Review of Fate/Zero

So fate/zero is definitely an anime worth watching, but one thing to know is that it is a two season anime, and this is the first of those two parts. As such, it does a lot of set up, introductions, and doesn't go into much detail on the story itself. Just bear in mind that even though this (imho) is not the superior of the two seasons, it is still necessary in order to watch the next part. And it isn't unenjoyable at all. Also, this is my first interaction with any fate series material. STORY:10 Overall an amazing story setup. It starts of verystrong with a double-length episode, and with it it sets up a lot of the story, but also does not spoil the coming episodes. The main premise of a fight over the holy grail is not in itself original, but the surrounding complications, people, and fights truly take it to a war beyond what was originally thought. Just the summoning of servants for fighting was extremely promising and intriguing, though I won't delve deeper than that to avoid spoilers. As the story progresses, there isn't much of a stale moment, each episode was filled with action. More or less no complaint. A coherent story and a solid setup. An easy 10 in my books.

ART:10
The art is gorgeous. It's drawn well and the quality is sharp. Character designs are also well done, I personally thought they were fitting to the characters and their personalities. Also, I noticed that each frame was done well, there wasn't any sort of cutting corners when it came to artwork and animation. Speaking of animation, its as good as it gets. A lot of fluid scenes and movement is not jerky. Animation is on par with anything you would expect nowadays in 2017. There is use of CGI in it though, just as a heads up, personally did not detract from the experience at all for me.

SOUND:9
Well, three parts to sound. (1) Voice Actors/SFX, (2)in-story music, and (3) Opening/ending songs. For Voice actors, they were well chosen, imbued emotion into each character, and were not out of place. Delivery of lines was also good. Sound effects were as realistic as it could get, not bad. All of them made me feel the intended emotion. In reference to the in-story music, it's also good. it fits the scenes well, and enhances the story without taking too much from it. A lot of epic orchestral music, which is cool in fight scenes and also any other scene. Finally, the Opening and ending songs. Well these are just Okay, none of them really caught my attention right off the bat so I ended up skipping most of them.

CHARACTER:9
The Characters were all nicely done. Theres good character development, and most of the characters are multi-faceted. None of them are the same, in the sense that they all have different motivations, attributes, and stories. I think that the author's choosing of specific historical warriors also made it much easier to introduce them, since the watcher most likely already has an understanding of who and what some of the characters are. My only complaint would be regarding the few one-dimensional characters, those were easy to spot as potential deaths and thus predictable, but they also did bring a certain gory or self-aware aspect on the destructive force of human nature in contrast to all the good vibes other people were giving off.

ENJOYMENT:9
Here's where it gets tricky. The story is great, premises are great, and the mechanics of it are awesome. Art is wonderfully done, as good as (or even better than) anime that is done four or five years later. Sound is good. Characters had personality, charisma, and drawing power that comes from deeper characters. So what am i missing in enjoyment? To put it simply, it's the slow pace of the anime as a whole as it is setting up the story, and also the knowledge that this isn't the end, leading to anticipation of the second season. So don't get me wrong i totally did enjoy it, but I feel that in contrast to the second season, I enjoyed that one just a tad more.

OVERALL:9
It really is a great anime, and for someone like me who is geared toward ecchi/uncensored/ecchi stuff, this non-ecchi anime had a great story to keep me entertained with the lack of visible cleavage. Great anime, but given that it is more of a set-up anime rather than a conclusion anime holds me back from really giving it a 10/10. Of course if I had reviewed the two together it would have been a 10 as a whole, but split up the first half in my opinion is weaker than the second. So, broken down, it would be a 4 for story + 3 for character + 1 for art + 1 for enjoyment = 9/10

Peace