✪ Genre: action (swordplay), contemporary fantasy, comedy (facial distortion, funny expressions), magic (circles, spellcasting, magic weapons), mahou shoujo, school life, seinen, superpower (emotions awaken superpowers) with some loli, yuri, and harem elements
✔Positive Aspects✔
◧ Animation: adequately distinct characters, based on colors of moderate to low saturation/medium to high lumination, with the urban environment and the urban landscapes being a little more muted in comparison. The fact that the studio is improving its animation quality is evident from its crisper action scenes (see below).
◧ Comedic sequences: following the 1st and the 2nd seasons, this is the most enjoyable of this series. This time, they consistently revolve around a broader cast of characters that includes the protagonists, their families, and the group of their closest classmates. Also, they are taking place on even more physical locations, ranging from each other's homes to the beach, to theme parks, and to festivals.
◧ Fan service: from the Illya special episodes (1st season) and onwards, the studio has been making a consistently solid effort to provide quality fan service, usually containing a lot of loli yuri and ecchi-based interactions (e.g. lingerie, sexually suggestive clothing, skirt flipping, pantsu, breast fondling).
✘Negative Aspects✘
◧ Action scenes: from the Sekka no Chikai movie onwards, Silver Link has been consistently putting out more polished and stylish action sequences, clearly chasing after Ufotable's remarkable work in UBW & F/Z. Specifically, it does a good job using various camera perspectives (first-person, second-person, third-person) coupled with different camera 'heights' and quick zoom-ins/outs. Unfortunately, even though the end result is visually similar, it nevertheless gives off a sloppy, shounen-ish vibe. Also, they are strikingly few in number - 2 major fights spread out over 3,5 episodes.
◧ Plot: this season suffers from the exact same issue that previous season does, that there's not much of a plot to speak of. Particularly, there are only hints throughout the first 5 episodes, with the 6th episode functioning as an "informational filler". The narrative unfolds during the last 4 episodes, virtually in the midst of consecutive fighting. Absolutely terrible decision.
◧ Soundtrack: from silly-sounding tracks to electronic music during the comedic sequences, new age piano/new age orchestral tracks during the more dramatic scenes, and, mostly, electronic music during the action scenes. Nothing really popped, most felt very generic and low-key for my taste.
Overall: Even though the series consistently provides hilarious comedic sequences and generous fan service, it has a tremendously hard time combining the dramatic, comedic, and action elements into a balanced whole.
P.S. For further reviews of the Fate franchise, please take a look at my profile.
