Now surely if you're familiar with the Fate universe, or any other Nasuverse show or Visual Novel, you know the various themes Kinoko Nasu or any other of the writers who wrote anything for Fate like to put forward. Fate/Zero focuses more on the ambitions and ideologies of the various servants summoned, while also presenting one of the best dilemmas in anime for it's ending which focuses on the idea of "justice", something that Urobutchi tends to like to base his stories on. Fate/Stay Night serves as an introduction to the Fate universe, and arguably does it even better than Fate/Zero. Unlimited Blade Works presents the idea of "Original vs Fake", and this same idea is developed a lot of more in Fate/strange Fake. Even Fate/kaleid, the fanservice-y loli show eventually puts forward exhilarating battles and does justice to the Nasuverse magic more than any other Fate show. Fate/Apocrypha on the other hand, is empty. The only thing Fate/Apocrypha tried to pull off is some half-assed "justice" conflict, which you have already seen a million times if you're somewhat into anime. And even then, this "justice" conflict is basically "All humans are evil!!!", "Nooo!!! Good humans exist too!!!". I'm not even making a strawman out of what is said in the actual show, "So, please don't say that goodness doesn't exist in this world!" is a real thing that a character in the show said, that is meant to be taken seriously. Either this is intended to be some massive joke, either this show is targeted towards 12 year old kids.
Boy is this far from all the problems with the plot in Fate/Apocrypha. While all the other renditions of Fate all have 7 servants which are developed during the course of the show, Fate/Apocrypha has 14. 14 SERVANTS!!! This means that Fate/Apocrypha effectively has 28+ characters it has to develop in the span of 25 episodes. As you understand, this is impossible to do, so obviously most servants are left out, and a lot of masters are sidelined. ...Sidelined. The most interesting aspect of Fate is sidelined and becomes mundane. The show mainly focuses on a few select servants and masters which leaves you wondering "Why do I have to watch all these secondary characters interact? They don't matter in the long run". This thought is completely correct. Most of the characters are useless in the long run. The show would have honestly been better if the cast would be the classic 7, heck 5 servant-master combos.
Heck, the plot in Fate/Apocrypha is basically sidelined. It's all just an excuse to have poor action play out. It can be resumed to "big shiny thing, me want. Reason me want? Me don't know".
Although, the plot isn't really a strong aspect in any Fate anime (and it truly brings me pain to say this because I know that I'm wrong), what about the "strong" aspect of Fate, the characters? Well, the characters in Fate/Apocrypha are a shit show of their own.
Not a single character is interesting. Not a single character brings anything interesting to the show. Not a single character serves any other purpose than just bad fanservice. I realised this fact by episode 3, and eventually started watching this show just for Mordred. Well, to my disappointment, Mordred ended up in the exact same situation as the rest of the cast. Her backstory was rushed, which of course it would be since there's barely any time for any of the characters, and her ambition and desire to get the grail ended up being a poor excuse to fight some people.
Then there is Sieg, the walking definition of "Deus Ex Machina". Sieg is the puny homunculus you see in the beginning of the anime which *spoilers* ends up playing a major role in the show (He's literally on the cover of the show). The amount of plot armour Sieg has rivals the plot armour of Emiya Shirou. For no reason at all, every other member of the cast either has a mad crush on Sieg, either cares way too much about him. Even Jeanne D'Arc, the supposed "judge" who should remain neutral until the very end of the war develops a crush on Sieg. Why? Because it's Sieg. Without getting into spoilers (in case you want to watch this shitty show), the amount of times Sieg escaped death is insane. By "escaped death" I don't mean "came really close to dying", I mean "should have been dead".
Fate/Apocrypha also ruins some of my favourite historical figures. In Fate/strange Fake, Jack the Ripper is presented as a mysterious incorporeal Berserker, a spirit of madness, which makes a lot of sense since Jack the Ripper literally had origin stories that claimed that the man who committed the crimes was possessed by a cursed watch. In Fate/Apocrypha, Jack the Ripper is a loli in a thong with mommy problems, and no, I'm not making this up, that's literally what she is. In one of the episodes Jeanne D'Arc takes out her sword, which is supposed to be a symbolic piece of rusted metal that she used to boost her troops morale. In Fate/Apocrypha, the said sword is a suicide magic wand that casts fireballs.
As a side note, there is also a particular character which I despise that goes by the name of Astolfo. Astolfo is easily the worst thing to ever come out of Fate. Astolfo is a trap, a character type that recently became popular in anime. Astolfo, just by existing in the show, lowers the seriousness of the show by a lot, further implying that Fate/Apocrypha is just a poor fanservice show.
What about the """miscellaneous""" parts of Fate/Apocrypha? As in, the Sound and the Art? Well, they're both terrible.
Both of the openings of Fate/Apocrypha are boring and uninspired. The first opening is a terrible performance by EGOIST in which the vocalist sounds like a siren. The second opening is the most generic LiSA song ever. The endings are also boring, but hey, I wasn't expecting the endings to be remarkable.
The worst part is the sound design. On multiple occasions the loud bass used for literally every single sound hurt my ears. Bullet being shot out? Loud bass. Fire burning? Loud bass. Swords clashing? Loud bass with 2016 Berserk clanking. Oddly enough, the person responsible for the sound design, Iwanami Yoshikazu, has done a good job in his previous works. It's as if he just gave up and used the same sound for every single thing in Fate/Apocrypha. The sound design being terrible heavily ruins the immersion.
Fate/Apocrypha has one OST along with a few remixes of that OST. It's loud, it's bombastic, it's annoying, it doesn't fit, and it made me want to stop watching the episodes every time it played.
As an insult to injury, my favourite voice actor of all time, Hayami Saori, does a terrible job voicing Atalanta.
Finally, the art and animation. The art style is bland. It looks like a cheap knock off of ufotable's artstyle. But the art style isn't the worst part of the visual aspect of the show.
The animation, IS AWFUL. I have no idea how a studio can fuck up this badly. Most of the time, nothing is shaded. There are loose keyframes every few seconds. The show abuses still frames, and on one occasion I had I to sit through a poorly drawn still frame that played for at least 10 seconds. The main purpose of this show being clearly to deliver fanservice to the fans of Fate is completely ruined by the god awful actions scenes that completely lack direction. The animators were probably told to just draw something that "looks nice".
Episode 22, the """good looking episode""" looks awful. If you believe it looks good, you are wrong. Episode 22 was mainly webgened, which would be a nice effort from A-1, if the final product looked remotely good. The problem with this episode is, yet again, lack of visual direction. Taken separately, the various clips may look good, but put together they become a mess of conflicting art styles and ideas. One second you have a well drawn still frame of a character, and on the following second you can have some "sakuga" explosion which ends up being completely out of place. The animation suffocates the viewer. There is a clear lack of visual clarity. A-1 focused on "flashy" scenes rather than well orchestrated fights. Compare Fate/Apocrypha to any other Fate show by ufotable. The difference is striking.
Obviously, I did not enjoy watching this show. It's a train wreck. A train wreck that I finished watching purely because I wanted to see how bad Fate/Apocrypha can get. There isn't a single redeeming quality in Fate/Apocrypha.
Please don't watch this show.
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TL;DR:
Pros:
-nothing
Cons:
-Complete lack of a story
-Pointless characters
-Empty of any thought provoking themes
-Uncharismatic characters
-Sieg and Deus Ex Machina
-Astolfo
-Ruined historical figures
-Bland openings and endings
-Ear-hurting sound design
-Boring art style
-Awful animation
Final score: 0/10
