There was once a Holy Grail War waged by Mages and Heroic Spirits in a town of Fuyuki. However, one
Mage took advantage of the chaos of World War II to steal a Holy Grail. Several decades have passed,
and the Yggdmillennia family, who took upon the Holy Grail as its symbol, defected from the Mages'
Association. Furious, the Association sent forces to deal with the Yggdmillennia, but were defeated.
With the Holy Grail system changed, war at an unprecedented scale breaks out.
(Source: Anime News Network)
Following the trend of Fate adaptations comes Fate/Apocrypha, an anime based on a light novel based on a scrapped concept for an online game (a niche which was ultimately filled by Fate/Grand Order). Apocrypha provides a different take on the "Holy Grail War" format of previous entries in the series by depicting an all-out war between two teams with seven magic-using "Masters" each partnered with a "Servant" based on a historical (or mythological, or literary) figure. Fate/Stay Night--the initial entry in the series--as well as its prequel Fate/Zero deal with half the number of characters in a battle-royale format and both do an excellent job at developing their characters, themes, and general narrative. On the other hand, Apocrypha feels as if the narrative is spread far too thin. Many interesting characters are sidelined while the main storyline feels like a re-telling of Stay Night's "Fate" route with watered down themes and characters. The production quality of the TV anime is middling. A-1 Pictures is far from a bad studio, but the animation quality is rather inconsistent with sudden dips and peaks at various points. The soundtrack is nothing special, though it's ear-pleasing and well-fitting enough that there's nothing to complain about. There are redeeming factors in Apocrypha, and fans of the Fate series may derive a good deal of enjoyment from the occasional scene where those factors shine through. For newcomers to the series interested in Apocrypha it would be a far better decision to start with the Fate/Stay Night visual novel or Fate/Zero anime (despite it spoiling much of Stay Night), then to come back and check out Apocrypha if they find the series to their liking.
Fate/Apocrypha is an new entry to the fate franchise and was produced by our good old friends A1 Pictures, which is totally.. acceptable? It describes the alternate story of the 4th holy grail war and that war is kinda different from that what we used to see in Fate/Zero.. for example. It's not an 7 Masters and 7 Servants free for all this time it's an 14 v 14 war with 7 servants and 7 masters on each side. Team Black vs Team Red After reading some reviews on the glorious internet it's easy to see that some people are confused about this anime or are just disappointed. Some people stating that it's just a bad try to get the Fate formula running. I mean Heroic spirits fighting against each other with the goal to obtain the holy grail.. that's fucking awesome holy shit But the thing A1 Pictures missed while creating Fate/Apocrypha wasn't the formula, Apocrypha had an interesting plot with interesting characters.. just like fate/zero.. but where did A1 Pictures mess up? That question is easy to answer.. time They had the perfect formula to make an great anime like Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works. Interesting Plot Cool characters but it doesn't work if you try to fit this formula into 24 episodes while you contain more mass than Fate/Zero for example (ca. 16 characters) Like shit spills over and if you put it into the oven it's not even completely baked and still semi – liquid at the end img220(https://pm1.narvii.com/5954/e8807fba3bd7bcedfc644bb2cb312bd48e7eccc5_hq.jpg) There was not enough time to introduce 30 characters in this anime so the characters suffered from bad writing or better said they had only a bit to no writing and the anime left us after 24 episodes without the viewer knowing anything about more than 50% of the characters which makes Jack the Ripper really awkward sometimes as a character.. I mean a 12 years old girl is the famous jack the ripper.. I mean what. If there is no time to introduce characters then there is also no time to explain some plot points which also leaves the viewer back with some question marks. To get closer to some of the characters: We have our main character couple with Sieg and Jeanne d'arc. Siege is a homunculus who escapes from team black which intended to use him to create a big fucking golem. And it's just about how he gets his own ideals and finds the the reason why he wants to fight. And he also falls in love with Jeanne d'arc.. well if that wasn't obvious Jeanne d'arc is the 15th servant in this war as the ruler class, which means she has some more punch than the other servants. As her class name states she has to observe the great holy grail war and pays attention that everybody is following the rules... am I right Shirou Kotomine?? Saber of Red (Mordred) is confusing for people who are not familiar with the fate verse or only have seen the other fate anime so of course their question is going to be: Why does she look like Saber from UBW?? And why is she the son of king Arthur? She is a girl that doesn't make sense.. img220(https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/aMAOvLG_700b.jpg) Well King Arthur is also a girl in the fate verse and it makes it really strange when Mordred refers to Artoria as “father”. But don't worry there is no need to be confused a short look into the Type Moon wiki explains everything. So she is infact a clone of Artoria and was raised, by Artorias sister, to believe that she is Artorias son and that she is going to be king one day and didn't know that Artoria also was a girl... Artoria is master in crossdressing as it seems But Mordreds relationship with her master and the way she acted was really entertaining to watch. She was the opposite of Artoria which means that she was loud and aggressive.. and don't you dare to call her a girl. And while we are talking about cross dressing we have this thing.. img220(https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/images/characters/7/311531.jpg) no not him img220(https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/images/characters/10/338153.jpg) also not him, pls give me the right one img220(https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/images/characters/7/333308.jpg) there he is Astolfo the trap already everybody knew about.. no seriously everybody was referring to him as a he since he had screen time and his master was a total creep.. WHAT IS SHE DOING He was even if he was just a trap an actually love able character.. because he didn't try to make many situations awkward for the viewer.. ok most of the time. BUT WHY IS HE WEARING A FUCKING SKIRT What else do we have? Hercules only with more steroids, less lives and an serious crack addiction (actually Spartakus) img220(http://i.imgur.com/nNikwE0.png) Karna who is Gilgamesh with bleached hair img220(https://theglorioblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/apocrypha3karna.jpg) Fucking Alucard.. haha you know Alucard = Dracula spelled backwards.. WE GET IT img220(https://78.media.tumblr.com/0b591a6c97a18f8a9803c01f55ddf2a4/tumblr_osux0t4bPL1wrmwqko1_540.gif) Jack the Ripper who is a disturbingly cute loli with an mental crack and no pants img220(http://www.anime-evo.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/FateAcro_06_5.jpg) Frankenstein.. WHO IS ALSO A FUCKING GIRL img220(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CSp3afEUujY/maxresdefault.jpg) Dr. Octopus img220(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGinpP6UMAAjUt_.jpg) Nazi Mage img220(https://i0.wp.com/i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa288/reversethieves/show%20images/Type%20Moon/Fate%20Apocrypha/Fate%20Apocrypha%2009%20C.jpg~original) fucking William Shakespeare... I told you the cast is interesting img220(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e2z50zK-yQQ/maxresdefault.jpg) and Holy shit is that a crossover episode!? img220(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/M_wPf0d4sk4/maxresdefault.jpg) So you guys know now the basic story and some characters.. right? Right Let's come to the fun part now Animation and Music, and I have to say that anime is looking good. Well that's something A1 Pictures is kinda decent at Characters are looking beautiful and the set building as well but there is one thing that was striking my eyes every time it came to an fight. The downgrade of details to make an more fluid animation which is totally acceptable. The fights were looking great and it was fun to watch but it was noticeable to a certain degree.. especially in the last six episodes.. Same thing goes for the music, the music is good nothing outstanding but it supports the fights and the different scenes pretty decent. PLUS the openings are really really nice. I didn't like the endings that much, well they are just normal endings. Not every ending can be like Kekkai Sensens.. I love that fucking ending or that one from Youjo Senki.. that damn nazi loli All in all Fate Apocrypha was an ok viewing experience and would be even more enjoyable if you just watch and don't use your brain.. the same reason why we are having fun with stupid harem and ecchi shows.. I mean maybe you enjoy watching it.. or you just hate it To be honest this anime is ok, I would recommend it to people who like action anime and don't really mind how the characters are written and so on. And if you are just starting with the Fate series, Just watch Fate/Zero and UBW first and then watch apocrypha if you still want to. I'm not going to give this anime a score (that's why there is a 0/100), I'm just gonna say watch it if that what I wrote sounds interesting to you or don't watch it and move on to watch different shows.
Yet another one of my mistakes~ oh, no, those are Escape The Fate lyrics. Silly me. Of course we are talking about completely different Fate and completely different mistakes, which this alternative story from the oh so famous franchise undoubtedly is full of. ___ [Fate/Apocrypha](https://anilist.co/anime/98035/FateApocrypha) is 25 episodes long anime produced by studio [1-A Pictures](https://anilist.co/studio/561/A1Pictures) during summer 2017, adapting light novel written by [Yuuichirou Higashide](https://anilist.co/staff/113537/YuuichiroHigashide) in cooperation with [Kinoko Nasu](https://anilist.co/staff/98250/KinokoNasu), author of _Fate/Stay night_, _Fate/Grand Order_ or _Kara no Kyoukai_ (Nasu also supervised the creation of_ Fate/Zero_). __F/A__ is set in alternative universe and with little to no connection to any of the previous seasons, yet still remains a part of the Fate universe and thus the watcher cannot but compare. And that is precisely where __Apocrypha__ is perfectly fucked, since, well, it simply_ doesn't live up to the expectations_. ###What we do this time and what we have done before Previous Fate series take place in a world with magic, where magi get a chance to partake in a Holy Grail War, a conflict between seven magi (Masters) and heroic spirits they summon (Servants). The goal is simple - to obtain the Grail and have one's wish granted. Grail itself chooses the seven Masters and it is up to them to use an artifact, catalyst, that will allow them to summon one heroic spirit from seven Servant Classes who will fight for them. Masters also possess three _Command Spells_, extremely powerful sorcery that enables the Master to force their Servant to... do anything, really. It can be used as means of enforcing obedience or simply pouring extreme amount of magical energy into the Servant to make them surpass their own limits. Yet, Apocrypha is not based on the concept seven Masters (plus Servants) against each other. In this world, the Grail had been stolen by a powerful mage family Yggdemillennia, commencing Great Holy Grail War between two fractions - Black, that being Yggdemillennia, and Red fraction representing Mage's Association, ultimately summoning fifteen Servants in total. Fight for the Grail begins! _(from upper left to right: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider; from lower left to right: Caster, Berserker, Assassin_ img400(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/90/44/8f/90448f9e6b5a9245d79808259b672fbc.jpg) _Black Fraction Servants _ img400(http://oi57.tinypic.com/1hhe0.jpg) _Red Fraction Servants_ __ wait... what? why is there half naked kid? why is berserker class wearing a wedding dress? why is there a neko girl? is that pink haired girl a...?!__ ###Characters... or something For anyone who has never had the pleasure to watch previous Fate series, ~~(i'm not talking about you, _2006 DEEN version of Fate/Stay night_ though, no one likes you)~~ this character design may seem... OK. And that's the fucking problem. Fate series reduced to nothing but your average fantasy struggling to appeal to the widest audience possible, using nasty, nasty tropes. As I've said, fair or not, as a fan of Fate franchise, I simply MUST make comparison. Only to shed some light onto what we thought we would get and what we actually got. This is_ Fate/Zero Rider, __Iskandar__._ img500(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/2/2b/ZeroRider.png/revision/latest?cb=20141215214502) This is _Fate/Apocrypha Rider, __Astolfo__._ img500(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/a/a2/RiderAstolfoStage2.png/revision/latest?cb=20180105091002) _uh okay, nevermind, even other Fate series had some characters designed for nothing but looks, it's no big deal, pink haird girls ar~ OH. __IT'S A GUY__. Fate's doing traps now! cool. anything for the joke, am i right fellas! haha and what's this??_ This is _Fate/Stay night: Unlimited Blade Works Berserker, __Hercules___. img400(http://static.zerochan.net/Berserker.%28Fate.stay.night%29.full.647330.jpg) And this... is _Apocrypha's Berserker, __Frankenstein__._ img500(https://pre00.deviantart.net/e39f/th/pre/i/2017/253/b/b/frankenstein___fate_apocrypha_by_twilitz-dbn03i6.jpg) _OH i guess it just... It just is that in this reality... Servants just... are... schmucky_... __WAIT. WHAT IN THE FUCK'S NAME__ img350(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/fategrandorder/images/6/61/Jacksprite3.png/revision/latest?cb=20160329051623) _WHY IS THE ASSASSIN A LITTLE FUCKING KID WITH NO FREAKING PANTS WHAT HAPPENED TO ZERO AND UBW ASSASSINS HOW DID WE GET INTO SEXUALIZING CHILDREN WHEN WE HAD THESE_ img300(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/d/d1/TrueAssasin_sprite.png/revision/latest?cb=20141028204752) img300(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/e/eb/Assassin_FGO.png/revision/latest?cb=20170919180447) Nevermind! You know what! Visuals aren't everything! Those characters may appear desperate to seem unique and original, but let's not be too quick to judge! They surely do have actual personality and aren't simply assigned flashy colours and one (1) extravagant trait to make them differ from each other! HAHA THAT WOULD BE SIMPLY RIDICULOUS! Let's discuss these complex personas! Before that, I must say that I'm aware of the fact there are just way too many characters for all of them to be authentic and fully fleshed-out, yet the manner in which the situation has been handled is nothing short of _poor_. Not only did the creators fail to portray those characters in a way for us to become anyhow invested with them, they also managed to disregard the very basic fact that __Servants are supposed to serve the Masters__. That is, unfortunately for F/A, reality. The Holy Grail Wars are only able to take place if Servants take their Masters' wishes as priority. That is not a matter left for discussion - that's real. Summoned heroic spirits of course do have their own free will (and ocassionally demonstrate it even if it is in contradiction with their Master's), but they come to this War 'programmed' to serve. Of fucking course. AND YET *__apocrypha master x servant relationship summed up__:* _Masters: "Hello could u um maybe do what i told u to do like at least once or maybe just don't act completely independently as if i didn't exist pls u literally can't ignore me that's physically impossible"_ _Servants: "New season who dis"_ Don't even get me started on how I hate this new approach '_all Servants are now independent beings and are not obliged to respect their masters's wishes, also they can and WILL do whatever they feel like doing_'. Another aspect of this tricky part I despise is that '_Masters give literally zero fucks as to where their Servants are and what they are doing_'. There are exceptions, indeed. But why the fuck is the majority defying the most fundamental rule of the Fate Universe, like the whole concept is based on this and they just threw it outta the window you can't do tha~ u know, nevermind. Moving on. ####I will now explore the important characters. We may begin with __Black Fraction, (~~mostly~~) the Yggdemillennia family.__ - __Fiore and Chiron__ img500(https://i.imgur.com/7CsYt2h.png) Fiore is the successor of the Yggdemillennia family and her legs aren't working, so she yeets around on a wheelchair and also uses spider-like machine to run around while fighting. __Spoiler alert__, her younger brother decides she isn't fit to be a mage because she cried when her dog died when she was like 8. Chiron is exceptionally obedient and does what he's told. Nice guy, very considerate and his homie Achilles is in enemy fraction ~~which inevitably calls for drama.~~ Unfortunately, there is no development and the relationship between Chiron and Fiore remains identical for the whole 25 episodes. - __Celenike and Astolfo__ img500(https://i2.wp.com/i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa288/reversethieves/Apocrypha%2004%20B.jpg~original) Celenike = Crazy sadistic yandere who would obviously enjoy raping Astolfo. Never contributes to the story, but don't worry, she gets her share of screen time, so we know that she has a room dedicated to sexually harassing her Servant. Astolfo is funny 100% gay trap that never once even thought that he is supposed to listen to his Master. Also, falls in love with the main character and serves as the comedy relief. Command Spells don't work on him because the power of will. Although it is, yet again, not physically possible. - __Reika and Jack the Ripper__ img500(http://fate-apocrypha.com/assets/img/story/17/01.jpg) (_these two are serial killers btw_) Reika Rikudou is the most random person to ever appear on this show. She is just there, doesn't belong to the family. Where did she come from? What's she doing there? WHO THE FUCK ARE U? Oh, you can play the piano. Nice! That's it? Ok. Jack the Ripper is the sexualized kid with truly heartbreaking backstory, so we will fit her whole arc into one episode and there will be like 10 more subplots going on at the same time, so good luck with getting invested. They play no bigger role than another plot devices exploited for the sake of main characters anyway. ####Now, onto the Red Fraction. - __Shishigou and Morderd__ img500(https://cdn-ak.f.st-hatena.com/images/fotolife/s/shikiyu/20170807/20170807223055.jpg) Cool Necromancer Shishigou and Morderd, the son of Arturia (THAT Arturia!). One of the few characters that managed to somewhat grow thoughout the show although they were given literally minimum of screentime. While their development is limited and mostly off-screen, this duo still manages to leave the watcher satisfied and concludes their story with enough closure. Their Master - Servant relation follows the tradition and still, what a shock, pulls off interesting, fresh and actually likable perspective on such relationship. - __Atalanta, Karna, Achilles__ img500(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/v8cthKNiGwM/maxresdefault.jpg) _(from left to right: Achilles, Karna, Atalanta)_ All three of them being Servants of Red, Atalanta and Achilles get some sort of development - rushed, forced and off-screen one that took place in the second half of anime, which is, well, fucking late for the creators to begin building up the characters. Not to mention both of them couldn't care fucking less for their Masters or Grail or Fraction. Karna on the other hand demonstrates quite the unique traits and holds perhaps most of the potential to be Fate worthy character. Also, you won't guess who got the least screentime. Haha, definitely not Karna, that would be... well, schmuck. - __Semiramis__ img500(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YMcPIlx_6Og/maxresdefault.jpg) One of the best attempts on decent portrayal of entertaining and somewhat deep personality. Semiramis is the Assassin of Red and while most of her development occurs in the latter part of anime, she does in fact get screen time before that and even is given some opportunities to show her true colours throughout the story. Loyal, intriguing, ambitious woman. Strong female character. ####But who is the fucking main character? There are three of them, at least from my point of the view. - Sieg img500(https://static.zerochan.net/Sieg.%28Fate.Apocrypha%29.full.2082568.jpg) If you suspect this anime had way too many characters to begin with and that such diversity already could have provided us with some quality MC material, you are absolutely correct. Why add absolutely hollow guy with no aspirations nor amibitions and make him the centre of attention? No fucking clue, but the idea of artificial human who becomes sentient and somehow is saved by numeruous Servants (who just felt like saving him) and also later on becomes the most OP fighter is pretty fucking bad. Sieg possesses very thick plot armor thus is invincible. Moving on. - __Jeanne d'Arc__ img500(https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.442634547.5694/flat,800x800,070,f.u1.jpg) The fifteenth Servant, Class Ruler. Jeanne is summoned to the Great Holy Grail War as neutral overseer whose sole purpose is to supervise the course of the War and to make sure that the participants abide the rules. Few episodes later Jeanne picks a side and actively partakes in the War due to, well, somewhat understandable reasons; Jeanne seeks comrades in order to be able to defeat the enemy despite the fact she should be able to single-handedly strike down anyone in her way, even when greatly outnumbered. Also, later on is reduced to nothing but plot device for unnecessary romantic entanglement. - __Kotomine Shirou__ img500(https://pre00.deviantart.net/4538/th/pre/f/2017/189/b/a/shirou_kotomine_by_fu_reiji-dbfmj0a.jpg) Basically the antagonist of the show, yet one of the few relatable characters the viewer might have been able to root for. Shirou shows his cunning, skill, dedication to achieve his goal (which isn't even anything remotely evil) all while remaining composed and an actually kind leader. Shirou's presence makes Apocrypha seem like less of a shit, in a way. ~~Had he only been the protagonist instead...~~ At the very least, he is arguably the most complex and thought-provoking character in the series. ###The Rest. What is Apocrypha if we strip it from the oh so problematic characters? The main theme is simple, battle after battle until there's none but the main cast left. There are some entertaining twists in regards to the fighting strategies and ending itself carries some shock value, too. They also apparently try to create emotional atmosphere, to make us feel for the heroes when they pass away. The nerve to pull actually well constructed scene without the proper built up for the characters! The nerve! Simply put, there are ideas. Situations, lines that could have worked. They even did sometimes. There are present takes on relationships unprecedent in the Fate franchise, stuff we've never seen before and it even is animated and overall done so well - just if we cared for the people on the screen. _The attempts to make us sympathize with these Masters and Servants were at times done better than in the previous seasons. The attempts to humanize those characters and create any sort of bond between them and the watcher were carried out so poorly I was appalled._ F/A is without a doubt extremely hard novel to adapt. Especially while being pressured by the standards the previous seasons have set. Should we take Apocrypha as a standalone anime, without the necessaary comparison, the flaws would still be there, nevertheless. Having said that, Apocrypha isn't outright _bad_. __It's enjoyable, exciting show that failed to live up to its name yet delivered above average fantasy action with some bold and fresh ideas. __ All in all, is Fate/Apocrypha worth watching? Definitely. Flashy fights, heroic spirits, betrayal, love, epicness. It is saddening that such a promising concept hadn't been done in a more suitable manner but since this is what we get, we may as well enjoy it for what it is.
Let's make this clear from the beginning - if you're looking for a gateway to the Fate universe - this isn't it. While Fate/Apocrypha is set in an alternate timeline which would, in theory, free it from some of the baggage from the original work, this is not even remotely the case. I've discussed the first half of the series a few months ago, but now it's time to talk about the series as a whole. There will be spoilers - so if you haven't decided to watch the show yet, read that review first. Fate/Apocrypha diverges from the core timeline wayback at the Third Grail War, which is now established as having been during the Second World War. During that war, the Yggdmillennia family straight up stole the Greater Grail and proceeded to hang on to it. Since then there have been a series of smaller Grail Wars, until finally we have a Greater Grail war, between the forces of Yggdmillennia (the Black faction) and the Mage's Association (the Red faction - no relation to the game series)), to see who will control the Grail. Arbitrating this is a Ruler - a Servant sent to make sure the rules are followed - in this case Jeanne D'Arc. However, to quote the Lord of the Rings... they were all of them deceived. During that 3rd Holy Grail War, that war's ruler - Amakusa Shirou Tokisada (yes, Samurai Shodown fans - that Amakusa) - managed to stick around after the war with a cunning plan - get into the holy grail war, and make a wish on the Greater Grail to cause - in short, Third Impact, to stop human suffering, like what happened to his followers in the past. So that shoe gets dropped about midway through the show, and that absolutely changes the dynamic of the series - with the remaining master of Red and the surviving masters of Black basically responding to that revelation with "Well, f*** that!" and banding together to stop it. Well, that and trying to stop Assassin of Black (who is Jack the Ripper) from running amuck. This leads to the second half of the series being having both heavier characterization, fights with higher stakes, and more impressive animation for those fights. We get Gordes coming to view the Homunculi as human, Sieg understanding how he feels about life and humanity, and Jeanne's growing affection for Sieg. We also get some of the most impressively animated fights of the series - Achilles and Chiron, Sieg(fried) and Karna, Jeanne (and later Achilles) and Atalantia. It's gorgeously done work - though I will admit going from comments elsewhere that some of the animation in those fights is more divisive than others. All of that said, while the fights are impressive, and some of the character beats in the second half of the show are nicely done, it's a little inferior to Fate/Zero - mainly due to some issues with the material. If you're already deep into the Nasuverse lore, there's a lot to enjoy - but if you're new, there is other material to go with.
*** ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/nLwwKFB.jpg) img220(https://i.imgur.com/a2oHJlG.png)~~~ *** >Primeiramente para quem N conhece a serie "Fate", aqui vai uma explicação: Fate se trata de uma Guerra (disputa) entre 7 pessoas (normalmente) em busca do Santo Graal, o cálice sagrado q possui o poder de realizar desejos. Para q haja um vencedor é necessário q todos os outros participantes tenham morrido ou estejam impossibilitados de lutar... Para participar vc precisa, primeiramente, de um Servo (um guerreiro histórico q irá te ajudar) e ser um mago... ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/D5VUkjC.png)~~~ Achei esse anime muito bom, possui um lado "histórico" bem legal... Pelo fato de juntar religiões e acontecimentos históricos (Verdadeiros ou N).. O enredo é muito bom, mesmo q seja somente relacionado á (basicamente) lutas... Inicialmente Vc é apresentado há um possível lado correto da história, mas depois VC realmente percebe q N existe lado certo nela... Há os dois lados da moeda, porém o lado verdadeiro é o central ~~(quando a moeda cai em pé - alá NGNL)~~. A história é bem trabalhada, começa com uma pitada de ação e só vai melhorando conforme as lutas vão avançando... Os mestres vão se mostrando e se apresentando "um a um", e é nesse momento q vc buga.. e n sabe qual escolher.. O desenvolvimento dele começa lento, porém quando ele fica embalado, nada segura, são lutas atrás de lutas.. O Final do anime foi muito bom, era oq q a gente esperava em 2º plano (pq em 1º é o nosso querido Astolfo ' :) ' ), me lembrou o Devilman Cry baby, quem assistiu vai perceber... A relação entre a Intro e o final do anime foi genial, eles apresentaram o fato para dar enfase e depois apresentaram oq ocorreu, mas sem q percebêssemos... >PONTOS FORTES - __Personagens:__ Esse é um lado q a serie Fate costuma apresentar... São tantos personagens lutando juntos q vc tem uma grande opção de "melhor personagem"... E todos são muito legais, a relação entre os Servos e os Mestres é sensacional.... Diga-se de passagem, o anime criador da lenda Astolfo: ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/zK7A0A8.jpg) img220(https://i.imgur.com/6BvYMhG.jpg)~~~ - __Animação:__ Outra qualidade geral do Fate... A animação de Fate deveria ser um padrão geral de qualidade, pq ela é MUITO BEM feita.. Os traços são bem desenhados, as lutas são muito bem feitas... Os efeitos dos poderes também são interessante... >PONTOS FRACOS - ~!O único ponto fraco q tem é o N desenrolar da história amorosa de Astolfo e de Sieg (o protagonista) fiquei bastante decepcionado com isso...!~ Recomendo esse anime para quem gosta de uma "guerrinha" com magia... VC vai ter uma bela diversão com ele.. ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/cRXbndP.png)~~~
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 a standalone?” 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…
__Fate Apocrypha, missed potential, a spoiler-included review.__
This is the first of the Fate series that i have watched ~~I was definitely not baited by Astolflo~~.
I enjoyed it, but as a story and how it flows, I have a huge problem with its progression. Also, this
is my first review, so cut me some slack yeah?
____
1. __The first half is literally a game of cat and mouse with nothing achieved from it.__
A common trend that I realized in Fate Apocrypha is that a lot of episodes tend to end up with one
character saying _"Next time we fight, we're gonna end this once and for all!"_ Yes, while I
understand that while it is to ensure that the final episodes have a massive final fight, but seeing
Assassin bail after a fight or seeing Shiro call back his servants while being a "tactical move" in
context of a Holy Grail War, makes each episode tiring to watch as the viewer knows that not all the
servants are going to die until the final fight.
__2. Fight Scenes come across as glorified light shows with no real depth
__
Fight scenes involve a lot of laser beams and sword explosions that seem like it came out of a Michael
Bay film. In the Sieg vs Karna fight in Episode 22 that while being amazing to see, ultimately boiling
down to _Which servant has the largest laser beam to destroy their opponent?_ . A number of fights in
the show boil down to just a show of power, whereas it would be more interesting to see how a
character uses their skills at their disposal to outwit their opponent based on their character.
Fights, like Mordred's final fight against Semiramis is resolved by Modred's master using a command
spell plus drugs to boost her power, which just seems like a easy way out to resolve a fight.
__3. Characters are poorly made and are shallow.__
This is a massive gripe I have with the show, considering that it made me almost want to drop it. Its
understandable that in a 25 episode span, it is tough to fully cover all the servants and masters,
their motivations and characters, but even the main cast are just... ack.
- Spartacus is a prime offender of this, serving no real purpose in the story other than being a
destructive force that is but a hindrance to the characters.
-Avicebron's desire to "create the perfect golem to create paradise" is out of place, and his episode
where he dies for the golem serves no purpose in the entire episode other than even out the fight
between the Red and Black faction.
- Karna, despite being one of the characters who had so much screen time, especially near the end, did
not have much depth other than being an extremely powerful servant who has a heart of gold.
- Celenike (Rider's former master) is a sadistic woman who gets off torturing Astolflo in her
Victorian torture chamber, which was pretty unnecessary and her being taken out of the Holy Grail War
- Not to mention characters like Roche, Darnic, who had no effect on the story other than being plot
drivers, which in that case they're better off not existing and that screen time spent on developing
the others.
__HOWEVER,__
I especially enjoyed the dynamics of some characters, especially Mordred and Sisigou's, Achilles and
Chiron's rivalry was more interesting than Jeanne and Sieg's romance, which wasn't very emotionally
engaging and I did not get invested nor did I care about the end. Mordred, despite having little
screen time, had a better development, wherein her wish to become King, as well as her hatred for
Artoria is challenged and culminates into her realizing that she just wanted to help her father and
relieve her burden.
__4. The conflict of ideals could have been so much better.__
The examination of the dilemma between achieving salvation at the cost of human individuality and
removing the entire point of living/experiencing the human condition could have been more interesting
should it have been more well developed. Amakusa Shirou's desire for salvation against Jeanne's wish
to ensure that humans experience life, regardless whether they suffer despair under evil while seeing
the good appear in others is a good concept, but wasted by poor execution with exposition, with the
characters debating in the last episodes about their ideals when it should have been explored
throughout the series. Amakusa Shirou acted as a shadowy figure in the beginning, only appearing in
the second half to take over the faction of red.
Maybe I'm rambling, but ultimately Fate Apocrypha had potential to explore themes of the human
condition, or the characters that were much more interesting such as Mordred or the other masters,
instead of Sieg, who is arguably a boring MC who took up too much screen time.
Fate/Apocrypha is a frustrating, disappointing, and unengaging series that is a lackluster entry into the Fate franchise. The premise of a grand scale Holy Grail War between two factions of 7 servants sounds exciting on paper, but the show fails to deliver on its potential. In a large cast of 16 servants and 8 or so masters, the show decides to focus on the most boring and generic shounen-esque protagonist characters and fails to make up for it with visuals or stimulating plot. There were a lot of things that I disliked in this series, but I will first go over the things that I did like. Number 1: the music. The music is epic, thematic, and memorable. The OPs and EDs were not my favorite but the BGM was really well done and was used well throughout the show. Fortunately you can listen to it on youtube without subjecting yourself to the show that went along with it. Number 2: Mordred and Sisigou. Easily my favorite two characters in the show, due slightly to pre-existing biases from FGO, but they also receive a fair amount of actually satisfying development. I like Mordred a lot as a character and she has a good dynamic with Sisigou. She is also one of the few servants to actually have her wish for the grail explored, and she actually has development in that area. However, even though they get more screen time than most, they still don't get very much and unless you're a Mordred super fan I don't think that they are enough to carry the show. I think that's about it for the good, so let's move onto the trash. The animation is okay, I thought that for the most part the faces looked too tall throughout most of the series. The action scenes and fights were more about big explosions with deep base sound effects than actual choreography or strategy but more on that later. The last few episodes looked pretty good animation wise, but also very different from the rest of the series. The shading was a lot flatter but the animation was smooth and I thought that the faces looked a lot better for a few episodes. Most of the series doesn't look very good though. Characters: There are a lot of them but somehow I ended up not liking many of them at all. I've played FGO for about a year and a half now and wanting to see some of my servants animated was one of the main reasons I watched this show, and in that regard it was a major disappointment. I would say that Mordred, Sisigou, Achilles, and Amakusa ended up as my favorite characters. In addition to them, I liked pretty much all of the servants except for Astolfo who I find kind of annoying, which is unfortunate because he gets probably the most screen time of anyone. This series also made me like Jeanne a lot less by the end of it. Towards the end of the series, Atalante also had some events happen that really made no sense if you look at how they started that made me dislike her as well. As far as the masters go, other than Sisigou none of them are particularly interesting. Darnic is mildly interesting as a villain but his role in the story ends up not being very major. The masters that it focuses on are the two teenage Yggdmillennia masters and Sieg the homunculus, who are incredibly generic characters you could find in any random shounen show. Sieg: I'm going to make this its own section because he's the main character and ends up having a lot of influence over the show. Sieg is probably my least favorite part of this show, and he ends up as the main character. Sieg is a homunculus who is born in the beginning of the story. He is idealistic and naive, with character development that includes "TIL people can be bad", a shocking revelation to us all. He is a very generic "you're so kind" protagonist who just wants to save people and doesn't really have any motivation beyond wanting to "be good". Sieg hogs a lot of screentime pondering boring idealistic thoughts that don't get a lot deeper than "are all people good", "are all people bad", or "are some people good and some people bad". He was very bland and I couldn't get invested in wanting him to succeed or defeat the villain. Speaking of the villain, the main villain isn't all that villainous and the show doesn't give you much of a reason to dislike him. His plan and the potential negative ramifications of the plan are not explored very thoroughly, and the bit of exploration that is given comes at the very end. Additionally, his wish comes from him wanting to help humanity, so it is hard to really want to root against him. The result of this is that there is a main character who isn't very likeable and a main villain who isn't very hateable, which leads to a final act where you watch and think "why do I care?". The reason I cared was because I wanted to move it off of my 'watching' list. Power Creep: Remember when most servants had only one noble phantasm? Apocrypha doesn't. Nearly every servant has multiple noble phantasms, many having 3 or 4 which leads to a lot of NP spam and servants saying things like "well ya know I just happen to have this NP I forgot about until now which will be perfect for this!" (This actually happens). In addition to way too many NPs, the overall power level of just about every servant in this show seems higher than the typical power level in other Fate series. Since the high power level is consistent in the show, it isn't a major problem but the inconsistency with the rest of the franchise bothered me. Beyond consistency though, every servant being able to fire off huge blasts of energy leads to the aforementioned poor fight choreography where fights end up just being explosions and light shows without much going on. For example, practically any fight involving Siegfried is just him spamming Balmung to cut explosions in half. Plot Armor: The plot armor is out of control in this series. Karna is probably the single most powerful combat servant in the war and manages to end up with 0 kills due to picking a fight with the main character. Many people refuse to die when it would make sense, or somehow figure out a way to give their power to the protagonist even after dying. For example, someone takes a full power, point blank sword swing TO THE NECK and survives another 5 episodes to keep doing stuff. No one in this show dies until they aren't needed for any more plot contrivances. Power level between servants doesn't matter at all to decide the outcome of fights, all that matters is if someone is needed to create a plot event later. Jeanne: Jeanne's entire role in this show lands somewhere between unnecessary and confusing for me. As the ruler class servant, her job is to mediate over the war which I guess involves making sure there isn't too much collateral damage. Except that Jeanne isn't that powerful as a combat servant so there isn't a whole lot she can do to stop anyone for the most part and just gets bullied. The love story angle between her and Sieg is soooo unnecessary. I usually like romance sub plots but in a show with so many characters spending extra time to develop this relationship was a waste. I don't find Sieg particularly likeable beyond being a goody-two-shoes so falling in love with that is a little hard for me to stomach too. He isn't straight unlikeable like Rin Tsuchimi or anything but c'mon. Plot: The story begins with the potentially interesting plot line of the large scale Holy Grail War between the Mages' Association and Yggdmillennia, however that plot is resolved rather quickly and without too many twists and turns. The rest of the show is also rather straight forward. The plot isn't super interesting or engaging, there aren't a lot of unexpected twists or anything that would keep you on your toes. The show feels like it's more something you would watch for the characters, except that the characters aren't very good. All in all Fate/Apocrypha is a series that fails to deliver on its promise of an epic battle between two servant factions and instead devolves into following extremely goody goody idealistic protagonists that will have you asking "why am I still watching?" throughout the final act. A very disappointing entry into the Fate series. I would only recommend this show if you really like Astolfo.
If you were keeping up with new anime back in 2017 than you probably remember when this show came out. 'The new Fate anime being handled by A-1 Pictures, ooooooooo, this'll be horrible!' is what a lot of the discourse around this show was on the internet. Because of this, I didn't even give this anime a passing glance. At the time I was still watching Fate/Zero and didn't want to start a completely new Fate series so soon. While I didn't really end up liking a lot of aspects of Zero and think it's generally an overrated show, it still got me interested in Fate as a franchise. Historical figures fighting in a battle royal in an alternate history present day with magic is an incredibly cool premise. A lot of the spin offs differentiate themselves with some gimmick, but that's the general hook for most Fate series. And Apocrypha is no different, being the most similar to Zero and UBW as it's setting is still the real world (albeit in an alternate timeline from those shows). So, despite how I felt about Zero, I still decided to give this show a chance and see if my second outing with the Fate series would prove to be better. And boy oh boy am I glad I chose this one. For starters, I think my preference for what I wanted to see from this franchise's premise seems to be what the creators of this series wanted as well. Non-stop epic battles with crazy historic figures wielding badass weapons and super powers. Zero had this but had a larger focus on a nihilistic message and strategy. From beginning to end, Apocrypha delivers super-cool battles that are honestly some of the best animated fights I've seen in the medium to date. I'd go as far to say that the fights in the later episodes might even eclipse the best from One Punch Man (which is still incredible as well). From episode 20 to 25 every single fight had me in awe of how awesome the animation was. It's not often I will audibly say 'No f**king way' or 'Holy sh*t'' to myself just from seeing something badass on screen, but I'm glad to add these fights to this small list. While the fights are always consistently epic and entertaining, the story as well proved to be a lot better and thematically rich than I expected. The internet's reaction to this show definitely set my expectations low which I why I ended up being so pleasantly surprised. Atonement acts as a primary theme for the series, as each Servant and Master fights to right a wrong they committed in the past. Sieg one of the only characters who isn't as he fights to prevent to the creation of an immortal world that will exist as a result of a wish to atone from the main villain. It's simple theming but it goes a long way to create a strong emotional core for the narrative. The story is very hopeful about human nature and Sieg's actions are fairly inspiring, even if you can't really relate them too much to the real world. Presentation wise, Apocrypha is a very strong series. As stated before, the animation quality is excellent but the score in particular stood out to me almost just as much. I was already a fan of the composer's work before I watched the series, but this might be some of his best stuff. If you are a fan of Masaru Yokoyama's work in this series than I highly recommend listening to his score's for Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans and Bubuki Buranki because they are equally as good as well. Voice acting is also really great in both Japanese and English. I started watching the anime in Japanese and thoroughly enjoyed the performances but I watched the rest of the show dubbed as it was easier to focus on the spectacle on screen and I personally really like a lot of the dub voice actors they got for this show. It's not an amazing dub but it was definitely worth watching the show in English for. As for downsides, if you're not really sold on the show within the first few episodes than I probably wouldn't recommend watching it all the way through. It's the kind of anime that you probably know if whether or not you'll like it within the first two or three eps. I will say that towards the middle portion it becomes a little repetitive but once the finale starts it makes any misgivings I had well worth going through because it's something you really should see if you're a fan of action animation. I seriously cannot stress enough how awesome the fights in this show are and It's something that really should be applauded more in this community. This show as a whole deserves a little more respect honestly. It's not boring, the story is pretty good, the characters are really entertaining with very strong visual designs and the animation is god tier. I know it's a contentious opinion but I personally enjoyed this one way more than Zero. It not only delivered on crazy historical figures duking it out with insane superpowers but it did that while also having a decent story with a great lead character in Sieg. If you didn't give this show a chance when it came out, than I highly recommend giving it one now. If you're anything like me, you're not gonna regret it anytime soon.
~~~llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll~~~ É sempre importante saber medir expectativas, mas mesmo assim o anime conseguiu ser surpreendente e decepcionante ao mesmo tempo. img800(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/36/a5/da/36a5da6f507867f9b8307e2d58be49d0.jpg) Não esperava me envolver tanto com a Mordred a ponto de quase chorar em certo momento, eles realmente souberam trabalhar bem a personagem mesmo em poucos episódios. Também foi reconfortante ver o embate de "aluno/sensei" sem ter exatamente como torcer pra algum dos dois. img800(https://coub-anubis-a.akamaized.net/coub_storage/coub/simple/cw_timeline_pic/a4d239f920f/798518c51049aa0d13c70/1512848137_image.jpg) E por fim, Astolfo. O anime deveria ter o nome dele no subtítulo. Um dos mais bem abordados e desenvolvidos, uma surpresa pra quem só o conhecia no FGO, é como se fosse outra pessoa, nunca esteve tão vivo. Aqui ele teve espaço para usar todo o seu Gae, e se fosse o bastante, já seria Masterpiece. img800(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/fa/45/48fa45e3d81916b3a198551e4dc0326b.jpg) Mas em contraste com a surpresa, vem a decepção. Dói ver tantos personagens bons sem o menor aprofundamento. O mestre do Vlad e a obsessão que ele desenvolveu a ponto de fazer o que fez; a mestra da Jack e a relação extremamente profunda que criaram em pouquíssimo tempo; a história da serva Semiramis e até mesmo a de seu mestre ~~cujo único erro foi apenas querer algo clichê demais~~. Nada disso foi mostrado. img800(https://64.media.tumblr.com/1cb42620d83d35fb47d381cdeceba446/tumblr_p1ru3dlyF51vhum40o2_1280.jpg) E esses não são personagens como o Karna, que só serviu pra ser foda e mostrar que é foda lutando como a foda. Esses personagens realmente tiveram um envolvimento emocional enorme por trás de cada decisão que tomaram, então foi no mínimo frustrante não terem sido desenvolvidos. img800(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2BW7SzveFTE/WbQMJJ4uRBI/AAAAAAAAO7Y/9XK9tb0zH988JnAMPiAH5Ab8T7agm6MZgCEwYBhgL/s1600/20170910000854.jpg) As lutas "pré-boss-fight" foram tão boas que subiram o hype, mas o final do anime derrubou de um precipício. Tanto por ver o protagonista vencendo alguém 30x mais forte tirando poder do ânus, quanto pela desculpa ridícula da Justeaze pra não fazer algo que no final das contas foi feito. img800(https://i.imgur.com/K4vIwYI.jpg) Fate Apocrypha é um contraste de surpresas e decepções. Nada é perfeito mesmo com o femboy perfeito, mas seria muito pior sem ele. ~~~llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll~~~
With this review I want to verbalize my thoughts about Fate Apocrypha and to explain why this series left me unsatisified (as a common Fate-Enthusiast) and with a strange feeling. #~~~Plot~~~ The premise of the plot couldn't have been more promising, a holy grail war with the double of it's normal participants. You have two different fractions, one of it consisting out of magicians that fight for the clocktower and the Magic Association and the other one is the Magician family which controls Romania in this regard, the Yggdmillennia. This setting got me personal and emotional invested very fast and was more than sufficient to get engaged in the story. Then it follows the usual Fate procedure, the master summon their servants and the holy grail war is about to get started. My interest in the plot and its development lasted until the first battles were fought. Unfortunately, the subsequently intiated plotwist and diversions reduced my interest continously. ~!(The break happened when Darnic forced Vlad III to use his noble phantasm and his followed fusion with him and the transformation in a Vampire. The subsequent changes in the constellation of the groups (first all against Darnic, and then the remaining masters versus Shirou and his servants as well as his proclaiming goal and the intend of the other fraction to prevent it, made me lose the interest in the plot, and the created difference in the views, ideologies and their different ambitions of the now created groups were not able to captivate me). !~ Since the actual plot didn't interested me any longer, I logically didn't care about the further development and the ending which was presented to me plotwise and in the context of the narrative being told. What kept me watching the series were the remaining characters, the soundtrack, the show's talent to create touching moments and gripping scenes (excluding from the plot), and my own expectation, respectively attitude and aversion against breaking off and pause an anime. #~~~Fights~~~ What this show got very well and were the many fight scenes which are typical for a production of the Fate Franchise. It contained a lot of individual abilities, weapons and fighting styles. Also, the fights were usually good inscenated, with an interesting course and an epic ending. #~~~Music~~~ The music was most of the time on point and fitting to the individual scene. I wasn't convinced (neither acoustically nor optical) by the first opening, in my opinion the second one was a considerable improvent especially regarding the first aspect and the opening sequence of it with the cards levitating across the screen and the different classes inprinted on them, in combination with the the start of the music in this moment is terrific and a joy to watch for every Fate fan. ~~~youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-qSXtbrOxE) youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcNysQOjAdI) youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqeqR7NBSI)~~~ #~~~Characters~~~ Now I'll talk about the characters, and to say it at the start, there are just to many of them concerning it is an anime with 25 episodes. Since we have twice the amount of servants in contrast to a regular grail war. ~!(Even if there are only 2 instead of 7 Masters on the side of the red fraction, there are still too many characters taking part in this holy grail war.)!~ Out of this reason we barely get to know most of these characters, which is one of the key strength of Fate and one of the factors that make it interesting in the first place. Seeing the heroic spirits, get to know their background, history, character, values and personal wishes and the relationship and dynamic with their master is a main element in Fate and one of the main factors why I am still interested in his universe and stayed with it when I first encountered it. To my regret this anime neglects this important point, and made it less enjoyable in the process. Now I'll follow with a personal ranking of the servants and masters and my impression and assess of them img(https://i.imgur.com/kwxf3ky.png) #~~~Without Rating~~~ Pentel Brothers, Rottweil Berzinsky, Feend vor Sembren, Jean Rum.~! (Basically all the masters of the red fraction who are insignificant for the story and are exclude from the start and I was highly looking forward to get to know) !~ #~~~Very Bad~~~ Roche Frain Yggdmillennia ~!(The master of Avicebron, Small screentime, Boring and uninteresting. No personality or character aside from the fact that he's amazed by golems and ironically is sacrificed for the complementation of the Big Golem. Forgettable.) !~ #~~~Bad~~~ Berserker of Red/Spartacus ~!(I had high expectations of him and anticipated his actions with much interest. Hence I was enormously disappointed by his small role in the story, the little fractures about his history which is shown, his main and only function as a catalysator for the story, and then just to end as an instrument for the black fraction. Boring and disappointing. !~ Reika Rikudo ~!(Master of the Black Assassin, served as the mother figure of Jack the Ripper, beyond that she has zero character and and nothing is told about her story either, therefore she was also uninteresting). !~ Celenike Icecolle Yggdmillennia ~!(Got more screentime than the previous one, her sadistic behaviour disgusted me and I was glad when her role in the show ended. Other than that, we learn almost nothing about her.)!~ Assassin of Black/Jack the Ripper ~!(I just didn't find her interesting, at least she was quipped with more or less background story, good dynamic with her master, I probably would have liked it more if Jack would've been teamed up with a devious, intrigant master on one side or the other, it would have made her more interesting to me for sure).!~ Assassin of Red/Semiramis ~!(An incredibly interesting Noble Phantasm, unfortunately no background story is provided, has a good dynamic with her master, she is his most loyal servant, however she was just not sympathetic to me concerning her character and her behaviour.)!~ Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia ~!(For the first half of the anime, the main figure on the side of the black fraction, then dead and unimportant from one second to another, his relationship with his servant was interesting to watch, However, he did not leave a lasting impression with his sudden disappearance and loss of importance, which felt very anticlimactic.)!~ #~~~Indifferent~~~ Gordes Musik Yggdmillennia ~!(Considerable character development, but apart from that mostly irrelevant and uninteresting.)!~ Caules Forvedge Yggdmillennia ~!(Interesting relation with Berserker of Black, and I hate to state it, but that's almost all concerning his character. In addition to that there's just more the relationship to his older sister Fiore. Aside from that he's of lower importance and his character remains mostly untreated.)!~ Berserker of Black/Frankenstein ~!(Small background story, her main aspect is the relationship to her master, She has also an interesting and appealing optical appearance.)!~ Rider of Red/Achilles ~!(A cool design, his relationship to the Archer of Black was one of the most interesting aspects in the show, Unfortunately, his character is only briefly tackled, which is also due to the low screen time, which get's more near the end. Not fleshed out enough.)!~ Shirou Kotomine ~!(I'm twisted on that one. On the one hand, a character that sparked a lot of interest in me, especially at the beginning of the anime, also because he's a representative of the church, I'm in this regard affected by the great appearances of Kotomine Kirei in the Fate Series, including their impressive, and cool looking fighting style with their holy swords. On the other hand as I have already explained, I disliked his development in the second half and didn't find any interest in his pronounced goals).!~ Caster of Red/William Shakespeare ~!(Overall a very interesting character, though little background story and screentime, His actions in the anime, were in line with his temperament and characteristics (To regard the events from far away and to document them) which was cool on the one hand but sobering on the other, since in conclusion he rarely appeared in the storyline).!~ Lancer of Red/Karna ~!(Interesting and cool fighting abilities, almost no backstory, which was very unfortunate, As his most remarkable traits, I classified his pride as a hero spirit and as a servant, his fighting spirit, and his conception of honor)!~ Sieg ~!(The main character, Interesting and original initial situation (at the beginning he was a bland character due to his new identity and life) and a following remarkable character development (from learning and experience what it means to life and be a human, to appreciate and defend humankind itself. Which was obviously rushed in the span of only 25 episodes).!~ #~~~Good~~~ Fiore Forvedge Yggdmillennia ~!(great dynamic with her servant, likeable character, understandable and relatable wish, but in the end disappeared in insignificance.)!~ Rider of Black/Astolfo ~!(Popular figure of the series. His life-affirming and happy attitude is his core trait and was a good addition and change for the anime. Also a very likeable character! And he rides a griffin :O He's only missing a shown background story in the story.)!~ Saber of Red/Mordred ~!(I went through an interesting and changing process during the anime, in my valuation of her character. At first I felt antipathy against her, because of her arrogance, her disrespectful behaviour and her spoiling nature. Later on in the story, I gained more and more respect for her, because of her decisions (reflecting her life, killing Rider's Master, joining with the right side etc.) And her relationship to Kairi was among the best entertaining factors in the anime.)!~ Archer of Red/Atalante ~!(A character that is positively provided, in contrast to the majority with a large background story. This fact made her change in character and nature believable and her more relatable. But honestly speaking, that's her sole characteristic in the anime, though she suffers like many others under the small screentime she's given.)!~ Saber of Black/Siegfried ~!(This character had a huge impact on me, although he had little screentime and was barely in the anime, but his sacrifice scene in episode 4, in combination with his background story, his central characteristic and his wish was so good, that it levels out those first aspects for me completely. To top it off, he has a great optical design.)!~ Ruler/Jeanne d'Arc ~!(The portrayal of the holy maiden was good in my view, I was impressed by her fearless and unwavering spirit. A large background story is presented (in relation to other characters), but the romance which was written in the second part of the story felt forced, unauthentic and artificial.)!~ #~~~Very Good~~~ Caster of Black/Avicebron ~!(Loved his optical design, his wish was understandable with his provided backstory, I was also fascinated and likes his ability to create golems (Sacrificing his master isn't part of this, lol ^^). A variable I also liked about him was his voice, with it's distinctive mechanical sound (Maybe the Vader Effect responsible for this preference :D).!~ Archer of Black/Chiron ~!(One of my three favorite servants in the show, fantastic background story, good and interesting relationship with his master, he as the incarnation of a teacher, badass and epic death scene, and an all around friendly and polite figure.)!~ Lancer of Black/Vlad III. ~!(My most favorite servant in this holy grail war, a stunning desing, incredibly cool skills, his wish (to negate and let the common legend about him vanish) was understandable in the context of this background story, as a proud monarch. That his noble phantasm manifested and contained this legend was surprising and added depth to his dislike of it. The most complete and fleshed out servant in this Fate Series in my view.)!~ Shishigou Kairi ~!(Extraordinary good optical appearance, an interesting backstory, not enough screentime! An enjoyable and fantastic dynamic with Mordred, cool and laid-back character traits and interesting fighting abilities/style. (Also his magic orientation as a Necromancer). I would love to watch an anime that surrounds about him as the main character.)!~ #Summarized, in my opinion the show reached Fate Level in regard of the music, epic scenes, and the fights, partially in terms of the character and missed it by far (in my view) in context of the given plot.