This was a really feel good anime. I mean, watching it through was really cathartic, when the writing/onscreen action strikes a chord, it can make for some very enjoyable and very funny moments.
So let's go ahead and critique the plot and characters of this anime. To begin, the plot is fairly decent, if overdone or predictable at times. However, this is hampered by some awful pacing issues, particularly prevalent in Season 1 where a great issue stems from characters talking too much but not doing enough. An example would be two characters fighting something while exchanging very very long sessions of dialogue with each other but not doing much. I suppose it's a downside from adapting a light novel series, but the action scenes in Fate/Zero aren't that well put up. The animation quality is quite good, (3D issues aside), but poor pacing really hurts it and oftentimes action scenes last longer and are more boring than they should be.
I rather enjoyed the deconstruction of the "Killing the minority to save the majority" trope in this, showing it to be fairly meaningless and destructive as actively participating in the chaos. And while I do despise Saber and her ideals, I did enjoy the scenes where her ideals are outright dissected for how awful they actually are in front of her, good stuff there.
Character wise, some characters definitely work better than other characters. On one hand you have Waver and Iskandar's very well done friendship and on the other you have the very very boring Tohsaka household (of course the anime makes a point to how boring they are, but still). The main character is enjoyable to follow, and it was fun to see his rivalry with Kirei play out.
I wasn't too big a fan of the ending however, it felt very different in tone compared to the rest of the anime, but it could have stemmed from being a prequel to the more lighthearted (and worse) proper Fate series.
All in all, Fate/Zero is a great lighthearted (most of the time) anime that's full of fun and laughs.
7/10 - It was okay.
