Fate/zero, Type-Moon x Ufotable + Gen Urobuchi

The Ufotable adaptation of Gen Urobuchi's prequel to Fate/Stay Night is my most anticipated series of the year. Though Urobuchi himself is only supervising the scripts rather than penning the adaptation himself, I think Ufotable has shown they have a feel for the Nasuverse when they did the brilliant Kara no Kyoukai series of films, one of my favorite anime series ever.

The prequel goes back ten years, chronicling the Fourth Holy Grail War. Anyone who knows Urobuchi's style, his reputation prior to Madoka Magica, and where Fate/Stay Night starts off should be already prepared for a bloody good time. Really, what more introduction do you need? Here's a PV if you want a bit more of a taste.

Aniplex has cleared the series to be simulcast on Nico Nico when it debuts tomorrow. Honestly, this disappoints me a bit because Ufotable's animation really deserves to be viewed in high definition. Hopefully we'll get a Blu-ray release here in the States; if this is as good as I hope, I'll definitely be on board for a purchase.

This post has been edited by VRMaster on Oct 1 2011, 01:01 AM

All I gotta say about the show is F-16 fuck yeah.

Most awesome Noble Phantasm EVAR.

I was looking for a link to the page that should exist when the video goes live, but instead there's a live feed from ABe's panel from AWA lol
http://live.niconico.com/watch/lv65459992

for reference here is the original launch page
http://ch.nicovideo.jp/channel/fate-zero

well, it's pretty much what i expected, which is excellent!

it's slow in the middle but the end picks up nicely just like the book. the first novel is pretty slow anyways and it is the first fight scene that wrapped that up nicely, which hopefully we'll see starting in end of ep2 or ep3 at this pace.

get all the fill of chibi rin and sakura while you can~

Watching the first on Nico now. Someone said Waver is moe and I find that is surprisingly apt description

So many for the first episode. I laughed when Kotomine's dad and Tokiomi started walk in a circle around him. But it's setup so hopefully it'll settle down next episode.

This post has been edited by ChronoReverse on Oct 1 2011, 11:39 AM

Can't watch the stream. Server must be overloaded. Sorry NicoNico, I'm gonna have to torrent this.

This post has been edited by Telliamed on Oct 1 2011, 12:06 PM

The show's opening is already one of the best of the year, IMO.

Of course I missed the Nico broadcast but I'll watch it eventually

Just finished the first episode and that was great. Wonderful setup for what looks to be a terrific series. Amazingly animated, just like Kara no Kyoukai, exactly the best outcome I could have hoped for.

On more substance, it's nice to see how all of this is putting the various pieces in play. If you know Fate/Stay Night you have a good idea of where everything is going. Unfortunately, if you haven't played the game you will be spoiled on a few Heaven's Feel revelations. But that's unavoidable; you can't skirt around things like Sakura and Ilya in a prequel; they're way too important.

If you weren't already aware of these things, though, I think this is potentially that much more fascinating to see. I know I loved seeing it unfold, knowing the inevitable outcome and seeing all the parts starting to converge upon it even this early. Stuff is going to start going down next week. And it will be glorious.

Episode One

This post has been edited by VRMaster on Oct 1 2011, 03:16 PM

I didn't notice an option to change the subtitle language? So are they using the ip address? I also saw a few comments about other languages not being available at the time, so lots of countries were all trying to watch the English stream, which may be why it was slow for me.

Looking forward to this, since it contains every reason why I love Sakura even more than Kohaku (which is quite a prowess), even if overall I love Kohaku more.

Yea, sakura gets a big spot in this ep. very touching.

tho, circle walk around kotomine! what was that lol.

yea, i thought the middle of the ep was a little slow and if you didn't know all the characters, it would be hard to keep track of everyone. and they didn't even name drop all the servant and the secondary characters yet!

A little heavy on the info-dump, but whoa, the animation is beautiful. Waver should be done in claymation, though.

Yes, the circle walk around Kotomine was a bit much. And Tohsaka-senior didn't even share wine with his guests! No wonder Kotomine grumbles about him in the preview for the next episode.

And so, Illya's "Nice to meet you, oni-chan, ufufufu" when meeting Shirou in FSN was literally true?

That 47 minutes went by fast.

This post has been edited by dm on Oct 1 2011, 08:45 PM

It was pretty heavily implied (and it may have been overtly stated) in the game's Heaven's Feel arc. When playing the game, I remember suspecting it and later feeling vindicated, so I think they probably said so outright.

This post has been edited by VRMaster on Oct 1 2011, 08:52 PM

... wow

good point. i mean, if you haven't read the books i won't spoil it for you, but this is an interesting angle to approach something about Kotomine Kirei later on.

Was the English stream taken down? I just got home and tried to watch it, but I don't see it on NicoNico at all. Ragequit!

Edit: Nevermind, found it on the Aniplex page. Stream is overloaded though, will have to wait till tomorrow...

This post has been edited by inquis122 on Oct 1 2011, 10:17 PM

You have to go through the Japanese site. I'm assuming the English subtitles come from them detecting your location via IP.

Here's the link again.

Ok, got it to work, didn't realize you had to have a JP Nico account.

That was awesome. Almost all dialogue and it was still amazing. Poor Sakura, the Matou suck. I have only finished the Fate part of the original game, so I suppose now is about the time I should be digging into Unlimited Blade Works...

This post has been edited by inquis122 on Oct 1 2011, 11:46 PM

Slow start, but it gets all the fluff out of the way. Are all episodes going to be this long?

Lots of exposition but it was pretty interesting exposition so it's all good. It's telling of how popular the series is that they didn't have to put any action in the first episode.

It will be interesting to see what non-fans think (and when they get around to thinking it). When I watched last night, the counter was "only" about 6800 --- 12 hours or so into its availability.

I thought they did a good job of building tension, with a decent climax in the form of the summoning. Though, again, it's not clear how effective that is to someone new to the series (and it's not like you can give them the FSN series as a positive introduction). Like, does it matter much that fans now know that Tohsaka has Gilgamesh for his servant, while for non-fans he's just a leering dude in golden armor?

Oh, and Saber's classic line.


I'm a little confused, though. There was a lot of talk about how these Grail Wars happen every 60 years, but Fate/stay night happens just ten years from the now in Fate/zero?

This post has been edited by dm on Oct 2 2011, 07:44 AM

Well, not exactly. She's older than him.

In Fate/Stay Night I do believe they comment on how strange it is that the Grail is resurfacing after such a short period...there is a reason why, though I imagine we'll get plenty more detail in this series.

As for accessibility to people who don't already care about the Fate franchise; it's probably a harder sell. It's a lot of exposition, which is good because the background information is out of the way, but they still had almost no action and that's something that will turn off casual viewers.

A lot of the fun of this episode was watching the pieces get put on the board, learning some of the relationships, and piecing together that information with what you know from the original. Someone unaware of where this has to go wouldn't be able to get that from this; they'd only get a lot of people talking.

That said, I think they did a better job explaining stuff than the F/SN anime is, which wasn't awful but...you can tell with how nonchalantly they "revealed" Sakura's relationship with Rin and Ilya's parentage. They almost seem to expect you've played the game.

And, yeah, Ilya's age caught me off guard. "Onii-chan." Heh.

The 5th war in FSN is the most atypical grail war possible. Due to circumstances in Zero, the 5th war started way early.

Matou (originally Makiri) Zouken makes his appearance only in the Heaven's Feel scenario. And he is every inch as evil obsessed with his goal as he is here. The penis worms (artfully replaced here with bugs) and his condition have slowly poisoned his mind to the point of forgetting why he desired the Grail in the first place.