Start with the first episode and end at episode 23 of Fate/Zero.
Oh oh oh speaking of which! Let's do this so I don't have to talk about this anymore.
Cuz I am fucking done with this series.
Fate/Zero Series Final Thoughts
Alright, let's just get her out of the way so we can talk about other things, okay? Yes, I hated Saber and yes she was a show ruining piece of shit that the author favored and yes I despised her for daring to prance about like she was King Arthur when she was the furthest thing from it conceivable.
I will dispense with that last argument, however, after saying this: Although I believe considerable leeway is granted to an author who chooses to use a popular character from myth, legend, or history, when they choose to do so, I do believe that a burden is incurred as well. That burden being the justification to the viewer for the use of this character. A part of that burden must, inevitably, be a preservation of this character in one way or another.
If you cannot do that, you should not use that character. Suppose with me I wanted to write a story about Santa Claus in the Zombie Apocalypse. All well enough. Nobody owns Santa, and I can take a pretty broad departure if I want to in surface traits. If I want to make Santa Claus black instead of white, or a woman instead of a man, that's fine, as long as it's still Santa Claus. He still has to deliver presents to children, ride a sleigh, wear the red getup and laugh ho ho ho at least once.
Consider: if you take every piece out of the boat and replace it with a new piece, is it still the same boat? If you change enough elements of a legendary character, are they still really that same character? Even characters as widely variable as Arthur are going to have a breaking point, and I'd put it to you that Saber passes that by quite some distance.
Obviously, Saber isn't the only character to do this in the show. Gilgamesh follows closely behind on the list of strangely out of step characters with his weird collection of weapons (which frankly I remain suspicious are more inspired by Final Fantasy's Gilgamesh than Mesopotamia's). His arrogance and bishounen aspects struck me as odd as well, since Gilgamesh's defining moments to me include befriending the man sent to kill him and a long, sobering quest to try and come to terms with that friend's death. That said, I can see the interpretation if this Gilgamesh were the younger King who demanded First Night rights, claimed to have done and seen everything before his story even began, and the courageous, albeit arrogant decision to turn down the advances of a Goddess.
At times, I give the writer credit for realizing he'd strayed from character origins and just rolled with it. I doubt that Bluebeard would have been as fun if he hadn't been wildly more insane than a man who managed to conceal multiple child murders during his life, and Iskandar flat out shrugs when confronted with his own inaccuracy. Let me use this to segue, then, into the actual, real complaint with Saber. Not simply the personal dislike based upon a hilarious mockery of the character of Arthur.
Saber isn't a well written character. Oh, to be sure, there's an abundance of the kind of writing that can readily be lain at the feet of shonen anime in general going on in this show. There are fair complaints to be made about a lot of people. Ryuunoske is such a cliched laughing murderer that he probably makes The Joker look terribly nuanced by comparison. The offense is greatly enlarged, though, by the fact that Saber rules the lion's share of the plot. Or, well, Saber and the Einzbern team.
The chief issues with Saber are that she essentially amounts to the same character as Asuna from Sword Art Online: An alleged badass with unshakeable ideals who needs men to talk her through everything and bail her out constantly. It takes until the 24th episode for Saber to win any fights at all (and she only does so off-screen.) She needs frequently bailed out from fights, even after men have handed her victory on a silver platter and gone out of their way to snap their spears to help her out. It's idiotic to say she's better in fair fights for the simple fact that nobody ever has the odds more stacked in their favor than her.
It's never more obvious than when Saber spends forever charging up her magic sword attack one time, and then never needs this charge time ever again. She can rapidly fire it at Rider, and Gilgamesh lets his guard down and turns his back on her when she uses it again for no reason at all.
But even beyond battle, she's just handled very poorly. It's terribly obvious the writer is playing favorites with this character, and it has an overall averse effect on her. She's incompetent, she's unintelligent, and yet the show justifies her on several occasions it simply shouldn't. It gives her Iris just so she can have someone to tell her how good she is. It has several characters fall in love with her.
Enough of that, though. I've ranted and rambled long enough about this character. Let me finish my complaints out about the rest quickly so I might conclude with what I did enjoy.
I didn't like Kiritsugu. At all. I felt his back story came incredibly late for things that were meant to be a major motivation for his character.
Similarly, I felt that Kirei transitioned from an equally unmotivated character to a laughing madman without sufficient grounds for it to happen.
Irisviel was painfully one note, and Maiya wasn't any better. I struggle, actually, to name a well-written woman in this show.
Tohsaka was also pretty dull, but I suppose that he was meant to be there to be a decoy final villain, so I'll excuse it.
Lastly, I really think the Grail cheated at the end of the show. Not only was Waver still alive, but Kirei was as well. No way should it have automatically begun granting Kiritsugu his wish. There were still two-to-three unsacrificed Servants running about, with at least one or two masters who weren't dead and a potential recipient for his numerous seals. Frankly Kiritsugu had quite a bit of clean up left to go before he could lay claim, but what's more is that I don't recall any of the required ceremony taking place.
On a list of technical complaints and wishes, I confess I did not enjoy the abundance of CGI, I did not like the way faces of women were drawn in this show, and I kind of would have liked more duels than I got. Especially not-Saber duels.
Moving right along, let's talk about what I did like.
First and foremost among these is Rider and Waver. Now, it's been pointed out that much of Rider's deal is that he's a large ham, and I'm comfortable in admitting that yes, that's entirely true. I'm a sucker for large hams. The other large ham in the show, Caster, will get his due mention in a moment, and I confess I think I preferred the hammy Kirei at show's end to the stoic one at show's beginning.
But I don't think that that's all there is to Rider and Waver. They have a very mentor and whiny kid hero motif going on that's also admittedly old as time itself. It was such a cliche that Rider's loss was inevitable. However, what really makes this pair special is the execution. Rider made certain to build up Waver using every thing at his disposal. Specifically, Rider made use of the events around him to build up Waver at every turn. Whether it was by bragging about him with much bravado during the first major battle, giving him responsibility during the Caster incident or at the end when they had an "Aladdin releases the Genie" moment, I couldn't help but appreciate the investment that was going on there.
Indeed, it was the best arc of the show, I think, with proper building, believable setbacks and a satisfactory conclusion. I feared Saber and Kiritsugu's screen hogging would soil the standard shonen message, and was dully surprised to find it turned to "Live to the Fullest" instead of "Being Badass Bros Equals Victory"
Next up is Kariya Matou. Berserker is an admitted noncharacter, so we'll skip over him. I felt that Kariya was criminally underused. He was the one champion with a clearly good goal in mind. He'd made enormous personal sacrifices for it, and the symbolism of the deal he'd struck destroying his body as it destroyed his character was fairly well done, I feel. His upsetting defeat wasn't inevitable, and if anybody had good reason to want to kill masters and not just servants, it was him.
I loved Caster for his over-the-top insanity and for being the one villain who wasn't trying to achieve shades of grey (and consequently the one villain who I feel really did.) For all his insanity, Bluebeard's rantings actually came across as spot on time and time again. The epithet "Holy Virgin" is an apt one for Saber, and his demise showed that Joan of Arc did look a lot like Arthur's shitty daughter. The idea of a man caught in a struggle against an apathetic God to free a woman who no longer remembers him is compelling, and made all the more so by the ever-so-slightly sane Caster.
Lastly, I actually really did enjoy Kirei and Gilgamesh. It's evident that Gilgamesh influences Kirei's transformation, and on paper I don't object to it too much. I feel the switch was too drastic and too fast, but I appreciate that work went into it and I even appreciate the work in and of itself. As a pair of final villains they made an interesting, levelheaded couple, rather than the mustache twirling nutcases so many anime reduce villains to at the end.
Ultimately, I will not be carrying on with the series. I don't really think it is for me. I don't regret what I watched, and I don't feel its unworthy of the enjoyment so many get out of it. The concept of history and myth's greats duking it out for wishes is a great springboard. I concede the author's right to make some crazy changes and twists there and here, and I welcome the occasionally poorly defined magical world he's built as a place that I think teenagers would probably enjoy a lot.
I don't think it's for me in part because I used to drink up mythology as a kid, and I guess I get stuck on things in ways a lot of people don't. But also I feel like the writing no longer falls under the kind of stuff I guess I'm into. I don't know how to describe it, so I won't bore you with it in too much length, but I think I'm beyond this style of writing, you know? This writing transparent moves made to set up the heroes for whatever the author had in store.
In any case, I enjoyed parts of the show a great deal, and for that I will count the watchbet a net gain and choose to focus on the positive rather than the negative, even if the negative prevents me from pursuing the series any further.
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