"We are going to have peace even if we need to fight for it."
-Dwlight D. Eisenhower
You know, it's sometimes good to remind myself that anime is still worth defending. Yes, it's a medium that has basically built itself over the last few years on cute-girls doing cute things, and there's no doubt there's some weird crap in some anime that I care not to mention. There's way to much reliance on the idea that apparently every single anime needs to take place in a freakin' highschool, 90% of any given anime that comes out during a season is most likely awful, and anime writers usually fall back on typical character archetypes like the tsundere and such for almost every show. And yes, I have been watching a lot of bad anime recently, the kind of ones that make me want to claw my eyes out and start watching Korean dramas, but now today, I think it's time to start restoring my faith in anime again, because instead of talking about a terrible show for once, it's time to talk about one of my favorites. Not my absolute favorite, mind, I think I'll save that for a special occasion(though to be fair if you read this blog at all or know me in the slightest you probably already know what it is), but today's show, with its amazing characters and epic plot escalation, comes close to breaking that steel wall we call "brilliance". Too bad it basically drops the ball at the last second.
Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, and today I'll be taking a look at the highly acclaimed 2011 epic battle-royal with mystical heroes and animation brilliance extravaganza: Fate/Zero. Let me take a couple of deep breaths...OK...here we go.
Fate/Zero aired back in 2011 and was 25 episodes long(OK, it was technically two seasons of 13 and 12 episodes, but seriously, it's better to just consider them one anime) and acts a prequel to the 2006 action show Fate/stay night. Now if you haven't seen Fate/stay night, that's perfectly fine, it's not really necessary to view Fate/Zero, and besides it wasn't even that good or at this point, needed even. I'll explain. This original Fate/stay night was animated by Studio Dean, however Fate/Zero was handled by the wonderful people over at "ufotable", the studio who are responsible for the film series Kara no Kyoukai, whose last film ranks as my favorite anime film of all time. Now, the reason Studio Dean's Fate/stay night adaption may not be really relevant anymore is because ufotable is actually making their own Fate/stay night anime which is going to air this fall, most likely in the same universe that Fate/Zero took place in, and is probably going to be way better, though I've been disappointed before. Point is, know that Fate/stay night is not needed to understand Fate/Zero, and if you like the anime when you finish it, the choice is yours if you want to watch the Fate/stay night done by the same people, or if you want to watch the original.
Fate/Zero was written by the one and only Gen Urobuchi, you know, that guy who also wrote Madoka Magica, Psycho-pass, Aldnoah.Zero and other fantastic works, who seems to be currently writing about 7 shows at once? Yeah that guy. The anime was directed Ei Aoki(who was also responsible for directing the first Kara no Kyokai movie), and was adapted from a light novel also created by Mr. Gen Urobuchi. Now, that I'm finally done with introducing the review and the technical stuff, let's dive head first into the intriguing world of Fate/Zero.
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| "Team Saber", combatants in the Fourth Holy Grail War: from right to left, Saber, Kiritsugu, Iriviel. |
One of my favorite things about this anime is the premise; I find the whole Holy Grail just such an interesting concept, and unlike some other battle-royal anime *coughMirainikkicough*, Fate/Zero is able to take this premise and run with it. It goes almost all the routes you could possibly hope to expect, like secret alliances being formed, backstabbing, and plenty of epic battles with legendary historical figures in between. The story just keeps on building scale, creating a slowly climbing upward slope of quality, as the battles become more grandiose and the character's psyches are revealed, which not only leads to a really really effective surprise villain, but also turning my least favorite characters into one of my favorites by the end of it. Here's another one of Fate/Zero strengths which you'll notice when you start the show, there's not really a main character. Every master is given ample screen-time, enough to define their motivations and strategies, and this just means that there's no way of knowing who will be win the war at the end. Admittedly, this led to the master I was rooting for to totally lose the war in every way possible, but still, it's a good concept. And even when the anime does start concentrating on one certain master about half-way through the anime, well, let's just say that doesn't quite end as expected either. But I'll be complaining about that later on in this review.
Speaking of complaining, that reminds me, Fate/Zero isn't a perfect anime, no matter how much it tries to fool me. The first problem is that everything takes way to long to set up. The first episode is basically 40 minutes of straight exposition on the war defining the rules, and since the Holy Grail is such a lore-heavy little thing, trust me, there are a lot of rules. This really is the most boring part of an already dialogue-heavy show, and even when you finish that television special of a first episode, the anime still needs to finish introducing the rest of the large cast and make you care about them. In my opinion, the anime only really started getting interesting for me at episode 7......which is kind of a big problem really. Also Gen Urobuchi has a bad habit of introducing slightly pretentious themes in his stories when they're really not necessary (especially in Psycho-Pass), but he manages to make it work for the most part here, granted it still made me roll my eyes when Urobuchi starts trying to convince me his stories are deep, epic and mind-boggling. Because they are...so I wish he would stop pointing it out to everyone. Yes Gen, you can write good stories without these pretentious undertones, deal with it and do it more. Granted after, all I said right there, I actually think that the themes presented in Fate/Zero do actually relate and expand the narrative a little(unlike, once again in Psycho-Pass), so I guess it isn't too much a problem, but judging from the amount of time we have to listen to these pretentious themes, they seem a little over-bearing.
But now it's time to address the aforementioned elephant, and maybe the one thing that prevents Fate/Zero from being a truly remarkable anime. A couple of words about the ending of the anime: it sucked. Admittedly, I don't hate it as much as some other people, but for such a great anime, it's just not very good. It's a shame as well, because while the ending happened for things had to be set up for Fate/stay night, if Fate/Zero had been its own original thing, the people over at ufotable could have maybe come up with something better rather than forcing themselves to conform to the lore established by Fate/stay night. The ending doesn't even make that much sense, throwing curve-balls in the rules of the anime out of nowhere, rules which you would think could have been established in that 40 minute documentary of a first episode.
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OK, I know this is quite a daunting number of character(and this isn't even all of them), but trust me, they are all interesting or cool in some way. Since I don't have possibly enough time to talk about them all in any depth, it's time for a speed run of all the masters in no particular order to conceal which ones are actually important, sorry servants, I'll just let viewers discover how awesome you all are on your own.
First we have Keyneth Archibald, a noble man from the magus society. He actually has a second choice with his servant Lancer, his original servant Rider being stolen from him by his student Waver Velvet, but he's confident with his own skills as a magus, and is also assisted by his fiancée Sola. He is very traditional magus, and is thus very aggravated by other masters like Ryūnosuke or Kiritsugu who use very unconventional means to win the war. He's also kind of a prick really.
Next is Kerei Kotomine, a man who, is for all practical means, is an empty man. Despite capable of being a genius in whatever tree of magic he could put his mind to, he has never been passionate about anything in his entire life, and despite not having a wish in mind for the Grail to grant, he seeks it as a possible answer to his emptiness. What does he truly want in life? Well, I'll leave that for you to discover yourself. He commands the servant Assassin.
Ryūnosuke Uryū is insane. I don't say that to try to set up a lame joke, he's literally a sociopath child serial killer, and someone who had no idea about the world of mages until the Grail chose him for the war. With the help of his equally messed-up servant Castor, Ryūnosuke continues to commit atrocities for an unknown purpose while not bothering too much with he actual Holy Grail War, as he follows a personal philosophy that is one of the most disturbing yet interesting things I have ever heard in my entire life.
Kariya Matou is possibly the most moral person here. He left his own magus family a decade ago due to his disgust towards the whole situation, but is forced back into The Holy Grail War to save a certain young girl's life. Since he has no formal magus training, he is severely under-powered compared to the other magus. His uncle: Zōken Matō seems to think the answer to this problem is to implant Kariya with magical worms to increase his strength(and also severely decrease his health and life-span), and bestow the extremely powerful Berserker servant.
Kiritsugu Emiya is sort of the one which everyone hates. He's not even really magus, but simply a representative of the Einzbern family in the war, and he uses snipers, bombs, and other modern weapons to take down the other masters, and willing to do whatever he needs to do to earn his wish, even kill people that really he could have avoided hurting. His servant Saber is almost a polar opposite of him, due to her true identity being a noble hero fighting for good, her style clashes with Kiritsugu's by-any-means necessary mentality, and creates possibly the most interesting conflict in the whole show. Kiritsugu views Kerei as his rival, and is determined to take him down to avoid a possible final showdown. He is also assisted by his effervescent wife Irisviel and his "associate" Maiya.
Waver Velvet isn't even really supposed to be here. However after stealing his(awesome!) servant Rider from Archibald, he's chosen for the war by the Grail, and sees it as an opportunity to prove to Archibald and the other masters that despite his family not being even magus, he can still compete in the war. Unfortunately he's a bit of coward, and is constantly being encouraged by Rider to fight, though Waver is determined not to follow orders by his own servant.
Tokiomi Tohsaka is an extremely powerful mage of the Tohsaka family. He supports Kerei and has formed an alliance with him for the war, at the urging of his OP servant Archer. He's also just happens to be the father of Rin and Sukura, and if you've seen Fate/stay night, you know why that's important.
In conclusion, the characters of Fate/Zero are as interesting as they are varied, and a couple of them get ample amount of development. True, a few of the masters and servants don't really have much more to them than what they first come off as, but judging from the number of characters in this show, I guess that's sort of understandable. More importantly, they are all fun to watch, especially when the development for certain characters kick into over-drive in the second half of the anime. By the way, even though I didn't talk about any of the servants really, know that a couple of them are complex and cool as well, especially Saber, Rider and Lancer. And paired with their masters, you get a couple of fantastic "teams" for the war, and I know you will have your favorite. But just remember, only one team is going to step away form the Holy War Grail alive and claim victory......right?
Lancer preparing for battle.
OK, let's get something straight. Fate/Zero was animated by ufotable. Because of this fact, this animation is freakin' unbelievable. Everything from lighting, to character designs, to environments looks amazing, and really bring Fukuki City to life, and really help run home the whole epic feel of the anime. And the fight sequences...are simply the best I've ever seen. That is when fights actually do happen. Despite being an action show, Fate/Zero is actually really dialogue heavy, and it is really frustrating when so many of the fights end in stalemates. I'm seriously, how many battles must legendary heroes with magical powers have before they kill each-other? Until have half-way through the anime, apparently. But no matter the outcome of the battles, they look amazing, with exciting and creative sequences brought to life with animation that could have come from the golden vault of Xerxes. Highlights of the anime include the Kiritsugu/Archibald fight, which is one of the coolest battles that has ever been conceived, Saber/Lancer, for having brilliant choreography, and a certain battle involving Castor which is just...amazing.
I'd hate to use the same sentence structure twice, but the music for Fate/Zero was done by Yuki Kajira. Because of this fact, it's kind of awesome. Epic, to be more precise, with awesome choirs and violins and the such. Kajira has always been one of my absolute favorite composers, especially her work on Madoka Magica(also written by Gen Urobuchi) and of course, Kara no Kyoukai, which if you asked some people, is possibly the greatest OST of all time. As much as I love her work though, I do admit that Fate/Zero's OST, as good as it is, doesn't really do much for me. Kajira has a bad admit of creating epic, but very similar sounding music, and I guess I just got tired of it by the time I watched Fate/Zero. Madoka Magica had more distinctive and unique sounding music, and Kara no Kyoukai OST is basically just Fate/Zero's +1. Hell, even some of the music in this OST sounds similar. It's like if you eat three ice-cream cakes in row. Sure, it tastes amazing, but by the third cake, you're just kind of tired of it and full regardless. However, I will give Kajira credit that she has stepped up her game since Fate/Zero particularly with the Madoka Magica Movie 3: Rebellion OST. I guess if you haven't listened to Kajira before though, this OST will do you just fine, it just doesn't do much for me. If there's one thing I love about the soundtrack, it's the first opening "Oath Sign" by LiSA which is simply fantastic. It's a shame the copyright hammer has fallen on it, so the actual OP with the song's 90 second segment is extremely hard to find. So instead of posting under here something that had been edited to avoid copyrights, I'll just have give you the actual video with the full song. Sorry.
I don't think I really need to tell you if I recommend this anime. But I'll say it again: Fate/Zero is a stable-mark of animation and story-telling, that shrugs off typical anime cliches like highschool, stupid characters and even fan-service, to become something truly special and unique, and something I can always fall back on when I'm forced to watch things like Boka wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai or Pupa. It reminds me just what anime is capable of and why I love it so much. It's gripping, dark, and looks amazing, so go watch it whoever you are, and as soon as possible. Yeah, it doesn't end the best, and the beginning is unnecessarily boring, but that doesn't really matter, because it's just good. And that's something that isn't as common as you'd think. I've been Quan, you've been awesome, and now it's time for me to watch Kotoura-san, which I'm pretty is the exact opposite of good. Emotionally-scarring more like.
Final Verdict: 8/10
P.S: No Kiritsugu, don't save that kid! He's becomes really annoying later!
Recommended Anime:
Kara no Kyoukai
Also created by the people over at ufotable, Kara no Kyoukai is just as complex, just as dark, and just as good, and unlike Fate/Zero, peaks at the perfect time. Just don't get confused by the order of the movies and you should be fine.
Madoka Magica
Don't judge a book by its cover. Also written by Mr. Gen Urobuchi, this magical girl deconstruction and its sequels made a splash in the anime community that has yet to calm down. Just give it till episode 3. OK?
Goodbye for now guys.
Like the review? Click here for my review on My Tenn Romantic Comedy SNAFU.
Or here for my review on Kanon(2006).
The first part of my Top Ten Anime OP's is here.
Follow me on Hummingbird: http://hummingbird.me/users/QReviews
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