FATE/ZERO

This is gonna be my longest review ever, so you are forewarned.

(REVIEW BY ROOPAYAN GHOSH)

Anime Review:-

Anime:- Fate/Zero

Number of episodes-25

Genre:- Action/Seinen

Rating:- Animation-10, Music-10, Story-10, Characters-10, Enjoyment-9.5(49.5/50)

You guessed it, I am a fate fanboy. Before you start judging this review by that, you read it fully first.

There are anime which you have to watch once in your life. You might love, you might hate it, but you cannot simply ignore it for the sheer presence it has. This is one such anime. If someone asks you the following, “I will watch only 3 anime. What 3 I should watch?” This type of question have been asked in Quorra and the most common answers encompass Dragonballz, Naruto and One Piece. For me this answer is probably the worst answer you could give. Somebody wants to watch only 3 anime, you are giving him 3 battle type shounenes, its like someone coming to your house for only 3 days ever and you are treating them with plain rice! Thats blasphemy. Yeah by now you must have guessed that I will put Fate/Zero on that list. The other two? Well, lets save it for some other day.

Animation:- Its Ufotable, period! Before the airing 2014 Fate/Stay Night, this was my favourite animation work of Ufotable. The battle sequence animation, the scenery, the special effects during special moves are so beautiful that it will take your breath away. This is an anime that can be watched just for a visual treat. In fact the choreography of the last battle and a 5 person battle royale is the best battle choreography I have seen. (Even considering the current series UBW)

Music:- Its Yuki Kaijura again. The OSTs are AWESOME!. The in battle music in unrealistically good, so much that it can give you goosebumps. All Openings are full of melody. All ending are full of “feels”. Thats exactly how I like them. Its perfect, just perfect. Specially ending of season 2 with the pictures in the background is so saddening that I had a lump in the throat(after I realized its significance)

Story:- It is a character driven plot. The basic premise is very simple, people competing to get an ultimate reward. However the twists are each person has their own motive, own ways to do things, and barring 1 person it is very difficult to judge who is right and who is wrong. The story starts slow, so you are forewarned. There are a huge amount of dalogues, which if you feel and understand will make you think it is a work of art, but if you are unable to feel them, then you might end up hating this anime. There have been complaints that the anime has tried to do too much, mixing up battles and philosophy into a khichdi that doesnt taste good. However taste of a person varies. You never know until you have tasted that khichdi whether it tastes good or not. I loved the way they mixed philosophy with an all out battle since I dont like watching either of them individually, mindless battles are a huge damper, and so are just dialogues(which is why I cannot bring myself to watch monogatari, the first few episodes are too dialogue based). So my advice to you is, see, wait patiently, and reach episode 18, after that its pure epicness!

Characters:- Brush up your mythology, since the elements used in this anime are from mythology and history together. Unless you know the exact mythology of each, you will not know how Urobutchi changed and used their character traits from the mythology to create the dialogues, and unless you do that you cannot enjoy this one. There is a 15 min long dialogue of kingship between three of the main characters in the anime, which in my opinion raised so many brilliant questions that it is worth quoting over and over again. Okay just a little spoiler, there are 7 servants who are the mythological and historical heroes and seven masters under whom they fight. The master's characters are fleshed out in detail as well. Almost each and every one of them. Special attention is of course towards the main character and his back story is so beautiful yet so horrible that in the end you will feel sorry for him.

Enjoyment:- This was an almost perfect 10 except for the fact that it started slow in the beginning. I had difficulty to continue. Also there have been complaints about unnecessary bloodshed in many case form one of the master-servant duo, but looking into legends that was the way the servant was. But then it could have been avoided. It can be a big turn off for some people. However be warned, you have to think while watching the anime, there has been a case in which I had suggested this anime to another person, and he was like, why did that guy become like this? There is no reason. Its stupid. Unfortunately, he did not look deep enough. Things like how a person becomes a terrorist is portrayed in the anime, and this is the absolute reality, a small spark can result in a forest fire, however unbelievable it may seem.

Verdict:- A must watch anime as I had said in the beginning of my review. Be prepared for a lot of dialogues and action accompanied by deep philosophy. (actually the interpretation of philosophy varies from person to person even, so I cannot guarantee anything.. )And here you will not have any arbitrary power up of characters, what you see is what you get. If a character seems strong, nobody can beat him, all the other characters have to accept their “fate”, they have no choice. So be prepared for heartbreaks.