The Fall 2019 Manga Guide

Fate Grand Order

What's It About? 

It is 2016, and in the snowy mountains a secret society called The Chaldea Security Organization wiles away. There is the preserve the flow, the currents and development of history so that humanity might one day grasp the stars. There's an issue, however. The apocalypse is coming. In order to restabilize human history and fix the holes in time, the organization has developed time travel and is sending their agents back to various points in the past to save the world. But just as the agents are about to be dispatched, a sudden catastrophe occurs, and the only two able to go back are the fresh-faced young one Mash Kyrelight and Ritsuka Fujimaru. And so begins an alternate, dark history, as the world falls down around them. The two must bond together, use their powers as mage and servant as sudden, unwitting participants in a sudden war for the Holy Grail, and confront the much more sinister powers that are behind the end of humanity. Powers that might be closer to them than they ever realized.

Fate/Grand Order -mortalis:stella- is an adaptation of the prologue of the Fate/Grand Order mobile game, with art by Shirahime. It is published by Kodansha, retailing for $10.99 physically and $12.99 physically. Fate/Grand Order is a part of the Fate franchise of games, anime, and manga, which first began with the visual novel Fate/stay night. An anime adaptation of Fate/Grand Order has also been produced and is available on Crunchyroll. The original game is avalible on most App storefronts.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Faye Hopper

Rating:

Fate/Grand Order -mortalis:stella- is the adaptation of the Gacha game to end all Gacha games. Or at least, its prologue. For me, Fate GO has always been a weird, outside phenomena I observe and hear occasional things about from the few friends I have stuck in the Gacha grind. So, separated from the dialogue boxes and predatory business practices of its original rendition, how does it hold up?

Well, it should be said that as someone who liked Fate/Zero and then departed the Fate franchise entirely, this is probably not a book meant for me. After all, the story is a twisted version of the events of Fate/stay night, taking place in the same town and featuring corrupted versions of Saber and Archer. I haven't played or watched Fate/stay night, so the fun riffs on old characterizations and locations mean nothing to me. And the new context to justify the premise of Fate Go doesn't resonate with or mean much to me either. I had a lot of trouble wrapping my head around even the basic conflict (it's a rush to save the world, yes, but from a psuedo-philsophical ‘end of history and human development ’perspective that I think might have been instigated by space aliens), and all the exposition dumps and convoluted chains of reasoning just made my eyes glaze over.

And then there's the elephant in the room: Nasu. A lot has been said of Kinoko Nasu's writing (I'm fairly certain he wrote the original script for this, if the dialogue is any indication). I knew going in about his grandiloquent, purple prouse, his interest in complicated magic systems and world-building features, and his infamously terrible treatment of his female characters. Well, all this and more abounds in Mortalis: Stella. Nasu's characterization is founded on a solid, potentially compelling basis (like how Mash learns what it is to be alive through her relationship with Ritsuka) but is overexplained and counter-productive to the extent where any emotion that could be wrung out of character arcs is voided. And the treatment is just as bad as I assumed it would be. One particularly egregious example is when Olga, a high ranking member of Chaldea who is presented as confident and ambitious, is gratuitously murdered in a really horrible fashion and shamed for her ‘idiocy’ by the main villain. It can't help but feel like Nasu is looking down on and angrily taking the agency away from any woman who tries to rise above her station. Its unpleasant and gross.

Mortalis: Stella certainly did not get me interested in playing the mobile game this is based on. As advertising, especially for a newbie, it just madde me confused and even more wary. And as a standalone adaptation, it doesn't offer anything new or meaningfully improve what was already there. Not recommended unless you're super into Fate GO already.