AnimeSuki Forums

Kairin · 2012-06-30, 05:23

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of Fate/Zero ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

General impression of the series.
Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
Thoughts about the animation quality.
Characters/Character Design
Voice Acting
Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see.
What the show meant to you.
What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun

Flawfinder · 2012-06-30, 10:41

Alright, let's get this over with.

Animation: Pretty badly directed for most of the series, which is strange, considering this is ufotable. Overuse of static shots or characters walking in circles, some of them lasting more than a minute. Couldn't do "show don't tell" worth crap.

Story: Awesome. Perfectly planned and developed. It's just too bad that...

Characters: ...all of these characters were horrifically dull and the biggest weakness of the series (aside from the animation). Besides Waver and Rider (and Rin), I didn't care about a single other character. You can check my blog for more details, but here's my short summary on any character that isn't them.

Kiritsugu, Kirei, Saber, Lancer, Maiya, Tokiomi: All of them were just incredibly stoic and super serious to the point that I could not relate with or understand them.

Irisviel: Same as above, only on the positive side. Also, can't keep her mouth shut, even compared to the others.

Kayneth: Same as above, but he had a little more depth and I did like it when the guy who insulted Waver died. His fiancee wasn't really any better.

Caster and Ryuunosuke: Cool at first, but in a series like Fate/Zero, characters who don't have any motivation are largely irrelevant to the plot and that just made them boring.

Archer: If he would stop talking so much, I would have liked him.

Kariya: Only other master I kind of liked. Unfortunately, he was underdeveloped due to barely being in the first half, so when he took importance in the second half, he didn't have the necessary build up to make any of his scenes have emotional impact.

Berserker: He was tolerable because he never talked, but his importance in the series was terribly handled.

Soundtrack: I liked it fine. Opening was pretty cool. Ending, couldn't care less

Emotional Involvement: Unless Waver and Rider were involved, zilch. When they were, great.

Enjoyment: Decent. 7/10. Not enough to make me care about any of the Fate franchise.

HurricaneHige · 2012-06-30, 13:58

Animation: 8/10 no deformation that jumped at me, and the battles were done really really well.

Story: 10/10 Top grade, it's the reason why I continue to dive through the moe crap every season to find this kind of gem.

Characters: 910 This isn't the same type of stories that people can skim and understand. Each character is serious because they all have their own motive, own agenda. The personality of each character shaped their actions, and ultimately their decisions and result. Since F/SN followers already knew the ending, the characters are tough to develop as there are no room to deviate from how they are illustrated in the original game. Despite that I think they handled Kirei very well, and Kiritsugu's inner struggle for the tragedy he went through for the fourth Grail War. Since the original source was a novel, a serious novel, it is unavoidable that there will be times that the action is static as the character's inner thoughts are explained, but luckily it was done decent enough that it did not detract from the action too much.

OP/ED- 8/10 I liked it, though nothing to go "wow" over.

Emotional Involvement- 10/10 The beginning was slow, carried by Rider most of the time. But second season picked up quite a bit, and after finishing it I am tempted to reinstall F/SN again.

Enjoyment- 10/10 I look forward to F/Z every week, it's one of the only shows worth watching last season.

Thess · 2012-06-30, 14:41

Animation Quality: 9. The animation quality and art is fantastic, the way they portrayed the Noble Phantasms (which isn't easy) is also great. Some off model problems and cgi. 10 in terms of bluray release.
Voice Actors: 10. The seiyuus were top notch. All of them.
Script: 10. Dialogue was engaging.
Soundtrack: 8. There were really good tracks and really mediocre ones.
Editing: 7. Probably the worst technical point (episode 24 comes to mind). The pacing sucked, in particular in the second half.
Enjoyment: 10.
Emotional Involvement: 8. I do admit Kariya's story which was great in the novels was insipid in the anime other than his first episode. They compensated for making Waver and Rider the stars and trying to make me care about Kiritsugu (they almost succeeded).
Adaptation (I need to add this): 9 first half. 6 second half. Average = 7.5. Now let's speak of this, first half had some changes (Rin's adventure) and cuts (Kariya's suffering, some Waver/Rider bit). But second half is all over the place. Those two Kiritsugu's episodes hurt the pacing of the series, they crammed and overlooked a lot of character traits (sp. from Kirei and Tokiomi). Some scenes were pretty badly adapted from my impression of the novels (namely the Kariya ones, that last one with Sakura is the worst offender, they tried to make her sinister when she was shackled to a wall witnessing this by being covered with worms, novel wise, stunned and mindbroken into obedience after Kariya was made a lesson for her).

Average = I'm going to go with 8 for a round number.

LostHanyou · 2012-06-30, 15:21

I hated this anime. I hated it because I loved the novel that much, and it just did not live up to my expectations at all. Admittedly, the first few episodes actually made me pretty happy and met all my expectations, but that was because it was covering a rather dull part of the novel. Everything else was not on the level of the novel, except MAYBE the excalibur scene of episode 15.

The animation was okay, soundtrack was disappointing but still good, the script was fantastic since most of it was reused (thank god), and some of the characters were interesting - but this is a description I'm using for the anime of my favorite light novel.

Essentially, it's a good anime and easily the anime of the season, and if I were to look at it by merely comparing it to other anime, I'd rank it fairly high. Unfortunately it does not live up to the source material and ufotable's piss-poor planning turned what should have been an amazing series into what I can only call mediocre in comparison.

9/10 if we're comparing it to other anime
5/10 is how I really feel like rating it
7/10 overall

Tailong · 2012-06-30, 21:45

Animation Quality: 9/10 There were a few scenes were the scenes felt a bit static, overused of the same frames, but overall it was incredible.
Voice Actors: 10/10 All the actors fit their characters perfectly.
Script: 10/10 Well it was based on what is probably the best light novel I have ever read...so they couldnt go wrong there.
Soundtrack: 6.5/10 Some really good songs overall, but I felt that they could have done a lot better, I felt that even Deen Fate Stay Night had better sound track than this.
Editing 1st half: 8/10 Ill divide this in 2 sections, for the first season the studio did pretty well with the exception of you know Rins fan service episode..., the lack of Kiritsugu and Kirei inner dialog hurt their characters a lot, but then again it was always going to be a challenge to make it work
Editing 2nd half:7/10 Even though I though they couldn't and shouldn't have screw this one up, they did in a few episodes, they tried giving us to much character development towards the end of the series to make up for what they missed in the earlier half, Sabers character ended up being annoying for the most part, I never felt this way about her when I read the novel, high notes go to Rider and Gilgamesh they did a great job on them, in the end the final episodes were extremely rush and didn't have the impact they should of have.
Enjoyment: 9/10 Even though I knew what was going to happen since I had previously read the novel, I was always glue to my computer screen minutes before every episode in anticipation to it!, few animes ever made me do this.
Emotional Involvement: 9/10 It would get perfect score, but the butchering of two of the main characters,Saber and Kiritsugu, where really disappointing.

jeroz · 2012-07-01, 02:29

Since Ufotable showed that the complete version is in the Blu-ray which is not out yet, i'll be a bit more lenient in terms of scoring since I know what we saw isn't the whole picture. I would also like to preface that I did not read the Light Novel earlier so don't have the biased elitist attitude.

Fate/Zero is a well made story, combine with great direction, script and music, and voice acting. The animation quality sometimes took a few dips, but when it gets serious they are orgasmic to watch. Ufotable successfully blend in the 3D CGI into the animation, other than that car in ep3 they all look fantastic.

To be honest though, I would love them to just unleash it as one massive box set only instead of be constricted to the 25min TV format since what they presented in the tv is subpar compare to what they achieved. Also due to the medium restriction they had to move a lot of monologues into new materials, for example showing how Tokiomi treats Rin in ep10 instead of giving him a long monologue in ep17. It may not be complete, but they had to sacrifice something to make it flow better.

The expansion of the Kiritsugu backstory is really great, since we don't really understand his character due to limited screentime before. The full effect is realised in the next episode when we see him breaking down when someone dear to him is dying. The flow on effect is great and adds to his character tremendously and setting up the finale nicely. It does make sense to have it on the eve before the final day so that it follows up the criticism from Saber and won't break the flow by having the Kirei episode afterward. If it wasn't clear to me before, then those two flashback episodes really hammers it in that a major focus in Fate/Zero is Kiritsugu's story.

The music is fantastic, I'd only heard one instance where it's a bit off, but they adds to the final two episodes so well. I grade the OP/ED by how much they add to the whole series, and the way the director introduces the OP2 in the final scene is brilliant, while ED2 told a brief backstory that won't fit within the context of the story anywhere else.

Overall I really enjoyed it. It's a fantastic series and I can't wait to see the complete version once the blu-ray comes out.
9/10

raruku · 2012-07-01, 02:42

IMO 10/10.

Share the same rating with Jormungand & Hyouka.

Kaiba · 2012-07-01, 08:22

If I think I really had one weakness about this show, it's the main characters. I like Kiritsugu and Kirei. I do think that they were good main characters and did a lot of good in this show. Both had fascinating stories which made you think.

But Saber overall was pretty irrelevant to the entire overall plot, which was not helped by the lack of detail towards Berserker. Furthermore, I don't think I've ever seen an anime where a side character carried a story as much as Rider did, and the fact that Gilgamesh was pretty impressive himself.

Still, for me arguably the best anime in the last three to four years for me.

Thess · 2012-07-01, 15:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaiba

But Saber overall was pretty irrelevant to the entire overall plot, which was not helped by the lack of detail towards Berserker.

Half of the plot of F/Z is "Saber gets bullied."

Vicious108 · 2012-07-01, 18:54

Indeed.

The "overall plot" of Fate/Zero is a bunch of wizards and heroes of the past fighting over a MacGuffin, so the only real way to measure plot relevance would be in how much focus and screentime each participant received. And even with the rushed Berserker confrontation, Saber still got a fair share of the spotlight and her way of kingship being bullied by the other two kings was one of the main plot threads in the series (certainly the main Servant-centric one), second only to Kiritsugu and Kirei's dichotomous spiritual journeys, which dominated the Masters' side of the deal.

Her character arc even uncannily mirrored Kiritsugu's (especially in their conclusions), which is another another example of her status as the protagonist amongst the Servants as Kiritsugu is for the Masters. I can understand if people found her uninteresting, since she's probably the biggest introvert in a series already filled with inwardly focused characters, but she still had an important role nonetheless.

Anyway, as for my overall impression of the series, much like with episode 24, I'll be waiting on the BDs before deciding on it. And I might as well finally read the light novel in the meantime, to see how the anime measures up as an adaptation and all.

Guido · 2012-07-01, 19:42

I recall that it was about the start of the year 2006 when the broadcast for Fate/stay night anime began. Back then I didn't know absolutely anything about the lore and mythos that the doujinshi group, TYPE-MOON, created. However, throughout the run of that series I came to like that universe with its plot and characters.

Then about three years later after Fate/stay night anime ended, the Unlimited Blade Works film adaptation arrived, and I couldn't contain my excitement upon watching the return of all the cast of characters from the first TV series.
Of course, both adaptations couldn't get scot-free from down points; I do recall lots of fans feeling rage at how several plot situations and twists were handled in the Unlimited Blade Works film, which I won't further reminiscence due to avoid opening any sore wounds.

Ok. now almost about three years after Unlimited Blade Works got released, UFO Table delivered to the fans the long-anticipated Fate Zero anime adapted from the light novel of the same name.
My knowledge is restricted to the anime, so all comments pertain to that media.

Simply put, Fate Zero was flawlessly awesome with both opposing forces in the likes of Emiya Kiritsugu and Kotomine Kirei duking out against their haunted pasts and tribulations. But, this delivery to the Fate series not only released just pure actions plus character interactions, but it as well exposed to the audience each one of the characters' philosophies in raw.

I say in raw, because we could see the moral stance of the characters actually acting to their beliefs whether that would have been for either good or bad.
For example, I still get shivers for what Kiritsugu did to Kayneth by soaking his hands in blood as another step to win the Grail, and have his wish to save the world from evil granted.
The Fourth Holy Grail War wasn't just a conflagration of parties attempting to finish each other to win the holy artifact, but it was as well a clash of different philosophical beliefs being tested to bear witness whose ideals survived and rejuvenated and whose other ideals ended up getting crushed and whose other ideals were casted aside.

For the survivors of the war, I would say that Kirei, Kiritsugu, and Waver each one of them falls into a specific category.

Spoiler:

I also like the approach the prequel takes by seeing all the events of the war from the eyes of not only the masters, but as well both the servants and the people keeping company to each one of the masters. This is in contrast as when in other stories the plot is seen through the eyes of only one character that revolves around the story.

With this all the plot points leading and connecting to Fate/stay Night have come full circle, and watching this prequel has encouraged me to rewatch Fate/stay night because now I know how all the gaps have been filled in the first Fate series.

My verdict is that I cast my vote to Fate zero as the best anime of the year for all the reasons I stated in the Final Episode 25 Discussion thread.

This was the seventh title finished for the past autum 2011 season.

serenade_beta · 2012-07-03, 11:58

It was a very good anime, with great animation quality, interesting story, and good characters (especially Rider group), and definitely was a great break from all of those boring typical moe anime out there, but unfortunately, there were problems, mainly:
1. Kiritsugu's flashback, but his voice actor did not fit his teenage/young adult appearance
2. Rider vs Gil was too one way. I recall people explaining why Gil showed respect and all with what he did during battle, but that's not something the viewers of only the anime would know.
3. That one episode where Assassin died, but that had pretty bad art quality.

But in general, it was nice to watch this.
9/10

Doria · 2012-07-03, 15:29

I really loved the novels, though I didn't like the FSN anime as much as a lot of other people here did (and I never played the game).

That said, for the most part, I thought FZ was an extremely good adaptation that generally had the sense to know when to stick with the novel (most of the dialogue is more or less straight from Urobuchi's novels) and when to diverge (some cutting inevitably and also rearranging for more dramatic structure, particularly necessary late in the series, when the novels move to shorter chunks and the anime moves to somewhat longer scenes to keep the action intact).

I also liked the nice parallels between different characters and their philosophies. And find it enjoyably ironic that in the end, all three surviving Masters got some form of their wishes granted. After all, even if it wasn't what he wanted, Kiritsugu did get to sacrifice "some" in Fuyuki to ostensibly save the world. Waver got found the respect he craved, and more importantly, learned true respect for himself. And uh, well, Kirei learned to love himself for who he really was... ha ha.

Overall, I'm loath to give it a 10, as nothing's ever really perfect, right? But I'd have to give it a 9.5, so if decimals aren't allowed, I'd round up.

chaos_alfa · 2012-07-03, 15:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doria

I really loved the novels, though I didn't like the FSN anime as much as a lot of other people here did (and I never played the game).

That said, for the most part, I thought FZ was an extremely good adaptation that generally had the sense to know when to stick with the novel (most of the dialogue is more or less straight from Urobuchi's novels) and when to diverge (some cutting inevitably and also rearranging for more dramatic structure, particularly necessary late in the series, when the novels move to shorter chunks and the anime moves to somewhat longer scenes to keep the action intact).

I also liked the nice parallels between different characters and their philosophies. And find it enjoyably ironic that in the end, all three surviving Masters got some form of their wishes granted. After all, even if it wasn't what he wanted, Kiritsugu did get to sacrifice "some" in Fuyuki to ostensibly save the world. Waver got found the respect he craved, and more importantly, learned true respect for himself. And uh, well, Kirei learned to love himself for who he really was... ha ha.

Overall, I'm loath to give it a 10, as nothing's ever really perfect, right? But I'd have to give it a 9.5, so if decimals aren't allowed, I'd round up.

Not really, he just learned what kind of human he was. He doesn't love himself for it. He knows what gives him pleasure is evil.

Heavens Feel goes deeper in to this.

Witch of Uncertainty · 2012-07-07, 09:56

Gave it a 9, though I guess I could also gave given it a 10.
Looked forward to every episode.

Music was incredible (THIS for example). Simply breathtaking.

Plot was entertaining. I have nothing to say here, really. Enjoyed about every episode.

Characters were awesome. I think every character fulfilled their role excellent. Kariya should maybe have gotten more screentime. Same can be said for Berserker.

Animation: Movie budget? I dunno, but that was so impressive. I have no complaints whatsoever here.

The only thing that bothers me a little, is that I wanted to see Saber actually defeat Berserker. But I guess we can't have it all.

MrTerrorist · 2012-07-12, 08:44

Wonderful. An amazing story, the characters were likable with interesting goals and motives. The animation was superb just like Kara no Kyoukai and the music was Heavenly.

This might Type-Moon best animated series after the Kara no Kyoukai movies.

10 out of 10! Thank you Ufotable studios.

SJCrew · 2012-09-30, 23:45

It's going to be harder to do this review with time, as I'm already starting to forget this anime despite having finished it recently. I'll make this quick.

After having sat through scores and scores of bloated dialogue, it's clear to me that Fate/Zero wanted to tell its story at all costs. But the endless exposition of ideals and rhetoric left me wanting for characters that felt a bit more human. I counted no less than five stoics whose only lines concerned shadowy plans that played straight into what would happen next. This was a key aspect that removed all tension from the action sequences: telegraphed movements made it so that characters would live for as long as the plot requires them to, regardless of how they fought or how evenly they were matched. This served to make most of the series' fights extremely predictable, and dull to watch.

The best battles, in my opinion, were ones that were not resolved on a proper battlefield, such as Kiritsugu vs. Saber on the qualities of a hero (which was unresolved by the way; they both lost their lives before realizing their dreams and ended up hurting just as many or more people than they saved), and Rider vs. Saber on methods of kingship (which Thess and I had a long and inconclusive debate about). It also baffled me that some of the most impressive fighters in the series did so little fighting. Why did we have to wait 25 episodes to discover Kirei was such an impressive martial artist?

My biggest criticism of this series is its use of time. It has all of the makings of what I believe a good anime should be outside of pacing. Much of the series is spent dragging its feet in dialogue, not all of which is entertaining. The amount of monologuing in this series is ludicrous; even the most pointless of characters would squeak out an opportunity to monologue (the entire Ryunosuke/Caster arc was a prime example of wasted time). This is the one shounen anime convention I hoped they would avoid.

7/10

Fate/Zero could have been a much more entertaining anime.

Xellos-_^ · 2012-10-04, 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by SJCrew

It's going to be harder to do this review with time, as I'm already starting to forget this anime despite having finished it recently. I'll make this quick.

After having sat through scores and scores of bloated dialogue, it's clear to me that Fate/Zero wanted to tell its story at all costs. But the endless exposition of ideals and rhetoric left me wanting for characters that felt a bit more human. I counted no less than five stoics whose only lines concerned shadowy plans that played straight into what would happen next. This was a key aspect that removed all tension from the action sequences: telegraphed movements made it so that characters would live for as long as the plot requires them to, regardless of how they fought or how evenly they were matched. This served to make most of the series' fights extremely predictable, and dull to watch.

The best battles, in my opinion, were ones that were not resolved on a proper battlefield, such as Kiritsugu vs. Saber on the qualities of a hero (which was unresolved by the way; they both lost their lives before realizing their dreams and ended up hurting just as many or more people than they saved), and Rider vs. Saber on methods of kingship (which Thess and I had a long and inconclusive debate about).

because it is prequel, nothing gets solve in FZ because otherwise there would be no FSN.

Quote:

It also baffled me that some of the most impressive fighters in the series did so little fighting. Why did we have to wait 25 episodes to discover Kirei was such an impressive martial artist?

you forgot ep 8.

Thess · 2012-10-05, 00:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

you forgot ep 8.

And Heaven's Feel. And technically UBW, since Rin learns martial arts from Kirei.

View Poll Results: Fate/Zero - Total Series Rating
Perfect 10	42	38.18%
9 out of 10 : Excellent	43	39.09%
8 out of 10 : Very Good	16	14.55%
7 out of 10 : Good	8	7.27%
6 out of 10 : Average	1	0.91%
5 out of 10 : Below Average	0	0%
4 out of 10 : Poor	0	0%
3 out of 10 : Bad	0	0%
2 out of 10 : Very Bad	0	0%
1 out of 10 : Painful	0	0%
Voters: 110. You may not vote on this poll

2012-06-30, 05:23	Link #1
Kairin AnimeSuki's Mascot Join Date: Apr 2006	Fate/Zero - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of Fate/Zero ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc. A few subjects you might want to ramble on about: General impression of the series. Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices. Thoughts about the animation quality. Characters/Character Design Voice Acting Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see. What the show meant to you. What could the creators/animators/writers have done better. And so on. The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example: Animation Quality: 1-10 Voice Actors: 1-10 Script: 1-10 Soundtrack: 1-10 Editing: 1-10 Enjoyment: 1-10 Emotional Involvement: 1-10 Average = Total Series Rating Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling. Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun

2012-06-30, 10:41	Link #2
Flawfinder Loves the Experience Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Earth...hopefully	Alright, let's get this over with. Animation: Pretty badly directed for most of the series, which is strange, considering this is ufotable. Overuse of static shots or characters walking in circles, some of them lasting more than a minute. Couldn't do "show don't tell" worth crap. Story: Awesome. Perfectly planned and developed. It's just too bad that... Characters: ...all of these characters were horrifically dull and the biggest weakness of the series (aside from the animation). Besides Waver and Rider (and Rin), I didn't care about a single other character. You can check my blog for more details, but here's my short summary on any character that isn't them. Kiritsugu, Kirei, Saber, Lancer, Maiya, Tokiomi: All of them were just incredibly stoic and super serious to the point that I could not relate with or understand them. Irisviel: Same as above, only on the positive side. Also, can't keep her mouth shut, even compared to the others. Kayneth: Same as above, but he had a little more depth and I did like it when the guy who insulted Waver died. His fiancee wasn't really any better. Caster and Ryuunosuke: Cool at first, but in a series like Fate/Zero, characters who don't have any motivation are largely irrelevant to the plot and that just made them boring. Archer: If he would stop talking so much, I would have liked him. Kariya: Only other master I kind of liked. Unfortunately, he was underdeveloped due to barely being in the first half, so when he took importance in the second half, he didn't have the necessary build up to make any of his scenes have emotional impact. Berserker: He was tolerable because he never talked, but his importance in the series was terribly handled. Soundtrack: I liked it fine. Opening was pretty cool. Ending, couldn't care less Emotional Involvement: Unless Waver and Rider were involved, zilch. When they were, great. Enjoyment: Decent. 7/10. Not enough to make me care about any of the Fate franchise. __________________ My Awesome Anime Blog: Standing On My Neck

2012-06-30, 13:58	Link #3
HurricaneHige Uguu~ Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Canada	Animation: 8/10 no deformation that jumped at me, and the battles were done really really well. Story: 10/10 Top grade, it's the reason why I continue to dive through the moe crap every season to find this kind of gem. Characters: 910 This isn't the same type of stories that people can skim and understand. Each character is serious because they all have their own motive, own agenda. The personality of each character shaped their actions, and ultimately their decisions and result. Since F/SN followers already knew the ending, the characters are tough to develop as there are no room to deviate from how they are illustrated in the original game. Despite that I think they handled Kirei very well, and Kiritsugu's inner struggle for the tragedy he went through for the fourth Grail War. Since the original source was a novel, a serious novel, it is unavoidable that there will be times that the action is static as the character's inner thoughts are explained, but luckily it was done decent enough that it did not detract from the action too much. OP/ED- 8/10 I liked it, though nothing to go "wow" over. Emotional Involvement- 10/10 The beginning was slow, carried by Rider most of the time. But second season picked up quite a bit, and after finishing it I am tempted to reinstall F/SN again. Enjoyment- 10/10 I look forward to F/Z every week, it's one of the only shows worth watching last season. __________________ Sig's coming soon ~_~ (since 07....) My rant blog (omg i'm blogging now, and not just anime)

2012-06-30, 14:41	Link #4
Thess Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2010	Animation Quality: 9. The animation quality and art is fantastic, the way they portrayed the Noble Phantasms (which isn't easy) is also great. Some off model problems and cgi. 10 in terms of bluray release. Voice Actors: 10. The seiyuus were top notch. All of them. Script: 10. Dialogue was engaging. Soundtrack: 8. There were really good tracks and really mediocre ones. Editing: 7. Probably the worst technical point (episode 24 comes to mind). The pacing sucked, in particular in the second half. Enjoyment: 10. Emotional Involvement: 8. I do admit Kariya's story which was great in the novels was insipid in the anime other than his first episode. They compensated for making Waver and Rider the stars and trying to make me care about Kiritsugu (they almost succeeded). Adaptation (I need to add this): 9 first half. 6 second half. Average = 7.5. Now let's speak of this, first half had some changes (Rin's adventure) and cuts (Kariya's suffering, some Waver/Rider bit). But second half is all over the place. Those two Kiritsugu's episodes hurt the pacing of the series, they crammed and overlooked a lot of character traits (sp. from Kirei and Tokiomi). Some scenes were pretty badly adapted from my impression of the novels (namely the Kariya ones, that last one with Sakura is the worst offender, they tried to make her sinister when she was shackled to a wall witnessing this by being covered with worms, novel wise, stunned and mindbroken into obedience after Kariya was made a lesson for her). Average = I'm going to go with 8 for a round number. __________________ *"Who* would understand you after I die? Who else would march forward by your side?"**

2012-06-30, 15:21	Link #5
LostHanyou Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: USA	I hated this anime. I hated it because I loved the novel that much, and it just did not live up to my expectations at all. Admittedly, the first few episodes actually made me pretty happy and met all my expectations, but that was because it was covering a rather dull part of the novel. Everything else was not on the level of the novel, except MAYBE the excalibur scene of episode 15. The animation was okay, soundtrack was disappointing but still good, the script was fantastic since most of it was reused (thank god), and some of the characters were interesting - but this is a description I'm using for the anime of my favorite light novel. Essentially, it's a good anime and easily the anime of the season, and if I were to look at it by merely comparing it to other anime, I'd rank it fairly high. Unfortunately it does not live up to the source material and ufotable's piss-poor planning turned what should have been an amazing series into what I can only call mediocre in comparison. 9/10 if we're comparing it to other anime 5/10 is how I really feel like rating it 7/10 overall

2012-06-30, 21:45	Link #6
Tailong Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2011	Animation Quality: 9/10 There were a few scenes were the scenes felt a bit static, overused of the same frames, but overall it was incredible. Voice Actors: 10/10 All the actors fit their characters perfectly. Script: 10/10 Well it was based on what is probably the best light novel I have ever read...so they couldnt go wrong there. Soundtrack: 6.5/10 Some really good songs overall, but I felt that they could have done a lot better, I felt that even Deen Fate Stay Night had better sound track than this. Editing 1st half: 8/10 Ill divide this in 2 sections, for the first season the studio did pretty well with the exception of you know Rins fan service episode..., the lack of Kiritsugu and Kirei inner dialog hurt their characters a lot, but then again it was always going to be a challenge to make it work Editing 2nd half:7/10 Even though I though they couldn't and shouldn't have screw this one up, they did in a few episodes, they tried giving us to much character development towards the end of the series to make up for what they missed in the earlier half, Sabers character ended up being annoying for the most part, I never felt this way about her when I read the novel, high notes go to Rider and Gilgamesh they did a great job on them, in the end the final episodes were extremely rush and didn't have the impact they should of have. Enjoyment: 9/10 Even though I knew what was going to happen since I had previously read the novel, I was always glue to my computer screen minutes before every episode in anticipation to it!, few animes ever made me do this. Emotional Involvement: 9/10 It would get perfect score, but the butchering of two of the main characters,Saber and Kiritsugu, where really disappointing.

2012-07-01, 02:29	Link #7
jeroz Art Block Specialist Join Date: Jun 2007	Since Ufotable showed that the complete version is in the Blu-ray which is not out yet, i'll be a bit more lenient in terms of scoring since I know what we saw isn't the whole picture. I would also like to preface that I did not read the Light Novel earlier so don't have the biased elitist attitude. Fate/Zero is a well made story, combine with great direction, script and music, and voice acting. The animation quality sometimes took a few dips, but when it gets serious they are orgasmic to watch. Ufotable successfully blend in the 3D CGI into the animation, other than that car in ep3 they all look fantastic. To be honest though, I would love them to just unleash it as one massive box set only instead of be constricted to the 25min TV format since what they presented in the tv is subpar compare to what they achieved. Also due to the medium restriction they had to move a lot of monologues into new materials, for example showing how Tokiomi treats Rin in ep10 instead of giving him a long monologue in ep17. It may not be complete, but they had to sacrifice something to make it flow better. The expansion of the Kiritsugu backstory is really great, since we don't really understand his character due to limited screentime before. The full effect is realised in the next episode when we see him breaking down when someone dear to him is dying. The flow on effect is great and adds to his character tremendously and setting up the finale nicely. It does make sense to have it on the eve before the final day so that it follows up the criticism from Saber and won't break the flow by having the Kirei episode afterward. If it wasn't clear to me before, then those two flashback episodes really hammers it in that a major focus in Fate/Zero is Kiritsugu's story. The music is fantastic, I'd only heard one instance where it's a bit off, but they adds to the final two episodes so well. I grade the OP/ED by how much they add to the whole series, and the way the director introduces the OP2 in the final scene is brilliant, while ED2 told a brief backstory that won't fit within the context of the story anywhere else. Overall I really enjoyed it. It's a fantastic series and I can't wait to see the complete version once the blu-ray comes out. 9/10 __________________ [TAC]

2012-07-01, 02:42	Link #8
raruku Member Join Date: Mar 2009	IMO 10/10. Share the same rating with Jormungand & Hyouka.

2012-07-01, 08:22	Link #9
Kaiba Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Houston	If I think I really had one weakness about this show, it's the main characters. I like Kiritsugu and Kirei. I do think that they were good main characters and did a lot of good in this show. Both had fascinating stories which made you think. But Saber overall was pretty irrelevant to the entire overall plot, which was not helped by the lack of detail towards Berserker. Furthermore, I don't think I've ever seen an anime where a side character carried a story as much as Rider did, and the fact that Gilgamesh was pretty impressive himself. Still, for me arguably the best anime in the last three to four years for me.

2012-07-01, 18:54	Link #11
Vicious108 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007	Indeed. The "overall plot" of Fate/Zero is a bunch of wizards and heroes of the past fighting over a MacGuffin, so the only real way to measure plot relevance would be in how much focus and screentime each participant received. And even with the rushed Berserker confrontation, Saber still got a fair share of the spotlight and her way of kingship being bullied by the other two kings was one of the main plot threads in the series (certainly the main Servant-centric one), second only to Kiritsugu and Kirei's dichotomous spiritual journeys, which dominated the Masters' side of the deal. Her character arc even uncannily mirrored Kiritsugu's (especially in their conclusions), which is another another example of her status as the protagonist amongst the Servants as Kiritsugu is for the Masters. I can understand if people found her uninteresting, since she's probably the biggest introvert in a series already filled with inwardly focused characters, but she still had an important role nonetheless. Anyway, as for my overall impression of the series, much like with episode 24, I'll be waiting on the BDs before deciding on it. And I might as well finally read the light novel in the meantime, to see how the anime measures up as an adaptation and all.

2012-07-01, 19:42	Link #12
Guido Snobby Gentleman Join Date: May 2004 Location: Monterrey, México Age: 43	Fate Zero. Overall Impressions I recall that it was about the start of the year 2006 when the broadcast for Fate/stay night anime began. Back then I didn't know absolutely anything about the lore and mythos that the doujinshi group, TYPE-MOON, created. However, throughout the run of that series I came to like that universe with its plot and characters. Then about three years later after Fate/stay night anime ended, the Unlimited Blade Works film adaptation arrived, and I couldn't contain my excitement upon watching the return of all the cast of characters from the first TV series. Of course, both adaptations couldn't get scot-free from down points; I do recall lots of fans feeling rage at how several plot situations and twists were handled in the Unlimited Blade Works film, which I won't further reminiscence due to avoid opening any sore wounds. Ok. now almost about three years after Unlimited Blade Works got released, UFO Table delivered to the fans the long-anticipated Fate Zero anime adapted from the light novel of the same name. My knowledge is restricted to the anime, so all comments pertain to that media. Simply put, Fate Zero was flawlessly awesome with both opposing forces in the likes of Emiya Kiritsugu and Kotomine Kirei duking out against their haunted pasts and tribulations. But, this delivery to the Fate series not only released just pure actions plus character interactions, but it as well exposed to the audience each one of the characters' philosophies in raw. I say in raw, because we could see the moral stance of the characters actually acting to their beliefs whether that would have been for either good or bad. For example, I still get shivers for what Kiritsugu did to Kayneth by soaking his hands in blood as another step to win the Grail, and have his wish to save the world from evil granted. The Fourth Holy Grail War wasn't just a conflagration of parties attempting to finish each other to win the holy artifact, but it was as well a clash of different philosophical beliefs being tested to bear witness whose ideals survived and rejuvenated and whose other ideals ended up getting crushed and whose other ideals were casted aside. For the survivors of the war, I would say that Kirei, Kiritsugu, and Waver each one of them falls into a specific category. Spoiler: His experiences and the long lasting company that Waver had with Rider Iskander made him to become more assertive and confident with his resolve to stir within himself a curiosity to see the world for himself. Kirei got what he craved the most in his existence that thing that finally fill the emptiness of his heart, and it wasn't for any ideal about friends, settling in with a family, or his fathers' teachings that he was taught more to his chagrin, but the simple joy of getting pleasure my seeding and sowing tragedy, pain, and destruction. Although the answers that he caught fulfill his existence, he still goes to see the world to seek the source of that answer in order to make his twisted world to move more wildly and frenzied. Kiritsugu stained his hands with blood and evil clinging to a belief that such evil actions have a reason and a merit to achieve an end that was having his wish granted by the Holy Grail. A wish to save the world from an even greater evil so that the vast majority of survivors left will finally get peace and happiness. However, the magical artifact turned to be a farce much to his shock and dissapointment, crushing his beliefs. His reckless choices, as a result, wrecked a catastrophe in Fuyuki city in which hundreds and thousands died instantly, leaving the Magus Killer devastated. At the brink of the abyss, he casted aside all of his beliefs, that previously shaped him as the brutal but cold assassin he became, in exchange to be able save lives in whatever possible way in order to atone for his sins. Fortunately, he achieved that miracle by being able to save one and just one life, that of a little boy. I also like the approach the prequel takes by seeing all the events of the war from the eyes of not only the masters, but as well both the servants and the people keeping company to each one of the masters. This is in contrast as when in other stories the plot is seen through the eyes of only one character that revolves around the story. With this all the plot points leading and connecting to Fate/stay Night have come full circle, and watching this prequel has encouraged me to rewatch Fate/stay night because now I know how all the gaps have been filled in the first Fate series. My verdict is that I cast my vote to Fate zero as the best anime of the year for all the reasons I stated in the Final Episode 25 Discussion thread. This was the seventh title finished for the past autum 2011 season.

2012-07-03, 11:58	Link #13
serenade_beta そのおっぱいで13才 Join Date: Dec 2006	It was a very good anime, with great animation quality, interesting story, and good characters (especially Rider group), and definitely was a great break from all of those boring typical moe anime out there, but unfortunately, there were problems, mainly: 1. Kiritsugu's flashback, but his voice actor did not fit his teenage/young adult appearance 2. Rider vs Gil was too one way. I recall people explaining why Gil showed respect and all with what he did during battle, but that's not something the viewers of only the anime would know. 3. That one episode where Assassin died, but that had pretty bad art quality. But in general, it was nice to watch this. 9/10 __________________ -Blog --> http://tdnshumi.blogspot.com/ (Mainly about video games) -R.I.P. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Gaming wouldn't have been the same without you (9/19/13)

2012-07-03, 15:29	Link #14
Doria Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2006	I really loved the novels, though I didn't like the FSN anime as much as a lot of other people here did (and I never played the game). That said, for the most part, I thought FZ was an extremely good adaptation that generally had the sense to know when to stick with the novel (most of the dialogue is more or less straight from Urobuchi's novels) and when to diverge (some cutting inevitably and also rearranging for more dramatic structure, particularly necessary late in the series, when the novels move to shorter chunks and the anime moves to somewhat longer scenes to keep the action intact). I also liked the nice parallels between different characters and their philosophies. And find it enjoyably ironic that in the end, all three surviving Masters got some form of their wishes granted. After all, even if it wasn't what he wanted, Kiritsugu did get to sacrifice "some" in Fuyuki to ostensibly save the world. Waver got found the respect he craved, and more importantly, learned true respect for himself. And uh, well, Kirei learned to love himself for who he really was... ha ha. Overall, I'm loath to give it a 10, as nothing's ever really perfect, right? But I'd have to give it a 9.5, so if decimals aren't allowed, I'd round up.

2012-07-07, 09:56	Link #16
Witch of Uncertainty Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010	Gave it a 9, though I guess I could also gave given it a 10. Looked forward to every episode. Music was incredible (THIS for example). Simply breathtaking. Plot was entertaining. I have nothing to say here, really. Enjoyed about every episode. Characters were awesome. I think every character fulfilled their role excellent. Kariya should maybe have gotten more screentime. Same can be said for Berserker. Animation: Movie budget? I dunno, but that was so impressive. I have no complaints whatsoever here. The only thing that bothers me a little, is that I wanted to see Saber actually defeat Berserker. But I guess we can't have it all.

2012-07-12, 08:44	Link #17
MrTerrorist Takao Tsundere Cruiser Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Classified	Wonderful. An amazing story, the characters were likable with interesting goals and motives. The animation was superb just like Kara no Kyoukai and the music was Heavenly. This might Type-Moon best animated series after the Kara no Kyoukai movies. 10 out of 10! Thank you Ufotable studios. __________________

2012-09-30, 23:45	Link #18
SJCrew Anachro-Romeo Join Date: Apr 2010	It's going to be harder to do this review with time, as I'm already starting to forget this anime despite having finished it recently. I'll make this quick. After having sat through scores and scores of bloated dialogue, it's clear to me that Fate/Zero wanted to tell its story at all costs. But the endless exposition of ideals and rhetoric left me wanting for characters that felt a bit more human. I counted no less than five stoics whose only lines concerned shadowy plans that played straight into what would happen next. This was a key aspect that removed all tension from the action sequences: telegraphed movements made it so that characters would live for as long as the plot requires them to, regardless of how they fought or how evenly they were matched. This served to make most of the series' fights extremely predictable, and dull to watch. The best battles, in my opinion, were ones that were not resolved on a proper battlefield, such as Kiritsugu vs. Saber on the qualities of a hero (which was unresolved by the way; they both lost their lives before realizing their dreams and ended up hurting just as many or more people than they saved), and Rider vs. Saber on methods of kingship (which Thess and I had a long and inconclusive debate about). It also baffled me that some of the most impressive fighters in the series did so little fighting. Why did we have to wait 25 episodes to discover Kirei was such an impressive martial artist? My biggest criticism of this series is its use of time. It has all of the makings of what I believe a good anime should be outside of pacing. Much of the series is spent dragging its feet in dialogue, not all of which is entertaining. The amount of monologuing in this series is ludicrous; even the most pointless of characters would squeak out an opportunity to monologue (the entire Ryunosuke/Caster arc was a prime example of wasted time). This is the one shounen anime convention I hoped they would avoid. 7/10 Fate/Zero could have been a much more entertaining anime. Last edited by SJCrew; 2012-10-01 at 06:33.