Now I just need to get the screenshots and videos of Fate Babylonia’s episode 0 and FGO First Order. I watched both of them last night.
And honestly, I think I forgot a lot more about First Order than I thought. Like I didn’t realize that Olga Marie died like that. But I really enjoyed both of them, and they definitely made me like Romani more.
Romani is such a classic Nasu character, Mash was too (in part 1) in his story and characterisation .Minus the unnecessary comedic scenes to hide his role which are removed in adaptions- One of FGO characterisation weaknesses is that sacrifices character moments sometimes to prioritise the “plot twist” because tries to be built as a mystery one of the main genres. Adaptations don’t need to keep the “mystery” anymore, so we have more focused character moments like the added emotional scenes of David-Roman have in Turas Realta adaptation. This affects in particular plot important characters, or characters whose story and characterization are part of the mystery (Kirsch, Romani, for example) and not so much characters whose story aren’t important since they aren’t the plot (Goredolf, Pepe) so they can be portrayed straightforwardly.
From Part 2, Nasu writes Pepe, Kirschtaria, Beryl and Daybit from Team A. Daybit’s mysterious (but since you watched Initium Iter and notice the outline of the person who threatened Marisbury, it’s a match to his. This is a theory, not a spoiler, but if true, answered why “is the last Crypter” because he probably has information Guda and Co. are kept in the dark about Chaldea). Beryl’s a bit of a mishmash of his classic villains (but frankly, I don’t think his writing was that good, Nasu kinda dropped the ball of him), Pepe and Kirsch are also such classic Nasu characters, more cut on the anti heroic and heroic archetypes he explores.
Beautiful Koyama art. It’s a blessing that part 2 has great recurrent cast.
Next is a question about Beryl, Crypter of the English Lostbelt. He seemed to have had his eyes on Mash and Mash alone. Would you say that [his feelings for her] was the only thing that drove him?
Nasu: In contrast to Kirschtaria, who carried the fate of the world on his shoulders, Beryl is just an individual with no responsibilities whatsoever. He does only what he wants to do. He’s never been told to accomplish grand feats either. Basically, he just does what makes him happy.
In Olympus, Beryl caught Kirschtaria off guard and inflicted a mortal wound on him. But he never planned to do that from the start. He didn’t give a damn about whoever emerged victorious, be it Kirschtaria or Chaldea. Neither did he care if some “Foreign God” descended at all. All that mattered to him was for this world to be the type of environment he preferred. Which was why he couldn’t accept Kirschtaria’s plan to make humans into superior, godlike beings, and in the process have humans as a species overcome their weakness of repeatedly making mistakes. Beryl’s stance was basically, “That’s just plain boring. To hell with that. Guess I’ll have to kill you after all.”
As to why someone like him would go through great lengths of making a contract with the Foreign God in order to be revived, it’s because of his earnest wish to see Mash. That’s the only reason.
In the English Lostbelt, Beryl was working together with Baobhan Sith. What was she to him?
Nasu: She’s a friend who’s fun to be with that doubles as a handy tool he can use should the need arise. To Beryl, the atrocities he committed towards the fae folk, including Baobhan Sith, were just one part of his daily life. Beryl never saw the need to seal her fate himself because her soul was “as good as finished” after using a forbidden curse. That she never had to go down the path where she dies in the hands of her beloved was the silver lining to her situation.
From Beryl’s perspective, Morgan and Baobhan Sith’s relationship, the way their love for each other never seem to sync, is “perfectly commonplace” in human society. He neither felt obligated to intervene nor had any effort to spare to do so.
Beryl saw Baobhan Sith as a like-minded playmate and was simply working together with her as a friend who’s on the same wavelength as her. Baobhan Sith, a maiden in love with love, held Beryl very dear in her own way, but Beryl was only ever interested in Mash.
Speaking of which, the “clingy princess” Beryl mentioned in one of their Crypter meetings was Baobhan Sith, right? This was a widely discussed topic among fans on the internet…
Nasu: He was referring to Baobhan Sith for sure. The things Beryl said in that Crypter meeting were a pack of lies. The man’s a bad wolf. He laces and embellishes his lies with the truth, all the while hiding the important details. While it was true that Baobhan Sith followed him around, he deliberately phrased it in a way that would give others the wrong idea.
His job is to kill the other Crypters should the situation call for it, so he would never just tell them the truth. To put it another way, Beryl is looking down on the other six. If it ever comes down to a fight, he thinks he’d win. He may be ranked fourth in terms of combat prowess, but he’s more accustomed to killing than anyone. …That being said, Pepe actually outclasses him even when it comes to “killing”, something he never realized even in his final moments.
So does that make Peperoncino second to none in terms of combat prowess?
Nasu: Pepe would win in a simple 1v1 match to death, but Kirschtaria would be the one to emerge victorious in a frontal “war”. And regardless of the situation, the one to ultimately win would be Daybit due to his unpredictability. These three are more or less evenly matched, so winning boils down to compatibility. Assuming the two belong to the same category of strength, you could say Pepe is backward compatible with Beryl.
So we already know who would win if Beryl and Pepe were to clash head-on.
Nasu: That’s right. Beryl thinks he could kill Pepe in an instant if he wanted to, hence his arrogance. Meanwhile, Pepe, sensing what’s on Beryl’s mind, would just shrug it off like the adult he is. “Sure, if that’s what you think. You do you.”
For me Beryl’s existence is a reminder that being different is not always a good thing. No matter how annoying it seems sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is true, and better to follow it.
