dragonballk's avatar

dragonballk

  • Canada
  • Joined Aug 10, 2015
  • 35 / M

Fate/Zero

Jun 11, 2018

THIS REVIEW IS FOR BOTH SEASONS OF THE FATE/ZERO SERIES.

STORY:

 Fate/Zero has an excellent premise. Once every certain amount of  years, 7 members of the world's magic community are chosen to summon powerful heroes from history to take part in a magical, battle royal, world cup type of tournament, with the holy grail as the prize for the winner.

 Each member of the magic community is known as a Master. Each figure from history is known as a heroic spirit. Each heroic spirit represents a class of fighter. There is a Lancer, Archer, Berserker, Caster (magician), Saber (Sword fighter), etc. There are quite a few positive elements to the story. Unexpected plot twists abound, and even the ones you can see coming are still good enough that you aren't disappointed when it happens. And The ending I feel is actually really well executed. The idea that the grail can only grant ones wish in a manner that the person is actually capable of themself, adds some much needed intensity to the last couple episodes.

 This series focuses mostly on Saber (each heroic spirit's class seems to double as it's nickname), who is King Arthur brought back to life (sort of), her Master, known as the mage killer, and his accomplices and their struggle to emerge from the holy grail war victorious. 

 Unfortunately, the execution of the story as a whole leaves much to be desired, especially after season 1. The first 13 episodes are 95% dialogue. That's a lot of dialogue. I mean, we're talking "Death Note" territory here with the amount of talking. I hated Death Note, and still do, with an un dying passion. . This issue was definately addressed in the second season, with a lot more action and fight scenes and back stories for important characters. However the problem of too much dialogue is still somewhat there, and is compounded with the addition of an unholy a mount of inner monologue. 

 There is also some minor plot hole-ish problems with the story for me. For example, One of the masters, Archibald sets up a bunch of magical traps in a hotel in one episode, then in the next, he calls kiritsugu pathetic for using traps. Another example takes place in episode 8 when Lancer and saber team up against caster. Lancer gets a clean shot at caster in a last ditch effort, but instead of striking the finishing blow, Lancer just temporarily destroys the book that gives caster his powers.

 It is really disappointing that the first season of Fate/Zero was more of a podcast then an anime, cuz it did have potential to be one of my favorites. While it did a lot in the second half to redeem itself, it was never quite able to live up to what I feel it could have been.

ANIMATION: 

 The animation is pretty good throughout the anime, but again it is a victim of this series' habit of talking to much. There is small glimpses of how good this series can be, you we don't really get to see the full extent of the animation until the second half when they stop talking as much.

CHARACTERS: 

  The wide range of characters in this series is excellent in my opinion. I feel as though it is a very realistic series in terms of how any given character has respect/common values with any other character one minute, and the next they are discovering that they don't have as much in common as they thought.

 By the end of it, there is no real good guy. There is definitely a bad guy, but the rest of the cast is really just an assortment of flawed anti heroes, fighting, and killing for their own justifiable reasons. And I liked that aspect. 

 I'm not really a fan of making King Arthur a woman though. I feel for a series to be grounded so much in history, they would have been better off taking an actual female from history if they wanted to have a strong female lead for this story. 

7/10 story
8.5/10 animation
7.5/10 sound
8/10 characters
7.7/10 overall

You must be logged in to leave comments. or

There are no comments - leave one to be the first!