Sep 2, 2017
Fate shows live and die by their characters. Past series (Fate/Zero) have impressed by delving deep into the motivations of the large (14+ characters) cast, each with a well explored personality and strategy, and then setting them lose upon each other.
Fate/Apocrypha ups the ante by doubling the roster to 14v14 and promising back-to back battle royales. The heroes are stronger too, many of them being divine and/or near-immortal. I believe these promises are the root of this show's failure.
Since there simply isn't enough time to explore all 29+ of these heroes in 2 wars, the show rushes and glosses over
...
and uses caricatures and stale/cliche themes. More than 1/3 of the way through the series, and the only character we've seen really explored is Seig, a cliche artificial life form who seeks to free others of his kind, and who isn't even a participant in the grail war!
Power creep is an important problem in Fate/Apocrypha, as it significantly lowers the stakes. Why should I care if characters we are told are divine or essentially invincible do battle, especially if I have no idea what anyone other than the golemancer and Vlad are planning? In Fate/Zero, if a character lost, their dream died with them so we cared much more - here, they are but one of 14 on their side, so the others could probably take up the slack and nothing really is achieved.
All in all I don't recommend this show. I will continue watching because watching this show make mistakes helps me to understand better what made my favourite anime so enjoyable.
TL;DR - too many characters, none of whom are fleshed out enough to capture interest. Too much power creep (divine, near-immortal characters, and 14v14 instead of 7-hero FFA) to make battles feel impactful or important. Too much screentime given to development of minor character's cliche side story (Seig). Skip this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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