Story:
FateZero takes place 10 years before Fate Stay Night and tells a story from the forth holy grail war. A war waged to get the holy grail, an artifact belived to grant any wish you might desire. Of course, this leads several of the leading mage families into conflict with each other. But in order to get the grail a human cant touch it themselves but the grail grants them the ability to summon heroic spirits to fight each other and the last one will be able to claim it. You need to discover the rest.
Characters:
FateZero is a bit unique in its setup stage, it does not have a traditional main character, instead the show follows several families and their reason for war and why they want to claim the grail. We then follow Kiritsugu Emya who is a mercenary and works for Einzbern family, which has lost the patience of the previous losses and now wants to secure the grail by using Kiritsugu as a master for one of the more powerful servants.
Then we follow Kirei Kotomine who has been hired by Thosaka family in order to use his special talents as a executioner for the holy church.
Of course, what would a war be without its heroes, the summoned spirits that a grail can summon is, rider,saber, archer,caster, berserker, lancer and assasin. All of them gets the treatment of their past lives and how they effected the history. Some are more developed than others but you get to know something about each one of them.
Animation and Sound:
Its Ufotable and i dont need to say more, the fights we have here is very well crafted with some of the best animation i have yet seen for a tv series. The lightning and shadow effects describes the tone of the anime very well and brings the atmosphere to the next level.
Yuki Kajiura makes her presence known by her wonderful music, while i dont think this is her best soundtrack but it is still amazing, i mean its Yuki we are talking about here.
Final Thoughts:
Storyline may be simple at first since its concept are easy to grasp but keep in mind that this is also written by Gen urobuchi and you know what that means, dark settings, humanity and ideals. I am not going to talk about it more since you need to discover more yourself but i can garantee that you will be suprised.
To me, FateZero is a holy grail, it made me belive that anime can be so much more than all that fanservice and japanese porn. It is mature, thought provoking, scarring and much more. Some people fight for their own greed, some fight for someone else and some seek a better future for humanity.
Together with Madoka Magica, FMA: Brotherhood and FateZero, those are my own big three.
DO not miss this!
