Stop! Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side ye see.
What... is your name?
-My name is sir Xpwn3ntial of MAL!
What... is your quest?
-To seek the Holy Grail!
...
What... do you think of Fate/Zero?
-Fate/Zero is definitely one of the best works of 2011 and a pleasant offering to the anime industry by Ufotable. I'm going to try and keep this simple, so I'll start with givens that don't need too much elaboration.
The animation is fantastic. The staff knew exactly where to take their shortcuts and their implementation of CGI is seamlessly integrated into the 2D to give it an "otherworldly" feel that I thought was impossible. The backgrounds are gorgeous, and add to the scenes they are in. This is the kind of animation expected from movies, not television series.
The soundtrack, while not Yuki Kajiura's best work (I still think of Garden of Sinners to hold that title, which incidentally, is another Ufotable title), still lives up to her reputation. While some of the tracks are interchangeable with her other soundtracks like Garden of Sinners or Puella Magi Madoka Magica, they still fit the scenes and situations in Fate/Zero sufficiently, adding more tone than their utility takes away.
The tone and fight choreography are very well done. The pacing for fight scenes never dragged on, and only one fight in the series feels like it ended too quickly. The fights themselves offer fluid movements at almost all times and dialogue exchange when necessary so that viewers can understand the situation at hand.
Now that I've gone through the simple, given qualities of the work, I'll move on to more elaborate reviewing.
The Holy Grail War is basically an elaborate MacGuffin to bring all of the characters together and have them fight to the death. There's nothing wrong with having a MacGuffin, and Fate/Zero uses it to its advantage as well as a MacGuffin can be used. The problem with this is that someone can give a synopsis in one sentence, "All these people throughout history are fighting over the Holy Grail." A MacGuffin can only be so interesting, but luckily there is something I can only call a major sub-plot to make things more interesting. The major sub-plot of the series about Caster makes things more interesting, causing alliances that require the mentality "the enemy of my enemy is my temporary ally, and only temporary." It creates intrigue greater than "they want this but so do I so we must fight." The major sub-plot could only work in Fate/Zero's advantage, and it did.
The characters of Fate/Zero don't fit into any stereotypes so prevalent in anime today, and most of them have complex or honorable motivations for fighting the war and choosing which one the viewer should support comes down to personal worldview as opposed to good vs. evil. When I say most, I mean most. It would have been nice one of the motivations didn't boil down to "It's shiny so I want it." Another one of them has naivete that cannot be taken seriously, making proposals expected out of someone who is unaware of the situation he is in. On the whole, the characters of Fate/Zero are great, but not amazing.
This show goes through the entire emotional spectrum, and each of those emotions can reach even the most stoic of individuals at least once. It's depressing, it's fun, it's intriguing, it's complex, it's subtle, it's over the top, it's got something for everyone. The downside to this is that this series is trying to juggle too many things and even genres at once within twelve episodes of a series and one that just feels like filler right now but will most likely become important in the next season where it belonged in the first place. It doesn't know whether to be a psychological thriller, a low fantasy character drama, a lighthearted shonen romp, a cerebral battle of minds, or a Lovecraftian horror story. It implements each aspect well enough to enjoy, but it really needed more time to let the moods and tones flow from one to the next.
Which brings me to my next point. The main problem with this anime is that it is incomplete. It ends on a massive cliffhanger and while the next season Fate/Zero 2 is bound to be one of the best parts of 2012, it still requires a prequel season called Fate/Zero. That's actually why I gave this show an eight instead of a nine. An incomplete production can't get a 10, and if it was self-contained, it would have gotten a nine out of this review.
Bottom line: Definitely worth watching. No matter who you are, there simply has to be something for you in this show and when you reach the end you're only left wanting more.
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That took too long for you to say so I won't let you cross.
-Why didn't you tell me I had a time limit?
I don't kno- AAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!
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