Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple_R
To chime in on the "suggested order of viewing" discussion, I think it's much better to watch Fate/Stay Night first, and then Fate/Zero (unless you've already played the Fate/Stay Night VN, in which case, you can safely skip the F/SN anime and go straight to Fate/Zero).
Fate/Zero spoils Fate/Stay Night more than the other way around, imo. What I mean here is that the Fate/Zero events that Fate/Stay Night spoils you on are fairly predictable anyway - Kiritsugu and Kirei were clearly set up as slightly more important than the other masters from the very first episode of Fate/Zero. Likewise, Saber is presented in a way that points to her being the most important servant (or at least the "main protagonist" of the servants). The Holy Grail War of Fate/Zero eventually coming down to Kiritsugu/Saber vs. Kirei/Gilgamesh is rather predictable anyway, even if you hadn't seen Fate/Stay Night.
In fact, Fate/Zero unfolds in a way with few (if any) real surprises/plot twists (Kirei turning on Tokiomi is foreshadowed heavily, making it hardly a surprise when it finally happens - again, even if you hadn't seen Fate/Stay Night first). I honestly think that Fate/Zero might seem too predictable to many people who are watching it without foreknowledge of many of its key plot points (having that foreknowledge likely means you won't care as much about how predictable it is).
Fate/Stay Night, OTOH, holds an awful lot back for late-season plot twists, and I think watching Fate/Zero first really spoils them.
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Indeed. Fate/Zero's plot happenings were never really written as genuine "twists" because the readers were already expected to know about them beforehand. They never relied on surprises or shock factor to keep the story interesting. Rather than wondering
what would happen it was usually all about
how it would happen.
Also, there is nothing in Fate/Stay Night where lacking knowledge of Fate/Zero will make it hard to follow or to emotionally resonate with. Whereas in Zero, especially in the anime, there were a bunch of things that inevitably missed the mark with newcomers, precisely because the audience was already expected to have that background information from F/SN. Things like Angra Mainyu which was suddenly introduced without any real explanation in the last few episodes, or even Kirei's character in general, whose inner workings and motivations I believe to have gone over a lot of newcomers' heads, since the audience was expected to already know them from F/SN and thus the thrill in watching him was again
how he exactly he'd become the man we see in F/SN. There were also plenty of scenes that purposefully "rhymed" with F/SN ones and where part of the visceral impact was knowing what they'll lead to in F/SN and the possible irony behind them, etc.
So yeah, it's pretty clear to me that the intended viewing order is F/SN > F/Z, rather than a chronological one. That's just how prequels (tend to) work.