Oof. Another fate, another dollar, eh? Well, here i am for another fate review. I previously said in my heaven's feel review that fate are rather complex, but its a bit of a wrong thing to say, they're only complex because you get a whole lot of stories that aren't revealed fully if at all in the same scenario they're shown in and are instead spread thin over a few seasons to put together in such tidbits the extra work makes it seem hard, much like the 'complex' dark souls plot and characters that only seem so because you have to collect it like a puzzle from item flavor text and glue it together with truckworths of speculation glue.
This time's subject is fate/zero. First of all, why zero? Well fk if i know, its not the first grail war... Maybe because it happens before the 'main' story of stay. Yeah, let's go with that. So, who's this time's cast? A kid with an inferiority complex (his 'wish' is for OTHERS to see him as EQUAL. aka lame as fk), seemingly without a father figure or anyone else to teach him what's what, so a servant does it for him... Maybe. He's still obsessed with him later as we see in grace note. His servant, Alexander the great, 'king of conquerors' who they made into a 'manly man' to an insane degree, where his actions barely make any sense and all he knows is moving forward and being stupidly manly about it, as far as the creator/Japanese see it at least. This kid's teacher who is in it for the honor of it (as far as we know), and his insane wife we both don't really get the motives of. Their 'ladies man' knight that's all for honor or something.
A hollow priest who lost his wife and has no idea what he wants, until it comes to him mid show, with the help of a certain 'hero' (for both this part and fate stay)... He wants DESTRUCTION AND MYSERY. Great motive there. Said treacherous hero who always seems to play the asshole, and rightfully so, the self consumed, overly prideful king of heroes - Gilgamesh who just seems to want entertainment at any cost and is yet somehow drawn with a shred of pride in this one, which is ridiculous for such a twisted and wretched person. His first master (who he'll betray) - Rin's father, a complete asshole mage that is still portrayed as a good father for Rin, SOMEHOW, his bitch wife too, who we also don't get a good explanation of.
Some random insane serial killer fuck with no focus on, his even more insane servant - 'bluebeard', obsessed with Janna (D'ark), who apparently looks like Arthur, Ehem, ARTHURIA, aka SABER. No real focus for these two either. Arthuria, saber. A really bland character imo, especially in this one, obsessed with rewriting the past, until manly man Alexander shows her the error of her ways, as in that she protected her people, but never showed them the way and took the burden on herself, so they grew weak. Well, maybe, she still seems set on it in the end..? Berserker. Aka Camelot. Just mad at Arthur, pretty much it. Which reminds me of Berserker's master, and the story connected to him...
Sakura. Sakura, Sakura. Also Matou. And Rin, or well, her family. Which deserve yet ANOTHER mention. What the FUCK is wrong with them all? An asshole mage father, who gave his other daughter to another family 'for her own good' to be violated, raped, and eaten/corrupted by bugs, people, and god knows what else. A mother who 'agreed to do it by marrying a mage', and didn't fight back against her second daughter facing this horrible fate. And an uncle who ran away from all this insanity, only to find out about it when he came back, step up to try and help the poor girl. Who's the bad guy here? Who's at fault? The obviously evil old bug geezer (who's later revealed to only care about immortality, aka his own good)? The dad of the poor girl? Her mother? NO, OBVIOUSLY! It was the uncle who ran away (just because he ran away?) but later stepped up, throwing his life away to try and save her!
Because you see, that uncle actually liked the mom of the sisters before the chad mage asshole got her instead. So he's OBVIOUSLY the bad and guilty one, despite what he tried doing for them, and being the ONLY one to do something about this disgusting situation! Yes, this is the type of writing you can and should expect from fate~! Also, ancient artifact flying machine/alientech that's able to rival a fighter jet. Because why not.
Ugh. And lastly Illiya's mom, a homunculus and a personified grail vessle, who's motivations we're barely shown (aside MC giving her what a normal person should experience in life, and STILL she says she doesn't really understands him, only pretends to), who's always with saber, Maya, some poor merc girl MC took into their care as a little kid and we don't know shit about. The MC kisses her for some reason despite being with Illiya's mom and having a kid with her, and finally MC himself, Saber/Arthoria's master. Who barely interacts with her and that's instead up for arthoria and Illiya's mom. And his motivation is to 'save the world'. Somehow. I'll remind you he's a hitman, who's ideals are to 'save the majority even at the price of a few', except we're also told he'll kill just for money, so go figure. He's also supposedly emotionally fragile, somewhy and somehow. I don't even.
This all culminates in a rather dull and unimpressive story. The fights aren't especially great or cool looking either, despite the art and music being on point. Overall the story kind of sucks i guess. And i never did get why exactly after all those grail wars no one just passes on the info that the grail is not as great as everyone thinks it is, and is also possibly evil? Like, is it so hard to do? Do they get their memory wiped? WHAT'S THE REASON?
Final thoughts? Mostly decent (7/10), but still wouldn't really recommend watching because of a rather lacking story.
