Still, that isn't to say that Fate/Zero is boring. The art and animation are sharp and precise, Urobuchi's excellent storytelling makes Fate/Zero as thrilling as anything Code Geass has to offer. The characters, themes, and mood of Fate/stay night are flawlessly transferred to this show; Kotomine remains among the best antagonists I've ever seen in a genre show, and Kiritsugu's backstory does him justice, bringing to life that strange, cold silhouette hanging over Shirou's every action in the VN. Urobuchi's Saber is somewhat one-dimensional—though there are certainly less attractive sides to the character than the whole honorable knight routine—but then it isn't really her story. It's also tough to complain when she receives such a heartbreaking character moment at the end of the show, dragging her down to the nadir she needs to be mired in to set up her for Fate/stay night. Without giving away too much, it's a deeply affecting portrayal of Saber's lowest ebb, anticipating the sequel in which she is finally rewarded for her martyrdom, for all the years that she shouldered the shame and sin of her people in the name of justice and honor. Nonetheless, you'd be forgiven for thinking that she's little more than a gender-swapped Lancer after watching this.
I suspect the problem with Fate/Zero is that Urobuchi does not write characters in the same way that Nasu does and there's an odd disconnect there. This wasn't an issue in Madoka because it was purely an Urobuchi creation, but it hurts Fate/Zero simply because Fate/stay night, for all its many faults, had some extremely distinctive character writing. Whenever Kotomine or Kiritsugu are onscreen, this show comes to life. Kotomine is a devilish twist on the fairly played-out some-men-just-want-to-watch-the-world-burn Joker-type villain in that he's wracked with confusion and contradiction—a man who became a priest just to avoid confronting his darkest impulses. Watching him come to terms with himself over the course of Fate/Zero is absolutely thrilling. Some of his dialogue with Gilgamesh might be a little on-the-nose, but the tendency to tell rather than show is a trait Urobuchi shares with Nasu, and it doesn't detract from the intrigue. Unfortunately, the new characters, as well as those without any backstory established for them in Fate/stay night, are all exceptionally dull and predictable by comparison. Kariya is a character with plenty of potential that was entirely squandered; the same goes for Tokiomi and Aoi, whose stories only affected me because of my familiarity with Rin and Sakura and the legacy left for them. Kayneth and Sola-Ui are indescribably bland villains—so bland that Urobuchi apparently didn't even bother to resolve their storyline with Lancer.
I'm darting around the main point here, though; these plot devices masquerading as characters are nothing compared to this show's attempt to introduce a pair of legitimately developed characters in Rider and Waver. These two are almost entirely superfluous besides their involvement in plot development—especially Waver—and are by turns irritating, predictable, or both. Urobuchi is not a very funny writer, and though there's nothing on the level of Madoka's "girls shouldn't like girls" gag, Rider and Waver's painful attempts at lightening the mood in the early episodes of the show come off as dull and obvious. The show starts taking them more seriously later on, but this doesn't improve things, as I'm fairly sure that they have the same conversation about twenty times—Waver's inferiority complex acts up, Rider makes some gruff, paternal gesture to stop his navel-gazing and cheer him up, and they ride off on their chariot. The principal problem is that Waver's arc is damnably obvious. The first time you see him, you just know that he's going to end up finding the respect he wants by entering the Grail War and stepping up to the challenges it presents. That's exactly what happens, and though that might be forgivable if that story was told in a way that you don't expect, it just isn't. The ponderous tone of the Fate universe means that we spend a painstakingly long time listening to these two repeat themselves, so if you hadn't figured out where Waver's character was headed after the first few scenes with him and Rider, don't worry—you'll get a hundred more opportunities to witness this shallow development again and again. Waver's story has no particular thematic congruence with the rest of Fate, nor a deep connection with the other characters. At this stage, he's just some kid, and the focus on him dilutes Fate/Zero far too much.
Rider is significantly better, though he still comes off as a little superfluous thanks to his interactions with Waver, and never really ascends beyond the level of archetype despite some interesting backstory. He's an obvious foil to Saber, a Nietzschean font of vitality living selflessly by living selfishly, indulging in his passions and laughing all the way to Valhalla. In other words, he's Gilgamesh, Saber's preexisting foil, without the potent streak of nihilism that made Gilgamesh that much more unpredictable. Rider justifies his behaviour through a belief in master morality and rational self-interest; Gilgamesh doesn't even think such things are worth justifying, and that's what makes him the more interesting character. To give Rider his due, the idea of a journey to seek out an impossible ideal—his principal motivation—has some thematic weight in the broader context of the Fate universe, but there's no real point to him as he relates to the other characters. There is one thing that he contributes to the dialogue: his beliefs mean that he can challenge Saber on her principles, while Gilgamesh is devoid of principles in the first place. It would simply be out-of-character for Gilgamesh to question Saber. Gilgamesh sees the tragic beauty of Saber's condition without necessarily endorsing or dismissing it—he merely beholds it as it is, caring only if it serves his own interests. Still, with the emergence of plot developments at the end of Fate/Zero that throw Saber into despair and self-doubt, it's questionable whether Rider even needed to challenge her, especially when she already has Kiritsugu's cold utilitarianism to contend with. The overarching problem remains that the dialogue about idealism was already set up by Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero largely just mimics it. The addition of Rider to that dialogue seems like an afterthought.
There's also the matter of Caster and Ryuunosuke, who are either deployed to meet Fate/Zero's edgy grimdark quota or played for laughs; it might not surprise you that I didn't partake in any. That said, they are far more interesting antagonists than Kayneth and his phoned-in villainous arrogance, and I appreciated Caster mistaking Saber for Joan of Arc—quite a clever and appropriate little touch—but in many scenes, they're merely buffoonish and pad out the show even further. In a universe so concerned with little details and thematic cohesion, characters ought not to be playing such shallow roles.
The best episodes of Fate/Zero are the ones that cut out the fluff; Kiritsugu's backstory, told over the course of two episodes, is particularly good—revealing any of it would spoil it, even if you've read Fate/stay night. It's baffling that Urobuchi is so very good when he's dealing with someone else's characters, but is incapable of introducing any new character here whose purpose and relevance I can fully describe beyond their role in the plot—Rider is the lone exception, and even with him, it's pretty shaky. There is, however, one episode of Fate/Zero that is definitely superfluous, and yet I can't help but enjoy it. That episode is Rin's Adventure, a sweet little diversion around midway through the show that focuses on one of Fate/stay night's best characters, Tohsaka Rin. In Fate/Zero, she's still an elementary schooler, and it's a real treat to see here the beginnings of the sharp-tongued, reluctant heroine she would become.
Ideally, one would read Fate/stay night before watching this, but for those unwilling to slog through a visual novel, this is better directed and more accessible than Studio DEEN's Fate/stay night. It's good rather than great, but it's entertaining above all. If you like tight plotting, high production values, and men talking in dark, earnest tones, this is worth a watch.
