As expected, Fate/Zero started with a bang in a massive, 48-minute first episode. From my experience, it’s the longest introduction to a story I have seen for the first time since I started watching anime. Considering that this episode is very long, I’m only going to share my overall thoughts in a brief manner with the assumption that everyone had already watched it.
To be honest, I watched only the first four episodes of Fate/stay night several months back. Although I find the story interesting, it was not perfect. The animation was pretty lackluster because Studio Deen produced it. In comparison, Ufotable did a tremendous job on the art direction. The sceneries and the characters simply looked gorgeous.
Besides the major boost in production values, the introduction of all the characters and setup for the 4th Holy Grail War was a lot better than the former. Although they go into some detail about the wars in Fate/stay night, some details went unexplained like the historical aspects or the actual summoning of the servants as they were done by accident. In contrast, the participants summons them in a ritual by the use of a catalyst right before the episode ends. Still, this information dump can get a bit hectic at times, especially to new viewers because the lack of any action. Either way, this was definitely worth it despite the length and hopefully clears up most of the confusion before the story actually begins.
On a side note, besides Kiritsugu’s badass personality and looks, his wife, Irisviel looked very attractive. Compared to their newly born daughter, she has a really cheerful personality, mostly to keep her husband happy. Of course, Rin and Sakura also made an appearance and they looked adorable. However, I felt sorry for Sakura as she got thrown into a pool of worms that eats away a girl’s virginity. No girl should ever experience this gruesome act, especially at six years old. Because of this, I want to take down Zoken for his despicable actions.
From the first episode, I’m very confident that Fate/Zero will fascinate us. Considering that all the participants in this war are all grownups, there won’t be any fooling around. For now, I need some brain bleach to take that bug pool scene out of my head before it get me nightmares…
Also, please do not post any spoilers to Fate/stay night in the comments. If you still have the urge to do so, use the [spoiler] tags so I don’t see it.
Well, not *all* the participants are adults, as Waver was just a student. But yeah the general cast is older than FSN.
That kind of slipped my mind considering that majority of the cast were adults. Either way, I kind of think that Waver is a bit annoying and pretty stuck up. He’s only in it just to look cool, which is probably an attitude that won’t make a person last that long.
Quite a few people in this group of characters will give no quarter, and this story has grimdark extraordinaire Urobochi writing it. We’re in for a real treat.
Compared to Fate/stay night, it definitely has a darker feeling and granted that Urobochi did wonders with Madoka, I think we shouldn’t be surprised with the events that lie ahead… of course if you read the light novels…
Waver (and Irisviel) provide some much needed levity as this series progesses. Because, by god, things are going to go badly for most of the people involved. And I still have no idea how ufotable plans to illustrate
.
I remember thinking “Man this is going on for awhile. I wonder if they’ll end this conversation in the dimly lit room on a cliffha- oh wait, 48 minutes, cool,” in a slightly sarcastic manner.
The end really hooked me though, so I’m excited for what’s to come.
Like I have said, it was a bit long for a first episode, but I liked how everything was explained way before the story actually explained. This was something that Fate/stay night could have benefited from since the whole backstory behind the holy grail wars was somewhat complicated. Either way, I’m interested on how the rest of the story plays out with the information dump over. Hopefully it won’t take me this long to put out a post next time around.