Taking hold of the protagonist’s role is Emiya Kiritsugu. A trained assassin that uses unconventional methods to reach his goals of making the world a better place regardless of what it takes to get there. Who is the antagonist? A priest by the name of Kotomine Kirei. A former executioner of the church whom struggles with an inner conflict that he believes only Kiritsugu has the answer for. They as well as five others which includes a serial killer, a professor, his student, two mages of noble families (one of which had turned his back on magic), are contenders in an internal war that will grant the winner the prize of the Holy Grail which holds the ability to grant its user any wish imaginable.
To their help, they each have a legendary hero of the past that has been summoned into separate classes such as “Saber”, “Archer”, “Lancer”, “Rider”, “Caster”, “Assassin”, and “Berserker”.
Right off the bat, you can tell that this is a show that is setting its bars very high, because pretty much every recognizable aspect of “Fate/Zero” seems to have been enhanced to its fullest potential. If all you know of the “fate” series beforehand is the “Fate/Stay-Night” anime adaptation, then the difference in animation quality is going to be noticeable immediately and I suspect provide quite the shock as well. The difference there is as night and day, and it illustrates perhaps more than anything else the difference in what level of ambition went into these works, as well as further showcasing the talents of studio ufotable.
The music by Yuki Kajiura is every bit as amazing as it gets. The “FSN” anime already had a soundtrack made by the great Kenji Kawai, and although it too was really good, Yuki Kajuira makes it pale in comparison, which is pretty impressive to say the least.
It doesn’t stop there though. The real difference is in the story itself. The character development is a good example. “Fate/Zero” isn’t told through any single character’s perspective. It has the narrative of a third person omniscient’s point of view. The focus shifts from character to character at the story’s own convenience which gives it a good way of establishing the characters of the story without necessarily having them interact with the protagonist or any of the other rival characters. Thus, the characters themselves are not just treated as hurdles for the protagonist to pass, but are treated instead as actual people, representing their own sets of thoughts and ideals. These ideals mainly manifest themselves in answering questions revolving around one of the two central themes of the story. The first question being “what makes a king?”, and the second being “what makes a hero?” They all have different answers to provide, but none of the answers are treated as the correct one. Even Saber’s ideals, although they seem like they are the noblest ones, become subjects of mockery for Kiritsugu and Rider respectively, and yet both of these characters are treated overall as sympathetic. Even Archer whom originally comes across as a typical villain, gradually manages to build an air of dignity around himself. The show itself is different from “Fate/Stay-Night” in that it is the characters that drive the plot forward, and not the other way around.
Though as interesting as the characters are on their own, where “Fate/Zero” really starts to shine is once the characters do interact with each other. Not only does each character have a “master/servant” relationship with at least one other character, they also find dynamic relationships with other characters that are constantly changing as the story progresses. Some characters become enemies, some become allies. Some enemies become friends, and some allies become foes. Pretty much all possible forms of interactions are explored at one point or another. The only character that is seemingly left out would be assassin, which is only fitting because assassins shouldn’t be interacting with anyone in the first place.
The smart thing about the character dynamics is that because there are so many of them, if it is your first time watching (or reading), it becomes pretty hard to predict where each one will lead because a lot of times they conflict with each other. The use of red herrings is all over the place. One example is the setting up of Waver Velvet’s character as someone seeking a way to prove his worth against those who doubted him. You would think that he was being set up to go against Kayneth El-Melloi at some point and yet the only time they interact, Waver is too scared to even move. Kayneth is instead set up against Kiritsugu, as well as to some degree Sola-Ui. Eventually, Waver grows out of his previous mindset completely and recognizes that he is powerless. Something you would probably never see if this had been any other conventional story. A similar example can be seen with the character Tohsaka Tokiomi. One of the most interesting aspects of “Fate/Zero” is to just look at where each character starts out, and compare it to where they eventually end up. There are many surprises throughout.
Now the content of the story is as you would expect from Urobuchi’s reputation, very dark. It doesn’t have the typical crapsack setting that you’d usually see in dark stories, but it is dark in other ways. There is a point where a man almost strangles the love of his life to death because she doesn’t understand that he is killing himself, trying to save her daughter. The darkness of it has a sort of poetry to it that makes it emotionally provocative. At another point, a man and his wife are shot to death in cold blood, even after giving up their only chance at winning the war, believing in the deceptive promise that they would keep their lives for doing so. Much of the story contains moments like these, which provide a taste of cynicism and irony.
There is also an interesting “outside the box” sort of thinking when it comes to some of the ideas used that I want to bring attention too. First off, just the idea of having a main character that uses modern guns when everyone else is using magic, and swords, and whatnot is pretty brilliant. I remember having conversations with a friend when we talked about how easy it would be to kill Voldemort if only you just shot him. Just because magic exists, it may not be the optimal way to go. Then there is the moment when Berserker uses his power to take control of any object and use it as his weapon, which he uses to take hold of a jet, and then its machine guns. You shouldn’t bring a knife to a gun fight, but there is no reason to not bring a gun to a magic fight. Speaking of fighting, if you are only looking to see some great battle animation then you would definitely enjoy the show even for that alone. The Berserker vs Archer fight especially is a sight to behold.
Now of course, one can’t really talk about “Fate/Zero” without drawing comparisons to “Fate/Stay-Night”. The writer of the original visual novel Nasu Kinoko, has a passion for writing exposition and lore. One of the reasons that the setting of the story is as rich as it is can be credited solely on his vivid and detailed explanations that go as far as to tell us for example of the difference between a mage and a sorcerer, what kind of authority a command spell has, what attributes a servant gets from being of a certain class, etc. All of this has created an impressive platform for the story, and it is something you can see consistently throughout his work.
With that said though, Nasu Kinoko is not the best storyteller, and it becomes very apparent when compared to Urobuchi’s writing in “Zero”. The character aspects mentioned above is one example. Another example is the structure. For some reason, “FSN” chooses to tell its story in a day by day fashion. This quickly becomes formulaic and in many ways makes the story illogical; because it gives the story a strict pattern to follow that becomes predictable. The mornings are always spent at goofing off, the middle of the day is spent at doing all the serious talking, and the night is when they head out to fight a single specific enemy. Then they return back to their homes and repeat the same thing the next day. Compare this to “Zero’s” more versatile storytelling, in which the characters are constantly on the move, hardly ever staying at the same place all the time, with some battles taking place immediately after one another, and with varying amounts of participants each time. Any time could be a time to rest as well as a time to be alert, because you never know when the enemy will strike, just like how it would probably play out if this was in real life. Not only does “Zero” contain no filler, but it would be impossible to have filler because there would be nowhere to put it. The story simply doesn’t pause. If one character is taking a break then someone else is up to something in the meanwhile. That is quite the difference from having the luxury of being stuck in a magical battle royale and yet finding the time to casually go to high school like a regular student.
Thematically, “Fate/Zero” is most reminiscent of the “Unlimited Blade Works” route of the “FSN” visual novel. It deconstructs the notions of heroism and challenges the concept of a noble warrior. As the story goes on, the morality of the characters become cloudier, and the focus of their battles shift. For the characters, it becomes not so much a fight against others as much as it becomes a fight against oneself.
“Fate/Zero” is pretty much what you get when you take a concept that exists, figure out how to elevate it to its highest form, and then pour as much ambition and effort as you could possibly muster into it to make it all come to life. Studio ufotable has done a remarkable job, and the end result is something completely out of the ordinary.
