Anime Review - Carnival Phantasm

Having gone through the melodramatic gravitas of Fate Stay Night, both regular route and limited play works, its prequel Fate Zero, and the adaptation of the visual novel that came out first from Type-Moon, Tsukihime, if I was to describe the next Type-Moon anime to come out during this period, I would describe it with the phrase, Carnival Phantasm is an adaptation of a comedic manga series that put the characters from Fate Stay Night and Tsukihime, along with spinoff works like Melty Blood, in a variety of comedic scenarios. The scenarios don't have any sort of coherent narrative to them, at least across the take the form of a variety of comedy sketches. The sketches range from everything where three of the characters from Tsukihime and Melty Blood perform as a manzai group, to the Holy Grail War being done as both a Japanese game show and a wacky racist-style car race in two different episodes. The jokes tend towards the absurdist with the side of the slapstick. Generally this works, though there are a few bits where the show does jokes based on how absurdly melodramatic and dark the bits from the various works inspired by it can be, and those jokes come across as less funny due to the absurdity and more hateful and mean-spirited. What helps the show is the fact that because both visual novel series have elements of harem comedy to them, or harem series in general to them, when the show brings in more harem comedy elements as the basis for some of the sketches, like the one where Saber takes a job at a cafe to buy Shiro a birthday present, it fits in perfectly. The one bit which could be a bit of a hurdle for entry is some of the jokes in the show are based on elements of the games which are not particularly accessible if you haven't played them all. Major characters from the show include characters from Melty Blood, which only recently got a US release on Steam and only with the final installment of the series, or elements from the expansion story from Fate Stainite, Fate Hollow Atraxia. Unfortunately, as of yet, Carnival Phantasm has yet to receive a US license. This is a bummer because it's an absolutely hilarious show, one which I think would really hit off the fans, though the inclusion of characters from those other two games would be something of a bummer. Honestly, I think successive stuff like Pop Team Epic would definitely show that there's an audience and market here for these characters, and the fact that we've gotten Days Many With Emiya Family leads me to hope that at some point someone will get the hint and officially bring out Carnival Phantasm. Still, as of yet again, the show is unavailable for streaming, and I think it's definitely worth a test run on a streaming service like Regiroll or HiDive, or maybe not Amazon, but something, before getting a full on-disc physical release. I'd love to see this get a dub. If it didn't get a dub, that's okay too, but at the very least, I'd just like to see it come out so that you and all can financially support it. So instead, what we're going to do is, as a recommendation for people who are interested in supporting this, where I can show that you're interested in the character, I'm going to try to put in the doobly-doo below referral links to where you can find, if not a referral link, at least a link to a place where you can get, say, Saber Lion merchandise, since the character of Saber Lion is featured prominently in one of the sketches in this show. Thank you very much for watching. If you enjoyed the show, please like and subscribe, and also consider backing my Patreon. Patreon backers get episodes up to one week early of this show, and any future Let's Plays. Also, please consider backing my Ko-fi. Tossing me a few bucks also helps support the show, and it's not a monthly obligation or anything like that.