Fate/Zero

With the promise of granting any wish, the omnipotent Holy Grail triggered three wars in the past, each too cruel and fierce to leave a victor. In spite of that, the wealthy Einzbern family is confident that the Fourth Holy Grail War will be different; namely, with a vessel of the Holy Grail now in their grasp. Solely for this reason, the much hated "Magus Killer" Kiritsugu Emiya is hired by the Einzberns, with marriage to their only daughter Irisviel as binding contract.

Kiritsugu now stands at the center of a cutthroat game of survival, facing off against six other participants, each armed with an ancient familiar, and fueled by unique desires and ideals. Accompanied by his own familiar, Saber, the notorious mercenary soon finds his greatest opponent in Kirei Kotomine, a priest who seeks salvation from the emptiness within himself in pursuit of Kiritsugu.

Based on the light novel written by Gen Urobuchi, Fate/Zero depicts the events of the Fourth Holy Grail War—10 years prior to Fate/stay night. Witness a battle royale in which no one is guaranteed to survive.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Fate/Zero was simulcasted around the world, with subtitles covering eight major languages. It is currently licensed by Aniplex of America for release in North America.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Fate/Zero
Sequel:	Fate/Zero 2nd Season
Summary:	Fate/Zero Remix
Side story:	Fate/Zero: Onegai! Einzbern Soudanshitsu
Other:	Fate/Zero Cafe
Character:	Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note - Hakamori to Neko to Majutsushi, Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note

Namikawa, Daisuke
Japanese

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Staff

Iwakami, Atsuhiro

Producer

Kondou, Hikaru

Producer

Mori, Yasunori

Producer

Doi, Yoshinao

Producer

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Opening Theme

"oath sign" by LiSA (eps 2-10, 12-13)

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Ending Theme

	1: "oath sign" by LiSA (eps 1)
	2: "MEMORIA" by Eir Aoi (eps 2-13)

Reviews

Jan 14, 2012

Archaeon

Recommended

Type-Moon have made a habit of finding success with their dark blend of magic and supernatural elements in modern day settings, but with the release of the Fate/Stay Night visual novel on the PC in 2004, the developer seemed to have found its flagship title. Unfortunately things never really work out the way people expect, and while Studio Deen's 2006 anime adaptation of the "Fate" storyline was well received by fans, many who were unfamiliar with the source material found it all a bit ... juvenile.

At the end of 2006 the developer began collaborating with Nitroplus in order to create a prequel light novel series, ...

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Mar 11, 2014

KingFlabadingdon

Mixed Feelings

I’m fairly confident this review is going to get near as damn 0% helpful marks simply because of my ratings. If anyone feels what I said wasn’t helpful in this review, drop me a message, if you disagree with something I said, drop me a message, thanks.

Story – 3
Oh dear…

Firstly, I think it is a bit of a cheat essentially splitting fate zero into two separate series, so that all the good bits can be condensed into ‘one’ of those series. Nonetheless, I will still assess this as a single series, in terms of setting the stage for the second season.

Fate Zero ...

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Mar 11, 2013

Abs0

Not Recommended

I wrote a review for Fate/Zero before but it got deleted because it only talked about the fight scenes. So I'm including the story in this review as well. Enjoy.

Warning: spoilers.

The story can be summed up in two words: Forced Grimdark. Characters suffer and die for no apparent reason other than to make the show darker and edgier. [spoiler]Why was Kariya even in there? Most of these characters don't even become relevant until FSN. That Rin episode was fucking awful, it had no relevance to the plot whatsoever. As was the Kiritsugu backstory which I thought was two long episodes of nothing but ... forced drama. Kiritsugu keeps being put into implausible situations where he has to kill his own parents. He killed father because "he might accidentally turn everyone into zombies". Natalia forgets to bring a parachute on a mission where she's on a plane containing wasps that turn people into zombies because MUH FEELS. Kiritsugu could have put Avalon into Maiya healing her wounds instantly instead of letting her die, but didn't, because MUH FEELS. Lancer died like a bitch because MUH FEELS. Totally didn't steal "lancer kill yourself" from the original FSN. Kariya strangles Aoi even though we're told earlier on that he loves her because MUH FEELS. Why are there so many irrelevant characters and why do they all have to die in the most pathetic way possible? Example: Iskander. Big hearted and funny guy right? Better kill him off in the most retarded way possible to increase MUH FEELS. And yes, it is retarded because Iskander had absolutely no reason to gallop 5 miles away from Gilgamesh when he could have put Gilgamesh slap bang into the middle of Ionian Hetairoi giving him no chance to pull out Ea. It's funny because the historical Alexander the Great was a shrewd and cunning general, the polar opposite of the F/Z Iskander. Was the serial killer couple put in there for any reason other than to make the anime darker and edgier? This is what I call forced grimdark - having characters suffer and kill each other for no reason other than to make the viewer sad. [/spoiler]

Fight scenes are badly directed. I could pick out so many things wrong with Fate/Zero fights. In all Lancer vs Saber fights, all they do is talk talk talk and compliment each other on their skills. They're not even trying to kill each other. The Kariya vs Tohsaka fight was fucking dumb. It was just Kariya throwing wasps at Tohsaka. "Huh, wasps all getting burned to crisp? Throw more wasps!". The Berserker vs Gilgamesh "fight" was just Gilgamesh is throwing weapons at Berserker. The "dogfight" was just Berserker going pew pew at Archer. All of Berserker scenes are painful to watch because of the terrible CG. The Kiritsugu vs Kirei battle was fucking dumb. Why was it set in the fucking batcave? There's no lead-up whatsoever. The entire fight consisted of Kirei punching Kiritsugu in the chest, Kiritsugu shooting Kirei in the hand, and then the retarded knife blocking scene. Kiritsugu managed to get hit with the most telegraphed punch to the chest in the history of the universe. He had like 10 minutes to react. A 1 year old could have dodged it. I don't understand why they wasted the animation budget on slow-motioning this scene with single framing when it was just Kiritsugu getting punched in the chest, whilst really fast scenes like Kirei throwing his black keys only got double framed, which made it difficult to see what happened. He didn't even try to dodge or block it, he was just standing there not doing anything. Fucking dumb. The next scene was even dumber. Kirei getting shot in the hand was just stupid. Not to mention the massive anticlimax with the black mud crashing through the batcave ceiling JUST AS Kirei and Kiritsugu are about to kill each other.

The most annoying thing about the fight scenes is that the movements look wooden and robotic. Characters standing still just moving their arms. There is distinct lack of whole body movement. You can see in the Kirei vs Kiritsugu fight that all Kirei does is move his arm when blocking Kiritsugu's attacks. The rest of his body is completely still, not showing any changes at all, not even redrawn for like 20 frames. This is just laziness.

I might mention again the level of disjointedness in the fight scenes. I've said before that the Saber vs Berserker fight scenes were completely disjointed, as in consecutive scenes did not even match each other. If you look at any of the fight scenes closely you'll see that disjointedness permeates from the highest to the lowest level. The Maiya vs Kirei fight scene was disjointed in that one scene shows Maiya's knife hand being deflected by Kirei's right hand, and the next frame shows Kirei's left hand grabbing Maiya's wrist, with no intermediate scene that shows how we got from here to there. The scenes don't match each other at all. The animation is not smooth, as in one second it speeds up and another second it slows down again randomly. This is a prime example of bad directing.

Summary: All of the Fate Zero fight scenes were underwhelming due to the stiff, awkward and wooden movements and disjointed action sequences.

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