Review of Fate/Zero

Fate Zero was a show that I felt improved on the original Fate formula. It being a prequel, it cut straight into the chase with only a brief recap on what the series is about. This I felt to be something that benefited the series more, even though something like UBW's longer intro helped me as a newcomer to the Fate series. Story: Fate Zero starts out with a colourful cast of characters, and when I mean colourful, I mean that there are like 6 true main characters. I'll get to them in the character section, so I'll move on now. Those familiar with UBW wouldknow that there were only 2 main characters, Emiya and Rin, and that made the stories a bit more centralized and at one moment due to how the story was structured, and how they stuck together. Here, we have a bunch of main characters all lined up for their struggles and wishes to be highlighted. Instead of one area, we are given a basic bird's eye view of Fuyuki due to how everyone's spaced out instead of allied. Even when there is an alliance, it isn't that long. For the overall plot, it's your basic tactical kind of story. Everyone's there to fight for one thing, but what's the highlight of the story is not in the form of the main plot points, but the juicy details in between. The interactions and knowing who helped in what battle ultimately is what sets the standard in this show, and I felt that it did this extremely well.

Art: Being a ufotable show, you can already expect what kind of art you'll get yourself into here. Visuals are stunning, although a bit behind UBW due to the latter being 3 years after this. Besides that, minor details are stressed in this show. You can find scenes where small effects are what change a scene from just being there to having an impact. What I also liked was the character designs. Every character is distinctly different, and their designs really reflect who they are. There's no fanservice with anyone, really, and nothing is exaggerated or overdone.

Sound: Fate Zero provides us with basically the same standards that I put on my UBW review. Read that for more.

Character: I feel like this is where Zero goes slightly astray, but in more of a technical standpoint rather than a developmental one. You see, with all the main characters they have, they aren't as developed since you'd have to spend the same amount of time to develop each and every one of them. Now, none of them aren't really what I'd consider to be hateable, but some I could see why you'd dislike them. For example, Waver. He comes off as a slightly bratty kid whose only goal is to improve his magic. Now, after you do some reading and try to get through the show, you would find that his first impression is a bit true, but also not. I hoped that he would have blown me out of the water by being someone else, but it appears that only applies to UBW. Anyways, I only found Waver to be a bit annoying in terms of personality, and not his overall development. Although limited in development (with his one little intro), you get everything you need to know about him. The only problem with the other masters is that sometimes you don't get enough. I understand why everyone wants to fight in this war, but I don't feel like rooting for anyone in particular due to the lack of knowledge. In UBW, even if Shirou came off as a little annoying, I could find a reason to root for him since I knew everything there was to him. Overall, they were better here on the personalities, but not as much on backstories.

Enjoyment: Zero was a trip for me. Half the time, I couldn't even feel that 23 minutes had past, and instead felt that it was more like 10. It made me feel the same urge to binge like UBW season 2, which gives it huge props in terms of enjoyability. Although characters were slightly lacking due to how many there were, everything seemed to be great. I really should have watched this first if we're going to compare it with UBW, but that's just the way I watched it.

Overall: You probably could tell, but like most things I review, I found this to be satisfying. Everything was structured nicely, and there was enough that I could view this both with a critical view and also a regular anime watcher view and still give it a pretty good score. If you haven't seen the Fate series, I'd probably recommend UBW first (this kind of spoils a bit in there), then this. But if you're feeling like watching this first, then it's your choice. Anyways, I'd recommend this.