As someone who has always enjoyed historical legends and heroic fighters in a fantasy setting I was instantly drawn to look into this series. The base concept of the series is a group of magi summoning heroic spirits of legend to fight for them in a battle royal style fight over a magical item said to grant any wish, The Holy Grail.
The setting gives way to an abundant amount of possible outcomes and situations for the viewer to experience and enjoy. The tone of the show is instantly set the moment you begin watching it. It's mature and serious. If you're looking for something lighthearted to watch this wouldn't be it. On the other hand if you're looking for a series that has meaningful character interaction, a powerful story and some well written characters you've come to the right show.
The story can be heavy at first when starting with an hour long episode, but all of the info is needed to understand everything that's going on. As an English speaker I must admit when I first started the show in Sub I was having a hard time and even dropped it for awhile, but since the English Dub had an excellent cast I chose to go with it instead since the series could be dialog heavy at times. This instantly helped me keep track of everything more easily.
At first with all the technical information being shot at the viewer it can be a bit overwhelming at first but as you start to settle in and follow along it all starts to click. As stated before the story is what i would describe as "heavy". The series has dark tones and themes throughout, dealing with human nature and desire. It has some of the deepest character conflict I've ever seen in a series, as characters struggle with their own personal ideals and beliefs. What really stands out in the series is the constant back and forth between characters and their interactions between one another as these ideals clash with each other.
This brings me to the characters. You can have a really good story but with some horrible characters that bring it down completely, but then you can have really good characters with a terrible story that cause you to enjoy the series just from those characters alone. Fate/Zero does have a pretty cut and dry story at its core (Battle Royal style fight for a magical object that can grant a wish), but its the characters who are put into that story's setting and how they interact and their actions that make that story move forward so interesting. The aspects of each character of the series gets explored very well and each one of them has a defining moment in the series. Something special I love about this series is no character is perfect. ALL of them have some kind of flaw like any person would have. This allows for interesting characters that constantly keep you engaged.
As far as the sound quality goes, Yuki Kajiura does a fantastic job on the sound track. The music fits perfectly for this fantasy thriller and the music enhances each scene only to help immerse one's self into Fate/Zero even more. I've found myself going back to listen to the shows OST often just for background music for whatever I may be doing at the time. As far as sound quality goes, the Sub and Dub are both excellent since I have heard them both at this point, but I must say I think if want to give the series a shot as an English speaker I have to say this is one of the few dubs that in some ways surpasses the original Japanese in certain aspects. The emotion the English actors and actress put into this is very clear. Very notably Kari Wahlgren (Saber) and Matthew Mercer (Kiritsugu) do an amazing job at conveying emotions when it really counts, though honestly so does the whole voice cast, those two just deserve a special mention.
The art and animation quality is just astonishing. There is -NEVER- any flat colors. The air itself has texture and life, and any CGI blends nearly effortlessly in with the 2D animation. At no point while watching was I ever jarred or became un-immersed because of it. I cannot stress enough about how mind blowing and well done the animation of this series is. Ufotable did an amazing job with it and I have to say that really only anime movies come close to the level of quality this 25 episode series has. Ufotable really knew how to spend the budge they were given for this.
This series is something that to me is really deserving of words like "Epic" or "Masterpiece" words that get thrown around too often in my opinion. I enjoyed it so much and it had a good deal of re-watch value, I've always found something new and interesting each time I watch it.
This series honestly has made an impact on my life in a few ways, and I think mot anime and even non-anime fans should at the very least give it a try.
