saber Nero thinks Artoria has starred in too many Fate titles. And certainly in FGO, Artoria has a Servant form in almost every class.

Saber Nero gets the two Mecha Eli-chan Servants as well as Lancer Eli-chan to be her horses. This made me laugh as well, since Saber Nero and Lancer Eli-chan have a mission where they are the boss in Fate/Extella Link.

Needless to say, the two most popular Saber characters going all out, complete with Noble Phantasm strikes cracked me up.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

I have lingered on this review for over a week now. Work has been nutty of late. So let me wrap things up by stating that Fate/Grand Carnival is a great parody work, especially if you’ve played Fate/Grand Order. However, if you are aware of the different Servants from various other Fate titles, I think you will also find a lot of humor here as well. I can’t wait for the OVAs to drop later in the year.

Additional: The stuff with Orion and Artemis was pretty darn funny too.