This new vague warning before writing a review seems so odd now. My review will not satisfy people who want that kind of review. It is more of a review to see after you're already done with the show and more. I will have some concrete things to say and a lot of opinions based on feelings, but I expect every single person who reads my take on CF anime series to finish not only the anime, but a hell of a lot more.
Story: -/10
Characters: -/10
Animation: 8/10
Music: 8/10
Enjoyment: -/10
Overall: 5/10
Many aspects of this are wildly different depending on the episode and I can't give this thing a more precise rating. But even being very generous with my rating, 5/10 is the absolute maximum overall score I can give it for now. You should not watch this show if you haven't read the source material and then some. You have been warned.
I've searched for any novel readers having the same impression on the show as me in the review section, but couldn't find anything sufficient. This review will probably be boring at first, as I like having everyone who reads this being completely in tune, and understanding where the nuance in my experience may lie to the best of my ability without spending too much time as my big handicap. Thus, I'll be repeating my path through the Nasuverse as many times as it takes on each review that I feel needs it.
Now, without being overly detailed about everything and without including nearly any databooks or bonus stuff that does not seem to be overly-relevant, an oversimplified part of my journey that's relevant to Case files looks something like what you see below. I'm sure the ones who "know" will understand my reasoning instantly as well as some potential flaws near the end of this path. Do forgive me if some memory error occurs.
FSN VN > FZ LN/manga/anime/ova/cd dramas > UBW anime > FHA > GoA chapter 0 (the rest was read later) > Prillya manga+prequel movie to compare how certain events were handled > Apocrypha Unbirth > FSF 2008 > FA vol 1-4/anime/manga/(vol 5 and SoS was read somewhere in the early fgo timeline) > Notes. > KnK LN/movies/manga > Tsukihime VN/Plus/Kagetsu Tohya/Melty series/tale/talk/Prelude/Tsukihime manga/Tsuki no Sango/MnH/Carnival+Hibichika/AATM/Koha-ace vol1/etc > HF anime+cd drama 2 > unlimited codes > Fate/Extra > searching for more GoA translations on BL forums and reddit (this was still before the full translation dropped, but I managed to piece it all together with finding Chinese TL to carefully translate) > Fate/Extra CCC (all routes) > Tsukihime remake routes 1-2 > Mahoyo+first love > Clock Tower 2015 > Case files LN vol 1-3 > Proto OVA+LN vol 1-2 > FGO singularity F+First order > Extella > Proto vol 3-5 + labyrinth > FGO part 1+Camelot anime right after that quest > FSF 2015 vol 1-3? > Koha Ace GO+Type Redline > all part 1 events before Solomon > Solomon quest in-game before taking a small break from FGO > Foxtail+Extella Zero+Extella material+Last Encore > Case files vol 4-5 > Babylonia+Solomon anime > starting FGO part 1.5 > Case files vol 6-7 > finishing FGO part 1.5 > FGO part 2 (first half, without events) > Moonlight/Lostroom > FGO Part 2 events until NA ran out > FSF vol 4-6? > Requiem vol 1+collab event > FGO JP part 2 main story before it came to NA (LB5.5 - LB6.5 + Arcade story) > re-reading GoA with the new full translation post-LB6 > finding out about Case files collab rerun extra story and nearly spoiling myself, waiting to read it after finishing the CF novel and LEM > Case files vol 8-9 > Case files anime (ep 0-10) > Case files vol 10 > reading Case files's first arc in the manga while re-reading vol 1 of the novel side by side > Case files material databook (LEM) > CF anime episodes 11-13 > ??? (future me isn’t relevant here, but it might change)
Honestly, even with this I don't have as much to say about the show as I would've liked to because it was set-up wrong from the get-go. This review will be interconnected with my light novel and manga experience. It's a core component to any introspective source material fan reviewing adaptations and is pretty important.
FINAL SPOILER WARNING: I will spoil things from all over the place, beyond the anime, and beyond just CF novel series. You have been warned.
Before even watching the show, I already had tremendous issues with the anime just adapting volume 4-5, but tried to stay open-minded as usual. And at first, my impression on the show from episodes 0-1 were pretty positive, despite some of my issues. It was really interesting to see how the anime can handle Case Files in animation. How will the presence of visuals, voice acting, music, and generally anything outside of Gray's (and sometimes Reines') perspective will affect the feeling of everything? It was fun at first because I could tell that despite clearly getting a wildly different vibe from the novel I could find enjoyment in this anyway. I liked the vibe of this show's music (made from the same person responsible for KnK OST), I really liked OP/ED to the point of ED becoming one of my favorites among any Nasuverse anime titles pretty quickly. I consider the casting choices to be perfect for everyone except maybe Yvette and Hishiri. That first potential exception is somewhat debatable because she was meant to be annoying to some extent in the novel, but I cannot express how much I started hating her guts after she was given this voice here and it made me actually dislike her a lot when the Rail Zeppelin arc was taking place (which is unusual for me after not having any issues with her in the novel). My dislike for Hishiri's voice may seem a bit dumb, especially how it seems to fit her description from the novel, but I'm just really tired of this overly onee-san voice and it just annoyed me the whole way through. But alright, enough about the voices. I didn't mind episode 0 being focused on the cat incident only very briefly mentioned in the very first page of volume 1. There was an image of a dead cat at the very beginning, and then Gray and Luvia were talking about Waver where one single line about the cat popped up (or something along those lines). They made an episode out of just that. Which is cool and all, but it sneakily started this tendency within me where I question many of this extra stuff with a "why?" when we could've had a normal full adaptation instead. I tried to be thankful that we got any Case files anime at all, and this mindset is honestly the only reason I switched my decently long-lasted rating of 4/10 into 5 after finishing the last episodes. But I digress. My experience with episode 1 is a bit complicated to explain, but overall I was fascinated with it as a novel reader. Reading that scene of Waver meeting with Reines for the first time at the start of volume 2 from Reines' POV was undoubtedly better than in the more basic way the anime did it. The anime changed up young Reines’ design by shortening her dress, giving it frills, and having Reines shorter haircut. And when I was watching the scene, I found myself liking it more than the illustration of her in the same scene from the novel or in that Fate/Zero: Another Epilogue chapter (even if it was a bit closer to the novel than the anime design-wise and with more bits from the novel preserved in general). The anime may have been basic in a lot of ways (without having the luxury to go into things deeper due to the format of anime restricting it somewhat) and the pacing of the episode split the scene into 2 parts with the Waver traveling and meeting Melvin part in-between, but I liked this approach. I also found the changes to the way Waver gets interrogated in this version pretty amusing. Having Waver be upside down and the guards shaking him around is a silly devious thing that Reines may come up with if she were to feel particularly impish and childish (the new design helps with that feeling too, so good job). I liked how the anime did it with what it had, basically. Now, the Fate/Zero manga, on the other hand, took a more comical approach and the peculiar artstyle of it helped a lot for the situation to feel very lighthearted compared to every other version of this scene, and I liked it in its own way, too. All 4 iterations of their meeting scene do their job well in very different ways and are all welcome additions. But I’m unsure if any of them work quite as well as the novel. In the novel it was very expository (which is exactly what we needed and waited for after that first volume), introspective, and with a certain vibe to it that only really was felt in the Case files manga adaptation of the scene. In that manga, this scene was handled as perfectly as it could be in the visual medium without going full light novel. Definitely was the second best version of the scene after the LN (it was even better than the original in some instances). I may have liked the visual and directorial approach of the anime version of the scene, but Case files manga made me truly understand why the first intended Reines’ design from that novel illustration works the best, after all (especially with the content of the novel), and why having very little of Reines goofing around in that situation was superior in the narrative compared to her feeling a bit too childish in the Zero version and to a lesser extent in the anime. Reines may like to do a little trolling and can be silly at times, but she is also supposed to be very mature and reserved for her age due to all of the bullshit she had to go through like having to be a target for assainations and such. This duality is pretty much what makes up Reines’ personality. She is much cuter in the anime and you can argue she looks better there visually in some aspects, but the manga handles her much better in that core aspect of her character visually than anywhere else. We see less of her being exaggerated and more ’real’ in the novel and the manga thanks to the knowledge of what Reines was thinking about during this ‘heartwarming’ episode and pretty much every time we have the narrative switch to her perspective. It doesn’t take much to realize how much better this introduction was for Reines in the novel and the CF manga compared to the anime and Zero manga, so I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed by the thought of people seeing those versions first instead of the superior ones (although ofc no one’s reading Zero manga’s version first normally unless they know Japanese or something, so realistically it’s mostly the anime I’m a bit concerned about). That’s nearly all my thoughts on the topic of the ‘Reines meeting Waver’ prologue, but I have one more thing to say before moving on. Having this prologue scene interrupted by Waver traveling and then having our first young Melvin meeting all in one episode is quite awesome. If not to at least just know how both may affect the story and my experience in general (granted, I can't really ever know how it feels like for anime-only people, but oh well, you can't have it all). When we finish with Melvin scenes and go back to finish up with the second part of Reines meeting, the coat transition into Iskander’s at the end is just awesome and with that short montage stuff the ending of episode 1 is pretty great. Really makes you wonder if it would be better for someone to skip episode 0 or not, even if it came out earlier than this episode or not. Anime-only experience must be super weird as usual and it is quite amusing to think about. But of course, I would never advocate CF anime or this point in the story being your first time meeting Reines or Melvin. I’d rather most people read the novel or try the manga (there’s really not enough manga translations, though). You can already imagine by how long it took us in the novel or the manga to see that Reines meeting scene and even more so meeting Melvin for the first time properly in the later volumes just how ridiculously fucked this anime had to be paced to make up for the number of episodes or a limited production or whatever the hell was the reason behind it. Part of the reason for some of the directorial moves is simply the format of an anime being different from the novel, but a lot of the scenes in the manga prove it could still be made work well in the anime if they maintained similar pacing and the core structure of the novel without jumping around to the 3rd arc straight away. In that aspect alone this anime deserves the spot of the worst Nasuverse anime. Starting off, it's already wildly different from anything we've seen in the Nasuverse and not in a good way. We've had a lot of wild shit happen here: from KnK 6 being simply ridiculous as an adaptation, HF3 anime ending section being very unfriendly to the anime-only Fate fans, Zero anime being a menace to every OG novel reader fan out there for being a normie magnet, Deen Fate route mixing shenanigans, Deen UBW being a fun scene compilation movie and nothing more, ufotable’s UBW changes lessening Illya’s character +spoiling Zero +"hidden" stuff for those who played FHA and CCC (and have read Case files), Prototype OVA being a thing to mald over never being a full anime, Prillya anime being Prillya anime, random FGO animes that somehow are watched by the people who’ve never played FGO, Tsukihime anime actually existing, one of the most reference-heavy titles like FSF becoming an anime, and up until Last Encore being so unfathomably based most cannot understand it (much less enjoy). This CF anime is the only one that went as far as just starting in the literal middle of the story and not finishing it because the story was never meant to be consumed separately from the novel. CF anime tried to do it anyway, and it reminded me of the Canaan anime situation where the core part of the story was already told in Shibuya Scramble. But that didn’t start in the middle of the story, instead after it was done already. The only difference between CF and Canaan anime is that the latter wasn’t trying to adapt anything and instead was serving as a largely redundant product that only served to make the original source look worse by having this unnecessary thing attached to it (even if having more Type-Moon content isn’t entirely unwelcome). CF was and is a LN adaptation and it tried to do this ridiculous thing. I could tolerate it with FGO anime a lot more because the source material there wasn’t a light novel and FGO in general tended to be a very flexible thing to adapt compared to something like Case files. And currently, having parts of FGO’s first arc adapted/interpreted through First Order, Camelot, Babylonia, and Solomon is already much better than only having Rail Zeppelin in the CF anime being the only thing adapted in the entire novel series. First Order would be an equivalent to Arda’s Castle arc and Solomon would serve as an equivalent of the final arc to Case files (Grand Roll) and we do not have either adapted in the anime form here. And while I hate that with an endless passion, I gotta admit this takes some balls. If I am really just being impatient and if CF anime really will get that final arc adapted some time later, I’ll have to take that into account later, however then you’d have the same problem as in this first CF anime with later having characters from volume 1 appearing as well as the events from all other volumes mentioned which they may even remove entirely to replace with more anime-only stuff again. That hypothetical Grand Roll anime adaptation is going to be just as weird as this one if they don’t adapt more of the previous arcs, but with just a bit more chances to be enjoyable because the whole thing with Heartless and his servant was set-up in this anime already and that’s what’s the most important. Rail Zeppelin anime overall was just not it for being a setup for CF anime series, just like the first Camelot movie was before the second one saved it from being a pure garbage adaptation or having anime-only people experiencing Babylonia arc before going through Camelot. Rail Zeppelin anime is the closest to the first Camelot movie in my earlier “FGO anime to CF anime comparison” equation. It can also be close to the latter half of Babylonia (when it started to fall off), but Camelot fits a bit more here. CF anime managed to disappoint me more than Tsukihime anime (for already having an expectation of that one being terrible) or Prillya anime (with an expectation of it simply being nothing more than a uoh joke compilation), and This CF anime is right up there with the worst of the worst for me in Nasuverse as of right now. But it can definitely change in the future more easily than the other anime I’ve mentioned could.
I went off-topic for long enough with my whiny ass rants. Let’s bring some positive energy back again for a moment and remind you where we’ve left off. Episode 1 did everything well with these peculiar production circumstances. Having to see Waver travel around and get in trouble with Melvin after the 4th HGW was a great addition to this weird limited anime format they were going for as was having to see the scene of Melvin landing Waver the money animated. It was confusing when paired with the cat episode before it, but pretty good. I was now ever more hopeful to see the anime get to the arc it was supposed to adapt. But what I didn't take into account is something ridiculous happening like this show only having 7 episodes to adapt the entirety of the Rail Zeppelin arc in the latter half of the show with the rest of the earlier episodes being anime-only filler that blue-balls its viewers. That made me pretty freaking mad, but the first 0-1 episodes did pretty alright as far as filler-esque episodes go, so I tried to be patient. Episode 2 was when it started to go downhill. As much as having to see some random Animusphere branch family filler seems okay in vacuum or some random Clock Tower shenanigans in general, I'd really rather not have to sit through it when I know it could've been novel content instead. But the unfortunate thing here is that the overall plot doesn't work without this kind of tomfoolery precisely because, despite the anime being so bold with starting in the middle of the novel and even referencing stuff no anime-only watcher would know, they didn't want to go all the way with it. Having the viewers see this overly-complicated magecraft stuff wasn't as neat as in the novel and even in there it wasn't a particularly big reason for your enjoyment (as you can't truly guess anything as you would with most normal detective novels and just having to follow the flow), instead it was character interactions and the overall lore stuff. Having to see this random filler plot where anime-only people can see a fraction of this astronomical magical stuff we went through in the novels but so much worse is just irritating. It's obvious that the anime wanted to hit the same beats as the novel with displaying Waver's magical deconstruction prowess and to make callbacks to it later because they’ve decided volume 1-3 weren't worth its own adaptation apparently. And let me make this clear, I am super mad about CF anime not starting with volume 1 because I truly think it's the best starting point for the series and I have made a point to myself to re-read it alongside the manga of that arc to make this point clear to myself once and for all that anime sucks ass (trying to uncover the differences between the manga and the novel was a big W). And as a bonus, if you've read just a few volumes of CF before FGO on top of Garden of Avalon, your enjoyment for Camelot will skyrocket to overshadow Babylonia in some ways. But I digress. Episode 2's family drama angle was very much a replacement for what would've happened in Twin Towers of Iselma arc (vol 2-3) and the secret plan of the dead father becoming a culprit instead of someone present being suspected of it at first was clearly meant to be Adra Castle arc's replacement (vol 1) and it was all in the same episode. Next up, episode 3 actually had that random-ass Clock Tower Slice-of-Life nonsense that I wanted to see more for a long time and I enjoyed it a whole lot more than episode 2. Much of the lightheartedness here cheered me up a little and gave me some more hope for the Case files anime to turn out enjoyable by the end. Although, it irked me a little bit that Flat's inner character stuff was mentioned at all here. After catching up to the FSF novel, it was done and revealed so much better as it was always supposed to be truly delved into right there in FSF and nowhere else. This was why the CF novel wasn’t really keen on wanting to explore his character and why you always knew that something about him was off. You were supposed to get all of that from FSF instead of this random filler episode, and the thought of someone watching this episode before reading FSF makes me cringe deeply, even if this moment was very brief. Another thing that irked me a little bit were tiny FGO references within this episode. I did like them and I wouldn’t want them removed but at the same time it’s amusing how had I been a little more of an idiot and decided to read the novel up until vol 4-5 and went straight for the anime without catching up to FGO, I would've missed out lol. This is just the nature of these easter eggs and it’s not even an issue (I just wanted to bring it that thought). Tiny pet-peeves of mine aren't enough to really detract from my initial enjoyment, even if I did still feel it'd be better to focus more on the novel content instead and for these random filler-esque episodes to happen in-between instead of replacing it entirely. Episodes 4-5 were a mixed bag and they actually managed to make an anime-only filler arc on top of this already ridiculous situation Case files anime is in. But let’s start from the beginning. I like the scene of Reines and Bram (Sola-Ui's brother) talking about the 5th HGW for a tiny bit a whole lot, but while briefly bringing up Bazett didn’t really change anything, Altrum's brief presence on the photo only served to remind me that we couldn't have volumes 2-3 animated. Having both photos there was perfect and better than one or none, so the point is still “I like this scene”. Now about this arc thing they were trying to do. By the end of episode 4 I was so shocked and mad that those bastards included an anime-only filler arc instead of animating more of the novel, it was kinda funny. But I've actually calmed down more than expected as episode 5 kept going. It's unclear how much different it'd feel if I didn't already read LB6 and never met a Nasuverse fairy in full before (and no one would call the brief appearance of one in this episode “in full” when compared to LB6 characters), but despite the anime and volumes 8-10 coming out before LB6, I'm still glad I've read LB6 before seeing both of those (as much as that may make me more of a normie in the eyes of even more hardcore Type-Moon fans who’ve been around far longer than me) because my first experience with fairies and Albion was with Nasu's writing instead of Sanda and this anime (and it helped out especially a lot while reading final CF arc for obvious reasons any LB6 reader could tell you). But even with all of that, I can't really describe these episodes as anything but a mixed bag, yet I kinda liked them by the end to an extent. Although that brief underground graveyard tunnel stuff really reminded me of volumes 6-7 and that cool Gravekeeper, and that we can't have that arc animated either (lol). My mind turned out to be quite the downer this time, huh? But I couldn't help it. Why must this show be structured like this? Anyway, having Shishigou show up was a brilliant move I couldn't really expect. Actually seeing the concept of Wild Hunt being played around with in Nasuverse besides it just being contained within a physical being like a servant was very nice, and so was knowing the fact that the fairy realm can be accessed through a portal. That moment when Reines jokingly offered Waver to sleep with her with intoxicating smugness reminded me of how much I liked Reines, and by the next episode I felt she was carrying this anime. When the Rail Zeppelin arc started I felt that it was so much better with her around, too. The feeling of "Mid (Gray) vs Kino (Reines)" was profound at times. But it’s all in good jest, Gray is great. Although I wanted to just briefly mention how Gray's voice could be a bit too meek at times to the point of annoying, but as that was pretty similar to how it was supposed to be in the novel, it was absolutely spot on. Now, episode 6 was most blatantly combining the theme of beauty from vol 2-3 with the entrapment aspect from that one awesome scene from vol 1 but being way more passive in here. There's more at play here like Reines explaining stuff to Gray about Iskandar and Luvia wandering around the place being pretty meh and how I'd rather see vol 1-3 animated again, but it was actually fine and I liked these calm moments with the girls together (and Reines carrying the show for a little while). It was pretty short and we're quickly back to where we started the episode, focusing on Iskandar's relic again and with the Reil Zeppelin arc about to begin (finally). And how should I put it? The Rail Zeppelin arc in this anime doesn't live up to the novel at all. It's easy to see why it failed to grab the attention of some people for me especially, because I'm one of those people. Visually, the train and all about it was done almost perfectly and I really respect how the studio handled it, but the story here simply failed in this medium in my opinion. I think I’ve talked about how vastly different Case files anime felt to the novel a little bit, but this is where I'm gonna expand on that. The anime needed to have this outward all-encompassing direction to work as an anime and you couldn't really ever transfer that peculiar sense of isolation or seclusion that Gray's inner monologue provided (the lack of visuals in the novel help with that feeling a lot and the manga doesn't have it either). Sanda sure can write them to the point of the reader occasionally getting tired from it, but it worked great when you’ve taken much needed breaks in-between and most importantly it added to the characters’ charm, made them fully fleshed out and developed. Reines and Gray suffered a lot without that, just as Shirou did in all FSN anime that there is. The only times I can even recall this similar vibe done perfectly in an anime was in some of the scenes of Evangelion, and Case files clearly was never meant to be like that. This is definitely my inexperience talking, but I honestly don't know if transferring that mood would ever be possible without making the show feel too awkward. It simply didn't deliver in the anime at all for me. It was so boring, in fact, that I could not finish some of the episodes for hours, instead opting to pause and stare at a screen for 20 minutes at a time. My mind went to switch to literally anything else like a YT video or just typing out about how I hated the show in discord chat. Blankly staring at a screen was better to me at one point and this is simply insane. Minutes were stretching into hours and I'm still in disbelief that it actually happened. It was the first for me in any Type-Moon anime and it was as impressive as it was depressing. Just thinking about it again makes me sick. I was initially intending to finish the anime right before reading volume 10 because I wanted to feel the sense of it being "over" more profoundly (despite there still being a sequel novel series), but in the end it made me so bummed out and almost made me lose faith in the Case Files series when it was instead supposed to have the opposite effect. The disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined, seriously. "Volume 10 better be very good" I thought, hoping it would return me to normalcy the novel provided and cleanse me of this anime filth. And the next day, it actually did. Made me so enthralled that I finished it in a single day. I've been reading until morning and refused to leave until I was finished. It turned out to be one of the best volumes CF had, if not top 1. But after that, it took me a while to return to the anime, and once I did I was determined to be as clear about what was different in the anime from the novel as I could. Last time the memory wasn't as clear as I would've liked (as you can imagine seeing how far in the timeline it was) and it probably made me dislike the anime more than necessary, so I wanted to avoid repeating that mistake. For just 3 more episodes it wasn't really that much of a game changer, but it did help. It was a fairly standard case of "novel was better, what else is new?" with nothing much to really comment on given how ‘done’ I am with this arc here, but I at least wanted to touch upon the new Reines/Shishigou/Luvia investigation side-plot (aka the changes that contradicted the novel the most that I could notice). What some of those early filler-esque episodes really served for is more connection for this investigation side-plot and having more backstory/organic explanation to some things that couldn’t be done in the anime quite as normal as it would be in the novel in a way it was written. They wanted to make some eureka moments for viewers to get them to feel how interconnected Neartless' presence was in Case Files because they didn’t want to mention too much stuff from the previous volumes (I can only assume so, at least) because if they went too far with that it would seem like too much of a cop-out for anime-only viewers that didn’t read the novels. And all of that was done despite us not really knowing anything substantial about Heartless until the final arc in the novel anyway, it’s not really possible NOT for it to feel incomplete and missing something already. It feels like something done out of necessity and feels more fake than what it felt like to me in the novel, but at the same time some of it also feels completely unnecessary for the people who simply wanted them to make more anime adaptations either before or after this one. But despite that, once I delve into it again I become way more fine with it than I was in my initial viewing of the first 0-10 episodes. Trisha’s investigation was explained a bit more in the anime and I appreciated it. I liked how this suspicion of mine for why Trisha was investigating was confirmed. Trisha was doing this to find out about why Olga was not cared for properly by her father Marisbury after he got to the HGW investigation. The anime-only girl from the branch Animusphere family from episode 2 was there, so that’s kinda a little bit cool. That silly mage in the sewer workshop from episode 3 had some connections with Heartless too, that’s cute. Shishigou that we’ve met in episodes 4-5 went to investigate stuff with Luvia on behalf of Reines and met up with that zombie cooking show mage guy (that was actually supposed to be on the train this whole time in the novel) to confirm that Iskandar’s relic being stolen was done from within (as if it wasn’t obvious already without Shishigou’s involvement) and probably more behind the scenes. That’s pretty interconnected and cool, at least. I didn’t mind that stuff too much since Reines indeed was doing some investigation in the meantime while the story was focused exclusively on the train and Gray’s POV in the novel’s volumes for the most part. Touko travel part was still a little bit odd (even if Touko is exactly the kind of person that can make me believe she would make something like that and especially after CF volume 3), but at least we now visually see the procedure with summoning circle a little bit, how much exhausted the people were in the process of the ritual to activate it, and most importantly the fact that Flat was involved in making it work (refer to FSF to know more about Flat’s importance). Shishigou was hired to do the investigation in the anime and to my memory he does not appear in the novel, which is why it was especially weird to see this huge disconnect. His involvement and some scenes would’ve looked differently in the novel given how that TV star mage was supposed to be on the train this whole time, but then the whole story would’ve been altered a bit too much. Just a thought experiment of this sounds fun, though. Anyways, I couldn’t remember this zombie cooking guy in the novel too well except that he was on the train giving some info and stuff, so perhaps this switcheroo wasn’t too detrimental to the novel’s narrative? In times of confusion like this, I really wish I could’ve experienced this arc in the manga in full to compare. But even if I tried very hard to read it, the manga is quite literally still ongoing at the moment and after this many years it’s currently still only close to the middle of Rail Zeppelin arc. I respect Case files manga a lot and it is such a shame we don’t get more translations for it. Maybe in the future someone picks it up again, but who knows. Now enough about the superior CF adaptation. What else can I say about the anime? In a lot of ways it’s simply confusing. It’s going to be really hard to rate the story, or the characters, or my enjoyment when there’s so much nuance to account for, so I wasn’t really planning to make an objective take with all of this weirdness involved in the first place. There were points in time where the enjoyment was okay and where it was nonexistent. Some of this stuff was interesting and some of it was simply dreadful. If I extend my rating to the characters connecting it to the novels, my rating would be probably 10 since I liked the voice actors and nothing was really fucked up about them except not having inner monologue and making them feel flatter than I would’ve liked (or what I would’ve liked being possible in this anime format to begin with). But even that would be somewhat disturbed by my dislike of Yvette and Hishiri in this show. And first of all, this anime is divided into volume 4-5 parts on top of so much anime-original content, it’s nigh impossible to judge clearly for me. I wish this was an actual adaptation and for the filler-esque episodes to be either left in-between or reserved to anime specials or a separate series or something. Honestly, that would be ideal. So, ironically enough, now I can finally feel what some have already felt towards Last Encore about not getting a Fate/Extra adaptation. But I have a few issues with those people who think Last Encore is worse than Rail Zeppelin anime (besides the fact that there’s plenty of OG Fate/Extra content without having it to be an anime that’s just yet to be translated). I’m of the opinion that the ideas and the execution of the completely anime-original Fate/Extra story in Last Encore was done well and it makes even your most Nasuverse lore goblins and the most hardcore Fate/Extra fans think a whole lot. Usually the most you have to think about as a novel reader with Type-Moon anime is about the structural changes and always comparing every aspect of the character and story portrayed to the other mediums/adaptations, but LE required the most amount of thinking and research out of any Type-Moon anime ever. The only other intentionally vague anime piece within Nasuverse I could think of that’s on the same level would be Moonlight/Lostroom OVA (we’ve yet to see part 2 of FGO finish so you would have even less info to speculate about when that OVA first came out), but it’s a short OVA and not a full series. Last Encore’s existence wasn’t pointless and it even managed to be quite meaningful to the overall narrative of Extaverse. And it wasn’t even an adaptation but something new, which none of the other Fate anime series can boast about. Last Encore is the only Fate anime of its kind so far in many ways and I wouldn’t want to see Fate/Extra anime adaptation if it makes Last Encore not be a thing. Just like I would’ve enjoyed seeing the anime original Tachie (stray servant, proto-Mash from FSN) route that was planned to be a thing before it was canned and changed to Fate route adaptation. All of this to say that this short snapshot of what Case files anime could’ve been is not comparable to Last Encore at all. Case files anime is supposed to be an adaptation from the start, and it fails at it, due to this strange way they decided to start it in the middle of the story. Somehow it makes me wonder if they actually planned to continue Heartless related stuff and adapt the final arc from the novel later while skipping the arc right after Rail Zeppelin (especially because of the insanity that was volume 7), because there’s no way they could’ve entered into the franchise in the middle of the story and just ended it without moving to the finish line, right? This anime legit comes in like “does a thing, refuses to elaborate, leaves” just like Heartless himself and that kind of vibe is just funny to me while also incredibly sad. Speaking of Heartless, there was a moment in episode 12 on top of the train where KnK-esque music was playing and I really felt the weight of how poetic the anime could be and what it’s trying to do in that moment. Whenever the topic of fairy kidnappings comes up, you obviously think about that Satsuki guy from KnK 6 where it first got introduced to us. The fact that the same composer with the same kind of music is back for this very moment again feels just right at home. Makes you crave for more in a good way, for more KnK and more of this arc actually being finished. So I’m very conflicted. And of course the last episode just had to be a good note to end on to make me conflicted even more. This anime is weird and simply incomplete as of now. While I could tolerate something like the first Camelot movie because the second one was just that good for me, I cannot do it here because there is no second season on the horizon. And even if there was, it wouldn’t just instantly fix all of my issues here in this Rail Zeppelin anime. This show overall screams part 1 of 2 of the now (unfortunately) normal “season cour” trend and leaving it at that is just not right. It wasn’t right to start here and it’s not right to end it here, either.
I could’ve gone on for more and analyzed stuff better without rambling as much (and not formatting walls of text as horribly), but I just don't feel like spending any more time on this. Here's hoping this review doesn’t seem completely trash to you. It’s a frustrating show, but can also be interesting, despite how boring it can be at times. If there even is a number to represent this confusion and conflict within me, 5/10 is the only fit here. But don’t get me wrong, I still want to leave this anime feeling hopeful for the future, just as I want you to feel hopeful and excited for Case files anime to maybe return in a proper form (and not just for one special episode) to finish what Rail Zeppelin anime started one day. A lot of my frustrations and dumb mindset issues I couldn’t help with could be turned around with more of this anime becoming more passable if Type-Moon simply adapts more Case files. I would still be grumpy about the story sucking compared to the novel (which no one would expect an anime adaptation to compete with in the first place), but it’ll just be one part of the whole anime series and not as annoying overall. Despite heavily separating them from the novels, I still very much like most of the KnK movies, even as I heavily dislike what KnK 6 adaptation turned out to be. I dislike Camelot movies changing around so much that they’re inconsistent with even Babylonia anime (much less the game), but I enjoyed my time with the second movie. If there was more CF anime made, small inconsistencies that may arise from some of this stuff like repeating scenes (Reines meeting, for example) or something else for the anime-only people would be wholly irrelevant to me if you could make it enjoyable. Give Lord El-Melloi anime series more content and we’ll be seeing the whole picture more objectively. And once there’s more, this time capsule of an opinion will evolve and become more nuanced in the future. Right now I feel like a moron even writing about it, to be quite frank. I simply had to collect my current thoughts somewhere and find out if someone out there could relate to this stuff I felt and what I had to say. I’ve only decided to post this take months after writing 99% of this initially because of getting bored while waiting for LB7.2.
Despite everything, I’m glad Case files got an anime at all, and that it didn’t have as much of a bad rep as Tsukhime anime, DeenSN, or Prillya anime for me to have more of a “normal” experience. But it still leaves too much to be desired, and this surface-level appearance of normalcy may have actually been detrimental to how I perceived this adaptation. I am left wondering if it could be salvaged in some way, hoping the future will bring something eventually to improve the situation.
