This Week in Anime - Did Fate/Apocrypha's Great Holy Grail War End Well?

Nick D
Hmm. Well that's not a bad suggestion, but have you considered just making the whole show about Mordred and her irresponsible stepdad?

Personally I've never been much of a Fate fan. I liked Fate/Zero well enough, but every other venture into the Nasuverse has left me rather frustrated. While I admire the franchise's dedication to tackling big ideas and heavy themes, I've found its execution pretty pedestrian. But I was actually excited to see more of Apocrypha, because the first cour seemed to focus mainly on Fate's strengths: fun ensemble casts, cool fights, and impressive action animation.

I'll stick with Fire Emblem, TYVM.

The show's certainly at its strongest when it's just letting characters bounce off each other. Whether it's Astolfo teasing Jeanne about her crush on Sieg, or Chiron giving Fiore pep talks about how to handle leading the family, there's a lot of sweet moments to be had.

But then Sieg opens his mouth and all I hear are a bunch of loud fart sounds.

Like a lot of Fate, Sieg's conflict about whether humanity is by nature good or evil sounds interesting on paper, but in execution it's a good six episodes of ponderous navel gazing while the cast ties up loose ends before the final battle.

And Sieg is maybe the nadir of Fate/Protagonists.

If I've learned anything from anime, it's that any antagonist who lasts more than a dozen episodes will try to bring on instrumentality.

There's also a frankly tedious subplot about Jack The Thong-Wearing Ten-Year-Old, which uh

Oh yeah I'm real frightened.

Covered buttocks are the opiate of the masses, Steve. Let your cheeks fly as free as your soul.

But yeah, it's hard not to see the first half of Apocrypha's second cour as just place-setting and filling time. But in the end, I don't care all that much because hoo boy do the final five episodes come roaring back with everything I liked about the first cour.

Like hey, you know that's cooler than philosophy debates? Fist fights. Fist fights on airline carriers. Fist fights on airline carriers between demigods.

That fight alone is enough of a spectacle to be unforgettable. It's visceral, brutal, and so goddamn fun that it'd be the absolute high point for most other shows. But it's only the first of like seven different fights on that level or higher.

Like honestly, even if you're not interested in Fate or don't care to watch all of Apocrypha, episodes 21-23 are worth watching all on their own.

Yeah, 22 in particular is just wall-to-wall action that you never see in a TV production. It's clearly a ton of talented, passionate artists putting their all into impressing you with just how good they are.

I really cannot overstate how great it is. This is anime at its most unrestrained, the kind of artistic accomplishment that I think could get folks interested in researching and following specific animators.

As good as it is though, it's not quite the end. We still have to wrap up the story, and I think that's where the weakness in this finale's armor shows. While a lot of Apocrypha's cast is likable and interesting, they don't really tie into the central conflict much, so the final episodes become a parade of sad but not particularly impactful deaths.

Mordred is far from the most complex character, but the duo of Disrespectful Teen Son and Accepting Delinquent Dad is a stellar combination that carries some much-needed levity in the final act. I'd legit watch an entire show about these two going on capers.

Remember, kids: smoking kills

It also brings us back to Apocrypha's finale, which is frustrating. Not because it's bad, but because it's really good on paper, such a cool concept that I wish it had been set up better. So the short version of Shirou's plan is to use the Holy Grail to literally suck out humanity's negative emotions and make the entire human race immortal pacifists living in harmony for eternity. Sieg and Jeanne righfully decide that forcing this "salvation" on everyone against their will is ultimately just a copout. You're not saving humanity by destroying part of their nature. They challenge him, Jeanne unsheathes her holy sword, and then she loses.

And this pushes Sieg, our stalwart wet blanket of a protagonist, over the edge. In the heat of the moment, he says to hell with all this philosophizing. He's gonna fucking kill a motherfucker.

It's a really cool answer to all the ideas Apocrypha's been wading through with his character. Shirou has supposedly forsaken his hatred to become a true saint, and the final thing standing in his way is someone who started out equally "pure" and has grown to embrace all facets of humanity - including the anger and hurt that comes with living.

And to cap it all off, Sieg gets some help from an equally pure and angry character in maybe my favorite part
of the whole show.

It's a fantastic way to conclude this whole debate about human nature, and my only problem is that the setup for it was so dang tedious. There were ways this could have been delivered that weren't tiresome and vague, and the whole show would have been better for it. As it stands, it's still really cool in the moment, but the ending doesn't totally make up for how much it took to get there.

Still looks cool tho

Honestly, much as I appreciate the bare midriff,
I'm not huge on Astolfo.

That's true, but I have a much bigger issue with him that kind of outweighs that. Namely: flesh fangs are bad.

Flesh Fangs: almost as bad as monster girls

Anyway, I guess that's more or less my takeaway from Fate/Apocrypha. It's got plenty of problems, there's some pretty big failings at its core, but so much of it is just so darn entertaining that I can't hold anything against it too much. It's a mess, but it does go down smoother than UBW.

That reminds me, with Apocrypha over, we now have another Fate show to await release from Netflix Jail! So maybe one day we'll get to cover Fate/Extra and experience the REAL breakthrough in anime technology:

Butt Windows