Forum - View topicREVIEW: Fate/stay night Blu-Ray 2
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4158 |
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Isn't Fate/Zero the sequel to Fate/Stay Night, only set ten years prior? The fact that was written in order to out do the original work/manga series/game kind of negates prequeldom. Still, outdoing the original is hardly an immountable feat; I've never seen Fate/Zero but the fact it was made a continous series with no preconcieved notions for stories with different endings combined with the buget a sequel in a successful franchise merited of course makes a better series. Comparing them in terms of quality is not only meaningless but a waste of brain cells.
Ok, ayways, yeah, in the second half of Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero is the better series. How that works as a review is beyond me. |
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iathomps
Posts: 68 |
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I do agree that Fate/Stay Night proper pales in comparison with Fate Zero, but I do think some historical perspective is in order. back in 2006, the idea of adapting a visual novel as a two cour series with full 24 minute episode length had not even been done before (I am not counting the 2003 Da Capo because the episodes were only 17 minutes long). The only visual novels adaptations made were usually thought of as advertisement for the game itself, and were some of the worst anime produced at that time, animation quality wis. Looking back at the years before FSN came out, we had Tsukihime, Green Green, 2002 Kanon, Da Capo, Popotan, Rumbling Hearts, etc, how many of those got a decent budget?
The fact that FSN was able to be an actual decent action show despite the budget it got, despite the Harem elements that were included to draw sales (yes I know, the FSN game broke sales records when it came out, but it was far from the merchandising cash cow that it is now), despite being based on a visual novel with a word count on the level of The Lord of the Rings AND multiple endings, and tell a good story that was better than any eroge adaptation that had come before, means it gets an A for effort in my book. Putting it in the Fate/Zero context is like watching the old 1979 Star Trek The Motion Picture and comparing it straight up against the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek. |
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bosnic
 Posts: 17 |
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think you just answered that yourself. sequel set ten years prior is called a prequel.
but on to the review. I don't think the reviewer is justified comparing Fate/stay Night with Fate/zero simply due to the fact that Fate/stay Night released and ended in 2006. Granted, Studio DEEN could have done a much better job at adapting the the original VN but by even mentioning Fate/zero is just unfair to the series. Yes it's a blu-ray release but it a blu-ray release of a series that came out six years ago. in addition, I felt that ufotable just had a better grasp of the Nasuverse than Studio DEEN did (just look at the Kara no Kyoukai movies!). You also have to give credit to the fact that ufotable did work with the original story writer Gen Urobuchi. DEEN isn't bad, I just don't believe they have a true grasp of what the series is like. there were simply too many comparisons to Fate/zero in this review. It's unfair in all cases to even put them next to each other. I was expecting more on how the second half stands by itself, not when it's compared to a superior one (again, comparing a series that aired in 2006 to another aired in 2011/2012?). As a standalone, this series is what pulled me into the Nasuverse, I didn't have Fate/zero to watch. It was this series that got me to read the VN, to dig more into the universe, to discover the other stories in the TYPE-MOON universe. As much as I dislike the anime series now, I only saw how badly its potential was wasted after reading the VN. as for opinions of the second half, I just felt it degraded into something that I just could not watch anymore. I powered through it but felt like most of my efforts went to waste (which inspired me to go out and read the VN). Studio DEEN just tried to implement too much in their own way and it simply did not work out. whew, large wall of text. sorry bout that guys. I do believe the scores given were fine except the music score (thought it would be at least a B but whatever). ninjaedit: the prequel comment was for Animegomaniac |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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That's called a prequel.
This makes no sense.
They're too parts of the same franchise, of course they're comparable. Trying figure out what you were saying in that paragraph, however, WAS a waste of braincells. |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2417 |
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They are comparable sure, but it is kind of a waste of time. It is like comparing your favorite pizza chain's pizza with a frozen pizza. The outcome is clear before you start. On one hand we have a comparably low budget anime made like 8 years ago that has a story created from a mish mash of three different story lines and on the other we have a pretty high budget recent series which was written as a single story. In addition to that, the Fate arc which the anime is almost entirely based on is pretty much unanimously considered to be the weakest of the three. So the two anime really aren't in the same league which makes any serious comparison pointless. I thought the review was really thorough and fair, but I personally disagree about the music part. But maybe I'm alone in really liking F/SN's OST? |
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Tanteikingdomkey
 Posts: 2350 |
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Fate Zero is why I ended up importing fate/stay night for me and my amazon store. I know that deen did not do a good job with this adaptation. however this should be put in a historical context that is true.
It is impossible not to compare the two of them though. especially if you saw fate/zero first or garden of sinners first. therefore it should not be seen as that bad a thing in a review. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Huh, I always really liked the first OP to Fate/Stay Night and was indifferent to the second one. Then again, I always loved that theme in the game's opening as well.
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050795
 Posts: 230 |
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I must be one of the few who think having a paragraph that compares and contrast Fate/Stay Night with Fate/Zero is appropriate in this review. Especially considering that this is a re-release of Fate/Stay Night (that has been out of print and hard to get for a few years) coming out shortly after Fate/Zero aired. To newer anime fans Fate/Zero is probably their first introduced to the franchise, and they could be curious as to how well Fate/Stay Night holds up (they are related series after all it's not like he's comparing apples to oranges or anything).
Also there is a question as to which show to watch first if you are new to the franchise. While it is a bit of a catch-22 I tend to recommend watching Fate/Stay Night first. But I agree watching Fate/Zero first defiantly makes Fate/Stay Night much, much better. |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1339 |
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Fate/Zero definitely deepened my appreciation for Fate/Stay Night. While Fate/Stay Night may not be as flashy as the prequel, when it comes down to it I pay attention more to the story than anything else.
Now how about comparing the Fate/Stay Night TV anime to the movie, Unlimited Blade Works? I thought it was cool in the movie that we find out Archer's identity and the direction the story takes because of it, and the romantic implication between spoiler[Shiro and Rin]. The battle scenes definitely help. But if I really had to choose, it'd be the TV series. I prefer Saber's outcome here more than the movie, as bittersweet as it may be, and in the movie it's spoiler[Illyasviel that dies a cruel and brutal death while psycho-and-rapist-that-nobody-cares-for Shinji gets to survive] as opposed to the other way around in the TV version, which did not sit well with me at all. I'm glad the movie was made and I got to see the different directions the characters took, but overall I ended up preferring the resolutions in the TV anime, especially if having watched it after Fate/Zero. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Please. Fate/Stay Night has its problems but none so many as Fate/Zero. As good as it might still be, Fate/Zero's story structure is a total mess. It insists on introducing everything right away instead of when it actually becomes relevant. Then it wastes way too much time on Caster early on (who despite a decent twist at the end, basically spends the bulk of his existence as a downright comically over the top psycho). That whole battle should have been pushed to before the half way point (and that pointless Junior Detective Rin filler episode dropped entirely). The flashback to Kiritsugu's past is badly placed as well and disrupts any sense of building momentum. This, coupled with the fact that practically nothing gets resolved until those last five post-flashback episodes, means they are seriously rushed and never really click as they should and never have time to flesh out key parts. Saber's surprise relationship to spoiler[Berserker] pretty much amounts to an afterthought and goes nowhere. Really, Saber gets the gets the short end of the stick in this show overall. She is essentially just hanging around for most of the series, stuck waiting for F/SN to start so she can actually take an active role and develop as a character. Finally, there is very little feeling of conclusion here, partly because of the lack of plot resolution but even more so because of the aforementioned lack of momentum. It doesn't help either that the climax betweenspoiler[ Kiritsugu and Kirei] is interrupted and that Archer does literally nothing. It ends up being highly unsatisfying. Of course, I don't mean to pan the show. It's pretty good despite its flaws. But so is Fate/Stay Night (better in fact) despite its flaws. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18454 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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You'll get a total disagree from me on almost all of those points, ikillchicken, but the only one I'll comment on here is the one most directly relevant to F/SN. The reason why Saber seems to be just "hanging around waiting her turn" in F/Z is because F/Z doesn't focus on her, whereas F/SN - where she shares the limelight with Shiro and Rin - does. F/Z focuses more on portraying the grand scope of events, so it splits its time and attention much more thoroughly, whereas F/SN is a much more personal story about how the Grail War and Master/Servant relationship affect the leads. Thus it's only natural that Saber wouldn't have a status in the former similar to what she has in the latter.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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@ikillchicken:
I accept all the flaws you pointed out in Fate/ZERO. However, it was still an amazing show; when it was good it was amazing. Fate/Stay Night is the inferior show. And I'm not talking about artistry. animation or music; I don't care much for those. I'm talking about the plot, themes and characters. It lacks the giddying heights and the philosophical depth of its prequel, and the character relationships are very weakly-done until well into the show's second half. Shirou makes a poor lead and the plot is bogged down in many places. Fate/ZERO isn't perfect. Like I said, I agree with all the flaws you pointed out, and you even missed a few that I would have brought up. But it is the better show, and by a fair distance at that. Last edited by dtm42 on Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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That's true. I don't see how it really serves to defend Fate/Zero though. FSN does a lot more with all three of its main characters. Zero really only develops one of them and Kiritsugu is a good character for sure. But Saber might as well have not even been in Zero. Give Kiritsugu an entirely different servant that they were actually prepared to do something with. Or better yet, give him no servant. That would have been far more interesting.
Trying to have a grand scope isn't an excuse for failing to develop your characters. It's certainly a trap that a lot of shows fall into but it doesn't make it okay. If you're trying to cover so much and be so grand that you don't have time to do anything with certain characters then that is a mistake. It's a somewhat more understandable mistake but a flaw in the show all the same.
That's fair. Zero has some amazing highs. FSN has a few pretty epic moments but overall it probably never quite matches the best parts of Zero. Personally though, I'll take the significantly more consistently good FSN over the sometimes great by frequently problematic Zero. (Although again, I do certainly like both shows quite a bit).
Well, I staunchly remain the one person on the planet that actually likes Shirou as a character. 
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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Really? He spends a ton of the game being a sexist asshole to Saber ("BLUH BLUH Girls can't fight, therefore I'm going to throw myself into harms way endlessly and require you to save my ass!") and while I understand his whole "hero" complex, he's plain suicidal at parts. When he's good, he's AWESOME, but when I played the original VN*, spending endless amount of time reading the sentence "oh my god Saber is so BEAUTIFUL, oh and girls can't fight because they're girls" said 5000 different ways was near-torture. *: My computer died about 90% of the way through the FATE route, so I haven't actually seen the ending, though I spoiled myself on a lot of it. |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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First, I'd like to remind everyone that F/SN originated as a VN with three different routes (which had to be unlocked in order); Stay Night is just one of those paths, and the only one to focus on Saber. F/Z, OTOH, started as a LN (AFAIK). I expect that didn't have multiple paths like F/SN did. As a result, F/SN really wasn't intended to stand on its own: it was meant to introduce things and focus on one relationship (Shirou/Saber). So, the F/SN anime was going to be flawed from the start, and it is no surprise that the plot was weaker as a result.
In regards to the complaint made that Saber "didn't do anything" and was "just standing around" throughout most of F/Z, I would disagree. The compare-and-contrast between Saber and Kiritsugu is one of the main plot points of the series. Saber and Kiritsugu are very similar, and Saber comes to realize this. When she confronts Kiritsugu late in the series about certain actions he recently undertook, she declares that he had become jaded because he once held the same sorts of beliefs she holds, but stopped believing in them. Also, there was the interesting meeting between the three kings when they (mainly Saber and Rider) discussed what it means to be a king. ikillchicken, if you're trying to say that the *action* wasn't focused as much on Saber in F/Z, I would certainly agree. But it wasn't supposed to be. As Key said, this story was far more even-handed in its coverage. I would say that as anime, F/Z is much better than F/SN. However, there are definitely things I enjoyed more about F/SN than I did F/Z, so it's not a one-sided thing in my mind. I would love to see F/SN redone, and maybe give it enough space to tell all three paths (though there would, ah, need to be more editing in the 2nd and definitely the 3rd path). I doubt it would ever happen, but I'd definitely watch it if it did. |
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