Archive for April 2016
Fate/Zero Review
Fate/Zero was a tough watch. Mainly because of its pacing. The story revolves around a magical contest (known as The Holy Grail War) where various powerful mage families (and a few randoms) compete against each other to win the Holy Grail. The winner gets one wish. Most of the character development in the show is good. The dub, not so much. The art style is also inconsistent. I wouldn’t recommend watching this, but if you are still on the fence about this have a look at the details bellow and decide for yourself.
Story
Fate/Zero
consists of 2 seasons, 25 episodes in total. Both seasons feel very different
from each other, the first setting up the world that the story takes place in,
and the second, getting the plot to progress. And when the story concludes,
let’s just say you might be left wanting.
It isn’t all
bad though, the strongest part of the series are the characters. Only four
characters are very clearly portrayed as good and evil. Everyone else is grey, and if you are wondering how many
characters there are let me explain, there are over 16. 14 of which are the
contestants and their summoned spirits…
“Summoned
spirits?” Again let me explain, the contestants summon the spirits of ancient
heroes from times of old to serve them in the Holy Grail War (eg. King Arthur).
Here in lies the problem with the show, all the contestants have their own
motivations and back story for wanting to win the Holy Grail War. All the
heroic spirits have distinct personalities, motivations, and back story to
become servants. So there is no way to be able to do all the characters justice
in telling their stories leading to most being well rounded, and others wasted.
6/10 (5
being mediocre, 10 being amazing)
Art Style
The art
style in the show is pretty, but inconsistent. Season 1 has a great use of
subtle lighting effects. Season 2 however is not so subtle, making all kinds of
gains with bloom and depth of field effects. The difference for myself at least was pretty jarring. I find
myself debating over which style I liked better because both are good, I just
wished they stuck to one.
6/10 (10
being breathtakingly awesome, 0 being uninspired and crappy)
Sound, Music, and Dub
The sounds
in the show are pretty standard fair, without a special attention to
environments in each scene. The musical score was also not memorable and only
really helped to enhance 2 scenes in the entire series. And the dub… not good.
The voice actors here are experienced for the most part, however they didn’t
really seem to suit the characters. It seems like one of those situations where
actors have no real context of what is actually happening and who they are
portraying. To add to that, the script was not translated very well. Once again
having such a diverse range of characters meant that only a handful would be
given attention to detail that they require.
5/10 (0
being terrible, 10 being flawless)
Conclusion
All in all,
as a stand-alone series, I can’t recommend this to anyone. There really are
better shows to watch. The other series that take place in the same universe as
this may build on this show and be better for it, but as someone who had no
idea about what the Fate universe was about, it has done little to peak my
interest.
5/10 (0
being utter crap, 5 being mediocre)
By Hellsknight Sujay.