The Holy Grail is a powerful, ancient relic capable of granting any wish the beholder desires. In order to obtain this power, various magi known as "masters" summon legendary Heroic Spirits called "servants" to fight for them in a destructive battle royale—the Holy Grail War. Only the last master-servant pair standing may claim the Grail for themselves. Yet, the third war ended inconclusively, as the Grail mysteriously disappeared following the conflict.
Many years later, the magi clan Yggdmillennia announces its possession of the Holy Grail, and intends to leave the Mage's Association. In response, the Association sends 50 elite magi to retrieve the Grail; however, all but one are killed by an unknown servant. The lone survivor is used as a messenger to convey Yggdmillennia's declaration of war on the Association.
As there are only two parties involved in the conflict, the Holy Grail War takes on an unusual form. Yggdmillennia and the Mage's Association will each deploy seven master-servant pairs, and the side that loses all its combatants first will forfeit the artifact. As the 14 masters summon their servants and assemble on the battlefield, the magical world shivers in anticipation with the rise of the Great Holy Grail War.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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sterl1
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS Ahhh. A-1 Pictures. The studio who have time and time again, blessed us with their heavenly touch. Once again delivering the seasonal train-wreck that they have been doing so effectively since the creation of time itself. Being one of the most popular studios for both Western and Japanese fans; A-1 have made some of the most popular shows to come out of the medium. Many battle shounen such as Magi, Blue Exorcist, Fairy Tail and The seven deadly sins have all been met with a warm embrace from anime fans. Last year’s big hit Erased, two of the most popularmelodramas in Anohana and Your Lie in April, and the most important one of all: Sword Art Online. They have a lengthy list of popular shows but most of which are not met with the warmest of critical receptions and many usually have a split amongst watchers. Many casual watchers who are not very invested into the anime medium praise their works for their accessibility and good production values. On the other hand, more demanding viewers have scrutinized their shows for poor writing quality, needless otaku pandering, needless fanservice and in some cases; being an absolute train-wreck. I do believe that there is a lot of truth to what many say. Most shows I have encountered from A-1 are weak and only fill a criteria in order to make the maximum amount of profit they can. To cut a long story short; they are a mainstream magnet. While some of their shows are a little excessively over hated their latest title deserves all of the hate it has gotten and has reminded me why I ultimately dislike A-1.
Fate/Apocrypha is the latest title to come fresh off the conveyor belt and put another popular A-1 show in the limelight once again. This particular fate title follows the same basic formula you would expect from the franchise, but it does have its own unique twist in the plot. Instead of seven masters with seven servants fighting amongst each other for the Holy Grail, two factions fight over the grail each with their own set of seven servants and seven masters. Fate/Apocrypha is an alternate universe that branches off the fate/stay night universe where the Holy Grail has disappeared after the third Holy Grail war and has landed in the possession of a mage family that declared that they are in ownership of the grail and secede from the association.
As cool as its premise might sound on paper, Fate/Apocrypha is absolute trash. It’s a downright train-wreck no matter which angle I approach it from. Its first mistake was starting off with a draining info-dump. A fantastic way to immerse the viewers! But that is far from the worst problem. The show tries to make the audience in some way, shape or form care for over fifteen named characters all of which either look like generic waifus or characters out of a final fantasy game. When you have Jack the ripper being portrayed as a loli, that really says a lot about what kind of show this is doesn’t it?
Let’s also not forget about a certain trap that took the anime world by storm. I wouldn’t blame guys for pulling their dicks out to Astolfo since he resembles a female more than actual females do. Apart from blatant fetishizing, enabling those who want him as their waifbando to better self-insert and fulfill their deviant wishes. Astolfo's backstory was never really dug into enough to make him a distinguishable character with his own vision and ideals which further fuels the point that the only purpose he served in this calamity of a story is otaku fuel.
The fate franchise has always used sympathetic backstories to draw attention from the viewer. This worked far more efficiently in previous fate titles because they were about a much smaller group of characters who were a lot more distinctive from each other. Despite my problems with other fate incarnations, their characters were easier to care for because of tighter focus and a more well-structured surrounding plot. In this catastrophe, the show will very loosely reveal glimpses of a character's past while immediately transitioning to another character in a completely different scenario. This is not only immersion breaking for the viewer, but trying to split attention between a huge group of characters all of which look similar and are mostly generic anime archetypes is a huge step in achieving train-wreck status. Most characters lack any sort of meaningful characterization and most are too cookie-cutter which ultimately drags them down to the dirt. In addition to the characters being poor, the relationships between them are equally as dull with barely any engaging character chemistry or dialogue due to the dry atmosphere, dull presentation and lack of charisma from any of the cast bar Ruler who unlike everyone else, has some style and charm embedded in her. The rest are not worth mentioning individually as they generally share the same problems, a perfect example of lackluster script writing and the overall stupidity of most A-1 shows.
Furthermore, Fate/Apocrypha takes the extra step of killing off a character that seemed to be important to the overarching plot in just the 4th episode. All while desperately leeching for the audience’s sympathy with a half-baked and ham-fisted flashback right before his death. And you think that’s bad? What is even worse than that scenario is that he gave his life for a self-insert protagonist whom he’d just met by giving him his heart. Fate/Apocrypha cannot only handle its cast properly but it exceeded my expectations by handing me one of the most contrived scenarios in anime I have seen in awhile. Yet again, another perfect example of incompetent script writing.
Additionally, the bland self-insert protagonist whom had his life saved in the most contrived manner possible, makes one of the most ridiculous decisions he could ever have made. Being a homunculus made for war he escaped his captives under the protection of his trap-bait waifu and finally had the chance to live a free life. A sane human being would pick that option right? Well think again. This piece of shit character decides to jump straight back into the battlefield to save the other homunculus being held captive all of which he doesn’t even know personally on top of going to fight for a brainless reason just after being held in a container all his life.
As bad as the characters and script are in Apocrypha, what ultimately makes this show horrendously disengaging is that nothing in this anime feels important. It’s almost completely devoid of personality and energy making it an absolute snooze-fest nine times out of ten. Energy stems primarily from the characters. A charismatic cast is what gives a show charm and in effect, makes it more immersive. But I feel none of that from apocrypha. Its plot doesn’t have a single shred of significance. What was the final straw for making me realize this is when a character attempted to sacrifice themselves in an attempt to take a formidable enemy with them. At that point in time I gave more fucks about cutting my nails than an artificial character with an artificial flashback that was thrown into an artificial scenario. And to put the icing on the cake, our bland self-insert was revived from almost certain death without any logical explanation. I call a bullshit asspull! If that isn’t the perfect sign of a train-wreck, then what is?
Even some minor thematic significance does not stop a train-wreck from being a train-wreck. In the second half the anime started to explore some ideas relating to the nature of humanity and its salvation, ultimately ending in failure. Furthermore, Fate/Apocrypha never showed any illustrations, actions or consequences to serve its themes. Instead it presented them through bland characters who served as mouthpieces telling the audience about the themes instead of showing them through the plot to. It shows glimpses of events through some character flashbacks that support its themes but none of them are developed enough to leave an impression. With poor presentation and underdeveloped theme exploration, Fate/Apocrypha’s story proved to be arguably one of the most boring rides in anime i have had the displeasure of participating in this year, further highlighting why this anime is probably the biggest failure of its airing season.
The one thing I hoped could pull through so I could keep my attention on this show was the action scenes. After all, Fate titles are well known for having some breathtaking action sequences. And yet even they are for the most part were only average and do nothing to get me hyped in the slightest. A-1 Pictures usually have good production values for all the shows they adapt from a popular source material. The character designs range from generic light novel designs to designs that look like they came out of a JRPG. The technical artwork on the characters and backgrounds are nothing to write home about and are too plain to breathe any life into the story but nonetheless the technical artwork was acceptable. The animation is what ultimately let me down. During most of the show’s action scenes the art simplifies and there is clearly a lack of attention to detail. Furthermore, the action directing is very messy and the “camera” panning is too quick and shoddy, making the sequences difficult to follow and only adds to the laziness noticeably evident. Clearly A-1 don’t give a donkey’s ass because the name of the franchise alone will make money for the production committee. Its highlight was episode 22 which featured some brilliant sakuga sequences that stretched all the way till the end of the episode, unquestionably making it the best episode in the show and the only action sequences that are praiseworthy, but one episode full of breathtaking animation does not excuse all of its technical shortcomings littered all over the show.
Similarly, the OST is typical for the kind of show this is. There are two tracks in particular that work well with the action sequences and serve to add some tension. It’s a shame those tracks weren’t used on an action anime that has far more passion put into it. Both the opening and ending are very forgettable and can easily be skipped every episode. While the voice acting works well enough for most characters, some over-exaggerated screaming scenes full of over-bloated drama were unnecessarily magnified to the point of borderline cringe. It could be due to inexperience and it’s not a relatively damaging issue in the grand scheme of things but nonetheless it was distasteful.
Now I have surely made Fate/Apocrypha seem like the spawn of satan, and it’s bad enough to be placed borderline bottom of the barrel. When you look at how many problems this show has and how little qualities there are to be taken away, an individual has every right to label this anime as a failure. But to its credit, this anime somehow managed to improve about two thirds into its episode count. Of course, it’s not saying much when a show is extremely incompetent and all of a sudden decides to start doing a satisfactory job at the most basic of tasks. There was so much room for improvement that even someone with no professional writing experience like myself would be able to glue some paper over the cracks and steady the ship. In the middle of its run, the show killed off a multitude of characters in a huge battle, most of which were throw aways with either no characterization or minimal characterization and i did not care for them in the slightest. But as a result of its character clean up, the show stopped spreading itself so thin by concentrating on a smaller cast which were more vital to the plot and gave the audience some insight into their personality and goals. Furthermore, a clear antagonistic force was established with a concise objective that stabilized the plot, and for the first time, Fate/apocrypha showed some competency in juggling character focused episodes and action sequences. Everything in the show from this point on had more weight placed on it, a sense of importance that I got from nothing in the first half, which was simply an empty casket. Instead of simultaneously throwing together multiple random encounters that were more jarring than exciting, the plot became more focused on individual arcs and events which made it easier to sit through. Even the action sequences slightly improved, with more convincing directing in the latter half.
However by that point that damage was all but done. No matter how much you try to plug the holes on a sinking ship, eventually you will run out of paper for the cracks if the ship continues to come under fire. Its improvements were still vastly overshadowed by the poor characters, bland aesthetic, dry atmosphere and cookie cutter plot filled with holes. Any events that followed were still uninteresting and the execution was simply tasteless. By the time the show elevated its drama and plot with higher stakes, i couldn’t bring myself to care about the characters.
Like I said previously, Fate/Apocrypha is trash. A textbook example on how to make a train-wreck of a story with barely any redeeming factors. Just another anime that should be thrown into the dumpster just like 95% of seasonal anime that air. It spreads itself so thin that none of the characterization or major events have any semblance of importance and to top it all off its story is an atrocious mess with a lack of focus. At this point I have almost completely lost all faith in the fate franchise, and titles like these highlight why I ultimately dislike A-1 Pictures as a studio. Many in the anime community say that studios cannot be completely accountable for most anime they produce because most don’t hold the same staff in-house for every project. There is certainly truth in that statement, but it’s clear as daylight that A-1 have an identity and that is to be a completely mechanical workshop devoid of creativity, solely designed to pump out shows in the dozens that will make every otaku’s dick wet all while completely forgetting about the script. Don’t get me completely wrong, I do enjoy some shows from A-1, and I’m sure I’ll find some more of that nature in their extensive catalogue, but it’s shows like these that keep supporting my argument that A-1 are the circus of the anime industry and that won’t be changing anytime soon.
Stark700
Taking a footstep into the Type-Moon universe feels almost intimidating at first. The franchise consists of an immense fictional universe that’s filled with unnatural ideas. Their flagship titles include the Fate franchise that were adapted into several TV series, OVAs, and movies. However, Fate/Apocrypha came to me as a show that couldn’t hold itself together. What could have been a big hit of the year translated into a nakedly boring storyteller that dropped the ball. To get the obvious out of the way, you don’t absolutely need to watch other Fate shows to understand Fate/Apocrypha. It’s advisable though since getting a better understanding of the generalpremise (in particular, the Holy Grail War) could improve your experience. Besides, the first few episodes does get into its exposition to explain some of the rules and concepts. It also introduces two sides of the Grail War with its ensemble of characters.
I don’t want to jump the boat here but it felt like Fate/Apocrypha had to do a lot to please the viewers. Setting up a show with a story premise that involves two sides clashing for the ultimate prize sounds like a sensational attraction. It could really draw viewers, whether you’re a newbie or veteran of the Fate franchise. As someone in the middle like myself, it felt like a show that could really get viewers to really invest themselves more to what the Fate franchise had to offer. It’s sort of refreshing to see a war drama-like scenario rather than a battle royal. Unfortunately, it didn’t really live up to expectations that made this show feel any refreshing. It felt like a formulaic story that I couldn’t feel attached to or appreciated. As more episodes progressed, it became a chore to watch. Before I get to the what, how, and why, it’s important to understand what Fate/Apocrypha really did wrong.
For a show like this, it obviously has a decent amount of characters it had to work with. Given the context that there are at least 7 masters and servants on both sides (Red faction and Black faction), there would be a minimum of 28 characters that gets involved in the main story. Then, there’s Ruler/Jeanne who serves as the mediator of the Grail War. (think of her like a middleman of a game) With 25 episodes adapting a 5-volume light novel series, the main concern lies with the fact that the show won’t have enough time to spotlight all the characters. Indeed, this anime did omit characterization on multiple fronts with its cast. This applies to both sides that includes the masters and servants. What made it worse is that the characters’ roles and motivations didn’t seem interesting to begin with. It just felt like the characters are there like pieces of a chess game. Some characters such as Mordred, Atalanta, and Jeanne has their own background stories. Unfortunately, those are vaguely explored and really doesn’t do justice with the show’s characterization. At the worst part, we have mindless characters like Spartacus and Jack the Ripper that just felt disposable.
Now, we do have a main protagonist in the show despite the war-like drama going on. The show introduces Sieg, a homunculus that gets involved in the Holy Grail War. After a series of events, he gained the ability to transform into a servant in Siegfried’s form. To be honest, Sieg’s role in the show felt like a mixed bag for me. Compared to the other characters, he gets a lot of spotlight as he learns about himself, the world, and begins to act on his own morals. However, they are generic to the core and really doesn’t bring interest in terms of storytelling. On the other hand, his character chemistry with Jeanne is perhaps one of the better elements of the show as it makes them both look more human. Still, Sieg is portrayed too much like an average protagonist that just doesn’t stand out compared to the others. Everything he says almost sounds the same and he has a rather uninteresting personality as a character by himself. The only occasional time he shines is through character interactions with others. It’s also sad to say but most of the characters in this show can hardly shine on their own. It’s mostly the character chemistry that sells more interest. They come in a variety of forms such as respect (Mordred/Kairi), greed (Siegfried/Gordes), parental (Jack the Ripper/Reika), among others. Unfortunately, I confess that most of the character relationships in the show ended up being dry and empty. It felt like a lot was missing including insufferable personalities, roles, and in general, characterization. Shirou Kotome is a character that people will begin to take notice more in the latter half of the show. Still, I can’t say his role in the show is impressive given his view on humanity and morals. Shirou’s personality in this anime is also easy to dislike and feels more like they introduced him as an antithesis of Sieg. The clash of ideals gets old fast and tedious. The only plus on this is that both he and Sieg makes the story flow better as their roles are more acceptable. Just be aware of that the show suffers from weak plot devices and doesn’t do justice at telling its story.
So Fate/Apocrypha did a lot of wrong. What did the show actually do right? For me, the characters themselves have rather distinctive personalities that can occasionally be entertaining to watch. Mordred is perhaps one of the more dynamic character with a prideful amount of charisma. Astolfo adds a big dose of comedy to this rather moody show. William the Shakespeare also shows a ton of energy through his philosophy and dialogues that can occasionally be amusing to watch. Even Frankenstein can occasionally have windows of moments that draws attention to viewers. Admitingly, I do miss a few of the characters after their demise. The story itself has a thoughtful premise despite the poor pacing at times and omitting/rushing certain content from the light novel. It’s very predictable at times but occasionally feels impactful when you see the plot being carried out. Unfortunately, these concepts are mostly scattered throughout the show and doesn’t connect each other in a balanced way. It’s like a broken toy that still has problems after being repaired.
Watching Fate/Apocrypha’s action scenes reminds me of battle-shounen style cinematics. Rather than ufotable, A-1 Pictures takes this project that set off some red flags at first. Through their history of adapting shows with action, it felt like this anime’s technical elements would be mediocre. While it doesn’t live up to the caliber of ufotable, A-1 Pictures does live up to their standards. To put it simply, the show’s action scenes mostly looks sharp and stylish. In one particular episode in the latter half of the series, it really brings out a style of animation that stood out by itself. There are some episodes that suffers from raw visual quality with sloppier action movements but for most part, it lives up to expectations. Character facial expressions is also noticeable that showcases the persona of the cast. Jeanne, Atalanta, William the Shakespeare, and Jack the Ripper are a few examples. Character designs also stands out with noticeable traits such as Astolfo’s androgynous appearance, Frankenstein’s experimental look, Mordred’s prideful knight armor, or Semiramis’ devious dress. Jeanne herself stands out as well with her pure look as a spirit in a French girl’s body. Most of the fan service in the show comes with the violence rather than skin so do expect a lot of that.
On the technical front, this anime‘s theme songs and OST delivered what I would expect from an action/fantasy show. It balances between orchestral, eerie, harmonious, and intense. In particular, the moments between Jeanne and Sieg has OST that make them stand out more compared to other character pairs. Character voice mannerism is suitable for most of the casts' personalities although it may take a while to get used to Astolfo and Sieg. Jeanne’s voice sounds too monotonous at times and holds the show back as a main character. On the other hand, I do really find Mordred to stand out a lot in the show with her voice and personality. Frankenstein is also worth mentioning as she hardly gets any lines but portrays her personality consistently like from the original story.
Fate/Apocrypha felt like a show that had a lot of potential but had too much to work with to be able to make everything go smoothly in the end. While this may seem like an excuse at first, it still doesn’t feel right as the story and characters didn’t capitalize on them. The Holy Grail war drama has been going on for a long time since the Fate franchise begin and to be honest, this one didn’t feel any exceptional compared to its other works. It didn’t inject ideas that made the show impressive but instead tried to rely on its character cast to do the storytelling. That came out as poorly made with little value to talk about in the end. Even at 25 episodes, it still felt like a show that gave the Fate franchise a middle finger.
CodeBlazeFate
Fate/Apocrypha: A Postmortem Review Now that 2017 is drawing to a close, we can certainly say Fate/Apocrypha lived up to its name, given that this is an entirely unnecessary installment to view due to its poor quality. It is arguably the blandest, most forgettable installment in the Fate series, notable only for current memes and trends in the community, such as traps and the meme of lewding fictional characters, as well as for what it tried and failed to accomplish over the course of its run. Now before I delve into the review proper, allow me to answer some burning questions: “Can Fate/Apocrypha be watched as astandalone?”
Yes, but I wouldn't recommend doing so, as you want to know the rules of the main Holy Grail Wars first that way you know how this deviates. It doesn't explain all of those rules either nor does it explain all of the new stuff it does despite some attempts. You should at least watch the main timeline installments to avoid possible confusion with this one. So no, do not make this your first, let alone only experience with Fate/ anime.
“Should I watch Fate/Grand Order: First Order beforehand?”
No. Pretend that abomination doesn't exist. It will not give you any insight into Apocrypha’s deviations either. All the entry does is cause confusion, not explain anything it adds or amends, and advertises a mobile game that contains all of the servants in the franchise.
“I'm a guy. Is it gay if I like Astolfo as my waifu?”
Yes it is and yes you are unless you're bi. Thankfully for you, he's bi too.
Fate/Apocrypha, otherwise known by me as Fate/Steak Sauce, was animated primarily by Studio A-1 Pictures, and to be honest, I feel it may have utterly destroyed itself under its lofty ambitions in a variety of ways, resulting in a relatively dull mess full of improperly explained new mechanics, logical errors and holes, a cornucopia of characters that are as bloated as they are uninteresting to the point of even beating out last year’s juggernaut dumpster fire Re:Zero, and lastly, arguably the worst production values ever given to a major A-1 Pictures show. It simply spread itself too thin, leading to a disappointment in nearly all aspects.
Before we really delve into why this show manages to be relatively disappointing in retrospect for me (as I was conditioned by footage and reception over the course of 23 weeks prior to my viewing of this failure to correctly assume this anime would be hovering around the subpar range at all times), how about we look at the one area Fate/Steak Sauce manages to somewhat excel in, that being the music. The composer, Masaru Yokoyama, did a rather decent job with the tracks present here such as its namesake track “Fate/Apocrypha”, among a few other catchy and epic battle tracks. Some of these tracks are rather memorable, for right and wrong reasons. Simply put, these standout tracks get played way too much, particularly “Fate/Apocrypha” and “Jack the Ripper”, the latter of which plays in over ⅔ of the scenes Jack the Ripper and her master, Reina RIkudou, are in. Another issue is that sometimes the music just gets cut off, and while that may work once in a blue moon like in episodes 6 and 17 when a character saves another from a deadly surprise attack, the rest of the time it comes off as sloppy and jarring. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the first OP, where it just cuts off instead of ending and lingering for half a second like it probably should.
Speaking of OPs, while OP1, "Eiyuu Unmei no Uta" is one of the weaker songs done by EGOIST, it is nonetheless as pretty good OP that works well given the nature of this show’s “Great Holy Grail War”. OP 2, "ASH", is one of LiSA’s strongest, rivaling, probably surpassing the band’s immensely popular SAO OP 1. This one feels like the perfect 2nd OP of a Light Novel action anime adaptation, which happens to be what LiSA’s songs are primarily used on with the likes of SAO, Mahouka, and Qualidea Code, and quite frankly, this is easily the catchiest LiSA OP to date for me. ED 1, "Désir" by GARNiDELiA, is a pretty decent track by this group as well, and of all the tracks I heard from her this year, this is arguably my favorite, but it certainly isn’t among my favorites she’s done. ED 2, "KOE" by ASCA, is absolutely astounding! If nothing else, Fate/Apocrypha has easily the best ED theme in the franchise to date, because this song is phenomenal, especially the full version! It fits perfectly for this kind of show as well in its 2nd cour too and the vocals are fantastic. I cannot wait to hear more songs from this group, and with this same studio releasing Grancrest Senki soon at the time of writing, I won’t have to wait too long it seems.
Of course, you cannot properly review an anime without taking the actual visuals into account and woo boy was it...rocky. For starters, it seems like A-1 Pictures tried their own spin on the Ufotable face and artstyle and it often doesn’t work that well. The models quite frequently look off, and I can’t count the number of scenes where a character (or multiple characters) not horribly far from the foreground doesn’t have a face. There's also that time in episode 9 where Frankenstein’s arms and face became a slinky and turned an emotional scene into unintentional hilarity. The CGI is brief here though sometimes it just looks egregious too (Saber plane from episode 19, anyone?). Hell, the character designs pail massively in comparison to those of Zero and F/SN by a mile. The outfits range from meh to absolutely hideous, with some of the worst offenders being Shakespeare and especially Siegfried, who is easily the worst designed character in the franchise to me. Everything about this design feels ugly and wrong, especially the armorless glowing chest. Other bad designs include Jack the Ripper, who is a little girl (or little girl body that happens to carry the spirits of a plethora of souls of unfortunate children) with an outfit that TV tropes would define as “stripperific”.
The fights are probably the most hit and miss aspect. Sometimes the fights look absolutely abysmal with ruthlessly horrendous choreography and shots that are entirely disconnected to the point of the fights becoming beyond incoherent and incomprehensible (see Karna vs Siegfried in episode 3). Not to mention that the frame rate of the fights can be immensely choppy, such as in the main fight of episode 21. Other times, however, many of the fights would actually become tolerable, if not downright wonderful to look at sometimes, such as anytime Karna busts out his fire moves starting from his fight with Vlad the Impaler in episode 8 and pretty much the entirety of episode 22 (yes, the art is less detailed but the animation is bombastic and dynamic, with absolutely wonderful looking flashy art and animation for the imaginative and stellar attacks and newly constructed environments). The actual choreography of nearly all melee is truly terrible, with some of the worst fights this studio has produced, but then we get those exemplary aforementioned examples on occasion and the fact that a lot of the time the flashy visuals are done effectively, and it all sorta averages out even, all things considered.
There are two interesting plotlines in this series, both of which directly involve the main characters, Sieg, Jeanne (and technically Leticia), Astolfo, Shishigo, and Mordred. Those are his journey of learning what it’s like to live and have freedom, and what it really means to be good and find salvation. Over the course of the series, this homunculus, with little knowledge of the world, asks these questions and becomes part of an overarching dialogue with these characters who ask the same and end up coming to their own conclusions of at least one of the two answers, with heartwarming and heartbreaking circumstances and great, terrible, and far more morally ambiguous people fueling or at least playing some influence on said answers, especially for Sieg. He tries to help other homunculi gain freedom just like a select few did for him, and by the end of the series, he comes to his own conclusions just in time to help someone he cares about regain resolve. This, in essence, is one of the two main, interweaving plots of Fate/Apocrypha. To be nice for a moment, Apocrypha does this admittedly well to a degree, and there are a few reasons for this. For one, Sieg starts off weak and with physically no developed personality, as some characters are quick to point out. While he does grow into a more archetypal character akin to what Shirou Emiya from Fate ends up reconstructing in UBW, it is still appreciated development, even if he grows little afterwards, only developing a sense of hate most of his contemporaries (with exception to, oddly enough, Kirito from Sword Art Online), never come close to exhibiting. Another reason this all works is that despite many of the characters not being that well written, more than ⅓ of this sizeable cast plays a major role in his journey through these questions and his final decision towards the end of the series. This means, at least structurally, this all works fine and dandy to some extent, as there are many defining moments in the series for Sieg that influence him in a positive or negative way. There is one problem with the structure to be brought up later but even still, this all sounds pretty good, right?
Oh, if only...
If that were the case, this series would’ve actually been rather poignant and compelling. For one, as mentioned earlier, not that many of the characters are actually well-written, as they don’t have good chemistry with Sieg in the first place, and they’re not interesting in their own right anyway. Given the immense size of this show’s character ensemble, with a grand total of over 30 characters in a 25 episode series with only 23 minutes per episode, inevitably only few would stand out as worthwhile characters. That is, of course, assuming that any character in such a cast was to do so at all, which is unfortunately not really the case here. Sure, thanks to a few spoiler-based reasons, we only actually need to follow around 24 of them. But that’s still too many for such a series to handle. A lot of them are immensely forgettable in their own right, with a few such as Celenike and Atlanta becoming increasingly, crushingly terrible as the story went on. The main 5 mentioned earlier are the closest we get to well-written characters. This, along with the lack of time to really sell the drama related to some of the more minor characters, makes the deaths of some less emotionally impactful than the people behind this show wanted them to be, especially in the second half of the show, where the majority of the characters are killed. There are a few decent character dynamics such as Jack and Reina, Shishigo and Mordred, and Shakespeare and Semiramis, but not enough are explored well enough for me to truly feel for when some of these characters start dying. This also means that characters whose confrontations with Sieg are key to his development are far less effective given their lack of focus or proper characterization in a dismal, bloated roster that gets shredded off over the course of the war. It effectively means that the main plotline of Sieg's story, and the war at hand, are not blended well together. Speaking of Sieg, he somehow comes out as the best character of the show, having to develop into a more archetypal character, which is immensely bizarre and interesting, even if, once again, he doesn’t become that exemplary of a character. There is some nice banter between some of these characters but banter doesn’t automatically make ok at best characters suddenly good and compelling, despite the ambition and drama displayed with many, especially with the main antagonist. I’ll leave it at that though before I go too far. We still have one major subcategory of reasons the writing failed, that of course, being the narrative.
To avoid spoilers, let’s just say there are asspulls galore and many things that just appear out of nowhere only for them to appear from a portal the next time in an attempt to make up for not explaining anything beforehand and causing confusion. One of two nasty exceptions is what a certain female character acquires out of nowhere in episode 21, as there is no explanation as to how or where she got it. This instance actually gets somewhat repeated in episode 23 with a serum a certain important duo used to win a major fight. Everything related to Noble Phantasms is wrong, from the fact that they don’t establish the amount one can have here, or the fact that there are legally many one can weird for some reason (they simply show it and only later do they explain after all the confusion caused). A certain character gets struck by the effects of a servant’s Noble Phantasm in episode 10 that was effectively an electric suicide bomb, and then manages to use all of the noble phantasms the servant who accidentally zapped him with hers had, in episode 24. I understand that the holy grail war this time is different and that there are new rules created specifically for this spin-off entry, and they do a reasonable enough job explaining most of these. However, with instances like the above, they still managed to drop the ball. Sometimes the story claims that a character used more command seals than he or she actually did (or at the least, they don’t show all of them being used). Sometimes it seems like characters just teleport from one location at the end of an episode to another that was far away at the beginning of the next, in an instant (not including the times servants actually do). Other times, time seems to have passed by tremendously with nothing having happened during the fights whatsoever (especially in episode 3). I could keep going on, piling all the small details that really tear up the narrative from the inside, as the first half alone gave me 2 whole pages of errors and holes to list, but I think I’ll stop here.
Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed with this entry, not out of the fact that it didn’t meet initial expectations, as it kind of did, but because I saw the potential it ended up having, and found that in an effort to do so much, it failed to make the best out of much of anything. I didn’t even go over the fact that Sieg has a myriad of roles to play in such a short time, including being at the center of a love triangle with Astolfo and Jeanne. I could still list a ton of errors made in both halves, and try to more manually show how this series could’ve been better other than maybe suggesting an increase in length which would obliterate this series’ relatively decent pacing. I didn’t talk about how surprisingly absent Leticia is, or even try to delve into this giant and subpar cast. I did expect this series to crumble underneath its own weight, and for what it's worth, it did surprise me at times, and leave me with some enjoyment, intentionally or otherwise. I didn't expect a show's emotional core and its backdrop to be at odds with one another and come up short as a result.
So, with all my negative views on it, and the fact that I advised against viewing it, I still didn’t try to spoil Fate/Apocrypha. For those of you who know how I operate, particularly with bad shows, this must be at least a little baffling. Well, it’s because for all intents and purposes, I really can’t stop anyone from watching it, especially given that it did some interesting things. Though, you shouldn’t expect this to become very common. That said, Fate/Apocrypha is ultimately a sadly dismal entry, both in terms of its contemporaries, and in terms of an anime in its own right. It tried so hard and got so far, but as the lyrics go, in the end, it doesn’t even matter. The fights range from great to terrible, and the narrative, for all it tries to tell and do, manages to be riddled with holes, structural issues, and an inability to properly combine its main storyline with its backdrop. Barring its noble intentions and occasionally impressive fights, the only real saving grace for this anime is the music, which tends to get overplayed in this anime, unfortunately. It merely ended up like a Lancer in any other Fate/entry, out of luck and doomed to fail. So, goodbye Fate/Apocrypha, at least you tried your best, and sparked a new life with some current anime trends, for better or worse…
BrotherCoa
Fate/Apocrypha - a completely new Fate experience. Before I write down this review I will note few things: -This will be a spoiler free review. -I am reviewing it from a neutral standpoint and I have watched all Fate anime so far and I have extensive knowledge of the lore. -This anime has nothing to do with Fate/Stay Night so you can watch it even if you did not watch the original work. The work does good explanation of how the basics of Fate universe works. -I should also note that majority of negativity this show gets is because of fans of the franchise who expectedanother Fate/Stay Night story, which Apocrypha clearly is not. It has different theme, different characters and different setup. So I would suggest that you venture into this not expecting another FSN to get maximum experience, otherwise you will be as disappointing as many Fate fans were who were expecting something else and missed the point of the show.
With that out of the way let the review begin:
Intro:
Fate/Apocrypha exists as a parallel universe to Fate/Stay Night, the Holy Grail War is not only in different location ( Romania instead of Japan ) but the war itself is bigger than ever. To compensate for the increase danger of something that may go wrong Servant Ruler was summoned to oversee the War. But nothing is at meets the eye as there are others who have different idea of how war should go. And thus our story begins... full of twists and epic battles.
Story 8:
Now I have read LN ( at least the parts that are translated ) and I can say that A-1 remained some 80% true to the novels. In some areas the change were good, in others... not so much. Characters suffered the most from this as many things that are associated to their background and character growth were removed. Surprisingly, the one character that suffered the most from this is main female lead - Ruler. Even if her introduction scene with main male lead in anime was made better the part they cut to make it possible is one of the most memorable from LN. I would suggest that you check the manga that remained much truer to the LN and didn't skip any character development parts like LN did. That is to say, story is really the weakest part of anime, but then again only to those who never read LN and do not know all the background stuff happening around the characters.
Still I am not going to rate this very low as the removed parts did not affect that story that much. Ufotable is also guilty of this in Zero and UBW anime and I consider those very well done as far as adaptation of the main story goes. In Apocrypha the story is decent and interesting to watch. The plot twists are very few but done great, and the battles are just magnificent to watch.
p.s. - to showcase the difference between stories I will write down main themes of them. It will not contain spoilers but it will give you some idea what to expect:
Fate/Stay Night - Morality and how our choices affect everything around us.
Apocrypha - Religion ( Apocrypha is filled with it, from debates to outright symbolism ) and are thing that we made for simple usage just that or can they also be much more than that?
Art 9:
Despite having low res here and there animation was quite decent and it get the job done. Special note on episode 22 that got praised by anime veterans ( among them Nasu himself, the creator of Fate ) because it was entirely hand drawn episode. Some moments are literally breathtaking as far as animation goes and the rest is decent. I should also note that this is all to TV station lowering the quality of episodes in order to air them. A-1 staff argued about this and when watch BD episodes I tend to agree with them. In that regard anime suffered as many expected better animation due to this being Fate work after all. All in all animation is good and it get's the job done.
Sound 9:
I really have nothing to add here. All Fate anime have great soundtracks ( 2006 FSN being the one with the best ) and VA really gave it their best here when voicing the characters. The sound was consistent during the entire show and some of the scenes where characters are chanting their special attack and giving important speeches are quite memorable. So as far as sound goes it is also well done.
Characters 10:
90% of reason to watch this show, I am not kidding. Tn Fate the story, battle and moral messages are important bits but one thing that really push Fate forward ( and makes it as popular as it is ) are the characters. And Apocrypha has a lot of good and memorable ones with great character development and interesting backstories. You cannot help but liking most of them, even the bad guys. The only drawback here is that they have cut a lot of Ruler's backstory and some story elements ( which to me are very important for her full character development to be fleshed out ), some never get their full potential explored ( like Berserker of Red ) and others were outright pushed back for the sake of others being more highlighted.
I should also address the biggest problem with this show here that many had - Main male character. He has very specific original story different from any other Fate MC. As such he is much weaker compared to others who already ahd established deep personality and character traits. Problem with him are also fans of Fate as they expected him to be as deep as the others, which for him was impossible mission. Other than that he is somewhat Mary Sue-ish in the anime, but not to the level where he will break any and all enjoyment from it. So enter Apocrypha accepting MC as he is and you will enjoy it all the more.
Enjoyment 10:
Apocrypha is really enjoyable Fate anime. The battles are fantastic and biggest in scale in all of Fate with Grand Order being the only exception to the rule, the characters are fun to watch and get attached to, the twists are done great, the calm moments between engagements are nice watch and the ending brings out so much feels... Fate/Stay Night 2006 last episode level of feels - especially the last 3 episodes. It is quite enjoyable and worthy addition to Fate franchise. Few negatives it has are so overshadowed by positives that are barely noticeable, and then again most of them are only if you read LN before watching it. So if you watch this and expect enjoying anime you will not be disappointed.
Overall 9:
Fate/Apocrypha is unique story in Fate franchise. It deals with different themes, has the biggest Grail War in series beside FGO, has a ton of enjoying characters - both Servants and Masters and when something sad happens to characters you cannot help but feel sorry for them. If you are fan of the franchise you should give this a go - especially if you are fan of Ruler and Saber of Red because I doubt we will see them any time soon ( if FGO get's anime that is, which I doubt will happen so soon ). If you are new to Fate - you can also watch this without fear of ruining yourself FSN experience ( unlike watching Zero before FSN 2006 and UBW anime series ) since the anime itself has very little connections to it.
I highly recommend it, as both anime watcher and fan of the franchise.
Sveniboy
The show is not that bad... but not that good either. The biggest problem with this show is that the characters are only "semi-likeable"; they're not bad but not nearly as likeable as the characters in Fate/Stay Night. Sieg is a very bland protagonist, so if you didn't like Shirou in F/SN, you'll like him even less. There are just too many characters, too, with not enough time for develop them all. For what its worth, the master/servant pairing of Kairi and Mordred clicked instantly, as they both have amazing chemistry together. As far as the plot goes, it's nothing to write home about. It's about theholy grail war and stuff just sort of happens. Things pick up near the end, as more characters are eliminated from the war and more focus put on the remaining ones. The ending is well-made by the standards of this show, so if you find itself invested you won't be disappointed.
The main thing that this anime has going for it is that it is Fate. There's magic in a modern setting, waifus, historical figures and historical figures as waifus. If you like the Fate universe then Fate/Apocrypha is at least worth checking out.
Piezuri
Think of the worst anime you've ever seen. Is it Mars of Destruction? Pupa? Maybe it's something more obscure, maybe it's some bland magic academy show, maybe it's something very popular that you just you don't like at all. Now be grateful, because if the show you just thought off isn't Fate/Apocrypha, it means that you haven't yet watched this abomination to the Fate franchise. Fate/Apocrypha is A-1's attempt at milking the cash cow that is Fate, written by the dude who wrote the script for the horrid Danganronpa 3 Mirai-hen anime cash in, and it is easily the worst anime I have ever seen.No, seriously, I am in no way exaggerating, out of all the awful shows I've seen, no show can even be compared to how bad Fate/Apocrypha is. I gave Fate/Apocrypha the honor of me finishing it, mainly because of how I wanted to see how bad it could possibly get. Now please, let me explain why you should stay the furthest away from Fate/Apocrypha as possible.
Now surely if you're familiar with the Fate universe, or any other Nasuverse show or Visual Novel, you know the various themes Kinoko Nasu or any other of the writers who wrote anything for Fate like to put forward. Fate/Zero focuses more on the ambitions and ideologies of the various servants summoned, while also presenting one of the best dilemmas in anime for it's ending which focuses on the idea of "justice", something that Urobutchi tends to like to base his stories on. Fate/Stay Night serves as an introduction to the Fate universe, and arguably does it even better than Fate/Zero. Unlimited Blade Works presents the idea of "Original vs Fake", and this same idea is developed a lot of more in Fate/strange Fake. Even Fate/kaleid, the fanservice-y loli show eventually puts forward exhilarating battles and does justice to the Nasuverse magic more than any other Fate show. Fate/Apocrypha on the other hand, is empty. The only thing Fate/Apocrypha tried to pull off is some half-assed "justice" conflict, which you have already seen a million times if you're somewhat into anime. And even then, this "justice" conflict is basically "All humans are evil!!!", "Nooo!!! Good humans exist too!!!". I'm not even making a strawman out of what is said in the actual show, "So, please don't say that goodness doesn't exist in this world!" is a real thing that a character in the show said, that is meant to be taken seriously. Either this is intended to be some massive joke, either this show is targeted towards 12 year old kids.
Boy is this far from all the problems with the plot in Fate/Apocrypha. While all the other renditions of Fate all have 7 servants which are developed during the course of the show, Fate/Apocrypha has 14. 14 SERVANTS!!! This means that Fate/Apocrypha effectively has 28+ characters it has to develop in the span of 25 episodes. As you understand, this is impossible to do, so obviously most servants are left out, and a lot of masters are sidelined. ...Sidelined. The most interesting aspect of Fate is sidelined and becomes mundane. The show mainly focuses on a few select servants and masters which leaves you wondering "Why do I have to watch all these secondary characters interact? They don't matter in the long run". This thought is completely correct. Most of the characters are useless in the long run. The show would have honestly been better if the cast would be the classic 7, heck 5 servant-master combos.
Heck, the plot in Fate/Apocrypha is basically sidelined. It's all just an excuse to have poor action play out. It can be resumed to "big shiny thing, me want. Reason me want? Me don't know".
Although, the plot isn't really a strong aspect in any Fate anime (and it truly brings me pain to say this because I know that I'm wrong), what about the "strong" aspect of Fate, the characters? Well, the characters in Fate/Apocrypha are a shit show of their own.
Not a single character is interesting. Not a single character brings anything interesting to the show. Not a single character serves any other purpose than just bad fanservice. I realised this fact by episode 3, and eventually started watching this show just for Mordred. Well, to my disappointment, Mordred ended up in the exact same situation as the rest of the cast. Her backstory was rushed, which of course it would be since there's barely any time for any of the characters, and her ambition and desire to get the grail ended up being a poor excuse to fight some people.
Then there is Sieg, the walking definition of "Deus Ex Machina". Sieg is the puny homunculus you see in the beginning of the anime which *spoilers* ends up playing a major role in the show (He's literally on the cover of the show). The amount of plot armour Sieg has rivals the plot armour of Emiya Shirou. For no reason at all, every other member of the cast either has a mad crush on Sieg, either cares way too much about him. Even Jeanne D'Arc, the supposed "judge" who should remain neutral until the very end of the war develops a crush on Sieg. Why? Because it's Sieg. Without getting into spoilers (in case you want to watch this shitty show), the amount of times Sieg escaped death is insane. By "escaped death" I don't mean "came really close to dying", I mean "should have been dead".
Fate/Apocrypha also ruins some of my favourite historical figures. In Fate/strange Fake, Jack the Ripper is presented as a mysterious incorporeal Berserker, a spirit of madness, which makes a lot of sense since Jack the Ripper literally had origin stories that claimed that the man who committed the crimes was possessed by a cursed watch. In Fate/Apocrypha, Jack the Ripper is a loli in a thong with mommy problems, and no, I'm not making this up, that's literally what she is. In one of the episodes Jeanne D'Arc takes out her sword, which is supposed to be a symbolic piece of rusted metal that she used to boost her troops morale. In Fate/Apocrypha, the said sword is a suicide magic wand that casts fireballs.
As a side note, there is also a particular character which I despise that goes by the name of Astolfo. Astolfo is easily the worst thing to ever come out of Fate. Astolfo is a trap, a character type that recently became popular in anime. Astolfo, just by existing in the show, lowers the seriousness of the show by a lot, further implying that Fate/Apocrypha is just a poor fanservice show.
What about the """miscellaneous""" parts of Fate/Apocrypha? As in, the Sound and the Art? Well, they're both terrible.
Both of the openings of Fate/Apocrypha are boring and uninspired. The first opening is a terrible performance by EGOIST in which the vocalist sounds like a siren. The second opening is the most generic LiSA song ever. The endings are also boring, but hey, I wasn't expecting the endings to be remarkable.
The worst part is the sound design. On multiple occasions the loud bass used for literally every single sound hurt my ears. Bullet being shot out? Loud bass. Fire burning? Loud bass. Swords clashing? Loud bass with 2016 Berserk clanking. Oddly enough, the person responsible for the sound design, Iwanami Yoshikazu, has done a good job in his previous works. It's as if he just gave up and used the same sound for every single thing in Fate/Apocrypha. The sound design being terrible heavily ruins the immersion.
Fate/Apocrypha has one OST along with a few remixes of that OST. It's loud, it's bombastic, it's annoying, it doesn't fit, and it made me want to stop watching the episodes every time it played.
As an insult to injury, my favourite voice actor of all time, Hayami Saori, does a terrible job voicing Atalanta.
Finally, the art and animation. The art style is bland. It looks like a cheap knock off of ufotable's artstyle. But the art style isn't the worst part of the visual aspect of the show.
The animation, IS AWFUL. I have no idea how a studio can fuck up this badly. Most of the time, nothing is shaded. There are loose keyframes every few seconds. The show abuses still frames, and on one occasion I had I to sit through a poorly drawn still frame that played for at least 10 seconds. The main purpose of this show being clearly to deliver fanservice to the fans of Fate is completely ruined by the god awful actions scenes that completely lack direction. The animators were probably told to just draw something that "looks nice".
Episode 22, the """good looking episode""" looks awful. If you believe it looks good, you are wrong. Episode 22 was mainly webgened, which would be a nice effort from A-1, if the final product looked remotely good. The problem with this episode is, yet again, lack of visual direction. Taken separately, the various clips may look good, but put together they become a mess of conflicting art styles and ideas. One second you have a well drawn still frame of a character, and on the following second you can have some "sakuga" explosion which ends up being completely out of place. The animation suffocates the viewer. There is a clear lack of visual clarity. A-1 focused on "flashy" scenes rather than well orchestrated fights. Compare Fate/Apocrypha to any other Fate show by ufotable. The difference is striking.
Obviously, I did not enjoy watching this show. It's a train wreck. A train wreck that I finished watching purely because I wanted to see how bad Fate/Apocrypha can get. There isn't a single redeeming quality in Fate/Apocrypha.
Please don't watch this show.
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TL;DR:
Pros:
-nothing
Cons:
-Complete lack of a story
-Pointless characters
-Empty of any thought provoking themes
-Uncharismatic characters
-Sieg and Deus Ex Machina
-Astolfo
-Ruined historical figures
-Bland openings and endings
-Ear-hurting sound design
-Boring art style
-Awful animation
Final score: 0/10
thesmore
This is a spoiler free review on an anime that both deserves and does not deserve a lot of hate. I know my score is relatively high, but I urge you to keep in mind that this review is written by someone who has watched all 25 episodes and has acknowledged both the strengths and flaws of the anime. Story Alright let's get this out of the way. This show is not like Fate/Zero or Unlimited Blade Works or really any other Fate plot in the franchise, but I don't understand why these anime are used to compare against Apocrypha. The plot in Apocrypha is verydifferent and plays with the rules of the Holy Grail War instead of having the standard 7 master-servant pair. We instead have 14 pairs split into two factions with a ruler class servant in the mix. An argument can be said that bigger isn't always better, and I agree with that statement. If the premise alone was to have this standard war, I would be bored to hell. Yet Apocrypha catches me off guard as it tells a more unique story than I've initially imagined. The first episode reminds the viewer that it's a battle between individuals, and right from the start we are in Sieg's perspective. Sieg is a mostly neutral character in the war that knows very little about the servants and masters, likewise we do not know much about the characters because we have been following Sieg's perspective the whole time. What makes the story from interesting to outstanding is the fact that Sieg's admiration for the heroic spirit starts to build and it makes him very different from the other Fate characters that aim to manipulate their friends, servants, and masters; Sieg is true to his values. Fate has changed their narrative from one about a hopeful hero in a reality to a dreamful hero in a fantasy. (10)
Art:
I do not care about the studio that worked on this, but I will have to say that the art was mostly great. Toward the end of the show, however, you will find a drop in quality for good reason. If you actually read the story section (hopefully), then you should know that Sieg becomes more human and therefore more biased about the side he fights for. The art drops only for characters Sieg sees as an enemy to his goal. This clever use of art to portraying character gives this section a 6, because even though I credit the director for making that choice, I would have to argue that the use of a different animator would be more acceptable. Besides from that, the character designs are precise and describe the characters fully. None of these designs are too complex though, but the choice of more simple designs allows the viewer to absorb this Great Holy Grail War more easily. (7)
Sound:
I liked the soundtrack. I honestly did, but when the soundtrack changes only after 23 or so episodes, the anime gets a little repetitive. This soundtrack would give this section a 2 or 3, but the music at the last fights bumped the score up. The last fight, for example, emphasized crescendos and Sieg's powerful emotions. Before, Sieg was a very passive character and this would support the reason why the soundtrack hasn't really changed before the last episodes. (6)
Character:
I think I talked a lot about Sieg before, so instead I will give a basic overview of the cast. I will start with the red side because it is easiest. So the red side has less development than the black side overall, but it still manages to portray its themes in relative ease. Some themes to consider while watching the anime are the use of desire. You will see that with most of the red faction since some of its members want their dreams to be fulfilled without consideration for the rest of the team while the rest are trying to preserve the good of the entire faction. On the other hand, the black faction is much more organized and has more development than the red. The black faction will change the most over the course of the anime and you will generally find the theme of individualism. In other words, the black faction's members mostly respect each other and allows the masters and servants to work toward their own goals without damaging themselves like the red counterpart. Considering all this, the character score is at a 5. Nothing very impressive here. What makes this score better are Ruler and Sieg's character arcs that depict a journey of struggles against their destinies. A common troupe for a fantastic franchise. (8)
Enjoyment:
I did not think Apocrypha was great, but I also thought it was better than average. There were many times when I was excited about each fight because each one showed a conflict between the characters and sets aside the faction part entirely. I never particularly thought any of the fights were dull, but they were mostly all noise. Yet again, considering Sieg's state in the fights, I would not be surprised to hear mostly noise. (7)
Overall:
I actually give apocrypha a high 7 and I don't think it should be any lower than a 6. I am shocked about the negative reviews, especially when the review says the anime "lacks creativity" and Sieg has too much "plot armor". I will quickly debunk these reasons so that you enter the story with a less negative outlook. I would like to remind you that the anime is very creative with its presentation in every scene shows a side of a character since mostly everything, including the setting, acts as a noble phantasm for a servant. Also, to say Sieg has too much plot armor is not true in many ways. For example, Shiro from the Fate/Stay Night series went from school kid to servant slayer in a few days. Sieg, a being with perfect circuits, obviously has a better chance than some school kid. So just take the negative reviews with a grain of salt and treat the anime as a separate work. Treat it as a story about a hero trying to realize his dream and taking it with his two hands.
SunlitSonata
If you’ve been an anime fan over the past several years, it’s very likely you’re aware of the Fate franchise. The Type Moon Visual Novel first appeared to the anime world with the infamously mocked “people die when they are killed” 2006 adaptation of stay/night, but people REALLY got hooked with the adaptation of Gen Urobuchi’s Fate/Zero, a harrowing mature, and dramatic clash of ideals positioned as a battle Royale. From there, more and more iterations of the Fate mythos kept coming, with there being an Unlimited Blade Works TV anime, a mobile game adaptation in Fate/Grand Order, a Studio SHAFT Fate production due toair next year, and....in Summer 2017.........this.
THIS Fate, based on an alternate universe light novel by Yuuichirou Higashide and animated by A1 Pictures, tries to do everything Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night did and more. More action scenes. More characters talking about whatever’s relevant. More game players, with double the amount of before. More over the top ridiculous antagonists! More genderbends and even a trap now! This alternate continuity wants to do everything bigger, broader and more off the wall! And thankfully, you don’t have to watch any other Fate series to get into it! While I somewhat respect that it seems like it wants to give the show wider appeal, in the process we get a hollow shell of a show, one that owes too highly to its fore-bearers while accomplishing far less, in spite of its shakeups.
Taking place in an alternate universe from the mainstay Fate everyone’s all familiar with, the Holy Grail was stolen prior to the events of Fate/Zero, and now we have a new timeline, double the servants and masters, and a different twist on the setup.
Now although this is different, not all these differences really work. For instance, since the plot now has double the amount of characters, plus supports, as before, it will inevitably struggle trying to make them all interesting AND deliver a cohesive story that makes the most out of the Fate setup. Alas, we get small potatoes, barely any accomplishments, and an overall meandering story pace. Why the story doesn’t work is quite simple: very little happens ground in character. The first half feels like it was literally built only to do positioning for the second, nothing else, and even the second half takes a detour at one point mainly to drag things out. When not setting up the poorly presented main character and equally poorly presented main villain, the entire first half feels like battle after battle after battle. The continual shift from person to person almost ensures that no one really has much to them, character depth takes quite the backseat to all the fighting. With exception to Achilles and Chiron, who have a dichotomy as two Servants on opposite sides that knew each other in life, is sorely lacking. In Fate/Zero, that was one of the earliest parts established, why the characters are fighting, what ideals will be confronted by the characters, and why we should care.
Here, a good 80% of the characters can be boiled down to “fight for the party” which is incredibly lame and boring to think about. Characters that seem like they would have interesting stories basically have them info dumped almost in whole. The show’s not completely faulted in this regard, it does a fairly good job exploring Joan of Arc, but if you wanted the protagonist to be anything more than a generic block of wood who makes Shirou Emiya look like Kiritsugu, too bad.
There’s a constant stream of idiocy among this cast. Perhaps the most notable example is the fat uncle character on the way he failed to understand command seals to such an epic level at one point. A few more of these happen. At one point, a character is presented an illusion that we, the audience, know is fake, and the character is told that repeatedly, but it still drives them to insanity that again, is poorly conveyed by backstory. I ended up feeling more contempt for said character than feeling sorry.
But this wants to be a bigger Fate, so it increases the count of two of the things the series is known for: Noble Phantasms and Genderfying characters. The other Fate series gave one Noble Phantasm to each Servant for good reason: it was meant as a trump card if all else failed and accentuated strengths and limits. Here, some Servants can have four, or even five of them, which not only devalues their worth individually, but makes it feel like they’re pulling these skills out of their asses. Rider in particular forgets one, and then just does it perfectly remembering the name, and even used someone’s else Noble Phantasm all his own which makes no sense at all. But since this Fate wants more of everything except what actually matters, there’s a staggering increase in genderfying characters, even quite infamously a trap character. The other Fates solely had Arturia be a gender swap, and the show did well to tie that aspect to her character arc, but here, they make Jack the Ripper, Frankenstein, Mordred all girls, and have Astolfo as a trap. Why? No reason, just pandering nonsense it feels. Exception to Mordred, who has the slight benefit of Arturia, it becomes a lot harder to take these characters seriously when they feel so “animed” into the story.
Things feel flat out ridiculous at times. One character, who can't walk, basically uses Dr. Octopus style mechanical tentacles to make their way around whenever they get knocked down in pretty funny display. For some reason, the show decides to include not just one, but TWO yelling screaming edgelord characters in the Black Party. The sheer amount of it, combined with the lack of any real intrigue to how they went around things made them more laughable than anything else. What also doesn’t help is facial expressions from other characters. At one point, a character uses magic to reenact a dead person’s last moments and in doing so, his facial expressions and voice acting come off as more hilarious than scarring. When a character later becomes resurrected, his face resembles a nutcracker Guard!Sometimes this even comes from the dialogue, which while under par in most cases, gives us gems like “Do you think we can save all children?” It doesn’t always happen like this but it’s notable whenever it does.
As for that conclusion, don’t expect the ending to feel satisfying or sensical. Just don’t.
What we have here as an exercise in excess, putting on the image that “everything you love and more” isn’t always a full proof plan. To quote Astolfo “This might be a trainwreck, but we’re in it together”. And the boring and lackluster writing is helped even less by the passé visual style.
Let’s get the good out of the way: Episode 22 looks incredible. A1 Pictures brought on the key animator who worked on the Saitama/Boros fight for that episode and the quality really shows in how smooth everything feels, the explosion quality and overall impact. That episode alone is worth seeing just for the animation. And there’s a few other moments of great animation sprinkled in there in the final portion of the show. Also, a few of the character designs can be.... good. Such as Archer of Red, Achilles, Shakespeare, and Assassin of Red. Overall design keeps consistency with the Fate series we knew before, given the existence of the designs prior to draw from. That’s it for the positives.
While some characters have good designs, the majority are either bland (Protagonist-kun, Mordred, all the Black masters), a mess (Caster of Black, Lancer of Red), or both (Saber of Black). Others, like Astolfo, Frankenstein and Jack the Ripper look flat out jarring given the gender modifications. Overall it’s more miss than hit, but what about the action scenes they’re thrown into? There are two solid action scenes, one a Fist Fight, and one in episode 22, but otherwise, if you like frame skipping, incomprehensible choreography, and a general sense of empty spectacle, Fate/Apocrypha is there for you! It wants to impress on that front, yet somehow fails to excite. Lacking ufotable’s stronger effects, having overly simplistic framing and THAT FREAKING SMOKE. So many action scenes rely on that smoke, and it basically feels like their way to “smoke and mirrors” around the lacking fight scenes, a sad state indeed.
As for the soundtrack, the songs used in the show, while generally fine and fit the scenes, are hardly memorable specifically, and if they are, it tends to be overplayed, like the self-titled Fate/Apocrypha. It gets the job done. The sound design is a bit less. Almost every time there’s an “epic” sword clash, a BWOOM sound that roughly sounds like a boom box letting it rip plays. It’s a weird overly loud constant purveying in almost every action scene. Similarly, Joan of Arc’s flag pole slams tends to sound suspiciously like a frying pan, which I’m sure will give Berserk fans PTSD. Everything else in the show checks out well enough. Not bad necessarily, but not great either. Outside of the story, OP 1 by EGOIST is fantastic, grand scale, resounding and really nails the intended majesty of the figures fighting. OP 2, by LiSA, is comparatively, much more standard, pretty much compliant with these Light Novel type shows what with similar songs in SAO/Mahouka and, less memorable because of it, but hey, the sound could be way worse right? Like the characters.
Fate/Apocrypha’s cast is a prime example of while quantity over quality is a bad thing. With so many characters to work with, it’s inevitable that certain people will be left in the dust, and they are. But let’s start with who we eventually see as the main protagonist (don’t worry, not a spoiler, he’s on the cover art). As named by a friend of mine, “Cancer”, but considering his name is a spoiler, I’ll just call him Protagonist-kun. In some ways, I can see what they tried to do here, basically create a newly formed protagonist forming his own ideology by the events around him, but in execution, he mostly comes off as a boring, undriven protagonist for a VERY large portion of the show. He gets better near the very end when he makes some of his last decisions, but even still, mainly just fits into the LN guy mold, complete with spontaneous power pickup down the line. Even Shirou, from the original Fate/stay night, while pigheaded in his ideals, at least was more steadfast about them and they were more consistently challenged.
Joan of Arc probably gets the best out of what’s happening on screen. As the 2nd most important character, there’s enough background provided to shape her past, current feelings and powers throughout the series, however exact specifications may be. Protagonist-kun is basically a siphon for whenever she talks to him, and someone might call silly on her growing attraction to him, it’s far from the most implausible thing in the show.
Others suffer a bit more. Most every other Servant is either similarly bland, defined by a single element (ex Lancer of Red wanting to fight Siegfried, Assassin of Red protecting the villain, Mordred being incredibly cocky), or incredibly annoying instead of endearing (Trap Rider). The masters get this worse. Both the two Black siblings and Mordred’s master, the show seems believe that telling us their backstories is enough to really characterize them, which aside from being so late in the game, doesn’t get the dedication there to hook the audience to their plots. One particular pair only gets focus very late in the game, but in such a way that dealing with it basically felt like a filler plot. And as I mentioned before, Two more of the Black masters basically appear as edgy lunatic masochists and nothing more. Aside from “win for the party” motivations feel almost non-existent for most of the Masters. The cast gives off a very hollow feeling.
The supporting cast isn’t entirely bad though. A handful of character interactions actually work pretty well for the story. Achilles and Chiron, for instance, get some pretty nice interactions and a satisfying catharsis, while Shakespeare is just flat out fun to watch, like Romeo x Juliet’s if he went more over the top. He’s a total ham, probably the closest to Rider in Fate/Zero in that regard, and dang it he’s fun to watch.
Sadly, all of this falls apart with the antagonist. While I won’t spoil much about his character, I will say that he was the character that interested me the most because what he accomplished in the early half of the series seemed really interesting. However, overtime, his motivations became just as silly as the PROTAGONIST of the previous Fate series, his backstory is an absolute mess, told in the most incomprehensibly dumb way possible, especially for Fate newcomers, and his powers are boring, unnecessarily OP, and having basically no consistent rules. At one point, a door that is very specifically closed off, and a Command Seal can’t be used because of his power. However, at some point following struggle, inexplicably, the Master uses the Command Seal anyway and gets in the blocked door. What is consistency in this series. Even his catharsis sucks, for all his buildup, it’s over amazingly quick in more poor action framing. He, much in representing the show itself, came off as a massively full of himself disappointment.
When I look back on Fate/Apocrypha, my feelings on it are quite simply “what happened here exactly?” It tried to bring everything up to the nth degree, but in the process, became dull, laughable and unsatisfying. Honestly, it’s annoying that the first outright dislikeable Fate came from A1, and that it looks worse than a show that came out 6 years ago! Despite an initial hook and promise from trailers, and a couple solid character interactions, everything else turned into a poorly thought out gray blob. Not awful, but it failed as an action series, failed as Fate title, failed as a character piece and failed to be a good series. If you’re a newcomer to Fate, you may vaguely enjoy this, but I’d highly recommend watching either Fate/Zero or even the 2006 anime first. There's more of a soul there.
Drakestalker
Your enjoyment of this anime will be contingent entirely on your investment in the Fate franchise as a whole. When I say Fate as a whole, I mean that very deliberately, because if the only Fate property you enjoy is Fate/Zero, suffice it to say you will not enjoy Apocrypha. I suppose it will also depend on your enjoyment of action anime as such, but since you’re here, reading this, I’m kind of taking that for granted. When and how should you watch this? Whenever and however you want. Where does this fit in the larger Fate continuity? It doesn’t. Fate/Apocrypha is a completely separate timeline.It is its own thing. This can be the very first Fate show you watch or the very last. It makes no difference.
Fun fact, apocrypha is a religious term that is the antonym of canon. So, something like the names of Jesus’ apostles would be canonical content, whereas the names of the various archdemons of Hell would be apocryphal. It’s essentially the original religious word for what we call filler.
The premise here, like in any other Fate show, is a battle royale between 7 magical Servants representing historical or mythological characters in order to win the ultimate prize, the Holy Grail, a magical device that will grant the winner any wish. The Servants each fit one of the 7 classes, Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Caster, Berserker, and Assassin. However, also like in any other Fate show, that basic premise gets instantly violated and turned on its head. This is a trope consistently present as a manner of through line in every Fate show, which is the notion that the basic premise is fairly straightforward and simple to understand, but simultaneously there is not a single Fate show that actually holds to the outline drawn by the premise.
As much as we like to think of the Holy Grail War as a battle royale between 7 heroes of one kind or other, it is vexing to think about the fact that there isn’t even one solitary Fate incarnation that actually is that. Every one, without exception, has to subvert it somehow and inject all manner of contrived shenanigans into the mix. Before long, all rules established at the outset are invariably thrown out the window and the whole thing degenerates into a trainwreck. Hilariously enough (though you may just consider it lazy writing, depending on your point of view, and you would be completely justified in thinking so), one character explicitly voices this frustration: “All we wanted was a graceful fight of skilled magic and summoned Servants!”
F.
In any case, the basic outline of the plot is as follows. As it turns out, a certain mage family has already somehow taken possession of the Grail, but their ownership of it is somehow not legitimate, so the Heroic Spirit Summoning Ritual is somehow modified to allow for 2 sets of 7 Servants to be simultaneously summoned, so rather than a battle royale between the 7, it’s a war between the 14 Servants of the 2 factions. On top of that, the Grail summons an additional Servant of a non-standard class, Ruler, to serve as the impartial arbiter of the conflict.
Depending on how well you remember 1st grade math, you might at this point be thinking to yourself, hold on, the 14 Servants, plus their Masters, plus the arbiter, that makes for a total of 29 characters to keep track of. How will you ever manage to remember all of them??? The truth is that you don’t have to. The simple fact of the matter is that most of the Masters – with the exception of maybe 5 of them – are either not memorable or just not relevant in any way, shape, or form. You needn’t bother to commit them to memory.
If you feel like even 14 Servants are too many to keep track of – which they aren’t, but just in case you still feel that way – then let us assuage those concerns, as well. On the one hand, they’re all a lot more unique-looking than their Masters, so even if you won’t necessarily remember all of their names, which is fine, you’ll still remember them visually as the guy/chick who did/said this, that, or the other. On the other hand, not all of the Servants are strictly speaking relevant, either. Some will get killed fairly early in the conflict, whereas others don’t even have proper combat roles, so they mostly exist on the sidelines. Point being, you don’t really have to commit all of them to memory, either.
Nevertheless, the natural main point of attraction of any Fate show is the Servants. We all always get excited to see what new Servants get revealed and what they look like. Unfortunately, Fate/Zero is just about the only Fate show out there that features a cast of entirely non-cringe Servants, that is to say no “UwU, Attila the Hun is actually a cute tan loli with a rainbow lightsaber, teehee” bullshit – Artoria herself is just about the one exception we’ve all come to accept as a given.
As such, your mileage with most Apocrypha Servants will vary. The good news? Since there’s 14 of them, so you’re bound to like at least some of them. The bad news? Loads of them have cringy and uninspired designs. We are once again dealing with genderbent characters. There is one Servant that is canonically a centaur, but “chooses” to appear as a regular human for convenience’s sake. What? What do you mean? How? You mean to tell me you guys can arbitrarily change your appearances? Isn’t the notion that your appearance can give away your identity, and as such your weaknesses and abilities, one of the main conceits of the franchise? Isn’t that why you never reveal your True Names? So, if you can freely change your appearances, why doesn’t every Servant do that all the time and become completely unrecognizable? One major mythological Greek figure is turned into a cat girl, whoop-dee-fucking-do.
I will say, though, that Apocrypha succeeds in doing something no other Fate show has managed to do. It offended me. I’m not joking. I don’t use that term lightly. Again, whether you find the gay character designs palatable or not is up to individual tastes. Some will love cute girl Frankenstein’s Monster, some will find it lame – whatever. What I found offensive was Apocrypha’s portrayal of Spartacus. I’m not going to spoil anything about the character or the role he plays in the show. Suffice it to just say that I found his portrayal to go way further than just a difference in vision. It was downright disrespectful to a real person who actually existed and one of the greatest heroes of human history. To my mind, his treatment in the series is way beyond the pale.
Still, I can’t pretend that I did not enjoy the fact that the entire conflict takes place in my own country, Romania. The city the story is set in, Trifas, is fictional, but it is essentially based on the city of Sighișoara, with loads of places and vistas from the show being replicas of real life locations. It is also worth noting that Sighişoara is also the birthplace of Vlad III, also known as the Impaler. To those not in the know, he’s the one that Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula is believed to be based on, and in popular mythology, he is accepted as the de facto identity of Dracula.
As such, it should come as no surprise that Vlad the Impaler is one of the Servants in Apocrypha. Was I excited to see him? Yes! Was I excited by his portrayal? Ehhh. He was nice enough and I really enjoyed the way his temperament and personality were described – certainly a portrayal an order of magnitude more respectful than that of Spartacus. Unfortunately, I was not massively pleased by his visual design. His clothing was not overly impressive or visually striking, I outright disliked the way his spear looked, but by far the thing that bothered me the most was the way his hair seemed to be dyed a different color from about his jawline downwards. I don’t know who thought that dark turquoise color would look good on him, but we clearly do not see eye to eye.
As for why Apocrypha doesn’t just use the name of a real Romanian city, that I’m sure I don’t know. It’s not like they’re trying to be all cloak and dagger in order to avoid making any direct references to real life places and people. The story explicitly takes place in Romania and Vlad is explicitly one of the main characters. Add to that the fact that Sighişoara literally exists in the story as a separate city. Some limited events happen over there. It’s acceptable for all these real life references to exist, but the central setting of the story is where we draw the line? We can turn a blind eye to some of your plot taking place in the real city, but the bulk of the story needs to take place in a separate fictional version of that same city? Weird, but ok. I’m not mad – I’m just confused.
Now, just in case you’re unfamiliar with the Saberface concept, allow me to educate you. Saberface, referencing Artoria's class name of Saber, originated from Takashi Takeuchi's fondness for drawing variations of Artoria, and over the years it has become something of a tradition for works in the Fate series to include a Saberface character. One of the two resident Saberfaces of Fate/Apocrypha is Mordred, her daughter. Yes, yes, I know, the show will constantly describe Mordered as “his son”, but they’re both women, so she’s her daughter. Before you go any further, though, please, for the love of God and everything that’s good and holy in this world, do not read up on the Wiki about how Mordred was conceived. I beg. Don’t do it.
So, how is Mordred? Pretty cool, I’m not gonna lie! For starters, her armor looks a lot cooler than Saber Artoria’s. I know a lot of people are deeply in love with Artoria’s design. That’s fine. I’m not the biggest fan. Mordred’s looks meaningfully cooler in my view. Is it as unique? Is it as well thought out? Is it as expressive? Bro, I don’t know and I don’t care. I just like it better because it looks cooler. It’s as deep as a puddle.
Her personality is a different matter altogether. For what it’s worth, she has some interactions early on in the show that are absolutely hilarious, but she’s not otherwise given much to do throughout the show, and since action is where she shines, not standing around and expositing, she ends up being somewhat annoying at times. Regardless, whenever she’s given the opportunity to throw down, she’s a joy to spend time with and she receives a moment of glory towards the end of the show that is truly glorious.
Mordred is voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro, who is easily my favorite voice actress, but this is one of her more unimpressive performances, with the exception of the aforementioned moment of glory.
In addition to Mordred, the main Saberface of Fate/Apocrypha is Joan of Arc. I know a lot of English speakers, and even the official English subtitles, call her Jeanne d’Arc, like the Japanese source material, but that doesn’t make sense. The Japanese call her Jeanne because that’s what she’s called in Japan. They just take the French spelling at face value. There’s no reason for us to follow suit. Joan of Arc already has an anglicized name, namely Joan of Arc.
I’ll keep it a buck fifty with you, chief. Joan is pretty fucking fantastic. Again, like with Mordred, I know she’s supposed to be a derivative of Artoria and a lot of people consider her to be a cheap copy, but I don’t know, man. I felt like she was the better, improved version. She had all the best traits of Artoria, without the rest of Artoria – none of the angst about trying to present as masculine while being a woman, none of the cucking clown fiesta with Lancelot, none of it. She’s a perfectly feminine waifu and has no problem presenting as such, whilst simultaneously kicking ass on the rare occasion when she’s called upon to do so. She has her own angst to deal with insofar as Gilles de Rais is concerned, but I didn’t find it nearly as obnoxious as Artoria’s character arc with Lancelot.
Her powers are more oriented towards protection and healing, rather than offense, which meshes seamlessly with her character building. Her one big offensive move (you’ll see) makes a surprising amount of sense on a viscerally intuitive level as an unbelievably destructive manifestation of femininity.
Additionally, again, I know she’s conventionally considered to be a knock-off of Artoria, but once more I must confess that I like her visual design significantly more than Artoria’s. Joan’s attire is perhaps some of my favorite battle maiden regalia in all of fiction. She’s simply all-around wonderful. There are no two ways about it. She’s best girl.
I suppose the fact that, unlike Artoria, she has huge tits also doesn’t hurt her case.
Far and away my favorite Servants were Siegfried and Karna, the former being my absolute favorite. They unfortunately do not get nearly enough oxygen, which is an inevitable consequence of a bloated cast, but even in spite of an incredibly disappointing event that happens as early as episode 4, which nearly broke my heart, they still manage to shine so bright that they stand head and shoulders above everyone else in Apocrypha. I would love to say more and gush about them, but I really can’t without spoiling.
The animation of episode 22 has been the target of a fair amount of controversy – different animators were hired for it. As I’m given to understand, the animation was outsourced to CloverWorks’ team that made Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front – Babylonia, but don’t quote me on that one, for I’m not sure it’s the case and I cba doing the research. It’s also not relevant. What is relevant is that it looks markedly different from every other episode with animation that is a lot more fluid, to the point where it looks bad in some instances. I’m not saying it reaches the heights of ridiculousness of Naruto vs. Pain, but it comes close at times. Point is, I have my own axe to grind with the episode, but in spite of everything, the final duel between Siegfried and Karna is literally one of my favorite anime fights of all time and objectively one of the most spectacular.
There’s not much here in terms of an OST, but the main battle theme, known simply as Fate/Apocrypha OST I, is nothing short of fantastic. Every time I listen to it in the car (yes, I listen to anime OSTs while driving, don’t @ me), it takes me on such a journey of emotion and hypes me up like few other songs can. As is to be expected, since there’s not much of anything else available, this main OST gets abused to hell and back during every single even remotely tense moment in the show, much like You Say Run in HeroAca, but it’s great nevertheless. Honestly, it’s much better than this anime deserved.
The only really vexing aspect of the show's audio presentation is the overuse of ear rape audio glitches for explosions. I assume this was done in order to oversell the magnitude of the explosions and the impact of various physical and/or magical hits, to suggest that they are so powerful, they literally break the limits of the show's bass and treble. Yeah, I get what you were going for, but this ain't it, chief. It was just irritating and exhausting to listen to. It really took away from my enjoyment of some otherwise great fights.
As far as the de facto protagonist of the anime is concerned, I hesitate to talk about him too much, because he is not part of the narrative from the beginning, and his reveal is a twist of sorts. What I will say, however, is that he is probably my favorite Fate protagonist to date – with the exception of Fate/Zero. It is somewhat of a tradition that Fate protagonists have to invariably be some kind of a blank slate or other with no dreams, goals, personalities, or thoughts of their own, so a big part of their character arcs is always the journey to find themselves, to develop a personality, to distinguish their own thoughts and dreams from those of other people, to learn who they are in the first place, etc. – again, Fate/Zero is the exception. My frustration with this string of self-insert protagonists came to a head with Fate/Extra: Last Encore’s Hakuno. All of that criticism and frustration is still valid in Sieg’s case, but he is honestly the best of a bad bunch.
His journey to become an actual character is not obnoxiously long, and after that, he becomes genuinely likable. I’m gonna take a shot in the dark and suggest that the reason huge swarths of the fandom hate him as much as they do is because Apocrypha romances him with their favorite virgin waifu. Deal with it.
When all is said and done, loads of interesting things happen in this show, but the overall plot is just a mess. There are any number of interesting events, but it is fairly transparent to me that Yuuichirou Higashide, the writer of Apocrypha, simply had no idea how to make them all connect into one cohesive narrative, so he... didn’t. As such, the build-ups to the various climaxes and pay-offs are either non-existent or just disappointing, which is why, depending on your expectations, you might have a miserable time watching this anime. If, however, you go into it expecting exactly what it is, a mess of dumb fun with cool shit happening on a fairly consistent basis, I guarantee you’ll have a good time.
Again, it all comes down to nothing more than your investment in- and love for the Fate franchise as such. This is not necessarily the worst entry, but it is also not the best. I would never recommend this as one’s first foray into Fate, but if you’re already sold on the concept and would like to see more Servants and cool fights, then I warmly recommend you at least give this one a try.
P.S.: Waver Velvet, Iskandar's Master from Fate/Zero, makes a cameo appearance in this show, though unless you look up what he looks like as an adult, you'll never recognize him.
xEternalSnowx
When I first watched Fate/Zero, I was absolutely taken in by the animation and world-build up. The story’s gripping narrative made it one of my favorites. I also enjoyed Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, the sequel to Zero. When I watched the Fate series, I hadn’t watched a lot of anime, so I simply enjoyed the aesthetic quality of the series, so I’m looking over any criticism it has received. Having enjoyed Fate so much, naturally I was really looking forward to Fate/Apocrypha, which aired in the fall of 2017. And what are my thoughts on it? Well, A-1 Pictures managed to present another disasterof an anime this season!
I’ll not deny it, A-1 has given us some of the most popular shows in the last decade, but there are several shows by this studio that simply follow the mainstream of anime- throwing in terrible story writing with half-assed animation along with a popular title that draws in an audience. It’s disappointing at the least that studios don’t even try to satisfy the audience who watch their shows.
Why is Apocrypha a fiasco? To start it off, let me tell you that the show does follow the basic foundation of the Fate universe, but instead of the usual seven masters and seven servants, Apocrypha has double the number of characters as the original Fate. It’s set in an alternate timeline where the Grail was seized by a clan of mages after the third Holy Grail war. They then announced their possession of the Grail and left the Mage’s Asssociation. Yggdmillennia, the aforementioned clan then declares war on the Association and each of the sides have seven servants and masters each who fight against each other as two collective groups.
I know what you’re thinking. “Well, that sounds interesting!”- yes, that’s what I thought, before I actually watched the train-wreck of an anime that Apocrypha is. The basic problem with this anime is the number of characters in it. There are twenty four characters that play a significant role if you count the masters and the servants separately. I kid you not- twenty four characters! Now, the original Fate gives its characters a tragic backstory to get the viewers to sympathize with them. This works because there are a limited number of characters and each character’s backstory is explored separately by the anime, while in Apocrypha, instead of focusing on one particular character, the anime simply shows us a glimpse of someone’s backstory and then jumps to another scene even before the viewer has fully taken in the previous scene. I simply felt no emotional connection with any character whatsoever. Even though the anime fails in character development, I still expected a few intense action scenes. Nah, why would an action anime need those? Almost all action sequences in Apocrypha are lazily animated. They are dull and boring. Nine out of ten scenes are a complete snooze fest. An abysmal story combined with terrible direction. That is what Fate/ Apocrypha felt like for a majority of its episodes.
To add more to the farce, most of the characters seem like they’re from some stupid fantasy game. There is unnecessary fan-service because why not? The character of Jack The Ripper being a loli speaks volumes about how carefully the production team thought about each character. I’m presuming the conversation during their brainstorming sessions went something like this:
“I wonder how we can get the audience more involved with the characters.”
“You know what? We should add a loli. People love lolis!”
“Done.”
“Wait if we’re adding lolis, why was my suggestion of adding Traps rejected?”
“Ugh, fine. We’ll add a Trap too.”
“Oooooh, we should add a yandere too then? Make her like the Trap’s master maybe?”
“Oh my god, best idea ever! There should be a few scenes where she licks him for no apparent reason too. People will like that.”
“We rock.”
“YEAH!”
Yes, that was totally a great idea. Should have added some smut while they were at it. Great job, A-1 Pictures!
There is no comparison between the animation and artwork of the original Fate series and Fate/Apocrypha. It’s god awful. As I said the battle sequences look terrible and there is one particular scene where the Rider of Red does not even look like himself. At this point I was just laughing at the ridiculous job the animators had done. The only battle which actually felt intense was the sequence in Episode 22. The fight between Karna, the Lancer of Red and the Homunculus kid whose name I forgot was pretty well made. Episode 22 was undoubtedly the best out of all 25 episodes. It has a really long battle scene and some great Sakuga sequences. I was quite surprised when I saw this after 21 episodes of foolery.
The music is forgettable. The Opening and Ending themes were dry and unappealing. They could have used some great music during the battle scenes, but again they didn’t. The overall animation and sound was far below my expectations.
To tell you the truth, towards the end, I had this faint feeling where I felt like the anime got back on track. After most of the characters were dead, they were able to focus on the remaining cast and it made the story far less confusing than it was at first. As I said in the last paragraph, there was also a decent action scene in Episode 22. Then there was this concept of “humanity and salvation” but I felt as if the idea wasn’t presented clearly. It seemed like a vague concept introduced for the advancement of the story because they couldn’t think of anything better. Again, it could have been much better. There was so much space for improvement, yet A-1 decided to give us an anime that is easily forgettable and which would disappoint any fan of the original series. I wouldn’t recommend watching Fate/Apocrypha. Its fails spectacularly as an anime and even more so when compared to Fate/Zero or Stay Night. I would give it a rating of 4 out of 10.
slitskin
Apocrypha checklist: - Neko-Mimi ✓ - Loli (with half of her butt out in her servant costume) ✓ - Boy waifu ✓ - Bland ass protagonist, WhAT Is LiFE, oh nO thE woRLD Is so bAd wHat sHoULd I dO ✓ - Female character who is constantly there to praise and uplift the protagonist when he does something as rudimentary as breathing ✓ - Overpopulation of characters and hence wasted characters for lack of screentime ✓ - 'Cute school girl' Female lead shallowly disguised as some hero with very strong code of ethics ✓- Oh my god slavery and child abuse sooooo sad ✓
- I'm not bad, I'm Morally gray, because I'll save humanity bla bla ✓
- Female character being sadistic and demonstrating overtly sexual behaviour for no reason (Insert boy waifu's master) ✓
- You are special, because you are MC, even if we have to twist every rule of the universe to make you seem special ✓
- MC being overprotected and 'understood' by every other relevant character and getting heaps of praise for just...existing. ✓
Fate/Apocrypha is swords clashing and colorful lights gone wrong.
This shit is horrendous, the characters are absolutely detestable, every fucking one of them. This anime is the pinnacle in compiling every shounen and fanservice troupe to ever exist. The soundtracks are good but the sound mixing is nightmarish. The animation is good once in a while like in Episode 22, omggg Karna and Achilles sooo kakkoiiii and powerful, but at the end of the day, do I care about them enough? No.
I have seen worse but what makes me hate Apocrypha is that it tries to be something, when it's nothing but a pile of used toilet paper.
Shingster
Please note this review assumes that you have finished watching Fate/Apocrypha and while care has been taken to not spoil the story there may be potential spoilers within character analysis. Based off a light novel of the same name Fate/Apocrypha is part of the Fate Stay Night franchise but rather than being a part of the main universe it’s a spin off of the series taking place in a parallel universe that has its own events and characters. True to the theme and premise of its parent series Fate/Apocrypha revolves around the struggle for the holy grail a mythical item that is said to beable to grant whoever attains it any wish that they want. However, while the previous series of the franchise have restricted this to relatively small-scale engagements between magus’s the difference and arguably the main draw point of this series is the scale of the battles. Here rather than having small groups of magus’s fight each other with their servants the main story of the anime revolves around a large-scale war between two relatively large factions which pits the two factions both of which have 7 masters and servants against each other. As the Fate franchise has until now largely been contests between smaller groups of masters and servants the large-scale battle that was promised for this series was one of the main reasons why I decided to watch this series and I'm glad that I did as not only did the series have plenty of excellent battles it also had plenty of well-designed characters as well. The first episode while slow paced did a great job of introducing the setting and the main characters.
The overall story of Fate/ Apocrypha revolves around the struggle for the franchises main prize the Holy Grail though with some differences to the established formula that was used in the franchise as this is a spin-off series. The war for the holy grail in this series revolves around the major powers struggles to control the grail and use it for their own goals with these factions being the red faction that is represented by the Clock Towers Mage Association and the Black faction which is represented by the Yggdmillennia family a group of mages that is based in Romania. The setting for the series, for the most part, is also Romania. The overall story for the series while looking at the struggles between the masters and servants of the two competing factions also follows the life of two characters whose fates have become intermingled with this war. These are the homunculus Sieg and the servant Ruler who was summoned by the grail itself. These two characters while at first uninvolved with the war soon find themselves dragged into it as the war between the two factions change dramatically as new enemies and nefarious plots reveal themselves and turn what should have been a conventional war into something else entirely.
Sieg
Sieg voiced by veteran voice actor Natsuki Hanae of Digimon Tri and Tokyo Ghoul fame is one of the main characters of the series. Initially, Sieg is an artificial human being that was created by the Black faction in preparation for the war for the grail that they have been prepping for years. However, unlike the others that the faction created beforehand Sieg from the beginning exhibited a number of behaviour characteristics that made him stand out. These included a reluctance to fight, self-preservation and being afraid to be alone. In the beginning of the series, Sieg was also very weak at first barely able to stand at first and needing some time before he can move on his own. Indeed, in the beginning, because of his lack of a personality and even of basic knowledge Sieg, in the beginning, wrestled with his feelings as he was unsure of what purpose he had for his creation. These doubts of Sieg however gradually start to disappear after he meets Siegfried and Ruler and the subsequent events that happened between them that ultimately caused Sieg to change not just in terms of personality but also in the role that he will have in the larger war. After Sieg’s ascension Sieg’s personality gradually starts to change because of not only meeting Ruler but also meeting many other people in his journeys and learning from them.
While still remaining quiet and composed Sieg begins to develop an interest in humans and their struggles in life largely as a result of wanting to forge a new life to repay the debt that he feels he owns to both Ruler and to Siegfried. As the series progresses his personality is gradually created as a result of learning more about human society such as the towns and villages that they inhabit and the hopes, wishes and desires that they have in them as they go about their life. In this Sieg becomes visibly kinder and honest while also developing a determination to protect the innocent from harm. The insight into humans and their society also had the effect of not only allowing him to draw strength from them but also allow him to understand the concept of freedom and what that entails. The concept of freedom itself is something that can be seen to have a large impact on Sieg’s personality as it becomes his main motivation for his second life with this being to help others gain their freedom as he believes that all life whether they are artificial, or natural should be free to walk on the path that they choose. Sieg’s new life while giving him the opportunity to live his life the way that he wants to also gave him the opportunity to directly affect the war that’s being fought around him and in this, we can see one of Sieg’s core personality traits as well as one of his main struggles. In terms of personality traits one of Sieg’s core personality traits is without a doubt his determination whether it’s used to protect someone that’s dear to him or to repay someone for a great deed that they have done for him. This trait corresponds nicely with one of Sieg’s main struggles that he faces in the series namely the reason for wanting to fight. Overall the character of Sieg was an interesting one and while his origin story and second life were unusual to say the least his development that focused on him learning how to not just be human but also what it means to be a human was something that I thought was done well. His struggles as he tries to understand the differences between the actions that humans take was also interesting. His increased role on the battlefield and his struggles in doing so I felt were also well designed.
Ruler
Ruler voiced by veteran seiyuu Maaya Sakamoto of Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny and Persona 3 movies fame is one of the main characters of the series and is the main heroine of the series. A servant that was summoned to this realm as a result of the start of the Great Holy Grail War Ruler was summoned with the direct purpose of acting as a moderator for the war whose main role was to oversee the war itself and make sure that the conflict is being waged fairly. Though a servant that was summoned to this world as a result of the war Ruler is also someone that can easily pass as a human being due to both her past origin story as well as her experiences in this world. A kind, Caring and honest person by nature Ruler is also someone that is righteous and is someone that believes greatly in god despite her origin story which was quite surprising. Because of this faith Ruler is also someone that is humble, honest and modest and as a result is able to forge bonds easily with people and strike up friendships quite quickly. As a result of both her origins and the understanding that she had of humans, Ruler was also someone that was always willing to help people no matter their allegiance which often clashes with her duties as an observer to the war but demonstrates her determination to help the innocents that were caught in this war. While Ruler herself readily accepts that her origin as a saint meant that she served as a leader of a vast host that fought during a time of turmoil in human history, Ruler readily admits that her hands are no less stained in blood than any other hero but instead of feeling despair from this uses it as a strength to keep the wars that she manages as clean as possible which I felt was admirable.
As the series goes on it can be seen that Ruler’s evolution of becoming more human often clashes with her duties as both a servant and a moderator of this war. While Ruler was supposed to serve as the standard bearer of the war that had the task of both observing and guiding the war along its correct path, as the series goes on Ruler’s righteous nature that she inherited from her origin story had the effect of drawing her into the war not as an observer but as a combatant because of her quest to find the true reason to why this war was started in the first place. This quest for the truth of this war and Ruler’s act of becoming more human is linked together in the series becoming a cornerstone of her personality which later evolves as the primary motivation for her taking an active role in the war itself. In the beginning of the series Ruler was someone that was very loyal to her role as an observer and was someone that obeyed all the rules to the letter but as the series goes on this changes as she sees both the actions that the two sides take and the effects that these have on the war and to the innocents that are caught in the war. In line with Ruler becoming more human, this causes her to become more understanding of people and their feelings and circumstances, more willing to protect the innocents that find themselves caught in this war and more merciful towards the ones that fight in this war as well. The most important development here is naturally the development of her kindness in which she will value the actions and deeds of others and remember them for it regardless of whether they fought against or with her. Perhaps the best indication of Ruler becoming more human is her interaction with Sieg and the development of feelings towards him. While she treated him as someone that was caught in the war by circumstance at first these feelings soon evolved over time as she got to know him becoming friends and teaching him what it means to be human. In the process, it’s interesting to see both gradually becoming more human as they interact with each other as they learn about the values that humans have. In particular Ruler’s constant attempts to protect him and keep him out of the war I felt was pretty interesting to see as this shows her growing feelings for him and her desire to protect him which clashes with her duties as a moderator for this war. As a character I felt that Ruler was a pretty well-designed character that as the series went on was given plenty of good development that reflected not just how the war itself fared but also as a result of the people that she encountered along the way. Her evolution of becoming more human I felt was done really well and it was nice seeing her develops feelings and desires like any human girl would have in life. I felt that her seiyuu Maaya Sakamoto really did a fantastic job of portraying the character of Ruler.
Shirou
Shirou voiced by veteran voice actor Kouki Uchiyama of Buddy complex and Charlotte fame is one of the main support characters of the series and serves as the series main antagonist. A mysterious person that appeared on the eve of the war Shirou is a shrewd, cunning and blunt person that on first appearance can also appear to be mocking and condescending towards people that he meets. While seemingly laid back at times beneath the smiling face that Shirou puts up is someone that is creative, manipulative and far-sighted and well versed in orchestrating events as he is good at manipulating people whether they are allies or enemies. In the beginning of the series Shirou despite being a master of the red faction did not take to the field unlike masters of the other factions preferring instead to orchestrate events from behind the scenes. Unlike most masters that fought in this war, Shirou was shown to be a very capable planner capable of both creating complex and well thought out plans as well as creating plans on the fly that take advantage of events that happen outside of his calculation. Shirou was also shown to be a very capable negotiator where his perception skills and his understanding of humans can be best used to his advantage.
As the series goes on and Shirou’s role and real identity becomes more apparent more of his personality begins to surface along with subtle changes to his existing personality traits. In the beginning of the series, Shirou was someone that approached each situation and development in the war with a sort of detached calmness that was his trademarked nature in the early stages of the series. This ability to calmly analyse a given situation and come up with ways to either take care of the problem or take advantage of it shows that Shirou in addition to being a capable planner and negotiator is also a capable strategist as well. Unlike most masters of this war Shirou’s combat abilities are supremely powerful and indeed he can stand up to enemy servants and fight toe to toe with them which is quite an achievement. However, Shirou’s greatest strength is not his combat prowess but rather his intelligence that allows him to outsmart and out think his enemies and succeed at the task that he has set himself to do. The baseline of a good character whether they are a hero or a villain is, of course, their origin and backstory that created them. In this, I felt that Shirou’s motivation that caused him to take such a role during the war came from his experiences from the past that he witnessed in his past life and summons. Rather than let these experiences plunge him into despair Shirou instead used this as motivation for his true wish. In this, I felt that Shirou was similar to another of the main characters in this series which is Ruler in that both were betrayed by humanity and died as a result but while Ruler understands and accepts that Shirou is different. As a result, the struggle between Shirou and Ruler which makes up the core story of this series is as much a battle of ideology and reasoning as it is between physical might. The character of Shirou I felt was a well-designed character that proved that with conviction, intelligence and might one can do anything.
Aka no Assassin
Semiramis aka Red assassin who is portrayed by veteran seiyuu Kei Shindou of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 fame is one of the main support characters of the series. A member of the assassin class of heroes Semiramis serves as Shirou’s servant and also as his right hand in the latter half of the series. A calm, composed but cynical person Semiramis is someone that can be said to be the ideal image of what an assassin with an ice queen type personality looks like. While not dismissive of other masters and servants Semiramis is someone that is malicious by nature and seems to love to hatch up schemes that can be used against enemies and allies alike. However, beneath that side of her, it can be seen that Semiramis is also someone that is intelligent and fast thinking able to determine the logic behind events quite easily. Despite being an assassin Semiramis is shown to be a surprisingly powerful mage and has an unusual super ability as well. While Semiramis is icy and cynical outside of battle once inside however she is shown to be a very cunning and crafty person able to come up with some really interesting tactics and strategy that can create some interesting situations for her opponents. Arguably the most prominent trait of Semiramis is her relationship with Shirou that seems to transcend the normal relationship that a servant and master should have. Indeed, while she seems to want to see her master fail in his plan it is contrasted by her desire for him and for the plan to actually work. All in all, the best word that can be used to describe Semiramis is enigmatic a term that seems appropriate for an assassin.
Kairi
Kairi Shishigou portrayed by veteran voice actor Kenji Nomura is one of the main support characters of the series. Initially Kairi was one of the masters that were summoned by the red faction in the early stages of the war to take part in the Holy Grail war between them and the Black faction. In the beginning of the series, Kairi was someone that can be considered a loner as he always fought by himself and never coordinated actions with his faction. Indeed, this aspect of him was likely what saved him from the fate of his fellow masters in the latter half of the series. Kairi personality wise was a determined, cautious and canny person that had a knack for surviving and being able to sense people’s intentions by meeting with them. While Kairi may appear to be someone that prefers to solve problems with force Kairi is shown to be surprisingly intelligent and able to react to changing situations with practised ease. He is also shown to be a capable tactician often coming up with ad hoc plans that work surprisingly well.
As the series goes on and as Kairi’s character is expanded upon it can be seen that Kairi is someone that is kind by nature. While Kairi is not someone that trusts easily by nature Kairi however is someone that will treat people with the respect that he thinks that they deserve. This manifests in the fact that he will not underestimate his opponents under any circumstances. A prominent trait of Kairi’s is his determination to avoid causing any form of collateral damage while in combat. This itself is rather surprising since mages usually aren’t too concerned with the causing of collateral damage as long as their goals are achieved. In line with Kairi’s attempt to avoid causing collateral damage is his strong moral compass in that he will not to try to harm innocents and fight as fairly as he can. Despite this Kairi is a realist and understands that sometimes you have to be able to make decisions that you may not agree with but are necessary for the long run. One aspect of Kairi that I particularly enjoyed seeing was what his wish will be if he had managed to get the grail. In this, I felt that Kairi’s backstory that explained how this wish came about was interesting and actually made him appear more human than any of his fellow red masters.
Red saber
Mordred portrayed by veteran seiyuu Miyuki Sawashiro of SAO and Granblue Fantasy fame is one of the main support characters of the series and is one of the servants that fight in this war. A member of the saber class of servants Mordred is a brave, brash and hot-headed person in the beginning. True to her role as a knight and also because of her origin story Mordred is someone that is not especially trusting at first and is wary of anyone that she encounters. Despite that Mordred is someone that will trust those that have proven both their worth and their strength to her and in that situation, she will endeavour to do her best to assist them to the very end. In the series, this bond and loyalty is shown in her relationship with her master Kairi. True to her role as a knight Mordred is someone that loves to fight fairly and with full force rather than with trickery, surprise attacks or not fighting with full strength intentionally and as a result, she detests hiding. However, despite that Mordred is someone that appreciates the use of good strategy and tactics seeing this as one of the fundamentals of being a warrior. Perhaps because of her origin, Mordred has an interesting complex in that she dislikes being viewed as a woman seemingly preferring to be seen as a knight instead.
In the beginning of the series, Mordred was noted to be overconfident and treated other people and servants with disdain. However, as the series goes on this attitude of hers gradually softens and she is able to see the value of alliances, allies and of looking at the larger picture. While Mordred herself, in the beginning, was noted to view humans with disdain as a result of her origin story as the series goes on it can be seen that she has developed a respect for them as a result of the things that she has seen in her battles in this world. One aspect of Mordred that I found to be interesting was her dislike of masters that mistreated their servants which considering her origin story of being the evil knight was even more surprising. The character of Mordred I felt was pretty well designed and showed some pretty good development as the series went on. Her strong bond and loyalty to her master I felt was especially well done as well as her indirect assistance to Sieg in the strangest of times. I felt that her seiyuu Miyuki Sawashiro really did an excellent job voicing her.
Aka no archer
Atalanta voiced by veteran seiyuu singer Saori Hayami of Owari No Seraph and Yamada kun and the Seven witches fame is one of the main support characters of the series and is one of the servants that fight for the red faction. A member of the archer class of servants Atalanta is someone that can be seen to be the picture of calmness and logic and behaves very much like a professional in contrast to her allies in this war. A calm, perceptive and patient person by nature Atalanta is someone that while quiet by nature is also composed and as a result, is not someone that gets rattled easily in battle. Indeed, she is someone that can face down a servant like berserker with an ice-cold calmness which is the trait that truly defines her. While Atalanta herself is a quiet person by nature she isn’t someone that is afraid of offering her own opinions and assessments of situations showing that behind her icy nature Atalanta also has a keen intellect as well. True to her role and identity as an archer Atalanta is someone that has great pride in her abilities and as such longs to be able to take on all foes that stand before her. However, with this pride also comes with Atalanta’s wish for all combat to be fair and as such she is someone that dislikes slaughter.
As the series goes on and Atalanta’s personality and backstory are revealed Atalanta is shown to be a kind person by nature whose current personality was affected a great deal by her past. Atalanta’s most prominent trait is, without doubt, her determination to protect the innocent and especially children from harm a trait that stems from her rather tragic origin story. This backstory serves as the foundation that Atalanta’s personality is based on and indeed serves as the basis for her wish to the grail and ensures that she will fight even harder to achieve victory in the war. As a result of her determination to protect the innocents and the children that she was unable to protect in her origin story Atalanta’s personality changed considerably after the fight against Black assassin Jack. As a result of both seeing the kind of world that Jack lived in as well as seeing the actions that Ruler took against the spirits of the children that inhabited that world Atalanta’s personality changed dramatically. No longer calm and logical as her previous self-had been Atalanta instead becomes an angry, brash and rage-fuelled existence that seems to be barely restraining the anger that she feels at seeing the actions that Ruler took back in Jacks world. This change in personality I felt was pretty dramatic but well in line with someone whose greatest fears was realised by an existence that they had trusted for a long time. Seeing the previously calm and composed Atalanta transform into a being hellbent on revenge really was surprising but one that spoke well of her development as a character. I felt that her seiyuu Saori Hayami really did a fantastic job in portraying the character of Atalanta.
Aka no rider
Aka no Rider who is portrayed by veteran voice actor Makoto Furukawa of Orange fame is one of the main support characters of the series and is one of the servants that fight for the red faction in the holy grail war. A member of the rider class of servants Rider is a confident, intelligent and well-read person that proves that apart from his skill with the spear Rider is also someone that can come up with some surprising insights and ideas that others may have missed. Outside of battle, it can be seen that Rider is someone that while appearing to be somewhat laid back and uninterested in the larger scheme of things is, in fact, someone that can be surprisingly perceptive of events and considerate towards the feelings of others. The latter here is best shown in his relationship with his fellow servant of the red Atalanta whom he respects and trusts due to her strong conviction and moral compass. As a result of his origin story Rider is someone that can be considered to be more along the lines of a traditional warrior in that he dislikes the use of trickery and deception and prefers to fight fairly and with no reserve from both sides. As a result of this Rider’s relationship with Shiro who acted as the voice of the red masters, in the beginning, was rather tense as Rider disliked the fact that Shiro hid his plans and strategies from them and only told them when he felt the need to. As the series goes on however it can be seen that Rider has developed a grudging respect for Shiro due to his determination and conviction though he won’t be the one that admits it.
In combat, Rider is shown to be a capable warrior well versed in both mounted and single combat and approaches each battle with due caution and determination. While Rider maintains a serious nature during combat it can be seen however that Rider loves to taunt his opponents hoping to take advantage of any flaws that can be exposed as a result but at the same time he is able to use his skill to avoid being caught in dangerous situations that his actions may have caused showing his skill as a warrior. As a character, I felt that Rider was a well-designed one that showed that warriors do not have to be grim and forbidding to be effective and that sometimes someone that acts like a joker outside of battle can be a surprisingly capable warrior in battle as well.
Fiore
Fiore voiced by veteran seiyuu Chinatsu Akasaki of Plastic Memories and Food wars fame is one of the main support characters of the series and is one of the masters of the Black faction that fight in the Holy Grail war. A wheelchair-bound teenage girl Fiore is a kind, caring and intelligent person that if she wasn’t a mage would have been a pretty normal teenage girl that’s happily living a normal life in a normal world. Despite being in a wheelchair Fiore is not someone that feels that it restricts her in any way which is best shown in her personality which is that of a positive, responsible and caring girl that is respectful and polite towards her siblings and members of her family and servants. Indeed, it is these qualities that ensure that Fiore despite not being able to fight as hard as other mages is well respected and trusted by her fellow family members to the point that command of the family will be passed to her when Darnic is elsewhere. Unlike most mages that fight in the holy grail war, Fiore can be considered to be a sort of an oddity within the familia as her kind and caring nature means that she is more humane than most as she cares about the feelings of others whether they are humans or servants artificial or natural. This can be seen in her treatment of the familia’s homunculi that she treats and see’s as human rather than as weapons as the other members of the familia view them. Though a member of a well known familia within the magic world and someone that her uncle Darnic readily trusts enough to pass command to at times Fiore is someone that thinks and acts with her heart at the forefront and as a result has very little ego that gets in the way when approaching situations that develop in the war. While very proud of her own skills and of her familia Fiore is not someone that is too proud to not ask for help when she needs to and indeed will readily ask for help when the situation proves too difficult for her and the familia.
As the series goes on and as more of Fiore’s backstory and personality gets revealed it can be seen that Fiore also has struggles that she wrestles with that defy her character. In the series, Fiore’s kind and caring nature combined with her fair treatment of both her fellow mages and servants alike can be seen to clash with how a magus of the magic world should act. Indeed, this is a fact that Fiore also understands very well but yet cannot easily overcome. While very loyal to both the familia and to her uncle and knowing full well what the implications of losing the grail would bring to the familia Fiore struggles with the realisation that to gain more power and be a more powerful magus that she must do things that are morally questionable something that clashes with both her personality and her perception of what is right as a human being. The struggle of between what is right as a human being and what is right for a being a magus of a well-known familia I felt was well done and was an interesting topic that really defined Fiore as a character. In the end, I felt that Fiore was a very well-designed character that emphasised the struggle of being a mage and a human being very well. Her struggles I felt only served to make her a much more interesting character that one can relate to. I felt that her seiyuu Chinatsu Akasaki really did a fantastic job in voicing her.
Kuro no archer
Kuro no archer voiced by veteran voice actor Shunsuke Takeuchi is one of the main support characters of the series and is one of the servants that fight for the Black faction. A member of the archer class of servants Kuro no archer is a calm, quiet and understanding person and as a result is a perfect fit for his master Fiore as their temperaments are very similar to each other. True to his role as a member of the archer class Kuro no archer is someone that is intelligent, perceptive and well read and seems to have a good knowledge of tactics and strategy from his origin. As a result of his personality Kuro no archer is able to bond easily with other people regardless of whether they are masters or servants which is helped greatly by the fact that he is always willing to help people even though he has nothing that he will gain from it. The best example of this is when he helped Rider take care of Sieg. This ability to work well with others without having to compromise on his beliefs I felt was one of Kuro no archers more prominent traits as it allowed him to work well with people of varying affiliations. Perhaps as a result of his core trait of being very loyal to his master Archer is someone that detests traitors and even more so for those that killed their own masters in their betrayal as well. Only when he faces such foes does Archers calm self-disappear and be replaced by a thirst for justice. In the series, Archer is shown to be very considerate and caring towards his master Fiore which I felt was something that was well done as it reflected his nature as both a servant that fights but also one that assists their master for the duration of their contract.
Kuro No Rider
Astolfo played by veteran seiyuu Rumi Ookubo of Hundred and Gate fame is one of the main support characters of the series and is one of the servants of the black faction. A member of the rider class of servants Astolfo is someone that can be considered to be someone that wears their heart on their sleeves as he is someone that thinks with their heart rather than try to think of a way in which they can benefit from an encounter. Personality wise Astolfo is a kind, positive and bubbly character that is always willing to help those in need regardless of whether they are enemies or innocents that are caught in the crossfire. While Astolfo’s most prominent trait can be considered to be his curious nature it can be said that his most important trait is his steadfast loyalty to his own beliefs of justice. While Astolfo herself may appear to act similar to a child in terms of personality this hides the fact that he can be surprisingly reliable and responsible at times and when he is with a master that he truly admires and respects it can be seen that he can be surprisingly loyal to them. Within the series, this is best seen in the relationship that Astolfo manages to establish with Sieg as though while they had the strangest of first encounters their relationship eventually evolved in a most unexpected way.
As the series goes on and as Astolfo’s personality becomes much more developed it becomes apparent that Astolfo at his core is something akin to a free spirit in that while technically he is a servant of the black faction he will often go out of his way to help others that are caught in the conflict regardless of whether his orders say so or not. In this, it can be seen that Astolfo cares little about what others think of him only that his actions are in line with his beliefs and convictions. In line with his free nature, Astolfo is someone that bonds easily with others and prefers to not stand on formality openly using the true names of his fellow servants freely which I felt added charm to his character. True to his free personality Astolfo believes greatly that one should live their life the way that they want to without worrying about any constraints that stand in their way. Despite his free-thinking nature, however, Astolfo is someone that believes greatly in finishing things that he has already started and will not back down from a promise that he made to someone even if the other party regrets it which points to his loyal nature. As a character, I felt that Astolfo was a well-designed and well-developed character that showed that despite not being rigidly loyal to the cause as long as your heart is in the right place you will still be able to forge your own path. His free-thinking nature combined with his determination to help those in need I felt allowed him to contrast well with the other servants of the black. His cheerful nature, as well as his ability to stay positive even in the grimmest of battles, was also another aspect of his personality that I liked. His relationship with Sieg was something that I enjoyed seeing and watching that develop over the course of the series was one of the best points of this series. I felt that his seiyuu Rumi Ookubo really did a fantastic job in voicing the character of Astolfo.
AMV
Animation wise I felt that the animation for the series was actually pretty good with the combat scenes being especially well designed and thought out. The individual character designs for each of the characters whether they were masters or servants I thought was another high point for the series. In particular, I really liked the designs for the uniforms that the members of the black faction wore as well as I felt that it highlighted and represented their uniformed purpose and goal and stressed the unity of the famila to accomplish it. The locations that were featured in the series I felt was also varied and well designed and did a good job of showing the different types of environments that existed in the country that the holy grail war took place in. In terms of music, the series had some really impressive opening and ending themes with my favourite ones being the first and second opening themes that were sung by Egoist and LISA and the first ending theme that was sung by GARNIDELIA. The background music for the series I felt was also pretty well done. The voice acting for the series I felt was one of the series main strong points which were helped greatly by the talented voice cast that the series had made use of. In particular, I feel that Maaya Sakamoto, Miyuki Sawashiro, Saori Hayami, Chinatsu Akasaki and Rumi Ookubo deserve particular praise as I felt that they did an excellent job in portraying their respective characters.
Overall conclusion
In overall, I thought that Fate/Apocrypha was a pretty good anime that had as its main strong points its strong premise, strong and unexpected story, well-designed characters, excellent voice acting and excellent combat. Also, notable about the series was its inclusion of complex issues like the definitions of freedom, choice and what and how you should spend your life. The overall premise of the story was an interesting one and one that served as the staple of the Fate Stay night series since its inception but the difference here is scale. Rather than having a small number of masters and servants fight for the holy grail to get their wish granted Fate/Apocrypha expands upon this idea significantly expanding the small-scale battles that were seen before to a large-scale battle instead pitting two factions that both have seven masters and their assigned servants against each other in a grand battle for the holy grail making this a fight that involves 14 masters in total. The resulting struggle between the two factions, as a result, forms the main backdrop and conflict that the series main storyline makes use of. The overall storyline for the series using the backdrop of the war as its main point I felt did an excellent job of showing the struggles between the two factions as they fight for control of the holy grail and did an excellent job of showing the moves that were made by the two sides in the war. Indeed, I really enjoyed seeing the moves that both sides make as the war proceeds. While the war itself was the main focus of the series Fate/Apocrypha is also notable in that it features some unique elements not usually seen within the series such as the development of feelings between masters and servants, the definition of what life and freedom is, what makes a human being and whether servants have free will and whether or not they can defy their masters that they have a contract with. The characters of Sieg and Ruler, in particular, define the great majority of these themes as both are existences that are above the norm of what you will usually see inside the fate universe. The fact that these questions and beliefs form part of Sieg’s development as a character was an aspect that I particularly liked. The relationship between servants and masters has always been one of the main aspects of the Fate universe and Fate/Apocrypha's interpretation of it was by far the most interesting one as servants here are not as tightly bound to their masters as other series have shown and indeed they can choose to defy their masters if they think that a situation demands it something that I thought was welcome as it gives more life and personality to them.
Overall Fate/Apocrypha was a series that I really enjoyed watching as it combined excellent combat scenes with an impressive and well thought out storyline that was full of unexpected twists which in turn was reinforced by well designed and developed characters that were portrayed by some of Japan’s best seiyuu’s and voice actors within the industry. The inclusion of complicated themes like freedom, feelings, life and desires I felt also served to enhance the series as a whole and make its story and its characters that much more interesting. As a final score, I would say that Fate/ Apocrypha easily deserves a score of 10/10.
Val3102
First of all, im being really generous with a 4 as final rating. Secondly, for me this thing doesnt exist in the nasuverse, and thanks god its in its own stupid timeline without ruining any of the billion other ones. Now, if you watched some Nasuverse stuff before, you would be wondering how is there a gap so big between this abomination and the rest of the verse. Well the reasons are 3 mainly: first, its not written by nasu, second its adapted by studio A-1, third,it was originally supposed to be a game originally and half of the cast was different, but they decided at the lastmoment to change that and make it a light novel.
The story is basically non existing, if you have to compare it to something its like the random uninspired "stories" that various anime's fighting games get (One Piece Unlimited Cruise and Jojo Eyes Of Heaven just to name a few) so basically is complete shit, so many things arent explained, half of the supposed cast doesnt even appear, plot armor is everywhere and logic is unexistent.
The art is like any other A-1 anime: uninspired generic garbage, im not even going to mention what the fuck episode 22 was because halfway through it the drawings looked like they were being drown by a 5 years old.
Waver and Flat which appear only in the first episode dont even look like themselves.
Sound is as bad is it can get: anything at all happens? BASS BOOSTED EXPLOSION SOUND.
Seriously the sfx are so fucking bass boosted that earrape edited hardbass videos are nothing compared to it.
The character, as many know, are the best thing about fate, but GUESS WHAT.
supposedly the cast was going to be made of 29 characters:
7 red masters, 7 red servants, 7 black masters, 7 black servants and 1 neutral ruler servant, but since obviously making something out of such a large pool of characters in 25 episodes is impossible, 5 of the 7 red masters never actually appear, dropping already the count from 29 to 24.
But wait, its actually 25 because the main character is this random homunculus which broke free for no reason!
i'll say what i think about every character now.
Red Team
Kairi Sisigou: litterally the only master of this "team", he is the only decent master of the anime, altrough his death is pure bullshit: we see him take no actual damage in his last fight but when it ends he is apparently dead from wounds that he took during it.
im glad that he isnt entirely wasted since they made him a character in Lord El Melloi II Case Files, which is probably my favorite Fate anime ever.
Amakusa Shirou: he had the potential to be a good villian and a good character, but what is explained about him? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
his reasoning of why he thinks the 3rd magic is the salvation of humanity is never told, his backstory of how he survived after the 3rd grail war is never actually told, how he got a training from the church and the Kotomine surname is never told, the magecraft that he has in his arms is never explained and used only once.
Saber Of Red Mordred: i hate this character.
in this entry she was fine, but fucking god with grandorder out she is EVERYWHERE, now Artoria isnt even the postergirl of the franchise anymore because this retarded version of her has more appearences then her in the stories, also her backstory and motivation are never expanded or explained because apocrypha, and the end of the fight against Semiramis doesnt make sense: Mordred destroyed her fucking spirit core yet semiramis manages to live for a whole another day while mordred dies with her master.
Archer of Red Atalanta: as one can see from my pfp, shes best girl.
Now, this is the most biased opinion ever because anything from greece/greek mythology or the voice of Haori Sayami is enough of making me automatically like it, but shes both and also a catgirl and her actual backstory (which guess what isnt explained in this show) is amazing and i love it.
honestly the fact that her final fight against Jeanne wasnt over before achilles arrived is pure bullshit, without even using the command seals she shouldnt have been able to beat her, or do things like block a noble phantasm (Tauropolos) without even using her own.
Ah and also using her og Noble phantasm Phoebous Catastrophe against random homunculus and golems made no sense
Lancer of Red Karna: oh boy oh boy.
i love Karna, seriously his concept is amazing, but what the fuck did they think with putting a god from one of the most broken god pantheons of the Nasuverse among normal heroes and a couple demigods from a weaker pantheon.
Now the worst thing that comes with this terrible decision is how his fights are handled.
On paper, nobody should be able to hurt him (except for Vlad)thanks to Kavacha and Kundala, and his power should be able to one shot everyone without even using any of his offensive Noble Phantasms:
litterally his fire and thunder manipulation alone are powerful enough to one shot most servants, and even then he has Brahmastra and Brahmastra Kundala that are things he can casually throw even though their power is comparable to a Clarent Blood Arthur or a Balmung, and then theres Vasavi Shakti, which is litterally sure win at the cost of losing Kavacha and Kundala.
Now guess how his fights are handled since he is clearly the most powerful servant in the war:
one of the first episodes he clashes against siegfried, and this is the only fight that kinda makes sense since both shouldnt be able to hurt each other with just normal attacks, but then the fight against Vlad happens, and for some reason its wrote as if Vlad was so much of a threat to Karna, when all the writer does is making Karna just jump around without actually attacking for some reason, and when he is about to actually attack the author remembers that it would end the fight in one shot so he just makes him retreat.
then we skip all the way to the last episodes, where the peak plot armor happens: he uses Vasavi Shakti and for some reason Balmung can block it, which is complete bullshit since Balmung is supposed to be inferior even to Brahmastra and Brahmastra Kundala, which in this fight are used as if they were random stuff, making them no impact at all.
Ah and also he dies in this fight in a stupid way because plot armor again.
Rider of Red Achilles: as i already said, i love greece and greek mythology and for this reason Achilles is a character i love, but his lasts moments show peak nonsense of this anime's writing: he willingly gives to his enemy one of his own noble phantasms (things that makes no sense because you cant just use someone else's noble phantasm, WITHOUT A CHANT, only by knowing the true name) and kills one of his own team members for no reason at all and dies with them.
Assassin of red Semiramis: honestly i couldnt care less about her lol, i already said how much bullshit was her last fight when i talked about mordred.
Caster or red Shakespeare: he is amazing at entertaining whenever he is in a scene but his screentime is almost 0 and is basically a wasted character slot.
Berserker of red Spartacus: THE VERY DEFINITION OF WASTED CHARACTER, he litterally just explodes in the first 4 episodes without any explenation about his noble phantasm, his backstory, why is he even a berserker when he was a general, stuff like that.
at least for the short time he lived he was funny to listen at.
now time for team black
Sieg: he is pure dogshit, im not even gonna waste more then a sentence on him.
Siegfried Saber of Black: another wasted character, suicides himself for the already mentioned pile of dogshit, has no explenation about his motives, goals and backstory.
Archer of black Chiron: hes cool, greek mythology again, nothing much to say about him, but the fact that his actual appearance as centaur was never even showed once when we know he could switch whenever he wants is bullshit.
Lancer of black Vlad III: hes cool too, his reasons to why he wants to win is somewhat explained, but his backstory isnt, also his Vampire form is another wasted thing of this anime, his fight against Karna is BS since he litterally had no way to win and the use of his Noble Phantasm Kazikly Bey on random saber tooth warriors is the most stupid thing ever, especially since thats the only time he used it
Caster of black Avicebron: wasted character number 2747924782848, he is portrayed as an asshole when Lostbelt 1 shows he really isnt one, and the use of his Noble Phantasm was the most stupid ever, especially since thats the only way for him to be impactful on the war.
litterally rushing into enemy base when the golem was still growing when he could have waited just a day to release the autowin machine that is the 1000 meters version of Golem Keter Malkuth, litterally the only thing that could have stopped it at that point was maybe a combination of Vasavi Shakti, Akhilleus Kosmos and Trap Of Argalia, and that would be a basically impossible scenario.
ah and backstory not explored yet again, nothing new for apocrypha.
Assassin of black Jack The Ripper: i refuse to aknowledge her existence, this is an abomination.
Berserker of Black Frankenstein: she was fine, but ultimetely useless
rider of black astolfo: i actually forgot about him when i first wrote the review.
he is as bad as sieg, his only use is as a plot armor for him, and as trap hentai material, and the only thing he is good at is the last one
Ruler Jeanne: neutrality my ass, also her """"relationship"""" with pile of dogshit is bs.
all the Black Team Masters: had no impact on the story whatsoever, their magecraft wasnt even shown, the only ones i remember are the fat guy cause he is the father of one of the main characters in the Lostbelts, and the Forvedge siblings since they actually had more then 5 seconds of screentime, also Caules appears in Case Files which is always a plus in my book.
ultimately, this show is not worth its time, if you want to consume some fate media go read the og Stay Night Visual Novel or the Hollow Ataraxia Visual novel, just dont watch this abomination, if you say that you do it for the characters, almost all of them appear elsewhere in the nasuverse and actually are good in their other appearences
TheNamelessGuy
I really don't get the reason behind why people are being so harsh about this series. I'm new to the fate franchise so i don't know much about the other series but one thing is for sure, Apocrypha was just awesome. The fight scene, the soundtrack, the character development and the execution was just marvelious. And the ending was amazing too! If you're still reading this, then lemme tell you just this, do not let the low reviews fool you. Because of the harsh criticism, i didn't even bothered to watch it until recently. This will be worth your time for sure!
Leonhart93
Fate/Apocrypha, what a ride it was! When I started, I thought that it can't possibly as good as the previous Fate installments, since it didn't have the backing of an old, established story, neither the perfect animation of UFOtable. Well, I was wrong. What this show lacked in stuff like visuals, it made up by the sheer enjoyment, given by other areas, where I think it did even better than it's predecessors. Sound - 10/10 - a subjective area, but few can disagree here, I am sure. The soundtrack was simply outstanding. Visuals - 9/10, the first parts, 7/10 the latter parts (they rushed it). But that's about itfor the bad part, since the scale and the feel of the battles was WAY greater than the previous Fate animes.
Characters 10/10. This is not something you see every day, or in any other Fate series. No one here is truly evil, everyone has a goal they want to pursue, so you can't really hate any of the characters. Also, the end the heroes have in the latter parts are really emotional and well done.
All in all, even if this didn't have flawless animation, it more than made up for that with very enjoyable characters, music, character development and the good ending, whereas the other Fate series left a bitter taste in your mouth (maybe some like that, but I never really do).
Zaber_san
Introduction: Type-Moon have delivered us splendid shows in the past already. One of them is the 'Fate' series. Due to ufotable's great job of adapting Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works and Fate/Zero, it's safe to say that the 'Fate' series are those series you can't just miss out. In Summer 2017 season, A-1 Pictures delivered us "Fate/Apocrypha". With it's attempt of trying to make a good 'Fate' adaptation, I just want to say it really didn't planned out to be better than any 'Fate' series out there or it's not really that good. Story: The story followed the two factions fight for the 'Holy Grail' in a neverbefore seen type of royal rumble. Instead of 7 masters and 7 servants in total, there were 7 masters and 7 servants on each faction which was known as the Red and Black Faction. When I went to the official information page of Fate/Apocrypha, I'm already guessing this will not be good unlike the other past Fate adaptations. Why?.. It's because of the vast amount of characters it have. Let me tell you something, the past 'Fate' series were all having 7 masters and 7 servants. Having 14 characters in total (+ some extras) is already a bother as you have to plan out everything for each. Whether they die or live. Whether they quit or not. Planning is tough when you have a bunch of characters on a story. Since Fate/Apocrypha focused on a Holy Grail War, you will expect that the masters and servants will kill each other and as episode 25 grew closer and closer, you will notice just one fight that should have killed any servant from the beginning, made one servant die in order to dispose their purpose for the conclusion. Apocrypha, from the first 12 episodes, gave us a one big hint on how the ending will have. I will not tell you as it will be a spoiler but it's within the main protagonist of the story which was Sieg. Sieg here was a huge problem. Though before he became a participant, he was a third party and suddenly he participated, thus, giving us a hint of the conclusion of this anime. One thing was certain that Sieg, when alone without Ruler, felt like he was just a supporting character. Other characters like Mordred, Astolfo, Karna and even Shakespeare stood out in a great way when they have screen time. Ruler, on the other hand, was an important piece to the story. It made the fighting of both the sides which summoned Jeanne in a reasonable way. Hence, Sieg only stood out when he was with Jeanne (except the fight with Shirou because that was his time to shine). I want to talk about the fights as well. The fights were very dynamic and predictable as we go through it. Predictable like the Karna vs Sieg battle and non-predictable like Chiron vs Achilles (I was shocked in this fight.). Also, what happened to Berserker of Red (Spartacus)? Just because he was just an overpowered servant, they just have to get rid of him? It seems that he didn't get enough screen time at all (except on the first opening). We were also told by the story of Jack The Ripper that was a huge development for Archer Of Red (Atalanta), Though, there were still few things I liked in Apocrypha and I will tackle it next.
Characters:
Sieg not getting a shout-out or in conclusion not standing up high with himself was quite a prickle and a problem. Although, we were given a variety of characters that made apocrypha at least a bit of an enjoyable series. Astolfo gave us comedic laughter and memes. Mordred with her charm and traits like her father gave way fan to favor with her. Caster imitating what will Shakespeare's attitude is if he was still living on this current era. Jeanne (Ruler) as a referee of the war kept on meddling and meddling on both sides having her stood out from the rest. Karna with his loyalty and pride to fight any Heroic Spirit in a sport-manship way and there was Berserker (Frankenstein) who rose up from the dead (seriously). With 14 servants, there is a certain that each one of you have picked at least one servant to gain hope for. I said earlier in the 'story' section that having too many characters is a problem and quite risky, although, one advantage of having this many characters is having a favorite or side to choose from. Apocrypha was about a Holy Grail War so I am sure almost anyone made a bet that this servant will win (even though we already know the outcome after a few episodes).
Sound:
First opening (episodes 1-12), which was by EGOIST, was a disaster in my ears. Don't get me wrong. EGOIST made a ton of good songs but this one doesn't fit my ear drums. With it's slow narration after the sign 'Fate/Apocrypha' showed in your screens, the narration was just bad and we don't get that 'hype' feeling which was common in the past Fate series. Although, the first part was really bad, only the chorus we get to hear the good part along with the animation. But still opening 1 was a rock-bottom. Although, the first opening was not suitable for my hearing, the second opening by LiSA was a success to keep me watching more. Both endings was quite fine as they sounded smoothly for an episode to finish.
Art:
Oh boy this section... I was really not hoping for A-1 Pictures to present a godly animation (like what ufotable did), hence, I would like to give a round of applause to the studios. The animation and art was decent enough to be fascinated or get enjoyed by the fights although some fights (Karna vs Sieg) was over the top that my eyes hurts a lot after the fight. I can't describe it to be good or bad. It's decent.
Overall thoughts and Enjoyment:
My overall conclusion about Apocrypha is that it was a decent adaptation and attempt by A-1 Pictures. Although, there's a feeling that something was missing to the story. It lacks something that we just can't understand at first. That feeling is quite a bother to the plot and to the audience perspective. Even though the community judged this Fate anime to be all negatives, there were still some positives outlook to Apocrypha itself. To wrap this up, I enjoyed and I disliked it as well. Enjoyed because of the fights (and the opening and ending), then disliked it for its predictable outcome of the story and lacking of it.
Ysixion
Sooooo... i see everyone trashtalking about this anime and saying that it was probably one of the worst anime of the season... of course it wasn’t ! I’m not specially a fan of the Fate franchise but I like it and i’ve seen the other Fate series. I liked all of them and Fate/Apocrypha is not an exception. I really enjoyed this show and I don’t know why there is so much hate about it. Generally, people judge an anime from his plot and his development of the characters. This anime has 29 characters and it seems that most of the trashtalkers say that it’s too much... Ofcourse it’s too much ! 14 masters + 15 servants is a lot and there’s no way that the studio can develop everything in 25 episodes, but take it in the good way ! They focused on 5-6 masters and 5-6 servants, and it wasn’t too bad ! They gave us 29 characters, yes, but they never promised to develop every of theses characters. Complaining about that is nonsense ! Honestly, who cares about the background of the red team’s masters ? Or Spartacus ? Or the randoms in the Yggmilenia family like Fat-man and Sadistic-girl ? We don’t give a shit about them, just take what the anime gives you.
About the characters, I can’t say that they were GOOD, but they weren’t BAD either ! And furthermore, giving us a lot of servants brings a lot of fights too ! I like seeing all theses heroes and discovering the powers they have. They developed the characters the less they could, but at least we can enjoy fate/apocrypha. More would have been great, but what we have is sufficient.
Like every fate series, there are a lot of fights that happen, just sit, relax and enjoy them.
Speaking about fights... it seems that the animation can be called “trash”. Really ? The animations is so fucking beautiful, the colors are nice and everything is smooth. “Yes but when the servants are fighting some frames are poorly drawn and the servants look like nothing”. Hey you, just tell me... why would you pause when two servants are fighting ? Theses moments are meant to be epic, you know, animation is money, I think that the animation is really well made because they added theses “ugly frames” to make the fights more intenses and smooth. It wasn’t a problem at all and I liked it a lot ! Complaining about that is only rage because in a fight, everything is fast, everything moves, you have no reason to pause. The animation in general is even more beautiful so i’m not gonna talk about it.
About the OST and the sounds effects. Well, the OST aren’t incredible or memorable, but they are still good. Personally, I think that they accomplished their role of bringing me in the anime and giving me good feelings, above all during the fights.
It is true that the sounds may be frequently loud with bass boosting. But for my part is wasn’t a problem. It didn’t blew up my ears or destroyed my car either. All they did was bringing me this feeling of power. I liked it and I hope to see this in other animes. If you are crying because you think it was too loud, maybe you should rethink about the volume you put while watching anime. It seems that people love crying when the a studio tries new things.
The plot was not bad but it wasn’t incredible either. It’s about whether the human is good or evil. I think that something in the end was missing, and that some relations are a bit too pushed. But they didn’t really had the choice in a short span of time of 25 episodes.
Finally, I can’t compare it to the other animes of this studio. I don’t know if the animations is really that horrible compared to precedents anime. All I know, is that I was always thinking « omg it’s beautiful » while watching. I enjoyed it and i don’t think that this anime deserves that much hate.
Hope you guys will find the path to enjoy fate/apocrypha as I did :3
gaRdenia6943
I will just say that the main things that made this anime "goes to hell" for me, is directly because of the main protagonist which is a homunculus named Sieg. At first he's just nothing but a mere doll for fighting in battlefront, and THEN!!! Im not going to spoil so if you want to know then watch it, i would only admit that this guy really has a tough luck... The servants of this series are really interesting and cool as fck, like Mordred and Karna. They are so freaking awesome that even if how much you hate Sieg things, you still keep watchingthis whole mess for seeing them just for a min. Other characters are also fascinating and make me want to know them more. so it such a waste of characters for me. Mordred is the best character for me, she came for fight and she fights to the best limits. She deserves the title "Best Girl" of this anime.
The story, as you know, fights for the holy grail and between the fights we got some drama and flashbacks. For Apocrypha, instead, this anime should change the name to "the unrequited love story in the mess". People like to comment Jeanne is everyone's "waifu" and Jeanne/Sieg is cute ewww but for me its really irritating urgh. We should have gotten some fight scenes or maybe a story behind servants' motivation, instead they wasted half of the show with Sieg. Such a waste.
For anyone who expected a good fight, I recommend you to watch Fate stay night or zero. Do watch Apocrypha if you don't have anything left to do and want to waste sometime or you are mad and want to throw something around your house. Because this guy Sieg will manage the day.
7/10 if you skip all the Sieg scenes and come only for characters like our dear Mordred and many more, you will finish each ep in about 6 mins cuz Sieg is everywhere! Enjoy!!!!
and 3/10 if you manage to finish watching whole series without skipping and killing your computer
Blec
Saying Fate Apocrypha knew what worked about Fate Zero and the Fate franchise is like saying Guilty Crown knew what worked about Code Geass. This show is absolutely clueless and is the biggest train wreck of a show I have seen all year. Doubles the characters (28 of them!), quadruples the exposition, and has so many explosions it would give Michael Bay a run for his money. This is a classic case of bigger not being better. This is an uninspired, directionless, boring mess of a show. I will start with the few positives I can think about reflecting backon the show. By far the best characters in the show are Mordred and Sisigou. They aren't great characters, their screen time is limited, and are underdeveloped. However, they are the only characters that had any chemistry and personality. Every time these characters were on screen, this soulless show would show some signs of life and show glimpses of what it could have been. On the technical side: the music is very good albeit overused, there is some decent sound design, visuals can sometimes look nice when its not nighttime and despite some awfully edited and directed action sequences there are moments of good animation. Aside from that... Shakespeare is in this show???
Everything else in this show doesn't work at all. The cast is horribly mismanaged and are so dull and forgettable that I probably forgot some of them writing this review. The protagonist Sieg is the most uninteresting and dull character I have seen in recent memory. He has no backstory, no personality, no desires, infinite plot armor, no chemistry with the characters and feels completely pointless in this train wreck of a story. This has to be one of the worst written characters I have ever seen. The side characters don't fare much better either, the majority of them don't even want anything from the grail which can grant any wish... almost all of these stupid servants either say "I have no wish I want granted" or "All I wanted was to die a hero!!!" Which just makes me wonder the whole time: why should I care about any of them winning?! If you build characters around a wish granting premise, why give them zero desire to want a wish fulfilled??? Some of these characters are laughably bad, anyone who is a fan of the Atlanta legend or Jack The Ripper... I am so sorry for the way these characters were butchered/treated. The cast is so huge as well that no time is given to develop them. Its just a bunch of pointless explosions with no personal conflict or characters to care about most of the time, and even the action is so poorly directed that its hard to even enjoy the spectacle on its own. The action in this show is handled poorly. I can barely make out whats going on because there are so many quick cuts and characters move so fast without any real choreography. In a show full of swords, arrows and magic, there is definitely something wrong when my favorite fight in the whole show is a fist fight.
I think the thing about this show that puzzles me the most is that I don't know what its going for. The story was such a mess that I don't even know what themes it was trying to convey. The ideas were uninteresting for the most part or they were horribly executed. The action is poor and it seems to be the driving force of this show. Its not character driven. Visually there isn't anything that interesting I can recall. Its so exposition heavy and badly paced that I find it hard to enjoy it as simple entertainment. Its very talky and complicated, but isn't thought provoking or smart enough to justify it. The rules of the war and mechanics of how magic and servants work are either utterly broken or completely incomprehensible. MAYBE its explained in the light novel its based on, but there were multiple times where I had to go online to understand some of the random bullshit that happens in this show... and this is coming from someone who read the Fate Stay Night visual novel, watched Fate zero, Deen's Stay Night and the Ufotable's unlimited blade works! Rarely do I see a big popular show come out and fail to at least see the appeal in it.
I don't recommend this show to anybody. There are better action fantasy anime out there and it doesn't hold a candle to the Ufotable adaptations. Fans deserve better than this and I really hope this is just the lowest point of this mostly enjoyable franchise.
