Fate/Grand Order: Moonlight/Lostroom

All hail Marisbilly Animusphere! Visionary of Clocktower, unrecognized genius within 12 lords, the ONLY magus smart enough to realize you can't research the root if the world goes kaboom.

What a year it have been, from Sakurai to end with Meteo, from the urban sin-filled Shinjuku to the mysterious Salem. Another harsh year pasted for Chaldea crew while they deal with issues while wiping the clock tower's butt.

By the way the Clock Tower F***ed up again, not that this is news, since within the three pillars of Mages, Clock Tower is at pretty much the bottom of the barrel, with an intelligent lord ratio of 2/12. ... (one being Waver, the other being Marisbilly).

Anyway, Moonlight/Lostroom, is a prequel to FGO Cosmos in the Lostbelt, so if you don't have a DEEP understanding of Nasuverse ins and outs, and is not up to date with the most recent major Nasuverse events you are not going to understand a thing. So no need to watch this if you are a newcomer. Think of Nasuverse as a game, this is the patch of the latest version, with all the nerfs and buffs, which is incompatible to old versions.

As for the rest interested, here is a plot summary/review (FULL Spoiler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moonlight/Lostroom deals with the aftermath after cleaning up the sub-singularities after Romani's self-detonation to defeat Beast 1, with the Quantum time locks restored and Human Order fixed, Chaldea finally returned to the regular timeline as the world outside is no longer an incinerated wasteland.

However, the world still missed a year due to Goetia (Human Order Correction Protocol), in addition, so the Clock Tower with their usual "didn't do anything, but want all the benefits" attitude decide to use the chance of the Animusphere family's chaos over losing their lord again to steal away control of Chaldea and rip it to pieces and sell the remains.

Yeah, the Clock Tower are assholes with no foresight (the fact Chaldea saved their asses multiple times in the past 2 years seem to be completely ignored in their fit of greed and arrogance), unsurprisingly. Luckily Chaldea is bought entirely by another unknown magus family entirely before this plan came into fruition, and as a result, they are planning to welcome the new director to Chaldea. This is where Moonlight/Lostroom began.

The timeline within the OVA, seems weird, but it is actually very simple, if you understand what is happening.

Moonlight/Lostroom is a special room in Chaldea that is said to show you what is lost, and basically conducts therapy on those who enter it. (Also seem to function more powerful to those who have high leyshift adaptability, we'll get to that)

As a result, majority of what happened is a dream-sequence, only two things is real, Ritsuka entering the room and everything after him leaving.

The first part before he enters is a dream sequence of Olgamary, who after getting tossed into Chaldeas and incinerated, might have fused with it and became a higher being (at least I am 90% sure it is her, plus we are missing Laplace). As a result, she doesn't really realize she is sort of dead and her dream-sequence consists of knowledge that should only be known to very little, and why there is a very cryptic speech from Beast 1 in her dream sequence.

Besides background knowledge on Chaldea's formation and important devices, the most import part is Goetia/Flauros's discussion with Olga. He states that the current Human Order, while beautiful is still very fragile, a single mistake from the current humans could end it all. He (in his own misguided way) tried to remove all the pebbles from the path, and while he failed (lost to Ritsuka and Romani) he believes that there must be more people to carry the burden to face what the future holds. So he asked Olga whether she would choose to become a burden or one who carries the burden or one of the pebbles on the road, before Olga could come up with an answer, Goetia/Flauros's ghost/memory left the room.

Second part, after Ritsuka, enters deals with his thoughts on him position, that even though he have managed to defeat Beast 1, 2, 3-R and the demon pillars, he felt his limits as a regular human that can't be overcome no matter how hard he trains. But decides that what matters most is him giving it all he can, that is what the "Last Master of the Human Order" should do, that he is not defined by his limits but his efforts. This also answered some of Olga's own doubts, therefore she left the room.

The last major part, is Ritsuka suffering from another heavy "dream". As long-term FGO follower should know, having contracts with hundreds of servants and having a VERY HIGH leyshift compatibility (he is basically a mini-throne at this point). Ritsuka suffers from "dreams" a lot, which is sort of soul-out-of-body/leyshift experience, it got so bad at some points that Dante have to routinely enter his mind to clear out some of the debris left in his mind so his soul remain healthy. (I don't think he actually have regular dreams anymore)

This time, triggered by the Lost room, Ritsuka "dreamed" of meeting Galahad(?), who questions his decision on stopping Goetia's incineration plan, stating that regardless of whether Goetia did it or not, Human Order possesses no future,and a burned ruin might be preferred to what comes next. Confused over Glahad's statement, Ritsuka is woken up by the sound of Romani and find himself back in the Lostroom.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Overall, it is a very good prologue to Cosmos in the Lostbelt, and a toast to another year of epic adventures within the sea of time.....as long as Minase is not writing.

P.S. Marisbilly turns out is also a talented scientist (he managed to rope in some fellow cosmic ray physicists into Chaldea), and holds one the 4 remaining contracts with Atlas. Man, can this man be anymore awesome! Kind of explains why the other lords consider him a weirdo/sham, which is so funny. One of the only two smart lords in Clock Tower, who contributed the most to society, managed to create a highly advanced mage-craft and technology organization that can save the world, and could be the closest to actually reaching the root with highly advanced ideas and visions, is looked down by idiots who thought he was a sham.

Once again, I felt puzzled ever since Helena's assassination, why the Clock Tower haven't collapsed in on itself yet due to its stupidity.

Okay, there's not really much of a point in writing this since the reviews above mine have already thoroughly explained what this entire Special is about but I'm going to go into a more in-depth explanation of what the hell was going on throughout the anime

MAL guidelines say not to include summaries and that the synopsis is already written but did you see how ridiculously short the synopsis was when this anime is one of the most 'confusing' Fate anime with so many of you leaving such a low rating because of that


MAJOR DISCLAIMER:
FIRST OFF, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS
SECONDLY, PLEASE DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ... WANT DYNAMIC SICK ASS FIGHT SCENES. YOU'RE BETTER OFF WATCHING ANY OTHER FATE ANIME.


Basically to summarise again, this Special takes place after Epic of Remnant which is essentially Chapter 1.5
Moonlight/Lostroom is the 'prologue' for Chapter 2, Cosmos in the Lostbelt. So I'll be frank, you WILL NOT be able to understand ANY DAMN THING if you do not play FGO / if you do not know the story leading up to Epic of Remnant.

Before Epic of Remnant, it was Chapter 1, Observer on Timeless Temple which is basically Solomon's arc.

I suggest you recap yourself first before watching as many people are already confused af despite playing FGO

[Here's a link to a reddit thread that compiled all the stories into multiple separate threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/6yk9ql/story_summary_compilation/]
Credits to Fou-kun

Now, with all the major shit and the singularities settled (Epic of Remnant and Temple of Time)...
The Clocktower or more precisely, the Mage's Association wanted to split Chaldea but some Magus family clutched and purchased Chaldea before the Clocktower could get their dirty hands on it.
Lostroom is basically a room that has all things 'lost', memories, beings etc we don't really know exactly
But basically, Olga, Romani and Lev were conversing. Those 3 are deceased, Olga got killed by Lev (watch FGO First Order), Lev (defeated by Romani and Ritsuka), Romani (Solomon using Ars Nova and 'erasing' himself)
Since Romani is technically 'non-existent' (because he 'erased' his entire existence with Ars Nova), you can say Olga is talking to Lev and Mashu only.
That's also the reason why Mashu said that Olga could not be replaced at the beginning and near the ending she said that 'We only made it this far thanks to you, after all, it was you, Olga that acted as our navigator and allowed us to eliminate the singularities in France, Rome, Okeanus etc
Remember. Romani was the one that was with them throughout all the singularities, not Olga.




Now that I've explained why Romani wasn't there, I'm going to explain what Olga, Lev, Romani, and Mashu were discussing about.

Also, I never mentioned Mashu, why was she there when she's not 'lost' well, that's because the character inside the room before Ritsuka entered was the Mashu inside Olga's memories. Yes, the first portion was about Olga.
This is important, Lev (Demon God Pillar Flauros) conveyed his ideals to her, the part about the pebbles. He chose to remove them instead of carrying them. The pebbles were the burden of humanity.
So he asked Olga if she would be the one to carry that burden.




Then, Lev left as Ritsuka walked in. It was at that moment where you can sort of relate to in Chapter 1-2.
To be blunt, you can relate it to when Ritsuka defeated his/her first Demon God Pillar Flauros (aka Lev). I'm guessing Lev walking out as Ritsuka walks in is a sort of symbol for when Lev was defeated by Ritsuka.

That doesn't really matter, however, Olga didn't answer Lev when he left (haha rhymed) and Ritsuka sort of just interrupted them (again, can relate to Chapt 2 Fuyuki when Flauros was defeated)



So moving on, Ritsuka enters the room and talked to Olga. That was kind of like transition from Olga's "memories" to Ritsuka's current state. Ritsuka is basically trying to solve some insecurities about his worth and the meaning for all the experiences that he'd gone through up until now, with some words of advice from his servants and Mashu of course.

Ritsuka has a history of falling asleep all around Chaldea, it's probably because of his constant rayshifting that his dreams sometimes become extremely vivid and real in a sense. He has an enormous amount of servants and we all know alot of things can happen in his dreams, even a potential singularity can occur in his dream. Naturally, as @ap1001 said in his own review, it comes to the point where Edmond Dantes has to occasionally enter his dreams to help him out.



Alright, with that, I'm going to explain Olga's part. The whole scene with Olga fighting alongside Ritsuka as a Master is just a delusion she's created to justify her existence and deny her death. It never actually happened. Once she actually meets Ritsuka in the room she realizes the truth and is able to leave the room and return to reality (where shes dead).
And therefore, she left the room.



Then, Ritsuka asked Mashu 'Who was that again?' and before Mashu could answer, a voice spoke to him:

"She's nobody"
"She's someone that couldn't reach this future"

Right after, Ritsuka was thrown into a Fuyuki-like place where he witnesses like 6 servants including Saber Alter get destroyed by this one dude with a shield (Yes, Tate no Yuusha is a FGO reference)

That shield hero was Gaylahad, he's the one that fused with Mashu and disappeared after giving Mashu everything he had.
Galahad told him that he was about to meet a fate even more fucked up than the fate Goetia would've brought them (incineration of the world)
He showed Ritsuka that fate was worse in the future because the world would literally be a blank sheet, no life, nothing.
He also said that the King of Magecraft, Solomon once said 'You would be happier by not doing anything'
Because it would be better if there was something to incinerate, at least there would still something..

Galahad said that humanity WILL cease to exist one year from now. Because we saved the Human Order.

And with that, Ritsuka heard Romani call him to wake up.

Then we see some being in the room watching him, I have no idea who or what that was but I have my own suspicions.

Afterwards, we see Mashu meetup with him and we get a glimpse of the new Director, a short chit chat session and finally...


We see a chair with the 10 Rings.



-



I hope I didn't confuse you even further but that's how it is.

They were also talking about CHALDEAS, SHEBA and the TRISMEGISTUS.

Basically, to summarise

CHALDEAS - the thing that sees the future and past of the world (aka the soul of the world), the one that Lev incinerated Olga with by throwing her into it.

SHEBA - The machine that can see into the near future (The current era) it can also look abit into past eras tho much harder

TRISMEGISTUS - Basically helps with rayshifting and it assists alongside LAPLACE in the real-time analysis of phenomenon observed via SHEBA.

LAPLACE - Sees the past, stuff that isn't recorded down in your history books basically, it can look into the 'forgotten' past or 'hidden' past

and then we have

FATE - the thing to summon servants

As a breakdown, Solomon was the first servant, Galahad was second followed by Da Vinci being the third.

That's probably also why the 3 of them 'knew' each other pretty well.

Finally, a common misconception.

Noticed that I put an apostrophe whenever I mentioned Solomon 'erasing' himself?
Solomon didn't erase himself, his NP, Ars Nova basically fulfills everything he's set out to do.
Like how Buddha was the one and only being to achieve enlightenment, Solomon's NP is the same in the sense that he achieves enlightenment by completing everything.

It forcibly terminates Solomon's every unfinished business (including the Human Order Guidance Protocol aka Goetia which unravels said treeman into constituent Pillars). A side effect of it does, however, make Solomon utterly without attachments and so unreachable for summoning from that point onwards.

So, Solomon did exist but he isn't related to anyone at all (which is impossible) therefore making Solomon exist but non-existent in people's memories and in history.

NOTE THAT I SAID SOLOMON ONLY.

Yes, ma boi Romani will NEVA BE FORGOTTEN



With that bois, good luck with rolls coz SOLOMON and GALAHAD will be our up and coming new servants
(Im lying jk)







This review was written on 01-21-20 and may be outdated. I may have changed my rating due to various reasons.

I watched the first Fate Grand Order OVA and thought it was Meh. This is truly a step down from my already lowered expectations. A small action scene at the start with better animation than the last OVA gave me hope. Only for that hope to be crushed with a nearly 20 minute exposition scene followed by an ok action scene and then followed by more exposition. This is terrible. I don't reccomend anyone watches this. I finished it purely for the completion factor but if you do this to yourself with this knowledge you might be a masochist. Fate Grand Order's story in the ... mobile game has always been boring to me but seeing this animated is even more boring than the mobile game. So much talk of terms that will never be relevant, explaining various things that don't need to be explained for the OVA. There is so much exposition and no delivery on anything relevant to it. I can't believe this was made.