Fate / Zero – Episode 01

Let’s start off by saying that I am a really big fan of the Fate/Stay Night series, and basically everything Type-Moon (the original creators) with a few exceptions. I’m also, unfortunately, a very poor fan of Fate/Stay Night, and have been unable to scrounge up the $100 necessary to purchase the original visual novel so I can play it without fear of moral retribution by some unknown karma god. Thus far in the Type-Moon canon, I have played the original Tsukihime visual novel, and watched both the Tsukihime anime (which doesn’t actually exist) and the 7 movie series Garden of Sinners (which was the bomb, by the way). The first thing I watched in the canon though was the original Fate/Stay Night anime.

While I have never reviewed the original Fate/Stay Night, and I actually haven’t re-watched it in quite some time, I do consider it somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine as a reviewer. I look back on it and I remember its faults in narrative (such faults that I would blatantly pick on with any other work), its somewhat poor pacing, and its sad attempts at plot twists. At the same time though, I always look back fondly at it as one of my favourite anime that I have every watched. Maybe not THE best anime that I have ever watched, because I can name many that have topped it (such as the aforementioned Garden of Sinners), but it’s definitely somewhere in the Top 10.
It’s just the plot summary and basic concept that really excites me, with magicians summoning heroes of old to fight in a large scale battle with the prize being a wish granted from the Holy Grail itself. It just has this feeling of epicness that trumps most of its flaws, though only most.

Then recently, a movie was made called “Unlimited Blade Works”, which was a retelling using one of F/SN’s other endings from the original visual novel, and I was actually quite disappointed with it. It was good, no doubt there, but the main problem with it was when you go into it only knowing what occurred in the original storyline, the plot differences throw you for a loop. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, were it not for the fact that the whole story took place in only about 2 hours, making you play catch up the whole time. I’m glad that they tried, but I really wish they didn’t make it into a movie and did a 13-ep OVA or something of the like instead. It would have made for a much better viewing experience.

And now we have Fate/Zero, a prequel to the original story (or one of them at least) of Fate/Stay Night. What got me excited even before I pressed play on this initial episode was just the amount of quality that is packed into the production staff. Starting with one of the biggest names is Gen Urobuchi. Why do I like him? Well let’s see, he was the original author of Phantom, and helped along with the retelling of the story in Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~, and most importantly, he did the series composition and entire script of Madoka Magica, which is a major plus considering how awesome that particular show is. The next name is Yuki Kajura, and if I have to explain much more about Kajura besides her name, then you obviously haven’t been following me long. But just know that she is an extremely talented musician and composer who made some of my favourite anime soundtracks like Tsubasa and also Madoka Magica. The last name is Ei Aoki, who is worth mentioning for being the director of the first movie in the Garden of Sinners saga. So with his name, we have confirmed that the director is awesome, the script is going to be awesome, and the music is going to be amazing.

Can you blame me for being excited right off the bat?

So now, a full page into this blog and we get into the episode itself. This first episode is very much an introductory piece, which is great, because it lets itself be more accessible to new people who are not fans of/haven’t seen or played the original Fate/Stay Night. It reiterates the rules and general premise behind the Holy Grail Wars: seven Masters summon seven Servants that all fight to the death for the chance of getting their wishes granted by the Holy Grail itself.

This episode also goes into detail about the general background for most (but not yet all) of the contestants in this particular war. About the three families that have been around since the beginning, the church who wishes to stop anyone else from receiving the gift bestowed by a supposedly fake grail, and the few people who just wish to be recognized for their abilities rather than by their name and magician status.

The thing about the characters specifically that I really like at this point is that the show has given you a reason to cheer on basically every champion so far. In the original Fate/Stay Night, you were cheering on Shirou Emiya, and that was basically it because he was your main character and everyone else was trying to kill him (with the exception of Rin, who basically became a mentor/sidekick by the end, but still a very awesome mentor/sidekick. In Fate/Zero, you can cheer for Kiritsugu Emiya, who between Zero and Night becomes Shirou’s adoptive father, and you can cheer for Tokiomi Tohsaka, father of Rin Tohasaka from F/SN. You’re given a reason to cheer for Waver Velvet, a young mage student who gets bullied by his teachers for only being a 3rd generation mage (which is apparently a big deal), or you could also cheer for Kariya Matou, who returned to his family just to save a young girl Sakura from becoming a mule to produce magical offspring for future Grail Wars at the hands of his own family.

I’m liking the diverseness of the Masters, which will make for some great alliances and enemies. The Servants, on the other hand, are going to be a bit different as we still don’t know about most of them, and even the ones we do know only appeared in the final moments of the episode or had a few close-ups in the Opening that played before the credits. (I realize that sounded odd, but just go with it.)

Do I think this show has the potential to be amazing? Yes. Do I think it’s getting there? Definitely so far. Obviously I’m not going to call it the greatest show of the season just yet, because I have yet to view any others, but for a lot of reasons it might end up being that way.

It’s a little disappointing that I may have just possibly watched the best thing first, thus making everything afterwards a disappointment, but hopefully that won’t be the case. Only one way to find out though.

Stay frosty and I’ll see you later this week!