Anime Review Fate Zero
Today we do an anime review of the prequel series to Fate Stay Night, Fate Zero.
As with all stories we look at the premise, the characters and the story to give you the best objective review and ensure your time and money aren’t wasted.
The story of Fate Zero happens 10 years prior to Fate Stay Night as the previous Holy Grail War. 7 masters summon 7 servants across time to battle for the Holy Grail, a device capable of granting any wish to its possessor.
Various mages are chosen to be participants in the war by the grail itself and all of them have their own unique personalities, goals and ways of handling things just like the servants they summon do. The battles that both the masters and the servants get into make up the story.
As there are at least 14 main characters in this story I’ll stick to the few main ones the story focuses on while giving a minor summary for the others.
The masters of the war.
Kiritsugu Emiya at the front left is main protagonist of the series that we follow the most in the story. Different from the rest of the Mage masters in that he rarely fights as a mage, instead he uses modern day weaponry that they cannot sense nor do they expect to take down most of his enemies. He arguably goes through the most character development throughout the story with the way everything unfolds, it doesn’t go his way.
Kirei Kotomine is the one at the front right. He is the primary enemy of Kiritsugu Emiya in the story. A sociopath at heart who feels zero guilt for wrong doing yet tries his hardest to hide it. He can’t feel joy in anything which Kiritsugu recognizes and fears him as a result. A highly skilled fighter that can go toe to toe with Kiritsugu.
Waver Velvet on the second left, is a minor character that is a weaker mage and doesn’t accomplish much despite having a powerful servant.
Uyru Ryuunoskue on the third right is a big sociopath that is a morally bankrupt serial killer, he spends most of his time attacking civilians with his servant.
Kayneth Elmaloi on the far right, is a noble mage in the war and a man with the ability to control Mercury like water. One of the more powerful wizards out there.
Tokiumi Tosaka on the second right is one of the bigger main characters and fighters in the war. he controls the most powerful servant in the war and considers himself a behind the scenes man that can control the flow of the war.
Kayira Matou on the far left, is the lessor master in the war that controls one of the most powerful servants. He rarely acts himself and lets his servant do all the work for him.
The servants for the war that are used by their masters to battle for the Holy Grail.
Saber in the middle is the spirit of King Arthur of British legend. She battles for Kiritsugu Emiya yet due to Kiritsugu’s occupation as an assassin and his methods that she considers dishonorable they are frequently at each other’s throats. She is one of the most powerful servants in the war and is summoned by him for that reason however.
Archer on the first left of Saber is the spirit of King Gilgamesh from the Epic of Gilgamesh. He battles for Tokiomi Tosaka yet finds him boring and unworthy. He wants the grail for the sake of just possessing it. He is tied with Saber for being the war’s most powerful servant matched only by Berserker in skill and strength.
Lancer on Saber’s first right is the spirit of Diarmuid of the Love Spot, an old legend from Ireland. He battles for Kayneth Elmaloi. He is set up as the primary rival for Saber as his belief in honor and chivalry is very close to her own.
Caster on the second right is the spirit of Gilles De Rais or Bluebeard from French history. He has no interest in the grail at first but becomes infatuated with Saber mistaking her for Joan of Arc. He battles for Uyru Ryuunoskue and is one of the most dangerous spirits in the holy grail war due to near complete moral bankruptcy.
Rider on the far right is the spirit of Alexander the Great. He fights for Waver Velvet, he is a spirit that mainly seeks to keep going forward and dominate whatever he can just like he did in his old days. He helps inspire Waver to always go forward on his own journey as well.
Assassin on the far left is the spirit of Hundred Face Hassan, the leader of the original assassins. He fights for Kirei Kotomine and has the ability to manifest as various versions of himself that people believed he looked like throughout history. He has the least influence on his master or the plot.
Berserker just right of assassin is unknown at first so I won’t spoil his identity. He is the servant of Kariya Matou. As the name implies he is a berserk entity yet he is also the only one capable of going toe to toe with Gilgamesh.
The main story takes place during the events of the Holy Grail War that happened ten years prior to the one in Fate Stay Night. All characters are focused on and introduced early. You know what they’re doing at any time and who they wish to strike at next so there’s rarely ever any confusion.
The fights are definitely well animated yet as they look better than the ones in Fate Stay Night and are often more extreme it can often break the idea that this is supposed to happen before Fate Stay Night.
One big criticism this series tends to get is the criticism that it’s a pointless series to watch because it’s a prequel. No matter how cool it is you already know how it is going to end if you have watched Fate Stay Night before it. To that I answer, yes that’s the point. You are meant to go into this knowing ahead of time what is going to happen, this is supposed to be a tragic story where no amount of effort really matters because the end result is already set in stone.
I will admit however that is a weakness of the story that it feels the ending has to go down in order to support Fate Stay Night. Had this been its own series or taken place in an alternate world I believe it would’ve had a better ending and been a much more impactful series.
As this is a prequel and part of the Nasuverse (which is considerably big) recommending this one is rather tricky. If you know nothing of the Nasuverse I would recommend going to ebay to picking up a copy of Fate Stay Night first and watching that before trying to get into this series. It’ll make a lot more sense. If you don’t enjoy Fate Stay Night for some reason’s’ then you will likely enjoy this series more due to more interesting protagonists and better action. If the prequel tragedy thing is too much though then I would recommend skipping it.
If you're good to go though at the time of writing this Fate Zero can be found on Crunchyroll.com, I recommend watching the dubbed version as it is done incredibly well.
Fate Zero gets an 8.5 out of 10 mainly for the difficulty of breaking into the Nasuverse.
Speaking from the perspective of someone who had not watched more than the first few episodes of Fate Stay Night I can say that I enjoyed Fate Zero immensely. The first few exposition heavy episodes gave me a good understanding of the world and the character's places in it, though I know from talking to my friends that the pace of those episodes turned off a lot of people .
IMHO the Nasuverse example that does the best job of introducing someone to the universe while keeping them entertained would be Unlimited Blade Works TV episode zero.