Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note

This show is set in the same timeline as Fate/Zero which means it was an autopickup because it's finally a Fate show that isn't a spinoff. On the surface, the idea of Waver Velvet doing Sherlock Holmes things is genius. Remember how Waver discovered Caster's lair in Fate/Zero? This show promises more of that with adult Waver and more dangerous mysteries!

While this show is still worth watching if you're a Waver or Fate Zero fan, it's ultimately let down by it's mediocre writing that poorly emulates Detective Fiction. Detective Fiction is a genre where the excitement comes from the audience engaging in the same problem ... solving as the protagonist. When you read Sherlock Holmes, you're essentially playing a metaphorical puzzle game with the writer; they are feeding you clues in a game with clearly defined rules. The reader must therefore know these rules. For example Sherlock finds a corpse in a room locked from the inside? You know the rules already because you know how locks work in real life. Waver finding Caster's hideout by measuring the concentration of mana in the river? You know the rules because it's analogous to dilution IRL. A character using necromancy to ask a corpse what they remember before dying? Even that works because it's magical CCTV footage.

Where this show falls flat is that fact that readers do not know the rules.

Take episode 2 for example. The entire plot hinges on Waver realising that Fargo's ritual circle is using the Heliocentric model of the solar system instead of a Geocentric one. Unfortunately the average viewer is not a Cultist or a 400 year old Astrologer. We do not understand anything that's going on until Waver spells out the solution. We cannot engage in the same problem solving as the protagonist. If Detective Fiction is a puzzle game, then the El-Melloi plot is like watching the writer playing both sides of a chess game. For all intents and purposes, the writer is essentially making up the rules on the spot, which ultimately leads to a boring experience for the audience.

Makoto Sanda's mysteries are impossible because you don't understand the rules needed to solve them. Once you do understand them, they're laughably simplistic (essentially 1+1=2 quick Eldritch magic). And that is why El-Melloi is a mediocre work of detective fiction.

edit; Here is a Youtube review that raises many similar issues (better than my own review :P); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_5YWTthl-w

Like the sands of an hourglass, the Fate franchise almost seems to be timeless since it started. It’s 2019 and we now live in an age where another one of its light novel series gets an anime adaptation from the Nasuverse. Taking place years after the events of Fate/Zero, you have to wonder how the show will be able to keep up its hype. This is especially true with a protagonist like Waver Velvet, a professor from the Mage’s Association. But with a sigh of regret, I am rather flabbergasted at how this Nasuverse anime ended up being no more than mediocrity.

Watching Lord El-Melloi II ... Sei no Jikenbo Rail Zepplin Grace Note feels like you are thrown into a world where you need at least some prior experience with Nasuverse. If you have no experience with Fate/Zero, then I would highly suggest at least reading some insight about that series. Before getting to the juicy part of Lord El-Melloi, I should also mention the series is seemingly divided by two arcs. The light novels is still ongoing in Japan with 10 volumes running so common sense logic designates this show as an incomplete adaptation. That’s not a main problem but it doesn’t stray from the fact that the anime feels like an advertisement. My impression from the first few episodes is based on the introduction of the characters, in particular members of the Mage’s Association. Waver Velvet feels like a character who practically lives with his job. As a lecturer of the Clock Tower, the man has a reputation and is well-known for his knowledge of magic. Rarely showing emotions and devoted to his work, Lord El-Melloi may be a character that the audience won’t be easily accept or relate to. On the other hand, I do appreciate a protagonist who is has a strong head with knowledge. Lord El-Melloi II may not be an easy person to make friends with but he is an extremely valuable asset to the Mage’s Association.

Nasuverse contains an expanding lore that can be rather complex if you’re unfamiliar with its franchises. This anime won’t be too easy to understand at first based on its magic system. Some episodes uses a method of ‘show and tell’ while others vaguely touches upon its branches of magic. However, I do feel that the anime contains a feeling of mystique at times. It seems the anime wants the audience to figure out how things work before certain concepts are explained. In fact, the first half of the show has weekly mysteries that connects to the series’ overall themes. It isn’t until the second half where we get an ongoing plot, known as the Rail Zepplin arc.

With that being said, there’s one main character I’m sure fans have taken notice from the start. Gray, the hooded girl with “Saber-face”, is the apprentice of Lord El-Melloi II. Coming from the countryside, there’s a certain level of mystique about her character that will get the audience curious. The relationship she shares with Lord El-Melloi II is that of a master-apprentice. It’s straightforward with the two collaborating on missions although sometimes, it’s shown that Gray can let emotions get the best of her. This is noticeable in some episodes when Gray is anxious about Lord El-Melloi II’s safety. Their relationship is not fully developed in this anime and stands out best at mediocrity. This is in similar stance to Reines, the bloodline successor of the El-Melloi household. Throughout the show, she has a brother-like relationship with Lord El-Melloi II but the anime doesn’t make the pair significant enough to appreciate. In fact, I think this is one of the main weakness of the series. It lacks character relationships that are meaningful to talk about. From start to finish, I can’t recall any character pair that makes the show worthwhile to watch. This is a bit ironic considering some of the previous Fate series usually has character pairs in the form of servants/masters. Even Fate/Apocrypha has character relationships elements that are worth talking about. In this show? Not a chance.

In addition, it’s worth noting the anime reintroduces some of the previous characters Fate fans may be familiar with. Characters such as Luvia and Kairi makes appearances with various roles that sometimes feel like they can overshadow the protagonists. New characters such as Flat Escardos and Olga also has more personality than the main leads. It’s a sad state of affairs when the main characters can’t carry an anime together. Perhaps the better question to ask yourself in this case is how much we should appreciate the plot. An important arc known as the “Rail Zepplin” takes place in the second half of the series with high stakes and mystery. It also takes place on a unique train that gets darker and darker with each progressing episode. Hell, the arc even adds elements of murder suspense that turns the show into more of a thriller. However, the overall execution turns peculiar turns with introductions of characters such as Hephaestion. The mystery involves with a murder case and the Mystic Eyes that fans may draw references from the Garden of Sinner franchise. But with all due respect, putting Lord El-Melloi on the sidelines weakens his character importance even more. Instead, the anime decided to gives more role to Luvia and Kairi during their investigations. Gray herself deals with Hephaestion who develops a sort of rivalry between the duo. The overall Rail Zepplin arc really depends on how you’d appreciate it but at the end of the day, mixing different kinds of genres together without character development is no good.

Even as the show retains a rather serious mood, there are occasionally tongue and cheek humor. The anime plays around with some character gags such as Gray’s unfamiliarity with being normal. There’s even one particular episode where she goes shopping with her female friends. Other times, we get characters acting like goofballs such as Flat at the academy. Ironically, the Mage Association hardly feels like a school and more about preparing students for mages. Outside of Lord El-Melloi II’s class, you don’t get to see other professors or classes being taught. This isn’t Hogwarts, folks.

Studio Troyca helms this show and visually, it retains a familiar look with its other previous projects. As the director, Makoto Katou designs the characters with similar style but also visually enough to make each unique. Lord El-Melloi II is perhaps most noticeable as someone who looks like an older adult and genuinely gives the impression of a professor. Plus, let’s not forget about the technical quality. If there’s something to brag about the show, this is it. The production quality looks like poetry in motion. The battle cinematics looks like watching a film on occasions especially in the second arc. Each fight is impactful and draws out the abilities of the characters. If that wasn’t enough, we do get to see flashy weapons used such as Gray’s signature scythe. Fan service does exist although minimal and isn’t distracting. The show relies much more on its visual dynamics than showing skin. And to top it off, we also get a stylish OP song without lyrics but with a mesmerizing tune.

As a fan of the Nasuverse and some of its previous Fate franchises, Lord El-Melloi felt like watching a long movie as part of an major saga. With 13 episodes, the anime didn’t have enough time to develop its cast or craft storytelling that is worth remembering. However, I do have to give credit about the show’s technical elements thanks to the work of the director and studio. With all that being said, this anime is probably worth watching if you’re instinctively curious about the expanding Nausverse. But if you’re someone expanding a lot from this show, you should turn back now.

"You've really done it this time Waver! What in the world is going on here?" My thoughts exactly Melvin. What in the world is going on in this series????

Ah, Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note, this is I think the first time ever I have given an episode 0 a higher score than the actual series!! I have long awaited this anime as a big fan of Fate anime series, and summer 2019 seemed like it was going to be an incredible season!! For nearly a year I looked forward to Lord El- Melloi, Vinland Saga, and Mo dao zu shi ... season 2! You can imagine how heartbroken I was when all 3 of them were total busts. Fortunately the season did feature a couple sleeper hits in Given and O maidens in your savage season, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

Who would I recommend this series to? Well the answer is simple, readers of the light novel. That, and people who want more of the loli from Gosick, just with a bigger forehead this time.

I couldn't at all make sense of the plot in this show. Episodes 6 and 12 especially were just moronically written. Perhaps if I had read the LN, and was familiar with every last corner of the Nasuverse, I may have enjoyed it more.... But that's a lot to ask of a viewer.

Studio TROYCA though, I do not think is to blame. They have proved themselves time and time again as probably the strongest up and coming anime studio in Japan right now! In 2018 they animated two major domestic hits in Idolish7 and Bloom into you. Neither of these got very much attention in the west (aside from that ass Gigguk randomly shouting out Bloom into you as he does with every seasonal show), but were very popular in Japan. In fact I highly recommend both Idolish7 and Bloom into you. They were put together fantastically well. Lord El-Melloi II was as well, at least in terms of production.
TROYCA alway animate faces extremely well, displaying a lot of emotion and subtle changes, this holds up in El-Melloi as one of the show's strong points. The voice acting is also really well done.

“You are correct Magus. And I have no intent of listening to any more of your nonsense.”
The above is a line that doesn't make any sense, just like the rest of this story!!!
Sometimes you just gotta ask yourself, what the hell is this plot?

The last 5 minutes of the series was the best part, as all I really wanted out of this show was to see more Waver/ Iskander banter.

Even if you watched Fate/ Zero, there is absolutely no guarantee that you will understand this series. If you don't care about plot than this series is well put together otherwise. Waver also is very attractive which is a plus. Gray was nice but I don't really understand why they chose to keep her hood up the entire series, except for one short scene where Waver scolds her, for reasons that were either never explained, or simply went over my head. Some of the Mystic eyes introduced in this show were kind of cool, but the 6 episode arc concerning them was chalked full of inconsistencies which was truly a bummer for me. Plus the antagonist of this arc had two different colored eyes which always bugs me in anime.

Edit: It really didn't help that the this show premiered every week immediately after Kimetsu no Yaiba lol.

In conclusion, you should watch this show only if you've read the LN, or are some sort of Nasu expert. Just being a fan of the anime side of Type-Moon may not be enough...

...are we done here?

No, seriously, are we done here? Have we, at last, reached the limit of how fucking ridiculous light novel names can get? Was it not enough to inquire after the morality of picking up girls in a dungeon? Were the rascals not satisfied by dreaming of bunny girl senpais? Didn’t we all suffer enough on the death march to the parallel world rhapsody? Must we now be tormented by this ungodly amalgamation of letters and symbols arranged loosely into some perverted fascimile of a descriptive title? What’s next? Are we going to start throwing in parentheses now? Percent signs? @ symbols, dare ... I ask? How deep does this rabbit hole go? When does this nightmare end? When do we wake up? WHEN DO WE WAKE UP?!?!?!?!

*sigh*

Anyway, let’s talk about the latest Fate spinoff, henceforth referred to as Detective Waver because fuck me if I’m indulging this bullshit any more.

Gripes about the title aside, if there was any way to get me genuinely excited about a Fate side project, following the life and times of Waver Velvet would be it. The snot-nosed brat’s journey to maturation and humility was one of the best parts of the original Fate/Zero, telling a fantastic coming-of-age tale in the skin of the most enjoyable buddy comedy this side of Death Note. His story had tragedy, humor, heart, genuine pathos, all the building blocks that make this bloated franchise work so damn well at its best. And best of all, he was a character who still had so much to explore. Who wouldn’t want to follow this blubbering dork into adulthood and see him try to put everything he learned from Iskander into practice? Who wouldn’t want to peel back his psyche even further and explore how the boy he was influenced the man he became, and how deep those connections might run? Who wouldn’t want to see Waver Velvet move on, find closure, grow and evolve while still being the same lovable punching bag he always was? Honestly, I can’t think of many better places for a Fate spinoff to go than this.

So it’s a real shame that it ultimately doesn’t work. And the problem, sadly, is simple: it’s a property in the Fate franchise, with all the frustrating, bloated baggage that brings with it.

Structurally, at least, there’s a lot of promise to Detective Waver, which sees our favorite son inducted into the El-Melloi family as a way of repaying his debts to his mentor Kayneth, who you may remember as the least interesting part of Fate/Zero. Now a member of high mage society, Waver must balance his personal pursuits with the politics and backstabbing of the countless ruthless factions vying for power and influence. By day, he’s taken on Kayneth’s role as academy professor, but his real profession, as the name suggests, is acting as the Sherlock Holmes of the Fate world. The first half of the series is episodic in nature, each episode focusing on a new magical mystery that Waver is called out to solve. Meanwhile, a larger plot builds up in the background, eventually taking over the second half of the series for a massive, six-episode whodunnit. Accompanying him in his sleuthing are a handful of Fate crossover characters that you thankfully don’t need to be familiar with to enjoy their presence here (Luvia the wrestler is an absolute peach), a couple students from Waver’s class who enjoy tagging along his missions, some political wheelers and dealers, and Gray, a mysterious hooded girl who considers Waver her master and is easily the best part of the series. Seriously, she strikes such a great balance between adorable, goofy, badass and haunting, and every time she was on screen was a delight.

In fact, there’s a lot I liked over the course of this show’s first half. I liked the overall aesthetic and animation, which does a damn fine job replicating the hazy grandeur of Ufotable’s Fate properties (Troyca in general is a damn fine animation studio). I liked the camaderie between the characters and how willing this show was to lean into the goofier sides of the franchise. I really liked Waver himself, who, while still recognizably being the Waver of Fate/Zero, has matured and taken on some incredibly interesting dimensions. There’s a running undercurrent of PTSD metaphor, how Waver’s obsessed with finding some way to speak with Iskander again and reconnect to the greater Grail War mythos, despite it clearly having a negative impact on his mental well-being. It’s a damn well-realized portrait of someone grappling with the past, trying to figure out where their place should be in the world now that they’ve decided they want to be part of it. For the most part, it was what I always wanted from a Fate spinoff. It was enjoyable, it was lighthearted without being devoid of weight, and it legitimately fleshed out the parts of the mythos I had emotional investment in.

And then it got to the second half, and the whole thing fell apart.

See, as much as I was enjoying myself in the first part of the show, there was one aspect that wasn’t clicking as well as everything else: the detective stuff itself. Which for a detective show is kind of a problem. See, because this is a Fate spinoff, all the detective stuff that should be the draw in any good mystery show- the clues, the misdirections, trying to piece the evidence together for yourself alongside the characters- is tied up in the mechanics of the Fate world and its magic systems. And I’m sorry, but let’s be frank here: Fate’s magic is bad. It’s a convoluted mess of pretentious-sounding phrases and ideas with no set rules outside of “whatever the fuck we want it to be”, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if it weren’t for this franchise consistently trying to build so goddamn much of its structure out of it. It’s impenetrably dense, unfairly obtuse, and you need a PhD in bullshit lorekeeping to even begin to understand it. And every single mystery in Detective Waver, from the murder weapons to the motive to the sleuthing mechanics to the reveal itself, is built out of that bullshit. Thus, there’s no way to get invested in solving the mysteries, because there’s no way for you to actually solve them, because the answer to any question is always just whatever magical bullshit sounds cool to do.

Still, this wasn’t too annoying in the first half of the show. Because the adventures were all so episodic, it allowed the stories to flesh out the characters and have fun beats in between all the magic stuff, focusing more on the actions the cast took en route to the mystery than the mystery itself. They were character pieces that just happened to have dumb, nonsensical mysteries rolling around in them, and it made it easy enough to just enjoy the emotions driving the plot while appreciating the cool magical bullshit for what it was. But once you get into that six-episode mystery plot, everything collapses under the weight of too much bullshit. The obtuse mechanics and unreliable lore completely take over, shoving the characters to the sidelines as the plot piles on complication after complication, each question making less sense than the one before and each answer raising a million more questions in its wake. It gets bogged down in complication, and the easy charm of the first half is lost in favor of exhaustion and boredom. Even as Detective Waver tries to keep the character beats flowing, they’re squeezed out by the sheer amount of disconnected stuff this plot throws at you. So in the end, once again, the greatest weakness of a Fate spinoff is that it’s too bogged down by Fate Stuff(tm) to relax into being it’s own thing.

Look, I’m a huge fan of the core Fate timeline. What Ufotable did in bring Zero and Stay Night to life wasn’t just epic, it was the kind of awe-inspiring urban fantasy that truly captures the grandeur and majesty this genre is capable of. But these classics weren’t built on mechanics and lore. They were built on characters and themes, emotions and hope, triumph and despair, stories of people with dreams and desires fighting to realize them in a world that sought to stamp them out. It was epic not because of the convoluted rules holding everything in place, it was epic because of the stories it told within those rules, the people that brought those rules to life. Detective Waver could’ve been the spinoff this franchise deserved, a story that truly did justice to the heart and humanity of Fate at its best. Instead, it gave into all of Fate’s worst instincts yet again, leaving crushing disappointment in its wake.

Let's start by pretending that this show isn't trying to be a mystery show, a task which itself is pretty difficult as "Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note" is 50% mystery and 50% fate sequel/spin-off. What's left of it?

Well, the art's great and polished like one would come to expect from the fate franchise at this point. The sound is eh...I don't think any insert theme stuck out, though the voice acting was definitely not bad (Waver's last line is so well voice-acted that it almost got me to bump the sound a little higher) and the intro was decently ... catchy. Nothing atrocious there. Character-wise, there's variety and expression, and while basically none of them had development, one did have some: Waver himself. Still, the way every character is portrayed is certainly colorful but also so very... 'anime'. There are complex characters that express themselves normally, trope characters that express themselves entirely through anime gestures, and then there is this weird thing this show has which characters which do have complexity yet seem to express themselves entirely through anime phrases and expressions. It's hard to explain, and I don't entirely hate it, but does hinder a bit their chances of development throughout.

With this said, the show seemed like it was designed (again, still ignoring the mystery part) by someone under the premise of a bet of how many fate references can we stick in one show. These come in two times: a stream of exposition about random trivia on fate and niche mythology facts, and more direct references like character cameos and its very own saberface (come and get your own for just 298 Yen!). They are mostly integrated with the story and definitely get to show their cool side in a way that I hadn't seen or hadn't seen enough of in other fate properties. As for the lore dumps...

This is where we bring back the mystery element, because "Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note", DEFINITELY wants to be a mystery show, it makes no secret of it. It employs a very traditional mystery structure including straight up using the formulas for a couple of mystery classical set-ups. It also continually uses thoses "whydunit" and "whodunit" and so on..phrases. I think I made my point there. The show, on the other hand, completely misses the point (of a mystery).

L.E.M.II.S.N.J: R.Z.G.N. wants to be a mystery, however it botches the most basic elements of what makes a good mystery. The show always centers its mysteries on elements of the nasuverse lore, sprinkled with a few random mythology facts or rumors to make itself seem more clever. However, either it assumes the audience is informed of these things, or it doesn't want the audience to be able to follow along with the plot until things are resolved by our protagonist in the end.

I repeat: this show fails at the most basic elements of a mystery. Sheer curiosity might generate a bit of intrigue for you, but I'm not genuinely going to be questioning myself about how something is done if the answer is always going to be 'magic' and the only reason I have to think any of what I'm seeing on screen is at all odd, out of place or "mysterious" is because characters state it. Nor will I ask myself "who did it" once I learn that they can pull a new potential perpetrator out of their ass without ever introducing them.

It's impossible to follow along with the gathering of clues and trying to guess, as even if you are the most hardcore fan of fate lore, you still need to know basically everything about every mythology in the world to be able to guess the answer to some of these questions- when they are even answered. Throwing dice to see who might have done is about as reliable as trying to do it yourself and since the answer is often something out of the blue without any basis on what came before it, it's hard to even be surprised by it.

And of course, there's the resolution of the mystery itself, which as already mentioned a few times is often pulled out of the writer's ass and while it does tie the threads together, we need Waver to explain how. Through exposition, sorry, MORE exposition.

All the explaining bogs down the pace of the shown and what action there is isn't executed all that well either most of the time, with tension being constantly undercut by random spells of unpredicatble nature at best, and pseudo-philosophical concepts that sound like a kid who thinks using bigger words will win them the argument.

If I had to boil down the problems with the plot down to one single thing, this is what it would be: The complete inconsistency of the nasuverse's rules creates a disconnect between the set ups an pay-offs in this show. It thinks that by being fate it can keep you excited as long as it is pulling stuff from the fateverse, that you will feel it is earned as long as its coming from that fandom universe. It thinks that you will be happy with the explaining as long as it is referencing something from fate, that you will be happy with any way for the plot to be resolved as long as it is somewhat tied to fate, that any characters just needs to belong to fate to be interesting. Because of that, it can't make good set ups and payoffs, which means it does a horrible job as a mystery, which in turn really stands out because it sells itself as a mystery show.

Despite all of this, I still found myself entertained by the show, and it was one of my favorites to accompany weekly. I was always eager to see the latest episode when they came out. However, I was still bothered by how cheaply they used fate's content, and it put a bad mark for me on what the show is without the awesome concept of the holy grail war at its back.

For Want of a Nail...

Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note is really a who's who of Fate characters especially if you'd seen OR played from the Fate franchise but for the most part it focuses on Waver Velvet or Lord El-Melloi II taking on supernatural cases while still being a teacher in the Clock Tower. It's not until halfway that the "Rail Zeppelin" comes into play and gives us an entire arc which focuses on Waver's main focus and goal come into play.

So for the first half of the anime, we see Lord El-Melloi (can we just call him Waver from ... this point?) takes on isolated supernatural cases. The only thing these separate cases does is to introduce characters, be it cameos from previous Fate installments or show off what the "Waver team" can do while tackling the supernatural case, he of course has some rivals like Hishiri Adashino voiced by Yuko Minaguchi an officer of the department of Policies of the Clock Tower and is the polar opposite in terms of investigations thus her clash with Waver.

The second half is a little more focused and changes the plot structure to be more like an arc focusing on Waver's prized possession of Iskander's cloth being stolen and this thief now boarded the "Rail Zeppelin", something like a ghost train to the dead BUT holds an invitational auction selling and "buying" Mystic Eyes and it's up to Waver to find the thief and of course...murders and strange occurrence happen while on board. This arc does by all means gives us alot of development of Waver as well as his apprentice Gray voiced by Reina Ueda but once again gives us even more cameos from other installment as well as those cameos doing thing sin the background that has links to all the incidents happening in Rail Zeppelin.

Waver and his want of a nail is pondered as well as tested against with the thief and the strange occurrences in this arc while Gray having a mild crush on her master while other characters test and is intrigued by her "status" is brought upon as well. In terms of characters...most of the main cast is developed and a bit fleshed out but oddly enough LA's favourite character is actually a cameo character from a previous Fate installment..that of the wrestling Mage Luviagelita Edelfelt voiced by Shizuka Ito from both Fate Illya and Fate stay night unlimited Blade Works, she was just a fun character and Reines El-Melloi voiced by Inori Minase was similar to Luvia as well as always was interesting when she was on screen.

Now as for the mystery element of this anime, well it's mixed to say the least mainly for the fact that the first half's isolated mysteries don't give us the audience much if any hints and how the mystery unravels itself is all kept until the end with Waver's deductions thus we can't really connect with these mysteries as well, the only exception for LA being the shopping mall mystery as the hints were there. As for the Rail Zeppelinn arc, well since it's an arc with tons of foreshowing as to who the culprit of the entire installment is, the mystery though rather convoluted since the mystery tries to bring light to MAGIC but for what's it's worth they didn't exactly handwave it away...but likely will confuse you with the magic mumbo jumbo and how it all connects, the mystery at worst is confusing, at best is barely manageable as a mystery and of course Waver has EVERYTHING prepared and hid it away from the audience until it's needed. So yeah the mystery element to say is mixed and it doesn't do the anime any favours and much like Higurashi trying to unravel magical phenomenons into rational real notions killed the mystery, Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note does it to try and enrich the Fate lore but at the expense of making a rather magical mystery even more magically confusing....it's Fate guys...it's Fate.

If your wondering how many installments have links and cameos to Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note...well Fate Zero, Fate stay night Unlimited Blade Works, Fate Apocrypha and Fate Grand Order and no you DON'T need to watch these in order to understand what's going on in Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note, though it more or less hints that THEIR roles from that installment in question instead. In a ways it seems that Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note is like a codex for the Fate franchise to keep up to speed with the Fate lore or know more about it.

The animation done by TROYCA was actually very well done, form the crisp character designs to the great backgrounding as well as the magical effects of this anime was great in all respects. Even though Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note is something of a spinoff from the Fate franchise, TROYCA still put in the leg work in terms of animation.

As for the voice cast..well we have a large cast but LA might as well do the standouts MVP's and for LA...Shizuka Ito as Luvia (of course), Reina Ueda as Gray, Inori Minase as Reines, Yuko Minaguchi as Hishiri and finally Daisuke Namikawa as Waver.

As for the final villain, he DOES tie things not only the Rail Zeppelin arc but some of the isolated mysteries as the man behind the man in orchestrating everything and thus the rest of the final episodes of the Rail Zeppellin focuses on stopping the final villain, he or more or less his Servant, Hephaestion is actually the more interesting villain oddly enough all due to her screentime and presences all the while the final villain is the cackling "world dominating" villain that Waver needs to take care off, while Gray fighting Hephaestion is the highlight of the Rail Zeppelin arc.

If anything along with what LA thinks that Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note is a codex for the Fate franchise, LA ALSO thinks this will maybe' get people up to date for the Fate installment coming up, mostly Fate Grand Order Camelot and Babylonia...but that just may have been LA.

LA thinks Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note tried to be so many things at once, one part magical mystery anime, one part Waver's story after Fate/Zero and one part a codex for Fate and became a jumbled mess of what it really wanted to be and let's not get started on the mystery element that did itself no favours. If this was JUST an anime about Waver wanting to reunite with Iskander then it'll be fine heck throw in the mysteries in but when it tries to be a pseudo Holy Grail War while being in a murder mystery genre then LA thinks Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note failed to notice what it was trying to be, it crossed the boundary if anything. Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note was a jumbled mess of a mystery anime but an even bigger crisis of having an identity and piggybacking off Waver to achieve it's overly complex convoluting confusing plot.

Waver deserved better...

Awww! What a shame! I was so hyped by the idea of a miniseries that was cannon and followed Waver Velvet from Fate/Zero.

A nice little detective show with more background on the clock tower and characterization; no need for much fighting, just cool deductions and Waver being Waver and squeeaaa! ^_^

And y'know Waver was real cool. Glad to have his original voice actor back. It's amazing to hear him do the old-Waver (very fitting), but also still be able to do the young version every now and then where needed. I also love Waver as a character. He's bitter, filled with regret and guilt, hard ... to make friends with, calculating - but when you do get close, he's a real nice guy who's trying to do the right thing. So much so, he takes on debts that aren't even his'! And I love how he solves his (and others') issues.

But!

In the end, the show didn't work for me. Art and sound was fine. Loved Waver and accepted Gray. I enjoyed it somewhat just because I crave Fate, but I also missed a whole bunch.

Basically, the crimes are too convoluted or filled with mumbo-jumbo that I just don't get any of it. Maybe I'm just dumb; but it feels like the show expects you to know the entire nasuverse, high-end astrology, and a whole bunch of weird rituals to have just a vague idea on what's going on.

I didn't understand the villain or his plot, I didn't understand the fights, I didn't understand the motives or methods, I didn't understand the noble phantasm, none of it. And that made it all just a blur..

On top of that, most characters aren't great. For one, I think the show expects you to have seen several spinoff series, or otherwise be heavily invested in Fate/Grand Order and the like. I recognized a few characters, but most I didn't. And all of them get far too little time, so that I don't know who they are, or their motivations, or really get a feel for them. Which is a shame, because some of them had real promise. I liked the 'filler' episode in the mall, which actually focuses on the three girls hanging out, and allowing us to get to know them. Wish there was more than that!

Finally Gray - she's a new character and she's a Saber-lookalike because reasons. Now, the reasons are actually fine enough, with a bit of head-cannon. I also think she's different enough as a character, to actually be a character. That said, I think she had more potential. I feel like she was only there because we needed another Saber-face, and some action scenes. But I think there was no need for the weird fights, and thus no need for her. If only there was more time!

She's pretty cool tho.

So yeah! Waver's cool. If you're a total fan and/or you know everything about F/GO and all that stuff, go for it! But I can't advise it as a standalone series, to my sadness. :'(

When I first saw the announcement of this anime, I was absolutely ecstatic. Waver Velvet and Rider were my favorite pair in Fate Stay Zero, which also happens to be one of my highest rated anime to date. The possibilities of what one could do with his character as an adult seemed endless. Sadly, The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II only serves as a continuation of the downfall of what was once revered as one of the greatest series of anime.

How do you take one of the best characters from arguable the best Fate series to ... date and get such a bland result? Well apparently you do it by giving more screen time to a Loli than your actual main character and using plot devices so convoluted that it sounds like characters are just making them up as you go.

Let's begin with the characters.

The anime was suppose to feature Waver, serving as a magical detective, solving cases in an almost Sherlock Holmes style while still dealing with the lost of his partner, Rider. However, for one of the most developed characters from Fate Zero, it feels like the writers didn't know what to do with Waver. While he certainly has some development towards the end of the Anime, it falls shallow when compared to his young self. The first couple of episodes featuring him started out very strong, but then we get to a main issue of the anime; Grey.

Grey is a shy, enigmatic girl who for some reason bears and uncanny resemblance to Saber of the original series. She has an undying loyalty to Waver and despite being a butt kicking, scythe wielding warrior, suffers from low self esteem. Grey very much steals the show, with the mysteries of her and her attachment to the main character never being fully explored unless you want to rely on Wikipedia. While not necessarily a bad character, she was mostly an unnecessary one, and felt like little more than a Loli trope.

After Grey and Waver, you have the rest of the cast who for the most part had little presence and didn't feel as if they fulfilled much roles in the series. Now I did enjoy Waver's new little sister, Reines. Her methods of tormenting Waver in a comedic fashion never ceased to give me a chuckle. Also, seeing Kairi from Fate Apocrypha was an absolute treat. I also enjoyed Waver's rivalry with Hishiri Adashino, although it was never fully explored.

The rest of the characters fall flat. You have the stereotypical Loli number #2 who's goal is to just get Waver to bang her despite there being a 15 year difference. Then there are a pair twin boys serving as Waver's students whose main shtick is just fighting over Grey's attention. Even the main villain you barely ever see or learn much of.

As far as Plot, the first half of the series focuses on Waver solving mysterious. This is certainly the strongest part of the show. However, even here there is a major issue, and that is the crimes always involve magic, and the magic system is never fully explained in the anime. A good mystery leaves the audience guessing who committed the crime. However, due to having one of the loosest magical systems I've seen in anime, it's impossible for the audience to actual predict where the show will take them. The end of each case simply involves our main hero listing pieces of evidence to the audience that we have little to no way of fully understanding due to the lack of understanding how the world itself works.

The second half of the show features a single, ongoing missions where a Waver's last piece of Rider was stolen from him, and now they have to follow clues to determine the main culprit and stop his plan. Sadly, the issues mentioned earlier in this review are all more prevalent in the second half forcing me to lose interest in the show all together.

The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II had the potential to be a top notch Anime, focusing on an already strong developed character, and watching him continue to grow while solving mysterious of a magical world. It could have brought the series's focus on moral ideals and what it means to be a hero to another level. Instead the anime falls victim to the same issues as recent Fate series; forgetting its true roots and instead using main-stream cliche's and tropes in an attempt to retain its popularity.

Reviewer's note: This is my 20th entry into the Fate franchise.


✪ Genre: drama, contemporary fantasy, detective, magic (magic school, spellcasting), seinen, superpower, with elements of comedy and action (swordplay, gunfights)


✔Positive Aspects✔

◧ Animation: the series roughly follows the character design standards set by the previous studios, a combination of colors of moderate to low saturation/moderate illumination with the internal and external environments being more muted comparison. Even though the characters seem distinct enough, the series' entire 'atmosphere' feels a little more muted than usual.

◧ Soundtrack: seems to be, mostly, comprised of orchestral music (violins, violas, percussion, flute, piano, etc.) with some of it being lower in ... tempo, while other pieces are more upbeat. Also, I've noticed a track or two having Middle Eastern
influences.

◧ Concept: this may have been the first spin-off work that overtly displaces the Fate franchise's general premise, that magicians are searching for the omnipotent magical artifact called "Holy Grail" by summoning Heroic Spirits and fighting it out, in favor of a detective story in the Holmesian tradition early on, and in the Poirotian tradition later on.


✘Negative Aspects✘

◧ Plot: there's not much to speak off. The first 6 episodes are stand-alone, clearly meant to introduce as to the way the protagonistic duo go about their way, while the next 6 episode constitutes a narrative, sort of. Even though I am fairly acquainted with the franchise, this spin-off introduced so many new elements that I did not manage to grasp them all in their entirety, since I've finished the series with quite a few questions.

◧ Character development: once again, there's not much to speak of. Even though the series uses the first 6 episodes to introduce as to the protagonists and deuteragonists, and their way of living, there's only a depiction of their character traits and temperament without anything substantial. Further into the series, there is some biographical information given but it is quite limited and somewhat perplexing.

◧ Action sequences: since the importance of fighting is downgraded and is substituted by Holmesian detective work, it's no surprise that the action scenes are generic, mostly based on a third-person camera perspective. There are few quick zoom-ins/outs, no alternating between different camera 'heights' during battle, and certainly no Michael Bay-influenced, heavily distorted & slowed down sound effects at the beginning of and moments before the impact of high-energy attacks (which are no more than a handful).


Overall: A combination of multiple deuteragonists with both heroic and villainous qualities, along with countless, new story elements and a significant reduction of action scenes in favor of the detectivization of the story, makes for a very substandard end-result.


P.S. For further reviews of the Fate franchise, please take a look at my profile.

I was a bit unsure of whether I wanted to review this series, partially because I watched it spread out over a decent amount of time, and partially because I am not as well versed in Fate lore as I could be. I have not read the F/SN visual novel, and I have watched only two of the animated routes (UBW and HF), as well as F/Z. Still, I was familiar with Waver's story going in, and I thought that would be enough to understand this series. I was wrong.

Rail Zeppelin (I'm not typing out the whole title) is less the mystery series it claims ... to be and more of a 13 episode convoluted dump of Fate lore. Dozens of people, organizations, magic abilities, and artifacts are mentioned so rapidly I could hardly keep track of what was going on. The first half of the show consists of episodic mystery storylines which in theory would be easier to follow but in practice introduced too many moving plot elements. The second half, taking place on the Rail Zeppelin train, follows a single storyline, but the amount of different events going on at the same time was dizzying. It is not a mystery whose solution you can guess by paying attention to the show. Plot twists are introduced seemingly out of thin air at least three times an episode. This may not be an issue for some, and if you don't mind that, you are perfectly valid and may wish to check out this show if you're a Fate fan. However, while I personally am rather poor at guessing plot twists or solving mysteries ahead of time, during a good mystery series I can look back after a reveal and go "Oh! THAT'S what that was about!" With this show, it's nearly impossible. Not to mention the countless moments where characters are shown to have predicted many complex and improbable events in advance. Again, this is more of a personal pet peeve of mine. It's much more compelling when a character encounters a shocking roadblock and must adapt or risk a terrible failure. Plus, given how convoluted the events of this show becomes, it breaks my immersion when characters has a "just as I planned!" moment for something so unpredictable. Finally, while keeping this complaint as vague as possible to avoid spoilers, a series falls flat for me when the grand reveal of the entire series involves an entity which was completely unmentioned by the plot until the very end of the show. While this show sets up such a moment with heightened drama and tense music, I could not care less about the reveal since I had no investment in what was involved.

One more extremely nitpicky thing. The "WHYDUNIT" and "Grave... crave... deprave..." moments were so comically clunky that they killed any drama I might have felt during whatever scene was going on.

There were a few things I did enjoy about the show, however. Waver was one of my favorite characters in F/Z, and I loved seeing his journey continue here. Seeing how much of an impact Rider left on him was emotional and interesting to watch. Gray was also an interesting character, though I found her somewhat sadly underdeveloped. The art, animation, and music are gorgeous, and I really liked the opening and ending themes. I liked some of the side characters like Melvin and Caulas (though most of them just irritated me). Some of the humor fell flat, but there were some genuinely funny moments too.

Overall, if you are a Fate fan, this series might be worth checking out for the lore, character building, and beautiful production quality. However, don't expect too much of the story.

This is a really interesting spin off concept. As a fate fan, there a lot of hits and misses in this family series but I am actually looking forward to see how this one plays out.

You see a lot of conglomeration, especially of character uses in this, that are easy to miss if you are not paying attention. I just finished re-watching apocrypha so it was fresh on my mind when I saw some pop outs in the background.

It is a school type series but more in like a Harry Potter way than a typical school type anime. The art style is good ... and the writing is alright. The episode was long but kept me entertained throughout.