Oct 3, 2011
Ufotable probably used the Holy Grail and granted the fan's wish.most of the fans turned their attention to fate/zero the moment they heard about the involvement of ufotable since they knew they could expect great things with other works they had seen from them.as we all know just having a good story won't make an anime good.how to adapt it and include the parts of the story,the good use of music and art and many other things are playing a big role in an anime.this anime didn't disappoint and tried hard to bring out the awesomeness.
Starting with the story the anime made a good use
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of the rich materials it had and the story can be considered one of the great parts.the Events of the story and the dialogues are not cliche or random and most of them happens for a reason and should be taken seriously since fate/zero is not just about battles.Fate/zero happened 10 years before Fate/stay night and the wars of the Holy Grail are about to begin once again.(those that are familiar with the wars can skip this part.the grail first appeared when three great Magus family decided to share their knowledge with each other to summon the holy grail in order to achive the roots of all knowledges.but they realized that the grail can only grant one wish and since they originally had different wishes the wars for the holy grail got started.in each war some masters with the desire for the grail gets chosen and will be granted a servant and three command seals.these masters will have to fight with each other under the control of a judge to win the grail that can grant them their wish.the servants are heroic spirits from our past or future or our legends and the masters are mostly magus with great power or desire for the grail.
now the 4th war is beginning and the Tohsaka family had a good history with the church and got help from them.the Einzbern family hired the famous Magus killer Kiritgusu Emiya and Zouken from the Matou family is using any mean possible to attend this war or getting prepared for the next one.there are other masters as well like Kayneth from the Archibald family or even masters without any famous magus family that got their chance to participate in this war by luck or their hidden desires.)
even though there are some unexplained things in the anime it is still very enjoyable because of the unexpected events and good character design .a good example of character design can be seen in the combination of Masters and Servants.you can almost be interested in all master and servant combinations.for example even if you find Velvet character uninteresting his servant will make up for it big time.as for a bad example i can name assassin since in my opinion the fate universe doesn't like this class.another good thing about it is the protagonist Kiritsugu Emiya which although has a cliche emo attitude he is still enjoyable more than Shirou Emiya in Fate/stay night Route at least but then again this is a matter of opinion.most of the characters are complicated and this makes them interesting and force the audience to think about them.although one things that may bother you is how they survive most of their battles several times even though their death flag is up but still it is enjoyable.one of the great things about F/z is that you can understand F/sn character's background which left unexplained in f/sn anime Specially Sakura and Kotomine.(which is a good thing for those that are not familiar with the VN or LN).speaking about Kotomine he is one of the best examples of character development and the audience can see how he became what he is with the temptations of Gilgamesh with his snake-like eyes at the end of episode 12(tokiomi used the first skin of snake that got shed to summon him ironically)
the art looks very good at first glance considering this is a TV-series anime since it reminded me of another work of Ufotable named Garden of Sinners which was an OVA(and another work by TypeMoon).while the enviroment is dark the battles are flashy and when the art is weird you should expect something big since they are saving the budget for the real deal like the 10th episode with Alexander's Noble Phantasm.they also did the Berserker design in CGI which was weird at first but it fits him and makes him special.the art is clean,shiny and devilishly mysterious that fits the story well.
the Soundtracks may not get your attention until the very end of episode 1 when the summoning begins.and after that there is the next episode OP(counts as the first episode ED)which i think Lisa did a great job.after that there is the real ED from Aoi Air named Memoria that can be seen in the next episode which also gives us a little peak to the servant's legends which is cool.after all of these the battles finally got started and here in my opinion they did a great job on each character's theme specially Berserker which you can here the enchant of Berserker in it like the Sephiroth soundtrack(One-Winged Angel)in FFVII Series.as for voice acting they used some real talented people and most of the people from the VN or f/sn anime got their roles back.they have the sweet voice of Sayaka Ohara for Irisviel(although i think she could do better),and for the protagonist we have the voice of Rikiya Koyama which is the best choice for these kind of characters.for Zouken they got Masane Tsukayama and he did a great job in Kaiji as Hyoudou and both characters resemble each other(and most of the people can recognize him since the second season of Kaiji aired recently).although there are characters that are not talking yet like berserker since he will only make noises for this season but the awesome soundtrack makes up for it.overall they did a good job in this part and used an epic-dark theme in their songs that fits the fate universe.
I tried and recommended the show to some of my friends.some liked it for its historical references or the art and some for its story even though some of em didn't even like animes before.this cannot be considered for everyone and i can't say that this show is for every kind of taste but since it didn't just count on one aspect like story,while it can have its own flaws it can satisfy a vast range of audiences.
combination of a good story and character design,good soundtracks and good art makes this one of the good animes of 2011 that is recommended for those that needs some adrenaline rush.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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