On to the stuff I didn’t like. The pacing… was often terrible. Type-Moon works are very… talkative. Lots of exposition and the occasional info dump. That’s just their style, and while this series is actually adapted from a novel series written by none other than Gen Urobuchi, it doesn’t stray far from the formula. That means there’s a whole lot of characters just standing around and talking. Not gonna lie, despite my great love for the Fate franchise, it got kinda boring sometimes.
Season 2 suffered the most from the pacing I think. Specifically, there were two back-to-back 100% flashback episodes crammed into the late teens right after a particularly strong episode. They completely killed the show’s momentum, focusing on
Being a series originally written in novel form by the Urobutcher himself, this show is rarely a happy one. Lots of death, lots of betrayal, a misunderstanding that ends in tragedy, grotesque vampiric worms, and even a giant, CGI tentacle monster. Sounds like the makings of a great show does it not? Well, that depends on who you ask. As many here on the forum know, I’m not squeamish, but I’m not exactly a big fan of depression, tragedy, feelings of dread, and likable characters being killed off either, all of which this show had in SPADES even though it was apparently toned down a bit from the novels. I found several events, particularly from those flashback episodes and Episode 21 to be rather hard to sit through. They really rubbed me the wrong way. Episode 21 specifically used one of my least favorite plot devices in film/literature OF ALL TIME in its second half. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy to see that. That episode may have even swayed me towards passing on buying this show or even re-watching it at all, just so I don’t have to see, dwell on, or have my memory jogged about what happened in that episode again.
Also, not unlike one of my gripes with Evangelion 3.0, many characters, aside from the select few that could be considered the “main cast”, didn’t get much screen time, and by extension very little character development. A few of the less important characters would barely show up and do… not much of anything really, before they were killed off. I’m not sure if that’s just the way it was written originally or if its an after effect of cramming four plot-heavy light novels into a 25 episode anime series.
Despite me being severely dissatisfied with some of the plot twists in the final stretch (and I’d even go so far as to say I outright hated Episode 21), I must say, that was an excellent final episode. It wrapped everything up nicely, showed the outcomes of all the surviving characters, and gave a nice teaser for the original Fate/Stay Night series by depicting two key scenes that were flashbacks in the original.
The animation alone would get an 11/10 from me, but for the sake of not getting too specific, here’s my final verdict:
Season 1:
Season 2:
I almost gave Season 2 a 6/10, but the strong finale and the trippy introspective mind shiz in Episode 24, reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Evangelion Episodes 25 & 26, definitely earned it a bonus point.
