#don't get me wrong i like the studio version but this goes so much harder live

[sanremengoni]

love that lonely spring sound that much better live

[shuttershocky]

What would be so bad about cloverworks doing it? They're capable of doing some pretty great work when they put their minds to it - hell, babylonia looks amazing!

And like, c'mon. Are you really saying you aren't interested in the idea of a fate anime made by the same team that created Bocchi the Rock? It might not necessarily be the same team, but that was cloverworks too!

The Babylonia team's vision of what FGO is and what I would want out of a Shimousa adaption is fundamentally different, even if I don't think the Babylonia team was even wrong with their safe direction and all the fanservice.

Yes FGO is primarily concerned with with easily marketable big bombastic superheroics and selling sexy fanservice, and yes this really is where Fate as a franchise has been heading in the last decade so the Babylonia anime leering over Mash all the time is not actually out of line with what FGO already does, but that's never been what I liked about it. It's certainly not what I liked about Shimousa.

The studio is clearly competent and know how to focus on adapting the spirit of a work rather than simple translation between mediums to be able to adapt a 4koma like Bocchi into the very good anime it (apparently, I haven't watched it yet) is now, I just don't like what they chose to do with Babylonia.

I loved the first couple chapters of the Shimousa manga that I've read because it took the dark fantasy + horror tone of the original story and then went so fucking hard.

There's raw grit and terror and desperation leaping from the pages that the original VN format could only tell instead of show. It's less interested in selling Musashi as a mascot for merch and fanservice than it is in telling you exactly how much she's terrified for her life.

The Shimousa manga sacrificed mass marketability because they saw the game version has duels take place atop a field of skulls underneath a blood moon and said they absolutely had to go harder than that

Just look at how they did Raikou, Ms Big Boobah McGacha herself. She's absolutely still got her massive chest and there's even a shot dedicated to showing her figure, but that's not nearly as important as portraying just how much bigger she is as a monster

Basically, I thought Babylonia was both too safe and overly fanservicey for the sort of tone and aesthetic I want for a Shimousa adaption. Even the changes they did make for the anime like having Guda talk to Tiamat felt more like they realized they were missing a chance to sell yet another waifu and slipped that in, or just baffling to me like King Hassan eating the lahmu to look badass and intimidating when he's like... Grand Assassin.

The Shimousa manga certainly has lighthearted moments and it's also not above selling Musashi as a marketable mascot when there's time for it, but I just think it handles its storytelling the best out of... Any Type-Moon adaptation really (perhaps second only to Kara No Kyoukai Paradox Spiral) and when it's time to go hard it goes so much harder than I would have ever expected.

TL;DR - I just think the manga set the bar so high and Babylonia did not convince me that Cloverworks would be a good fit to clear it.

I'd like to be proven wrong, but I'm not getting my hopes up, if we even DO get an anime for Shimousa.