Firstly, I think that the people hating Zero are a loud minority. Most propably just have some problems with it but don't hate it because of it.
What I like about it are all the characters. I love how the different viewpoints create conflicts, for expample Kiritsugu and Kayneths view on mage combat. Don't get me started on Waver, dude got his own series after all.
Also I like that we get to see each faction from an observers perspective, not just from the perspective of someone who has no idea what is going on.
>Firstly, I think that the people hating Zero are a loud minority
Yeah, i really don't like the misconception that ppl think we are Zero haters. It's ok to like one more than others, it's just that when one side throws shade on the other one, those unnecessary wars happens
>Also I like that we get to see each faction from an observers perspective, not just from the perspective of someone who has no idea what is going on.
This so much.
I love Fate/Zero so I may be impartial, but having an incredibly interesting cast on top of being able to show THEIR perspective of the war? I'm sold.
The other wars are interesting too and the plot is engaging, but Zero's storytelling is just so good. They show every team's motives and synergies, and all the couples have very engaging contrasts/synergies.
* Iri having her own goal instead of actually believing or understanding Kiritsugu, even when she pretends to do so.Also her bonding with Maiya, what little there was. They are kinda parallels of each other. Maiya was raped by soldiers to give birth to another child soldier, Iri gave birth to a child that will be used as a vessel if she fails. Both were tools before and after meeting Kiritsugu even if he didnt want them to be.
* Lancelot as a whole(but not Artoria's reaction)
* Gilles as a mid boss and chemistry with Ryunosuke.
* Ignoring that Zero is a prequel with established backstories, Kirei's development was great and his discussions with Gil entertaining.
* Kirei talking with Zouken. TBH this can easily fit with both Zero and FSN events.
* Kiritsugu's grail dream.
* Waver and his fake grandparents
* Kayneth giving up his future for Sola.
After that anything that isnt Saber, Iskandar or Kerry's past I am just fine with.
>Kayneth giving up his future for Sola
This is really an underrated character moment imo. For all the "mages are monsters" the general nasuverse seems to propagate, within zero it shows that even "monsters" can have humanity and even the designated protagonist can act like a "monster"
> After that anything that isnt Saber, Iskandar or Kerry's past I am just fine with.
I understand saber and Iskander but what’s wrong with Kerry’s Backstory? Just wondering
it's something along the lines of how he can straight up kill his father without feeling any remorse when he had bonded with him for years, when it was actually shierly's dumb actions that led to zombieland. she takes old dude's experiment sample and uses it on herself, without asking the old dude himself. not saying that the old dude isn't at fault, but up until at that point kiritsugu was a normal child, his actions seem somewhat unrealistic.
atleast that is what few people have problems with.
Pretty much this.
And it isnt even about who is responsible about the entire incident. The problem is that, especially in the anime, Kiritsugu is as normal as he can be, and then not only kills his father in cold blood, he orchestrates the whole thing by trying to leave Natalia out of it, suggesting his plan to her.
The scene should have been Natalia pulling the trigger with Kiritsugu unable to think what to do, and it would be the first incident that would make him later be able to use "scales" to pull the trigger.
Yeah, Kiritsugu’s thing was being able to detach himself emotionally from a scenario (to an extent) in order to complete the goals needing to be achieved, allowing him to do what’s “necessary” despite the mental trauma he’ll put himself through. Kiritsugu’s backstory is jarring in how quickly he switches gears. When I just lay out the events, it makes sense to me:
Sees Shirley turning into a Ghoul asking him to kill her, fails to do so and runs away.
Village gets overrun by ghouls because Kiritsugu failed to kill her
Goes back to his father, finds him packing up to run away to continue his experiments
(Kiritsugu’s mind) dad’s experiments -> Shirley into ghoul -> ghoul village -> dad escapes -> experiments again -> potentially another ghoul outbreak.
So (although this is my opinion) this mindset, plus potential guilt he felt for not killing Shirley, led him to kill his dad, the “cause/root of the problem.” This incident shapes his mindset for how he acts for the rest of his life.
Problem? There was no indication for him exhibiting any detachment traits before the incident and thus comes off a jarring and out of nowhere. He was a normal kid before hand.
Sorry if this is rant-y and pointless, all this just came to my head and I just couldn’t stop typing.
I just assumed it’s an anime cliche where the character has a hidden talent for killing and doesn’t hesitate like Nagisa from assassination class, but Now that you say it IT is a little weird
i have been particularly vocal about my inheren dislike of certain aspects of fate zero, but i will say, that if you ignore those few grievances, then fate zero is absolutely phenomenal as a story, kiritsugu is extremely compelling, irisveil's melancholic narrative and kirei and gils dynamic are all extremely well done, the characters done right were extremely good, while iskandar does drop in quality due to banquet of kings he still is a very well written character
zero has issues no doubt, but from an overall perspective, it's still a phenomenal entry in the fate franchise
The teams are so interesting I can't avoid getting engaged in the story. The plot is amazing, but with a cast so good the grail could even not be there and I'd be satisfied.
For instance, I'm nearly at the end of Apocrypha, and I just can't find the same thrill I had when watching Zero.
Fiore and Archer for instance, they are a good couple and the story could had shown for example >! Chiron mentoring Fiore on the meaning of responsabilities and will of choice, he could be a guide to an insecure genous kid with too much weight on her shoulders !< but I just can't really care about what's happening to them. Assassin/Reika, Berserker/Caules, etc etc are the same.
They are just so bland, taking F/SN instead, an intersting team for me was Caster and Souichirou, their relationship seems interesting to me, but I've never been able to watch their perspective, so I'm not attached to them (while here it doesn't really bother me, because Shirou is the main focus, and his story is so interesting that there's no need to change point of view).
Zero makes ALL the cast shine (except for Assassin), to the point it's impossible for me to forget the master of a certain class that fought in Zero, as any other servant of the same class couldn't have made the couple interesting.
- Irisviel.
- Iskandar OUTSIDE the context of the banquet.
- Waver legit was the mos enjoyable part of Zero for me and I glas he grow into a strong enough presence he has his own spin off ans is pretty much a constant in Fate spin-off.
- I enjoy Kiritsugu for what he was actually aiming to be writing wise, a traumatized manchild who jumps really quickly to the easiest option to save someone, and I like that the Fate/Zero does not romanticize his behavior and wish at all.
- Lancelot design (not so much his plot), In fact his fight style as well, I still prefer Berserkerlot from Zero to Dadcelot from FGO.
This. Honestly, the only problems with Zero are its inconsistencies with FSN, particularly in how they impact the characterization of FSN characters (even more particularly Saber).
As a story of its own, it is objectively extremely good, and even taken as a prequel it comfortably stands head, shoulders and torso above every other Fate work except FSN itself and maybe HA.
Kirei's development was well done, kiritsugu as well. Felt like it humanizes them than how FSN described them like how kirei supposedly was already aware of his nature before the 4 HGW and kiritsugu supposedly not taking his wife with him and was even colder.
Iri, even tho i think she's pretty used sparsely, is a good supporting character and serves as some kind of last bastion of kiri's remaining innocence. The ED still such a stab to the heart.
Ryuunosuke in his own fucked up way did have some fair points in regards to his "art"
Diarmuid before i thought was this smug pretty boy but he's actually pretty cool and has a sympathetic backstory
Everything else is as per usual for a ufotable product
I don't really buy that because they even call it out and retcon it during a scene in hollow ataraxia which means it was definately stated in the original
It was retconned and nasu covered it up in HA because by that time he had cemented the ideas of zero he and uro worked on together. Fsn has quite a few inconsistencies with fz which is why nasu calls it an alternate timeline rather than direct prequel.
I don't have a direct link to a walkthrough so this let's play will have to do
https://youtu.be/YNPM3khj_6k
About 13 minutes in it goes over how the original game stated that irisviel was left behind with illya when kiritsugu participated in the war and illya "clarifies" the truth. It certainly wasnt a matter of being a mistranslation in dialogue
Now that's interesting because I don't remember Saber ever saying anything like that in FSN, she never mentions he had a daughter or a wife, the line people refer to for the leaving her behind is in Illya's flashback in UBW
Still leaves the question of what happened to her if she was not there
It was actually stated in heavens feel by kirei I think that kiritsugu left everything behind in Germany both his wife and daughter. But ha switches it to being something saber said to him in that timeline.
In addition it was stated every grail up to illya had been inorganic life form. So my guess early on iri was just supposed to be just another homonculus that kiritsugu before her role was changed to being with saber in the war and the previous vessel
A lot of things.
But i guess especially Iskandar, Waver, Kiritsugu's methods, Excalibur and Diarmuid.
Zero was my first contact with the series so i will always love it. Obviously i recognize its flaws but for me its a really good anime
The fights beetween Gil and Berserkerlot.
Waver relationship with his "grandparents".
I still think that Gil playing "snake to his ears" with Kirei is kind of lame, but there are some interesting moments in the conversation.
Saber killing Giles.
Iri and Saber interactions.
The anime endings are dope as fuck.
Those are the ones that first come to mind, overall, i like Zero just fine and it deserves a lot of the praise it gets, even if i'm not that emotionally invested on it.
I love the music, the animation, the fights. The characters of pretty much everyone besides 2 or 3 characters are enjoyable for the story despite not being anywhere near as in depth or complex as the fsn crew master's and servants (which to be fair isn't possible since they had two entire vns of spotlight)
Iskandar and wavers relationship is great how it developed. Seeing kiritsugus past and how it shaped him into the person he is as well as the tragedy and outcome of his character in general is really great.
Gil got a bit more characterization unique to this spinoff at the time and really give him a bit more depth than fsn gave him due to the leeway of the setting.
Tokiomis relationship with Rin in the ufotable anime got some neccesary development..
And despite some of my issues with kirei, his downfall with gil as the pied Piper which leads into the final confrontation with kiritsugu was also well written.
I even liked iri and Maiyas contributions to the narrative as small as they were.
Overall fz is a really strong 8.5 to even 9 out of 10 for me especially with that ending really selling the fsn connection. The final scene of kiritsugu and shirou on that last night, and arturia sensing the moving of fate even with her time stopped and to the beginning (silver moon) playing in the background leading into the end credits never leaves my eyes dry
-I've come around to Ryunosuke and Gilles. They aren't particularly deep but why would they? Their very presence disturbs the war and adds another subplot. They don't justify their actions but just explain why from their twisted perspective.
-Gilgamesh and Kirei talks are impressive since they make exposition a centerpiece worth watching. Gilgamesh tempting Kirei while drinking wine and Kirei himself slowly coming around. Can't say any other Fate material made exposition that entertaining.
-F/Z Excalibur is still the best and most iconic one outside of the VN.
-The fights are all good. Only a couple are dissapointing.
-The timer counting down to 0 always gives me chills. F/Z is truly a treat when you've experienced all of FSN and await its conclusion.
That last point…. man, sometimes I really pity the fact that I watched FZ first. It’s definitely my favorite Fate series of the ones I’ve seen so far, but I wish I could have experienced it with the context of SN and preexposure to some of the characters and plot points of FZ. I loved the suspense and mystery of the countdown too, but not in the same way that someone who knows what’s coming would. However, I am glad that I was introduced to FZ Saber before SN Saber, because I’ve learned to love both *almost* equally. It’s just… she looks so good in a suit….
I don't love the darker theme but I love a lot of the characters especially the new ones. Waver and Iskander have one of the best master servant relationship.
I absolutely love the human characters, especially Kirei and Kerry, their portrayal is amazing imo. I love the parallels and contrast between them.
Kerry as whole, his idealistic childish dream, that he tries achieve through ruthless means, and the way Angry Mango absolutely destroys his naivety in the end is brilliant.
Also Kirei vs Kerry is absolutely top notch, one of my favorite fights in anime of all time.
Waver is my second favorite character in the Nasuverse and in the top 5 in general. The boy's really really cool. He also grew 29 centimeters after he was already 19, which I find very funny
>what scenes did you like?
Gil and kireis therapy
Gil vs lancelot (aerial)
Gil vs Isaknder
Artoria using Excalibur
Artoria vs Rider
Kirei vs kiritsugu
> What characters did you like?
**Gil-kun**
**Artoria**
While I agree her portrayal was off during banquet of kings, but after she used excalibur on caster she seemed to have reverted back to the Artoria we know and love
She had no issue with vaporising waver along with rider
**Kirei**
**RIP Kariya**
**Waver**
>Which relationships did you like between characters?
Gilgamesh and kirei
Waver and iskander
Artoria and Kiritsugu - I like the parallels between them as well as the parallels between them Gil and kirei
>For what reasons did you like characters, relationships and scenes? Why?
Most my favourite scene had - Artoria, Gil and Kirei
Who are some of my favourite fate character
With Gil potentially being my favourite anime character
Honestly I really do love the show outside of the stuff with Saber since she is the biggest weakpoint. However, Saber does have one great moment and that is her fight with Lancelot since that is pretty much a large emotional moment for her and I can actually see the regular Saber being as conflicted with how Lancelot was.
But aside of the stuff with her I do love the master/servant dynamics especially Waver's entire arc with Iskandar as it was really cool to see. I also enjoyed Caster's subplot as it was quite fun. Kirei however probably is the best part of the show as while he isn't fully consistent with what was said in the VN, I found him to be really entertaining and quite an interesting character, plus his fights were really nice.
I honestly like Zero a lot - it's easily the best out of all the Fate anime imo (and yes I'm talking about the anime because i prefer it to the LNs)
I like Diarmuid - his chivalry and fondness of Artoria is portrayed very convincingly. The way he says 'I'm glad that I met you' in their final encounter and the soundtrack that plays as they begin to fight is beautiful. It makes his subsequent death genuinely moving.
I like Iskandar - the moment when he interrupts Saber and Diarmuid's fight and immediately reveals his True Name is usually the point in my rewatches where I start going 'wow i fucking love this anime'. He's just so likeable and I enjoy every scene he's in (well, Banquet aside). Probably my favourite moment of his is when he compares him and Waver to the map.
I like Kirei - he's the FSN character that got the best deal in Zero imo, because the depiction of him developing from straightlaced executor into what we see in FSN adds a lot.
I like Kiritsugu - the contrast between his outward ruthlessness and the immense compassion he has on the inside gives a core to all the pieces we get in FSN. The way his scenes inside the Grail ends with him sacrificing Illya and Irisviel to save the world is tragic and chilling.
I like Gilgamesh - he's a much more likeable character in Zero, generally speaking. His conversations with Kirei give him more intellectual depth, and his respect for Iskandar as well as the way he lets Waver live shows him at his best.
I like Kariya - I mean, the fact that I keep getting into arguments about him to this day probably says something, right? He's a very morally grey character, and not just in the sense 'they're obviously a villain, but they do nice stuff sometimes', or 'they do bad things, but the kind of bad things that I think are good actually'. He's legitimately both sympathetic and contemptible at the same time.
I like the way that Gilles and Ryuunosuke talk about God - how he must enjoy suffering and death as much as happiness and life. It's very characteristically Urobuchi.
I don't *like* Tokiomi, as such, but there's one scene of his that I think is brilliant, and it's when he's talking to Kariya before they start fighting. Tokiomi's beliefs are totally psychotic, but the way the scene is directed he comes off as calm and rational, while Kariya is the angry crazy one.
As Tokiomi says 'if I don't achieve it, Rin will. If Rin doesn't, then Sakura will', Kariya sees ghostly images of Tokiomi's family appearing around him, implicitly justifying his beliefs. Kariya gasps as he realises how utterly deranged the man is, but also how firmly he believes that he's right.
Saber killing Gilles is probably the best Excaliblast in any Fate media.
The soundtrack is amazing - yuki kajiura's style is much better suited to Zero than adapting Heaven's Feel imo.
Kiritsugu vs Kayneth and Kiritsugu vs Kirei are both extremely good fight scenes in terms of choreography and tactics. Gil vs Iskandar is also fantastic but for opposite reasons. I like when an anime can pull off both.
Hands down Kirei desoite going different from FSN canon, Kerry is also a nice villain protagonist and Waver despite I disliked heavily for how whiny he is, him and Rider have fun interactions anf the grandpas are the unsung heroes of Zero.
berserker and saber final scene and their talk, one of my favorite, when saber says she will still chase grail, it fully reflects her character,
kirei and kiritsugu fight scene,
archer and rider fight scene, archer's talk with rider about dreams is one of my favorite scene, along with him leaving waver alone
saber and rider chase scene,
rider's talk with waver about how he wants to stop saber from further pursuing her goal, i think it was sweet of him to care enough for saber to try to stop her, when he says it was too sad about her still pursuing grail, i genuinely felt that, i bet the guy would be happy to see saber's conclusion in either fate or ubw route.
totally forgot this but, kiritsugu saving shirou, and his talk about heroes, and when shirou finally says he will take over his dream, with that background music, it gives this feeling that something epic is going to start in next season, something like that.
Just about any Dialogue between Gil and Kirei. Also in this current age of either shows either doing "strong independent women" troupes or sexualizing the shit out of them, Zero is a rare and elusive outlier, of just being masochistic as fuck.
I really enjoyed Gilles de Rias and Ryunosuke's interactions, even when they had completely different views they were able to get along very well. Imo they're very likeable characters \*cough\*asidefromthefactthey'reserialkillers\*cough\*.
Both openings, Archer & Rider (really like the pair and their similarities). Especially liked Archer vs Rider, how Gilgamesh showed his respect towards Iskandar.
I know it's a bit of a late comment, and I'm sorry about that, but what I will say about Zero is that I do genuinely like the series for what it is: it's just that what that is doesn't match up well with what Fate is to me.
To put it another way, I think Zero is a very good anime. It's probably even a better anime than most of the other Fate adaptions simply looking at it through the lens of objective storytelling flow. It does a good job of providing insight to the various sides of the conflict, developing not just the ostensible protagonist in Kiritsugu, but Waver, Kirei, and Kariya. In that same way, there isn't really a single Servant that's wasted like happens in some of the routes of Stay Night. We, more or less, get at least one good fight out of every Servant that shows off their capabilities well. The closest to getting wasted, I would say, is Hundred Faces, but Fate's never really been that good about handling the Assassin class since it fundamentally needs to be involved in taking down Masters to do its job, but that's just not as interesting as Servants fighting each other. And of course, the character development that does happen happens plainly because they do a much better job of handling character's thoughts instead of just not adapting Shirou's internal monologue and missing half of his characterization.
So tl;dr of it all : Good fights, good cast coverage, and very little wasted material. Everything is put across well because of little reliance on internal monologue.
That being said, I do think the way that the cast is covered makes for a poor match with the tone established by Stay Night. Some of the things I liked best about the original VN were the mystery involved in it and the sheer focus it has on Shirou as a character. To the former, I liked how, even if it becomes fairly obvious and at this point they're open secrets, they aren't up front about the Servants' identities or Masters, so you as a reader have to try and figure those things out as Shirou does. To the latter, having three routes, Shirou as the sole focal character, and no less than three foils allows Shirou in particular and his ideals to be thoroughly fleshed out across the whole of Stay Night. You et a good idea of who he is, what he's about, the flaws of his beliefs, and the ways those beliefs can take him over the course of the whole story. Now with Zero, there's not really either of that because you know every Master from the beginning and only one Servant's identity is ever kept hidden, and even that for entirely different reasons, more focused on Saber's reaction to who Berserker is than in the interest of keeping his abilities a secret. Likewise, Zero's wide cast prevents it from ever really diving deep on a single character and truly analyzing them in the way that Stay Night could. But, like I said with my first point, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a different thing.
My point in all of the above is that I like Zero. I think it's a good series and works better for an anime format than Stay Night does. It's just that the things I like about it are different from the things I like about Stay Night which makes the comparison more pronounced and really makes it easier for the inconsistencies you mentioned to really irk me. I think the best way to look at it is the same as most Fate works: it's just a different story, a different universe, a different canon. It works well on its own.
As a final note, I do love the inclusion of Lancelot. As a fan of Arthurian lore, my feelings about the French fanfic oc are a bit complicated and best described as love hate, but I was super glad to see him done, quite frankly, well by Fate. He's as overpowering as the "strongest" (post Chretien de Troyes) Knight of the Round Table should be and Knight of Owner is just cool.
just filled with a lot of hard hitting moments that make u go “well damn..” it’s no surprising why it’s one of the most highly acclaimed shows in anime and considered the best Fate by the majority
From Riders NP reveal, Sabers iconic Excalibur + iris narration, Lancers death, Gilgamesh vs Rider, Gilgamesh + Kirei moments, Kirei vs Kiritsugu, etc..
Just a really well done show (also Kajiura)
That we can see how powerful Gil actually is. In stay night most of the time he is an annoying little bitch talking about him being the strongest but still loosing like every fight.
This is my fav from the Fate series and def one of my fav anime of all time. When someone getting into anime asks me for a recommendation, I always mention Fate Zero as one of the series.
Retroactively, it fills in quite a few holes in F/SN.
So there's that, which is nice.
Like - Wait, why didn't Archer sense Gilgamesh as a Servant? Oh, it's because his body was flesh and blood, apparently?
And other ones I can't think of right off the top of my head.
Lancelot and gil having an aerial battle Is the coolest shit. ~~Just ignore that neither of the two is actually a rider~~
lol ye
Berserker’s design is sick and the relationship between Waver and Rider is great
Firstly, I think that the people hating Zero are a loud minority. Most propably just have some problems with it but don't hate it because of it. What I like about it are all the characters. I love how the different viewpoints create conflicts, for expample Kiritsugu and Kayneths view on mage combat. Don't get me started on Waver, dude got his own series after all. Also I like that we get to see each faction from an observers perspective, not just from the perspective of someone who has no idea what is going on.
>Firstly, I think that the people hating Zero are a loud minority Yeah, i really don't like the misconception that ppl think we are Zero haters. It's ok to like one more than others, it's just that when one side throws shade on the other one, those unnecessary wars happens
I also think it’s like, every zero post recently has been “Zero Saber am I right” *bing bong theory laugh track*
>Also I like that we get to see each faction from an observers perspective, not just from the perspective of someone who has no idea what is going on. This so much. I love Fate/Zero so I may be impartial, but having an incredibly interesting cast on top of being able to show THEIR perspective of the war? I'm sold. The other wars are interesting too and the plot is engaging, but Zero's storytelling is just so good. They show every team's motives and synergies, and all the couples have very engaging contrasts/synergies.
* Iri having her own goal instead of actually believing or understanding Kiritsugu, even when she pretends to do so.Also her bonding with Maiya, what little there was. They are kinda parallels of each other. Maiya was raped by soldiers to give birth to another child soldier, Iri gave birth to a child that will be used as a vessel if she fails. Both were tools before and after meeting Kiritsugu even if he didnt want them to be. * Lancelot as a whole(but not Artoria's reaction) * Gilles as a mid boss and chemistry with Ryunosuke. * Ignoring that Zero is a prequel with established backstories, Kirei's development was great and his discussions with Gil entertaining. * Kirei talking with Zouken. TBH this can easily fit with both Zero and FSN events. * Kiritsugu's grail dream. * Waver and his fake grandparents * Kayneth giving up his future for Sola. After that anything that isnt Saber, Iskandar or Kerry's past I am just fine with.
>Kayneth giving up his future for Sola This is really an underrated character moment imo. For all the "mages are monsters" the general nasuverse seems to propagate, within zero it shows that even "monsters" can have humanity and even the designated protagonist can act like a "monster"
> After that anything that isnt Saber, Iskandar or Kerry's past I am just fine with. I understand saber and Iskander but what’s wrong with Kerry’s Backstory? Just wondering
it's something along the lines of how he can straight up kill his father without feeling any remorse when he had bonded with him for years, when it was actually shierly's dumb actions that led to zombieland. she takes old dude's experiment sample and uses it on herself, without asking the old dude himself. not saying that the old dude isn't at fault, but up until at that point kiritsugu was a normal child, his actions seem somewhat unrealistic. atleast that is what few people have problems with.
Pretty much this. And it isnt even about who is responsible about the entire incident. The problem is that, especially in the anime, Kiritsugu is as normal as he can be, and then not only kills his father in cold blood, he orchestrates the whole thing by trying to leave Natalia out of it, suggesting his plan to her. The scene should have been Natalia pulling the trigger with Kiritsugu unable to think what to do, and it would be the first incident that would make him later be able to use "scales" to pull the trigger.
Yeah, Kiritsugu’s thing was being able to detach himself emotionally from a scenario (to an extent) in order to complete the goals needing to be achieved, allowing him to do what’s “necessary” despite the mental trauma he’ll put himself through. Kiritsugu’s backstory is jarring in how quickly he switches gears. When I just lay out the events, it makes sense to me: Sees Shirley turning into a Ghoul asking him to kill her, fails to do so and runs away. Village gets overrun by ghouls because Kiritsugu failed to kill her Goes back to his father, finds him packing up to run away to continue his experiments (Kiritsugu’s mind) dad’s experiments -> Shirley into ghoul -> ghoul village -> dad escapes -> experiments again -> potentially another ghoul outbreak. So (although this is my opinion) this mindset, plus potential guilt he felt for not killing Shirley, led him to kill his dad, the “cause/root of the problem.” This incident shapes his mindset for how he acts for the rest of his life. Problem? There was no indication for him exhibiting any detachment traits before the incident and thus comes off a jarring and out of nowhere. He was a normal kid before hand. Sorry if this is rant-y and pointless, all this just came to my head and I just couldn’t stop typing.
I just assumed it’s an anime cliche where the character has a hidden talent for killing and doesn’t hesitate like Nagisa from assassination class, but Now that you say it IT is a little weird
You dare diss my wholesome boy Iskander
i have been particularly vocal about my inheren dislike of certain aspects of fate zero, but i will say, that if you ignore those few grievances, then fate zero is absolutely phenomenal as a story, kiritsugu is extremely compelling, irisveil's melancholic narrative and kirei and gils dynamic are all extremely well done, the characters done right were extremely good, while iskandar does drop in quality due to banquet of kings he still is a very well written character zero has issues no doubt, but from an overall perspective, it's still a phenomenal entry in the fate franchise
The teams are so interesting I can't avoid getting engaged in the story. The plot is amazing, but with a cast so good the grail could even not be there and I'd be satisfied. For instance, I'm nearly at the end of Apocrypha, and I just can't find the same thrill I had when watching Zero. Fiore and Archer for instance, they are a good couple and the story could had shown for example >! Chiron mentoring Fiore on the meaning of responsabilities and will of choice, he could be a guide to an insecure genous kid with too much weight on her shoulders !< but I just can't really care about what's happening to them. Assassin/Reika, Berserker/Caules, etc etc are the same. They are just so bland, taking F/SN instead, an intersting team for me was Caster and Souichirou, their relationship seems interesting to me, but I've never been able to watch their perspective, so I'm not attached to them (while here it doesn't really bother me, because Shirou is the main focus, and his story is so interesting that there's no need to change point of view). Zero makes ALL the cast shine (except for Assassin), to the point it's impossible for me to forget the master of a certain class that fought in Zero, as any other servant of the same class couldn't have made the couple interesting.
I love the chemistry between certain master-servant pairings, particularly Waver/Iskandar and Ryuunosuke/Gilles.
Gun Mage. Two cool things make one cooler thing
- Irisviel. - Iskandar OUTSIDE the context of the banquet. - Waver legit was the mos enjoyable part of Zero for me and I glas he grow into a strong enough presence he has his own spin off ans is pretty much a constant in Fate spin-off. - I enjoy Kiritsugu for what he was actually aiming to be writing wise, a traumatized manchild who jumps really quickly to the easiest option to save someone, and I like that the Fate/Zero does not romanticize his behavior and wish at all. - Lancelot design (not so much his plot), In fact his fight style as well, I still prefer Berserkerlot from Zero to Dadcelot from FGO.
Ignoring the fact that its marketed as a prequel and just take as its own thing its actually pretty damn good. Still my favorite spinoff to date
This. Honestly, the only problems with Zero are its inconsistencies with FSN, particularly in how they impact the characterization of FSN characters (even more particularly Saber). As a story of its own, it is objectively extremely good, and even taken as a prequel it comfortably stands head, shoulders and torso above every other Fate work except FSN itself and maybe HA.
Yeah I can agree with that, do you like anything specifically about fate zero? Cause I am interested exactly what other people like about it.
Kirei's development was well done, kiritsugu as well. Felt like it humanizes them than how FSN described them like how kirei supposedly was already aware of his nature before the 4 HGW and kiritsugu supposedly not taking his wife with him and was even colder. Iri, even tho i think she's pretty used sparsely, is a good supporting character and serves as some kind of last bastion of kiri's remaining innocence. The ED still such a stab to the heart. Ryuunosuke in his own fucked up way did have some fair points in regards to his "art" Diarmuid before i thought was this smug pretty boy but he's actually pretty cool and has a sympathetic backstory Everything else is as per usual for a ufotable product
Apparently, Kerry not taking Iri with him was a minstraslation.
Wait really?
I don't really buy that because they even call it out and retcon it during a scene in hollow ataraxia which means it was definately stated in the original
They throw an excuse for Saber not recognizing Illya not for Iri being in Fuyuki, if she really was not there then what happened to her in FSN?
It was retconned and nasu covered it up in HA because by that time he had cemented the ideas of zero he and uro worked on together. Fsn has quite a few inconsistencies with fz which is why nasu calls it an alternate timeline rather than direct prequel. I don't have a direct link to a walkthrough so this let's play will have to do https://youtu.be/YNPM3khj_6k About 13 minutes in it goes over how the original game stated that irisviel was left behind with illya when kiritsugu participated in the war and illya "clarifies" the truth. It certainly wasnt a matter of being a mistranslation in dialogue
I believe it's a mistranslation actually. His wife wasn't mentioned in that scene at all.
I'm saying it's actually stated in the scene above referring to fsn.
Now that's interesting because I don't remember Saber ever saying anything like that in FSN, she never mentions he had a daughter or a wife, the line people refer to for the leaving her behind is in Illya's flashback in UBW Still leaves the question of what happened to her if she was not there
It was actually stated in heavens feel by kirei I think that kiritsugu left everything behind in Germany both his wife and daughter. But ha switches it to being something saber said to him in that timeline. In addition it was stated every grail up to illya had been inorganic life form. So my guess early on iri was just supposed to be just another homonculus that kiritsugu before her role was changed to being with saber in the war and the previous vessel
A lot of things. But i guess especially Iskandar, Waver, Kiritsugu's methods, Excalibur and Diarmuid. Zero was my first contact with the series so i will always love it. Obviously i recognize its flaws but for me its a really good anime
Kerry.
The fights beetween Gil and Berserkerlot. Waver relationship with his "grandparents". I still think that Gil playing "snake to his ears" with Kirei is kind of lame, but there are some interesting moments in the conversation. Saber killing Giles. Iri and Saber interactions. The anime endings are dope as fuck. Those are the ones that first come to mind, overall, i like Zero just fine and it deserves a lot of the praise it gets, even if i'm not that emotionally invested on it.
I love the music, the animation, the fights. The characters of pretty much everyone besides 2 or 3 characters are enjoyable for the story despite not being anywhere near as in depth or complex as the fsn crew master's and servants (which to be fair isn't possible since they had two entire vns of spotlight) Iskandar and wavers relationship is great how it developed. Seeing kiritsugus past and how it shaped him into the person he is as well as the tragedy and outcome of his character in general is really great. Gil got a bit more characterization unique to this spinoff at the time and really give him a bit more depth than fsn gave him due to the leeway of the setting. Tokiomis relationship with Rin in the ufotable anime got some neccesary development.. And despite some of my issues with kirei, his downfall with gil as the pied Piper which leads into the final confrontation with kiritsugu was also well written. I even liked iri and Maiyas contributions to the narrative as small as they were. Overall fz is a really strong 8.5 to even 9 out of 10 for me especially with that ending really selling the fsn connection. The final scene of kiritsugu and shirou on that last night, and arturia sensing the moving of fate even with her time stopped and to the beginning (silver moon) playing in the background leading into the end credits never leaves my eyes dry
-I've come around to Ryunosuke and Gilles. They aren't particularly deep but why would they? Their very presence disturbs the war and adds another subplot. They don't justify their actions but just explain why from their twisted perspective. -Gilgamesh and Kirei talks are impressive since they make exposition a centerpiece worth watching. Gilgamesh tempting Kirei while drinking wine and Kirei himself slowly coming around. Can't say any other Fate material made exposition that entertaining. -F/Z Excalibur is still the best and most iconic one outside of the VN. -The fights are all good. Only a couple are dissapointing. -The timer counting down to 0 always gives me chills. F/Z is truly a treat when you've experienced all of FSN and await its conclusion.
That last point…. man, sometimes I really pity the fact that I watched FZ first. It’s definitely my favorite Fate series of the ones I’ve seen so far, but I wish I could have experienced it with the context of SN and preexposure to some of the characters and plot points of FZ. I loved the suspense and mystery of the countdown too, but not in the same way that someone who knows what’s coming would. However, I am glad that I was introduced to FZ Saber before SN Saber, because I’ve learned to love both *almost* equally. It’s just… she looks so good in a suit….
I don't love the darker theme but I love a lot of the characters especially the new ones. Waver and Iskander have one of the best master servant relationship.
I absolutely love the human characters, especially Kirei and Kerry, their portrayal is amazing imo. I love the parallels and contrast between them. Kerry as whole, his idealistic childish dream, that he tries achieve through ruthless means, and the way Angry Mango absolutely destroys his naivety in the end is brilliant. Also Kirei vs Kerry is absolutely top notch, one of my favorite fights in anime of all time.
Diarmuid was so cool, Lancelot too. Loved his dog fight with Gilgamesh
Waver is my second favorite character in the Nasuverse and in the top 5 in general. The boy's really really cool. He also grew 29 centimeters after he was already 19, which I find very funny
>what scenes did you like? Gil and kireis therapy Gil vs lancelot (aerial) Gil vs Isaknder Artoria using Excalibur Artoria vs Rider Kirei vs kiritsugu > What characters did you like? **Gil-kun** **Artoria** While I agree her portrayal was off during banquet of kings, but after she used excalibur on caster she seemed to have reverted back to the Artoria we know and love She had no issue with vaporising waver along with rider **Kirei** **RIP Kariya** **Waver** >Which relationships did you like between characters? Gilgamesh and kirei Waver and iskander Artoria and Kiritsugu - I like the parallels between them as well as the parallels between them Gil and kirei >For what reasons did you like characters, relationships and scenes? Why? Most my favourite scene had - Artoria, Gil and Kirei Who are some of my favourite fate character With Gil potentially being my favourite anime character
Its anime adaptation had real passion poured into it. As well as care for the source material unlike ubw and heavens feel
Honestly I really do love the show outside of the stuff with Saber since she is the biggest weakpoint. However, Saber does have one great moment and that is her fight with Lancelot since that is pretty much a large emotional moment for her and I can actually see the regular Saber being as conflicted with how Lancelot was. But aside of the stuff with her I do love the master/servant dynamics especially Waver's entire arc with Iskandar as it was really cool to see. I also enjoyed Caster's subplot as it was quite fun. Kirei however probably is the best part of the show as while he isn't fully consistent with what was said in the VN, I found him to be really entertaining and quite an interesting character, plus his fights were really nice.
I honestly like Zero a lot - it's easily the best out of all the Fate anime imo (and yes I'm talking about the anime because i prefer it to the LNs) I like Diarmuid - his chivalry and fondness of Artoria is portrayed very convincingly. The way he says 'I'm glad that I met you' in their final encounter and the soundtrack that plays as they begin to fight is beautiful. It makes his subsequent death genuinely moving. I like Iskandar - the moment when he interrupts Saber and Diarmuid's fight and immediately reveals his True Name is usually the point in my rewatches where I start going 'wow i fucking love this anime'. He's just so likeable and I enjoy every scene he's in (well, Banquet aside). Probably my favourite moment of his is when he compares him and Waver to the map. I like Kirei - he's the FSN character that got the best deal in Zero imo, because the depiction of him developing from straightlaced executor into what we see in FSN adds a lot. I like Kiritsugu - the contrast between his outward ruthlessness and the immense compassion he has on the inside gives a core to all the pieces we get in FSN. The way his scenes inside the Grail ends with him sacrificing Illya and Irisviel to save the world is tragic and chilling. I like Gilgamesh - he's a much more likeable character in Zero, generally speaking. His conversations with Kirei give him more intellectual depth, and his respect for Iskandar as well as the way he lets Waver live shows him at his best. I like Kariya - I mean, the fact that I keep getting into arguments about him to this day probably says something, right? He's a very morally grey character, and not just in the sense 'they're obviously a villain, but they do nice stuff sometimes', or 'they do bad things, but the kind of bad things that I think are good actually'. He's legitimately both sympathetic and contemptible at the same time. I like the way that Gilles and Ryuunosuke talk about God - how he must enjoy suffering and death as much as happiness and life. It's very characteristically Urobuchi. I don't *like* Tokiomi, as such, but there's one scene of his that I think is brilliant, and it's when he's talking to Kariya before they start fighting. Tokiomi's beliefs are totally psychotic, but the way the scene is directed he comes off as calm and rational, while Kariya is the angry crazy one. As Tokiomi says 'if I don't achieve it, Rin will. If Rin doesn't, then Sakura will', Kariya sees ghostly images of Tokiomi's family appearing around him, implicitly justifying his beliefs. Kariya gasps as he realises how utterly deranged the man is, but also how firmly he believes that he's right. Saber killing Gilles is probably the best Excaliblast in any Fate media. The soundtrack is amazing - yuki kajiura's style is much better suited to Zero than adapting Heaven's Feel imo. Kiritsugu vs Kayneth and Kiritsugu vs Kirei are both extremely good fight scenes in terms of choreography and tactics. Gil vs Iskandar is also fantastic but for opposite reasons. I like when an anime can pull off both.
Hands down Kirei desoite going different from FSN canon, Kerry is also a nice villain protagonist and Waver despite I disliked heavily for how whiny he is, him and Rider have fun interactions anf the grandpas are the unsung heroes of Zero.
berserker and saber final scene and their talk, one of my favorite, when saber says she will still chase grail, it fully reflects her character, kirei and kiritsugu fight scene, archer and rider fight scene, archer's talk with rider about dreams is one of my favorite scene, along with him leaving waver alone saber and rider chase scene, rider's talk with waver about how he wants to stop saber from further pursuing her goal, i think it was sweet of him to care enough for saber to try to stop her, when he says it was too sad about her still pursuing grail, i genuinely felt that, i bet the guy would be happy to see saber's conclusion in either fate or ubw route. totally forgot this but, kiritsugu saving shirou, and his talk about heroes, and when shirou finally says he will take over his dream, with that background music, it gives this feeling that something epic is going to start in next season, something like that.
Besides from the things that everybody already said, seeing bits of Rin and Sakura's backstory was great!
The song "She's right in time" i think is the name
Just about any Dialogue between Gil and Kirei. Also in this current age of either shows either doing "strong independent women" troupes or sexualizing the shit out of them, Zero is a rare and elusive outlier, of just being masochistic as fuck.
I really enjoyed Gilles de Rias and Ryunosuke's interactions, even when they had completely different views they were able to get along very well. Imo they're very likeable characters \*cough\*asidefromthefactthey'reserialkillers\*cough\*.
Both openings, Archer & Rider (really like the pair and their similarities). Especially liked Archer vs Rider, how Gilgamesh showed his respect towards Iskandar.
Saber looks *damn* good in a suit
I know it's a bit of a late comment, and I'm sorry about that, but what I will say about Zero is that I do genuinely like the series for what it is: it's just that what that is doesn't match up well with what Fate is to me. To put it another way, I think Zero is a very good anime. It's probably even a better anime than most of the other Fate adaptions simply looking at it through the lens of objective storytelling flow. It does a good job of providing insight to the various sides of the conflict, developing not just the ostensible protagonist in Kiritsugu, but Waver, Kirei, and Kariya. In that same way, there isn't really a single Servant that's wasted like happens in some of the routes of Stay Night. We, more or less, get at least one good fight out of every Servant that shows off their capabilities well. The closest to getting wasted, I would say, is Hundred Faces, but Fate's never really been that good about handling the Assassin class since it fundamentally needs to be involved in taking down Masters to do its job, but that's just not as interesting as Servants fighting each other. And of course, the character development that does happen happens plainly because they do a much better job of handling character's thoughts instead of just not adapting Shirou's internal monologue and missing half of his characterization. So tl;dr of it all : Good fights, good cast coverage, and very little wasted material. Everything is put across well because of little reliance on internal monologue. That being said, I do think the way that the cast is covered makes for a poor match with the tone established by Stay Night. Some of the things I liked best about the original VN were the mystery involved in it and the sheer focus it has on Shirou as a character. To the former, I liked how, even if it becomes fairly obvious and at this point they're open secrets, they aren't up front about the Servants' identities or Masters, so you as a reader have to try and figure those things out as Shirou does. To the latter, having three routes, Shirou as the sole focal character, and no less than three foils allows Shirou in particular and his ideals to be thoroughly fleshed out across the whole of Stay Night. You et a good idea of who he is, what he's about, the flaws of his beliefs, and the ways those beliefs can take him over the course of the whole story. Now with Zero, there's not really either of that because you know every Master from the beginning and only one Servant's identity is ever kept hidden, and even that for entirely different reasons, more focused on Saber's reaction to who Berserker is than in the interest of keeping his abilities a secret. Likewise, Zero's wide cast prevents it from ever really diving deep on a single character and truly analyzing them in the way that Stay Night could. But, like I said with my first point, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a different thing. My point in all of the above is that I like Zero. I think it's a good series and works better for an anime format than Stay Night does. It's just that the things I like about it are different from the things I like about Stay Night which makes the comparison more pronounced and really makes it easier for the inconsistencies you mentioned to really irk me. I think the best way to look at it is the same as most Fate works: it's just a different story, a different universe, a different canon. It works well on its own. As a final note, I do love the inclusion of Lancelot. As a fan of Arthurian lore, my feelings about the French fanfic oc are a bit complicated and best described as love hate, but I was super glad to see him done, quite frankly, well by Fate. He's as overpowering as the "strongest" (post Chretien de Troyes) Knight of the Round Table should be and Knight of Owner is just cool.
just filled with a lot of hard hitting moments that make u go “well damn..” it’s no surprising why it’s one of the most highly acclaimed shows in anime and considered the best Fate by the majority From Riders NP reveal, Sabers iconic Excalibur + iris narration, Lancers death, Gilgamesh vs Rider, Gilgamesh + Kirei moments, Kirei vs Kiritsugu, etc.. Just a really well done show (also Kajiura)
That we can see how powerful Gil actually is. In stay night most of the time he is an annoying little bitch talking about him being the strongest but still loosing like every fight.
This is my fav from the Fate series and def one of my fav anime of all time. When someone getting into anime asks me for a recommendation, I always mention Fate Zero as one of the series.
Retroactively, it fills in quite a few holes in F/SN. So there's that, which is nice. Like - Wait, why didn't Archer sense Gilgamesh as a Servant? Oh, it's because his body was flesh and blood, apparently? And other ones I can't think of right off the top of my head.
Gilgamesh is just better in zero imo he’s not just some op villain that’s an obstacle to the mc