Anime: Fate/Zero

Fate/Zero is a gateway anime of the worst kind. It's a bad series, a clusterfuck of story and characterization that isn't very well done by any aspect, but which attempts to compensate for its weaknesses by adding in excessive edgy bullshit and DARKNESS. i can see this as the shit it is, and may enjoy it, hate it or be indifferent to it, but all the while recognizing that the series itself, regardless of their opinion, is plain bad.

this is the worst emo edgy bullshit i've ever saw in my whole fucking life, this is fucking depressing and edgy, also everything urobuchi writes are some edgy pretentious pile of horseshit, pretentious that makes some think they are smart and mature for watching and reading his edgy and pretentious garbage like fate zero, which is a pile of edgy shit and saya no uta which is also edgy garbage, some think urobuchi stories are deep and mature, but in reality his stories are just some edgy and pretentious pile of fucking shit, the characters are shit and fucking emo saber backstory in zero and stay night are most edgy depressing emo bullshit her self-hate makes me wanna punch the fucking screen, i prefer saber in in other fate spinoffs, lancer backstory edgy bullshit and emo nuff said, kiritsugu jesus christ, he is the worst fucking character his backstory is the most fucking depressing emo pile of shit i've ever seen, in my fucking life this character is the most edgy pile of shit and this backstory is fucking dogshit, and his killed his mother because this piece of shit is just edgy garbage for the sake of being edgy garbage, it feels so... edgy for the sake of edgy, like, we have kids getting molested/killed, Johnny Yong Bosch voices fucking Purple Guy, a weird creepo wanting to NTR some other dude then turns the girl of his dreams into a fucking vegetable, and the main protag is like Shadow the Hedgehog with zero character development, dude was Terminator mode till the end of the show where he cries because he decided to boom the Grail, bro was a plank of wood the entire series, and I don't care if he's considered "The Cool One" cuz he uses guns and shit kiritsugu is still shit, At first episode I was going to throw up, I dropped watching just a bit later in the series. One scene is enough, it is not spoiler but who watched knows perfectly which scene I am speaking about. Unacceptable even for adults of any age in the movie excalibur king arthur had to kill his son for being a shitty person, he was a honorablenot the tyrant like in fate zero.
he philosophy of this anime is just dumb and stupid if you kill you someone bad are a bad person, this just fucking dumb so if i kill someone in self defense or kill someone evil who likes to murder people i am a bad person, not matter how many innocent lives i have saved the philosophy of fate zero is fucking bullshit that's why i hate fate zero.
People worship it as some glorious pinnacle of anime writing, animation, and originality, but it’s just a dumb exercise in misery that poorly pretends to be deep. It has no character development, no internal consistency with its magic system, barely any interesting plot, and every tragic moment is only there to remind us how “dark” and “edgy” the show is. [The twist of the grail being evil isn’t a clever subversion of tropes, it’s a dumb cop out to avoid exploring the ramifications of granting someone unlimited power. Every part of this show is played to be gritty and mature, but in reality, it is a disgusting abomination of an anime that somehow manages not to deliver a decent story also ryuunosuke caster and kariya, were just there for making this shit more edgier and emo, all the characters are almost the same shit, emo edgelords losers like kiritsugu saber and kariya, psychopaths sadistic scumbags and negligents, like kirei tohsaka ryuunosuke and caster, people say is trash is realistic and the way life is who say this is just a nihilistic emo crybaby like gen urobuchi and Sorry I’m not trying to deal with urobutcher pretentiousness and edginess, Fate/zero and psycho pass has killed all my interest into seeing the work written by him, because everything urobuchi writes or direct is just edgy emo piece of shit, and that's why i like more the fate spinoffs like fate extra fate extella fate prisma illya and fate extella link, because they are much more light-hearted and better than this pile of edgy emo shit zero and edgy survivor guilt bullshit fate stay night ubw and hf i don't give a flying fuck if you dislike this, this is only my fucking opinion

let the hate come

Fate/Zero revisits the universe of Fate/Stay Night, this time as a prequel taking place during the previous Holy Grail war. Interestingly enough, despite being a prequel, I highly advise watching FSN first, as a lot of the concepts of the Fate universe are better explained there; and you'll enjoy many more *omg I cannot believe [insert event here] happened* moments. Much of the remainder of the review will assume FSN exposure.

There are two "seasons' worth of episodes though it is really one contiguous story rather than two sub parts. Fate/Zero feels like a much more mature and dark version of FSN. Most of the protagonists are much more mature, and quite dark in demeanor. As roriconfan mentioned, this is not a shonen action- don't expect a lot of fights. In place of the weapon spamming, you have intricate relationships and complicated plans; all ripe for betrayals and twists.

Fate/Zero is a very involved watch; there are so many side stories and plotting and counter-plotting, many of it taking place during complicated dialogues. However, I felt it was a very worthwhile watch both in addressing some of the questions in FSN as well as standing in it's own right. Despite already knowing how the war would end, I was still immensely captivated by the intricacies of the masters' attempts to win the grail.

If you're looking for an involved and extremely well animated series with a slightly dark overtone, definitely check this one out.

Animation:
Ufotable has come out with some immensely impressive animations, Kara no Kyoukai being the strongest impression. They do not disappoint here. Fate/Zero is bathed in a gorgeous palette, highlighting the dark, gloomy outlook for many of the masters and the city as a whole. Everything from the fluid fight sequences to the superb usage of color effects and shadows is well done, and many levels above what I was in FSN. One of the most memorable scenes for me was at the very end of the first season where Velvet and Rider were having a conversation under a setting sun. If you missed it, I highly recommend re-watching for it as it is one of the most convincing and fluid sunsets I have seen in an anime.

As far as characters go, there are a lot of older men in this series than FSN. I guess they sort of balance it out by having loli Rin Tousaka and an even smaller Ilia. In any case, one of the early challenges in this series for the viewer would be to figure out how to discern Emiya Kiritsugu from Kotomine Kirie- as both have deep voices and the look of death on their face. As far as consistency goes, Saber and Archer keep their appearance from FSN (though Saber dons a bodyguard suit rather than her casual attire). Lancer is a harder one as his outfit is in my opinion far superior to the one he dons in FSN.

This series has a lot of blood and a significant amount of random slaughter, though the camera does pull away at the most grueling moments. This is much too dark of a series to have significant ecchi.

Sound:
Despite the huge upgrade in animation quality, I don't believe the music in FZ was as catchy as that in FSN, though the quality in general was still very good. There is an OP and ED per season. All the pieces are fitting for the series tone but I didn't really like either of the OP melodies (sorry Kalafina). The EDs on the other hand were both good, especially the second series ED by newcomer Lunamaria er... Luna Haruna, composed by Yuki Kajiura.

The voice acting is superb, my only complaint being that Kirie and Emiya sound too alike (though it may very well be on purpose). The VAs for the heroic spirits from the 4th Grail War pick up their corresponding roles here- and Kana Ueda even returns to voice chibi Rin! All the voices were appropriate given their character personalities, though I do believe Lancer turned out to be much more of a "heroic" figure in FZ.

Story:
Fate/Zero is a pretty focused series, set aside the two-episode adventure through Kiritsugu's past and loli Rin's adventure. While the obvious plot line is the battle for the holy grail, the series spends a lot of time following each individual master as they plot and plan their next move. It really makes you wonder how Shirou lasted so long in FSN... In any case, the entire story is pretty much seeing how each master's plan weaves with each other- this is the fun, figuring out which plan will win the day or how someone's plan will be ruined.

In terms of tonality, F/Z is much more in line with that of Kara no Kyoukai than FSN. Gone are the humor relief moments and teenage crushes, replaced by a single-minded purpose of winning the war. Likewise, in terms of scale, the masters and servants of F/Z seem far superior in ability and talent than their counterparts in FSN.

There are numerous plot twists, many of which are masterfully executed, putting lots of other recent series to shame. The series does (eventually) build to a final climax, bringing the clock back to "zero" and thus setting the stage for what happens in FSN. It is a very well rounded storyline though a few answers do go unanswered near the end.

Character:
If you've watched FSN, be ready for a lot of early surprises, character-relation wise. Fate/Zero focuses quite heavily on some of the character relationships and does a great job fleshing out the backgrounds of some of the masters and servants, while leaving others shrouded in a veil of mystery. While giving some more background on some of the supporting characters would have made their eventual demise more impact, perhaps they felt the series was long enough already. I was particularly keen on the large amount of time spent on the Velvet/Rider relationship, especially considering their relative unimportance for FSN.

There is an interesting tension between many of the servants and masters, as their fundamental beliefs in how one should behave clash at multiple points. It is very interesting to see how these mismatches affects each pair's fate. However, most interesting to me was how the characters related to one another, and especially how those ties related to the masters in FSN.

The actual main characters are all very strong. Each master and servant have very memorable and distinct personalities. In particular, it was interesting to see Kiritsugu's dark notion of justice, ironically passed on to Shirou in a much more "hopeful" spirit.

Value:
Fate Zero is hands down the series to watch in its season/s. It combines great tonality and animation with superb directing to create a piece that you'll definitely remember.

In art there is a concept of "medium". That is, a specifica mechanism, which is used to give an artist's idea some manner of material form, perceivable by others.
Books are a form of a medium. So are visual novels. So is, obviously, anime.

A piece that works good in one medium won't necessarily work good in the other. A great book or a visual novel won't necessarily make a great anime. Not without some significant adaptation, anyway.

Fate/Zero anime felt to me like a failed adaptation of a visual novel to anime. Why failed? Read on.

Enjoyment

I enjoyed the setting, the characters, the dialogues, the scenery, the general atmosphere. All the parts that were good in the visual novel were translated well.
However, anime is not a visual novel. When it came to any sort of real-time interaction between two characters - a classic weakness of visual novel genre, which translation to anime medium is meant to rectify - they were not on the level at all in this anime adaptation. In all action scenes without exception it felt like the scriptwriters tried to single out two characters and only show interaction between them. On a few occasions it worked well. Most of the time, it destroyed all suspension of disbelief and ruined all the enjoyment.

When an anime, which is supposedly serious about people fighting each other to the death, devolves into treating combat as a simply glorified form of dialogue, it is a fail. Thus the enjoyment score is 6 at best, and even this mostly on the merits of the source visual novel.

Presentation (video and audio)

When it comes to still images, they are amazing. Background music, sounds, voice acting - all on a very good level. Scenes without action could be considered breathtaking. In this category, the pedigree of the original visual novels shines through the most.

While the writing behind the action is quesionable, the execution is not. If the writers want that jet fighter to do a completely unplausible aerial maneuver, just to show the extent to which the pilot's madness bends physics in an otherwise supposedly "serious" universe, then it will be done in the most visually and audially impressive way possible.

I guess my only two gripes with this category are these.
1 - Most of animation happens in broad sweeping motions, so you don't really get to see the kind of detailed combat one would expect out of a well-funded combat-centric show.
2 - Ultimately, there is no unique presentation style. Nothing to really distinguish this show visually from all the other well-funded shows. Sure, there are elaborately designed characters and locales, sure there are a lot of particle effects flying around, sure the background music is chosen appropriately. But appropriately doesn't mean brilliantly. Technology does not make art.

While these two flaws prevent me from giving this show a perfect score in any of the presentation categories, it still well deserves an "8" in both.

Story

Story is ... problematic.
I blame the medium transition.

Specifically, the story is (a) not built to handle real-time interaction of more than two characters, (b) too complex for an anime series of 20-something episodes.
The fact that the story continiously creates scenes with multiple characters in them, and insists on referencing stuff way outside it's scope, only exasperates the above two issues.

In a visual novel, you can take your time, explore a complex event from multiple points of view, get away from the action to read up on stuff you don't understand, without disengaging from the experience of absorbing the novel itself. This is the advantage that less dynamic mediums have and the reason why they continue to exist, even as we discover more dynamic mediums.

In anime, you don't really have that luxury of taking your time to absorb everything. Every time a scriptwriter decides that he can put real-time events on hold for the sake of exploring a facet of a situation in more depth, anime experience suffers. If it's done to a small extent, it feels clunky. If it's done to a large extent, it feels fake. Fate/zero suffers from such clunky fakeness multiple times in every episode.

I can accept that this might have made sense in the original novel. But this is not a novel. This is an anime. Things - including story - must be treated differently here.
The way the story is handled in Fate/Zero anime is, while not completely disjoint, still less than satisfactory, which gives us a score of 5.

Character

The characters have great initial designs, exellent backgrounds and well-written personalities. If observing unique personalities interact is your thing, than this show features a lot of this kind of fun. Long-winded dialogues between people with interesting outlooks on the world happen all the time, especially during combat.

However, when it comes to characters engaging in conflict, very few of them emerge changed by the experience at all, and very fewer still do so in any meaningful way story-wise. So while there definitely are distinct, recogniseable and memorable characters, there is very little actual character development.

As someone who judges the worth of characters by what change they create in themselves and their world, i can't give more than 5 in that category.

Value

I doubt i'd ever want to rewatch this.
I doubt i'd ever want to recommend this to anyone. And if someone asks my opinion on this series, i'd tell the person to get the visual novel instead.
The only thing i'll remember this anime for are the awesome still images. A castle in the freezing north. A jet-black figher in a starry sky. Saber, standing among fiery sparks. You know, the kinds of things they use for visual novel images.

I am of the opinion, that the anime added exactly nothing to Fate franchise and failed at translating Fate/Zero story to a new medium. I feel that all the value this anime has is derived from the visual novel it was based on, not on creative work of the anime production staff.

Thankfully, that's still enough to give it a "4" in this category.

Ask George Lucas. The hardest type of film to make is a prequel. And to be honest, a prequel is an inherently flawed medium because the most important portion of the story – its ending – is already known. Fate Zero is a prequel by Fate Stay Night, which at best was a serviceable action series and at worst a pseudo-historical harem overly steeped in its own lingo. Presumably, FSN was a successful series that had to exist in order for FZ to exist. There is virtually no fan service, relatively little action, and a lot of dialogue. However, FZ is the best prequel series I have ever seen since Ga-Rei Zero. Read on to see why.

Art and Animation
Type-Moon invests a lot into its art, and I am not an art connoisseur. It looks good enough to me and the action sequences are very well done. There are some explicit CGI scenes that I presume had to be added in for the sake of budget and they stick out like a sore thumb, but the stuff that matters looks great. On Blu-Ray it will astound.

Sound
The relevant Voice Actors return from Fate Stay Night, including Saber – giving Ayako Kawasumi her first big leading role in quite a while. The music is choral and fills in the mood serviceably. None of the BGM was really memorable.

OP1 and ED1 are great. OP1 starts off with this incredible piano hook and then like our economy whittles off into a pit of mud. However, it’s a great piano hook. I love it. ED1 is a good but not great song.

OP2 and ED2 are relatively weak, and I did not enjoy them as much. OP2 you hardly see anyway near the end of the series.

Story
The story is dialogue heavy, being based on a novel. It relies less on action scenes, though they do exist in a big way, and more on thoughtful concepts. The Holy Grail War is inherently a ridiculous premise. After all, its original incarnation was as a harem video game. FSN had fun with it but still had that wink at the screen feel. It was action-y but harem-y too.

FZ simply decided to play it straight. There is a lot of blood. There is a lot of killing. You know how it ends, but the journey in of itself is worth watching.

Character
Each character represents a philosophical belief, and the discussions between them fit just as well in a college lecture as they do in an anime. Some advocate extreme hedonism. Others, perfect utilitarianism. Yet more, tit for tat sin and redemption. Pay close attention to their demons and principles and how the series eventually plumbs the depths of each of them, taking their principles to the very limit. These are people who live their entire lives according to their principles. They define themselves by these principles. Yet at the end, each principle breaks like a twig, leaving behind the question – what are we if our principles no longer represent us?

Value
For the action sequences alone, this is worth rewatching.

Enjoyment
The best stories are about relationships. Relationships between people. Between ideas. If Ga-Rei Zero’s emotional heart is in its relationships between people, then FZ’s is in its relationships between ideas. I loved watching this and strongly recommend it.

Note: This review covers only the first 13 episodes released in 2011 and thus only the introdution to the series. The review about the last twelve episodes are found in its correct entry. I'll divide the review only as a safety measure to avoid spoilers, so read the second part only if you've already watched the first.

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Fate/Stay Night was a good show. Sadly, it was overwhelmed when it tried to put more harem elements than necessary, making the overall experience look more like the dating sim adaptation than a shounen drama with fights and action. It was still refreshing, but missed the mark by some margin. Now, five years later, we have the prequel to its shady story in this world filled with magi and dark arts.

Fate/Zero is perhaps everything Fate/Stay Night should've been. It's darker, more serious, more addictive, better paced, more complex, more everything. It's not an masterpiece, but it serves far better to what it proposes to do than its predecessor. This first half covers only 13 episodes that are used to present the whole cast, without much happening in terms of important events, but doing a great job to give the audience a glimpse of all masters and their servants.

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Art & Animation
From Studio Deen to ufotable we had quite an improvement. Fate/Zero looks sharp and nice, with detailed scenery shots, nice use of colors, and an awesome use of special effects. We still have character models with those dead-looking eyes, making most of the cast look more like zombies than humans. Surprisingly, the dead-looking cast gained some skills to show emotions, making dramatic scenes a bit more impressive. Animation improved a lot as well, but it's not great. The show constantly stops fights to put dialogue, and when that happens you'll have fairly static scenes. This wouldn't pose a problem if the show had a better pace, but the fact that every minute the characters stop to talk loads of explanative trash means we had lot of static scenes. Still, when animation is used it's done with good quality.

Sound
Another big improvement. Not only the opening is less weird, but the soundtrack as a whole got a lot better. Dramatic background music play a more evident role here, making up for the slightly poor ambient sound effects. Still, most of the show occurs during the night, so ambient sound is perhaps amiss on purpose. Voice-acting is top quality, with fitting voices for most of the cast and only two or three characters bordering the annoying with more yelling than necessary. Saber and Kiritsugu have a somewhat weird way of talking, but nothing truly troublesome.

Story
Fate/Zero is like a prequel to Fate/Stay Night (though fans try to make it clear they are different stuff, something I can hardly see after watching both seasons). It shows the events of the previous Holy Grail War, when Saber was originally summoned and Emiya Kiritsugu was still a mage hunter. All of this happens in the Fuyuki City, where this Holy Grail War take places every sixty years, when seven magi are granted the aid of heroic spirits to fight each other and claim the prize: the omnipotent wishing device, the Holy Grail.

1. Big Introduction, Darker World
   The initial idea is still the same as Fate/Stay Night as expected. This first half is all about an introducution to the cast and a explanation of the setting. This makes possible to watch this even without previously watching Fate/Stay Night, and yet does not harm the experience for those who already know how the setting works. This is a huge plus. However, the best improvement here is the far darker and more serious atmosphere. The fight between the seven mages and their servants is full of little intrigues, backstabing, plot twists, and other tools to make the show very addictive. It can be overwhelmingly shounen-like, like when the servants start to revere each other's power and measure who is the strongest only by knowning who the hell the other hero is. However, it's nothing unexpected for a shounen show and there is a lot of complexity to the relationships between masters, servants, their pasts, and their wishes.
   
   Expect the Second Season
   Sadly, this first string only serves to build up momentum, not making a cliffhanger ending or even delivering truly important events. It does a fine job in its purpose, but considering this will have two seasons with a gap between them, they could've used this in a format more like Code Geass or Gundam 00 did.
   

Character
Take out all the harem stuff from Fate/Stay Night and we have a far better cast. Fate/Zero offers a decentralized cast, giving enough spotlight to all masters and their servants and making a great job in showing their initial personalities. We don't have dozens of girls surrounding the protagonist anymore (we don't even have someone to truly call a protagonist in this first season, in fact) and as a consequence the cast gets a lot more mature and darker. Shady assassins, executioners, greedy mages, arrogant noble, and many other stereotypes that are fitting to the darker tone of Fate/Zero.

1. Behold The Weird Heroic Spirits!
   In terms of character development very little happens here mostly because all meaningful events were left to the second half of the show. Still, it's a good introduction to a varied and balanced cast, offering different points of view and giving a lot more charisma to the whole cast. Surely we still have these bizarre and flashy representation of historical heroes, but it's better if you ignore the relationship with real-life history and just accept that they are only super-powerful summons. If you take history lessons too seriously you'll have a hard time understanding why King Arthur is a girl, why Alexander is a noisy brute, etc.
   

Value
Fate/Stay Night had a good concept but its execution that just missed the mark. By now, that concept got old and not as exciting as before, but Fate/Zero is one of the few shows in these last seasons to try something void of lolis, ecchiness, and tsunderes. A move like that in today's industry can be even called bold or corageous. That doesn't make it unique, especially when some shows back in the late 90's and early 2000's were a lot more mature, but amongst today's shows Fate/Zero can make a very big impact and deserves the praises. A more mature take on that good idea and an extremely high production value can certainly make Fate/Zero a show to be remembered.

Enjoyment
This first season is only about introduction and thus you won't be seeing very impressive stuff. It creates a good momentum and has enjoyable combats and moments, but sadly the outcomes are very frustrating and sometimes even infuratiang as it seems the cast has some stupid script immunity. The show still has some good and complex intrigues going on and a few twists in this first half that helps to keep it addictive and serves as a very good start. Those who want a show that is more serious than your average loli-tsundere may find in Fate/Zero one of the best of the recent years. Those wishing for something more like a dating-sim adaptation as Fate/Stay Night may be disappointed.

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Comments
Wow, finally a good show in these last years. They are starting to become truly rare.

Fate/Zero is not exactly a masterpiece or a super powerful show. It's full of cliches and a few stereotypes and rely heavily on the typical tool of shounen shows: dialogues instead of scenes. Sometimes it was annoying to see combats stopping so the characters could talk for like 5 minutes before resuming, but considering the action scenes were good and the plot got a very good start, this is a passable issue.

I was very happy to see the lack of annoying teenagers, and most importantly, the lack of harem elements. Saber is now only doing what she was supposed to do, not serving as a fanservice shy/innocent girl living with a stupid boy in a temple and with other school girls. That's a hell of an improvement. The shady and decentralized cast, their greeds, vicious wishes, selfishness, and sins make them more realistic and likeable. Everything here is better than the average, even the animation got improved while still clinging to the dead-looking character models.

Watch this and, if you're into shounens that are more based on drama and tension, you'll certainly like it. It still has all the super-power, super-moves, flashy characters designs, and other elements of typical shounens, but they can be overshadowed by the intricate acts of the masters and servants in their battle to death.

Ok guys, my first review on AniDB. I'm aware that my english is not perfect so bare with me, and exuse my mistakes. I'm not going to do some complex analysis of the story or characters since I wanted to make it completely spoiler-free. If you wish to learn more about it, please read the description.

As a huge T-M fan, I could not miss this one, and after great success of Kara no Kyoukai, this time it looks like "Fate" part of Nasuverse is getting great adaptation as well.

It's an adaptation of Urobuchi Gen's light novels, prequel to Type-Moon's famous visual novel, Fate/Stay Night. These 13 episodes are actually only first half of the whole project (Volume 1 and 2 out of 4), second "season" should air in 3 months (spring season 2012). This will allow Ufotable to keep quality of animation top notch and finish the goal they put on themselfs - to make a TV series with movie-like quality.

Art & Animation - 9/10

Animation: Ufotable deserves a medal for amount of work, time and money they invested into this series. Zero looks simply gorgeous in almost every way and does not have any competition amongst TV series this year (at the very least). It really feels like watching movie. Quality of animation slowly drops in last few episodes, but it's not that obvious.

Art: Character design is, no suprprise, very Type-Moonish with some minor differences here and there. Men are displayed in more realistic way, while women have those big eys. I don't have problem with it. What I found kind of disturbing though, was CGI. Never liked it and I don't like it here either. Some of it is really well done (mainly cars and other vehicles), some is not... There is even one major character made in CGI which was really disappointing for me. It's not complete disaster, but deffinetly hurts the atmosphere and almost everything CGI feels out of place. This is the only real problem I have with art direction and that's also why it won't get perfect score from me...

Sound - 10/10

Music: Soundtrack was composed by Yuki Kajiura and as always, she did an amazing job. I can no longer wait for the OSTs to come out. It's her usual work, so if you heard at least few of her songs, you get the idea of how epic the music is. Opening and ending are also pretty good, even though I'm not sure if the OP suits the dark mood of the series. It just might be that jpop is not really my cup of tea.

Voices: Voice actors were chosen well and they did really good job. I don't even remember anyone annoying (except characters that were supposed to be annoying).

Story - 8/10

The main storyline is nothing too complex, but it works. "The war" between seven masters and heroic servants sounds pretty silly, but it's not your usual deathmatch. The main focus is on characters and their interactions, and even if their actions are pretty stupid sometimes, considering they're there to kill each other, it's just how the characters are. It's actually pretty interesting to look at their ways of dealing with enemies and even more interesting when sometimes those on the same side don't share the same view on how this war shoud be fought. These 13 episodes are more about planning and talking than fights, but don't worry, there is plenty of that as well.

As I said, it's an amazing adaptation that follows novels almost perfectly, but it also suffers from same problems as others. On paper, there is no problem to just "stop the time" and throughoutly explain what actually happened or what kind of technique is this, it feels akward in anime though. This can easily make fights, that could have last no more than 5 minutes, span through the whole episode. Maybe they should've just leave this aproach and make it like KnK, where you sometimes didn't know what the hell happened, but it didn't spoil the action, in some cases things were explained after everything ended. So yeah, I found pacing (mostly during fights) little off. And of course, since it's Fate/Zero 1/2 don't expect some real ending. Don't expect ending at all.

Chracters - 10/10

This is where Zero really shines. You won't find any character from the main cast that is pointless or dull. Everyone has their reasons to fight, everyone is somehow unique, while still being realistic and their actions believable. Sure, you have stereotypes - honorable guy, carefree guy, silent badass, crazy villain,... All of them done very well though. It's really fun to watch those beliefs and philosophies clash, and to be honest, I found the dialogue-heavy episodes more interesting than the action ones. Some characters did not get enough screentime but those should appear in second season more often. Not too much of a character development, since it's like 4 days or something, but it's definitely there (especially in one case). So to end this section somehow, I found Zero cast one of the more memorable bunch of characters in past few years and these characters are what made this show for me. After 13 episodes I'm not even sure who am I rooting for!

Enjoyment - 10/10
&
Value (TV) - 8/10

Even though I found few minor mistakes, I can't deny that I enjoyed every last bit of this show. Actually for me, this was the highlight of the year 2011. So of course I think this is a show with high value. I rewatched some episodes more than once and I will do so again, no doubt. I'm not giving it full score, because it's going to be the Blue-Ray version which is supposed to be complete experience - with some extra scenes and without any censorship. That is a version I would really like to own. Since this is a review of Zero broadcasted in the TV, I can't give it a 10.

Final thoughts

An absolute must-watch for every Type-Lunatic out there, obviously, and everyone who'd like some more intelligent and dark anime with interesting characters, dialogues and some amazingly-animated action scenes. Even if KnK is still the best Type-Moon anime in my eyes, Zero didn't say the last word yet.