Fate/Zero

[Archangel]

Alternative Title: フェイト／ゼロ

Type: TV
Episodes: 25
Source: Visual Novel
Studio: Ufotable
Genres: Action, Fantasy, Supernatural

Synopsis: War of the Holy Grail - Pursuing the power of the "Holy Grail" which grants a miracle, this is a contest in which seven magi summon seven Heroic Spirits to compete for it. In that battle whose conclusion was postponed three times, now, the fourth war commenced again. Entrusting their dearest wish of victory, the magi joined the battleground called "Fuyuki", but amongst them, there was a man who was always alone, and could not find out the meaning behind his fights. His name was Kotomine Kirei. Not comprehending the guidance of fate, Kirei was lost, and had kept questioning. Why someone like his was given the Command Seals. However, the fate of his fights crossed Kirei's path with a nemesis by chance. That person is - Emiya Kiritsugu. A man who was sterner than anyone else, more merciless than anyone else, and who sought the miracle of the Holy Grail.

Merely recited in fragments in Fate/Stay Night, this is the Fourth War of the Holy Grail 10 years ago. The truth which unfolded behind the battle between Shirou's foster father, Rin's father, and the younger Kotomine Kirei, is finally revealed...

Resources: ANN | AniDB | MyAnimeList

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Commie - Episode 01

[Archangel]

DAT

FUCKING

EVERYTHING

Those production values are insane! They're going to keep this up on a weekly basis for 24 more episodes??! And the story feels so much colder and grittier, not to mention that having so much out in the open at the very beginning leaves room for character development all around, not just for the protagonist.

I jizzed my pants both mentally and physically, already best show of the season even though i haven't watched any of the others yet.

[TheBladeChild]

Damn....and I have never been more excited for a anime season that I am now. This first episode was amazing. I love how the music during the summoning ceremonies toward the end, came together in one epic moment. Sorta reminded me of the ending of the first episode of Code Geass R2. And this is just one series Im gonna be following. This is gonna be a epic fall. =)

Edit: Saber in that black suit in the end, is awesome!

[Ryllharu]

I'll admit I wasn't super enthusiastic about this considering how the UBW movie turned out (i.e. useless to anyone who hadn't played the game), but this double set of episodes completely reinvigorated my excitement.

From Irisviel to little Rin and Sakura on through to Kiritsugu's obvious surprise of Saber's gender, this delivered.

I too am liking the grittier tone of this series. Nothing wrong with it, and the history of Kiritsugu's methods combined with all the underhanded scheming of...pretty much everyone else certainly lead me to believe this could be an anything-goes Grail War.

Random tidbits:
- Damn, Irisviel is hot. Her presence will easily make up for the apparent lack of female servants this time around.
- Zouken is super evil, and most of his family is evil. How Kariya ever grew up to be that kind of a person is a miracle in and of itself.
- For all his talk about rejecting the idea of blood meaning everything, Waver sure is a douchebag. He treats regular humans as trash all the same.
- Awesome OP.

[fireheart]

Small stuff I'm surprised that Kirei summoned the Assassin servant. Is it just me or is Assassin and Berserker barely in the intro seeing as Kiriya is either alone or surrounded by bugs in the intro, though I'm guessing the shadow with red eyes is Berserker since the little we saw of Berserker in this episode had the same smoke effect.

[Buffalobiian]

UTW - Episode 01

[David75]

Got a little technical problem, both commie and utw versions have playback issues with VLC/MPC-HC under 7... but also under ubuntu with SMplayer or embeded player.

It's the same machine in all cases, a tad strange, I doubt it comes from the disk and I do not think vlc/mpc/7/ubuntu and players use GPU accelerated decoding.

I'll try with a lower res release.

[Marik]

It's because they're 10-bit releases. Grab CoreAVC 3.0.1, or the latest CCCP, or use VLC Nightly.

[Archangel]

...you're aware that both releases are in 10bit right? And you've updated your codecs?

[David75]

Thanks guys, something new came up I did not know or had the curiosity to check (now I understand why la croisée looked strange... and I did not search for the reason.)
MPC32 internal filter disabled, madvr and it works.

Will watch it later.

Thanks guys!

[Archangel]

I'm surprised you missed it, guess that means this is the first series you'll be following in a while

[Ryllharu]

Just so this is clear, what is the official mod stance on spoilers in regards to this series?

This series is a prequel, but it spoils character development out of Fate/Stay Night (FSN). In addition, FSN obviously spoils this series, as the results and twists of the 4th Grail War are frequently mentioned throughout FSN.

Furthermore, this appears to be pulling much more heavily from the game-FSN than the anime. Fate Zero already has some references to things that were not touched on or inconsistent with the anime version of FSN.

Is this to be treated as its own series, or is it to be assumed a "sequel" to FSN? If the latter, which would allow us to make references to events of FSN, are we using the game (which this seems like it will be more closely following) or the anime?

I know a lot of regular gotwoot posters have played through the FSN game, sometimes multiple times. However, a number of gotwoot posters also have not, or are only partway through.

[Sapphire]

Allow an open discussion of the Fate series. Spoiler warnings at the top, if needed?

[Buffalobiian]

I would treat this as a sequel to the FSN anime.

Spoilers, strictly speaking, are exposing details that aren't covered yet in the anime adaptation - and I would refrain from making any too-revealing comments that are related to the game, since we're also unsure of how much Fate/Zero will expose anyway. The real question for me is whether to consider FSN-Anime and Fate/Zero as related and cross-referenced projects (add UBW movie onto that if you want). My personal stance is that such cross-referencing should be allowed.

[Archangel]

My stance is that everyone that's watching this has already watched the first series, probably the movie as well and around 50% will have completed the whole game thus making this whole hypothetical discussion quite worthless.

That said i'm already anticipating 2 or 3 pages of this crap going on further and dumber tangents as you go along... so yeah, go nuts.

[shinta|hikari]

I think this show is popular enough for people to know that spoilers for the entire universe is possible. Visitors of the thread should be careful, but it would be stupid and unproductive to limit what can be posted because this is a prequel. It would murder discussion quite a bit.

OMFG.

Loli Rin, all masters introduced complete with motivations, gritty atmosphere, a bad ass main character (aka NOT Shirou) and Saber? Best show in a long long while.

@Ryll - I think Kariya became as self-sacrificing as he is precisely because he lived with that bald vampire. It is quite common for children to assertively oppose their parents' failed upbringing by living a completely opposite lifestyle.

[Buffalobiian]

Ryll's post derailed what I actually wanted to post.



O.M.G.. the pheromones!! (Yes, this show is oozing pheromones.. tonnes of it)
It's a shame I have just enough common sense to not hump the screen or something...

Chibi-Rin is great, but Iri's surpassed her in just one episode. Way too likable.

Whimpy-guy must have summon Ghengiskan or something...

[shinta|hikari]

Judging from the preview, Kotomine is going to assassinate Tohsaka in the next episode and form a contract with Gil. He really is a sly bastard. I am not sure if I feel sorry for Tohsaka yet. He seemed like a douche in this episode, but his wife seems to love him enough to endure giving away a daughter, so that must mean something.

[Archangel]

I hardly think Kirei will jump to the kill that early in the game, as far as i can see he's not the man we've seen in the sequel, he isn't nearly as driven probably because he lacks purpose.

I don't have that much to discuss from this first episode alone, there are so many variables... i'm just enjoying the shit out of all of it.

[Kraco]

Unfortunately I don't think we should be talking about the game and only restrict ourselves to the anime FSN and UBW (for whatever the movie is worth). That would be consistent with our general spoiler rules.

Anyway, a really awesome beginning. There wasn't a single character I wouldn't have found interesting. The production values were much better than I dared to expect. Like has been said, the atmosphere is completely different compared to the FSN where most of the masters were those younglings that even if they weren't all literally n00bs still were quite naive and at least inexperienced. Here we have bloody battle scarred veterans, executioners, famous mages, and even the young dude was ruthless, very ambitious, and also had the formal education from London. This is certainly going to be different from FSN and in a good way.

I have to agree with Ryll on Irisviel: She was a real babe. Very beautiful and gentle, yet also intelligent and wise considering how Emiya was listening to her words.