Review of Fate/Zero

Fair warning: This review contains minor spoilers. Over the last decade or so, Type-Moon has rapidly grown in popularity and number of anime adaptations. This growth is spearheaded by Type Moon's flagship, the Fate franchise. Fate/Zero is a prequel to the Fate/stay night VN written by Urobochi Gen and not Type-Moon themselves. This series is the first encounter I've had with Type-Moon in general and honestly, I think starting off with this series was a good decision. The Fate franchise itself focuses on the Holy Grail War, a Battle Royale between seven masters and their respective servants, heroic spirits divided into seven classes, with the end goal ofacquiring the Holy Grail, a omnipotent wish-granting device to be used at the victor's disposal.
There have been many Battle Royale series, both in- and outside of the anime medium, in recent years. To be blunt, most of them aren't good. Battle Royales are hard to pull off, mainly because of what a Battle Royale entails: Many characters, most of which will die eventually.
Most writers already fail at properly developing their often gigantic cast of characters, which results in most of the characters being dull and boring. Add to that the multitude of character deaths a Battle Royale entails and you have yourself a recipe for disaster.

Fate/Zero isn't one of these many failures however, which can be attributed to the brilliant work of Urobochi Gen. This series is a perfect showcase of Urobochi's skill and proficiency at creating entertaining fights, multi-dimensional characters and several intriguing dualites in philosophies and idealisms.

My high praises may seem out of place considering my rating, but there is one very important thing to keep in mind when talking about the anime of Fate/Zero: it has two seasons.
Having two seasons isn't a negative most of the time, but it really hurts this series from a standalone perspective. As explained earlier, a Battle Royale entails a multitude of things, most of which is developing and setting up. This basically sums up this first season. It establishes several dualities and plot threads. The participants first are mostly acting defensively in order to gain the first bits of information about their opponents, to gain a strategic advantage. This sounds great on paper, at least in my opinion because it is the most rational thing to do and speaks volumes for the high-level writing present in this work, but actually watching the whole thing isn't really all that exciting. The first season is dialogue-heavy, to say the least. Most fights only amount to small skirmishes and are mainly used to introduce certain plot points and character relations. Early fights in a Battle Royale have little to no meaning, as one couldn't possibly be invested in any of the characters, so this being the case is actually a positive overall, but nothing really exciting happens. After 12 episodes, all participants still remain.

If you want to build a house, you need a solid foundation. This only gets truer the higher you build. Fate/Zero is a story striving to be a skyscraper, to reach greatness, and as such needs a solid foundation. This first season is just that – a solid foundation.

If you've paid any attention whatsoever to anime discussion, or rather anime animation discussion, you should have heard of the studio ufotable and their brilliant work animating the Fate franchise, several times at least. And it is true, especially their digital art is breathtaking. The usage of said digital art also allows the key animators to not have to spend all their time and these extra VFX and makes animating the fight scenes easier, and it really shows. The fight sequences, although few and far between, look gorgeous. The same can be said for the backgrounds, they are very rich in detail and a sight to behold. Definitely not something you'd expect from a TV anime unless you already know about this visual greatness before watching the show (which is close to impossible, but that's beside the point). Sadly there isn't much to work with in this first season. There is only so much you can do when characters talk for close to ten minutes straight, resulting in at times questionable cinematography. A fairly famous example would be in episode 1: Because the room the people are in is fairly empty, some visual stimulation is needed. This is achieved through two of the three characters walking in circles around the third character with the camera following them for what feels like one and a half eternities. This also happens in fights sometimes and it feels awkward and uncomfortable at best.

Another thing that may or may not make a viewer feel uncomfortable are the at times gruesome images in this show. Especially a infamous scene, again in episode 1, seems to catch many viewers off-guard. Oftentimes, these scenes are poorly handled. They lack sufficient build-up that'd be necessary to create a solid impact. The only instance of these gruesome scenes pulled off well in the first few episodes would be Caster killing his first victim. The scene uses fairly basic symbolism in the half-open door with light shining through being a symbol for both hope and escape from the dark room of indiscriminate killing, and the shoes in the light-flooded floor remind the boy of his family that just was brutally murdered. He then ends up getting literally ripped apart from Caster's magic.
While this scene is one of the few unsettling scenes pulled off well, it is just one of the many times that very simple symbolism, easy enough for everyone to grasp, is used to enhance a scene.

Keeping in mind that this series is figuratively 12 episodes of build-up, Fate/Zero really is a great experience. The build-up is great and, trust me, the second season is masterfully executed. I recommend everyone to give this one a shot, especially those who like their fights to be well-choreographed, their characters to come with depth, and their anime to be filled with despair.