[2008 April Fools version - Read]
While reading the first volume (the 2009 version) I found myself enjoying it, quite a lot.
The first time I read about this Strange Fake novel, it did not wake any interest in me, I mean, I did not find even the title very appealing at the moment, but I am glad that I did read it now because it is just a fantastic piece to read. I found myself wanting to read more, chapter after chapter, really interesting.
It’s to be noted that you should watch or read Fate/Zero or Heaven’s Feel before reading Strange Fake, not only to avoid spoilers but to understand better the concepts and catch all the references (there are references to Fate/Zero, FSN, and Fate/Apocrypha, among the ones I could catch)
I was hyped to read this because of Gilgamesh, I wanted to “see” him in action once again, and when he appeared it was awesome jajaja. I really felt sorry for his “master” when he acted all arrogant towards the King of Heroes. I’m impatient to see how he develops in this Fake Holy Grail War.
The Berserker Chapter was one of my favorites because it made me laugh of joy so much jaja. Weaver, you absolute bastard, you are the best xD You became a gamer! Oh god, I really laughed a lot in this chapter, how he was angry about his blunt pupil, Flatt, and how of a hardhead he is, all the references to Fate/Zero (I LOVE F/Z references) all the blunders, and the delivery of the package…
All the fun aside, it really surprised me at first, but the logic behind Jack not being a “mad warrior” was actually plausible… It makes sense in a way (something like that, but in different level happened in Fate/Apocrypha). I just hope “its” design is the same here and there, so there’s consistency. It goes without saying that I want more of Weaver suffering with his pupil jaja.
PD: Alexander’s catalyst… Weaver…you still have it *_*
And then all the other chapters… I can say by now that this Fake Grail does not only not care about the summoning –since it gives a crap, you only need to be accepted by it and boom, you have a catalyst? Here’s your servant. You don’t have catalyst? Boom, here’s a random servant- The requirements for this war seem to be less. While you can still perform a formal summoning, it seems to be utterly unnecessary since Flatt, Tsubaki and Wolf summoned their servants- well, they were auto-summoned… It’s like this Fake Grail doesn’t care at all, not only about range of age but formality. You have a command spell and you are good to go.
Another thing I did notice, is that a great amount of this war’s servants are really bizarre, and “strange”. They differ a lot from what we have previously seen in other wars. That itself is amazing, it gives this particular story a different feeling, a different setting, a different soul and that’s amazing.
There were many moments when I thought to myself “hey, this novel is really living up to its ‘strange fake’ title… awesome”
To the current date, this became more than an April’s Fool joke, or a fake prologue to a “game” (I’m glad it did not become a game, I hate those stories in where YOU are the main character…that’s why I prefer LN, manga and anime over games/VN). In any case, the translation of the LN volumes is very slow (Currently 2 volumes are published, and I think not even the first volume is translated) and the manga seems to be translated further but not by that much compared to the novel.
Anyway, this was a GOOD read. |