Fate/Zero Anime Season 2 Review
Welcome to another anime review for the second season of Fate/Zero. I'm quickly falling in love with the Fate franchise. This series is good, I promise! But the ending to Fate/Zero has crushed all my dreams and expectations.
If you haven't read my season one review, the link is here.
Short recap: the series takes place ten years before Fate/stay night. It is a prequel centered around the Fourth Holy Grail War. It takes place in Fuyuki City, Japan where seven participants fight for the Holy Grail to get their wish granted. These participants are Mages known as Masters who can summon Heroic Spirits known as Servants to fight in their stead.
This series is incredibly articulate and fascinating for the way they approach characters. Upon finishing the first season (13 episodes), I had hopes for any answers related to Kariya and his desire to save his childhood love and her children Rin and Sakura, but the show takes him and decides to warp him into a mad descent into chaos.
Kirei, the main antagonist of the second season, is also an interesting villain who slowly learns how psychotic he truly is. How he orchestrates Tokiomi Tohsaka's murder, how he pins it all on Kariya, and how that lead to Aoi's presumed death/disturbed state. His partnership with Gilgamesh / Archer is such a corruption, a means to an end to gain what they want.
I hate that those two antagonists managed to get away with everything they did in the series. Rin is essentially orphaned under Kirei's care, and her sister is still a Matou under Zouken's care after Kariya failed to win the Holy Grail.
The worst part about the Kirei and Rin deal? When Kirei gifted Rin with the dagger he used to kill her father, I felt so disgusted about it and his satisfied smirk made the whole thing really uncomfortable.
Now let's talk about the other participants and the tangling first season cliffhanger.
The first season ended with Saber, Rider, and Lancer trying to defeat Caster while also dealing with Archer and Berserker interference. The second season (12 episodes) directly picks up on this and the aftermath. It also foreshadows an enmity Berserker has for Saber, as the Servant gets in her way of trying to defeat Caster, and he also causes trouble for Archer.
At the end of season 2 episode 3, Lancer does the honorable thing for the cause and releases his curse on Saber's left hand, allowing her to use the Noble Phantasm (Excalibur) to eliminate Caster. This is the first elimination of both Master and Servant as Kiritsugu kills Caster's Master.
This is the first of many casualties in the Holy Grail War.
Kayneth and his wife are also eliminated through Kiritsugu's brutality and Lancer is also caught in the crossfire. This causes Saber pain as she watches her friend go mad over having his honor trashed. This is a powerful scene for the romantic character as he curses the Holy Grail and any wish it grants for the winner.
It gave me Shakespearean vibes, particularly Romeo and Juliet and the character Mercutio's death scene when he screams "a plague o' both your houses!" This comparison ran deeper than I realized as we learn at the conclusion of the series... the Holy Grail is indeed corrupted.
The series does not dive too heavily into its corruption, but it forces Kiritsugu to make Saber destroy the Grail for the sake of humanity. This breaks Saber, who wished to use the Grail to restore Britain and to redo its history... hoping a better leader would rise to replace her. It even ends with Saber suffering moments before her original death... back in Britain staring out at the hundreds of allies she lost.
This horrible guilt is best displayed when Saber learns Berserker's true identity as Sir Lancelot. A somewhat predictable twist if you had any knowledge of Camelot or King Arthur lore when it came to the infamous love triangle.
The differences between Kiritsugu and Saber is also on blast after what he did to Lancer and the Archibald Family. Saber questions how he became this way, and Iri demands Kiritsugu answer her as she has the right to know.
Their confrontation opens up a two-episode arc covering Kiritsugu's background and how he went from a small child wishing to become a hero to a merciless Mage Killer who does awful things for the greater good.
Kiritsugu is one of the most complex protagonists I have ever seen and how he values good and evil in simple terms and the suffering he endured to get there... seeing it all unfold and how he lost his way was splendidly well-done. The show crafted him into a tragic but sympathetic character while maintaining how most of his actions are really inhumane.
He murdered his own father without hesitation and sacrificed his adoptive mother for the greater good - to save more lives. The good outweighs the bad... which is exploited heavily when the Holy Grail tempts him with his wish... at the cost of humanity itself.
The Three Kings: Saber, Archer, and Rider are amazing Servants/characters. They all share an interesting dynamic with each other and also a strong respect for their titles as kings. Rider and Archer hold a mutual respect but hold different opinions on Saber for her womanhood and king ideology.
Archer degrades Saber because she is a woman and only desires her as a wife, seeing her as an object like most men do to women. On the other hand, Rider views Saber's kingship as idiotic and not that of a true king, only a mere fantasy for a little girl. The show does a good job of showing the rights and wrongs of their ideologies but carefully does not take a side... it somewhat leaned on Rider when he unleashed his Noble Phantasm, but other than that, a neutral stance is held.
Overall, an amazing show with a dark ending for all major characters involved... except Waver Velvet. After Rider is defeated and killed by Archer in an amazing duel between kings, Waver makes amends with his "grand parents" and decides to travel, having gained confidence after his time with Iskander. The only character who got off easy.
Irisvel, Maiya, Tokiomi, Kariya, all the Servants except Gilgamesh, and even Kiritsugu are killed off by the end. Kirei is technically killed but is resurrected by the Grail and so is Gilgamesh, gifted with a real body. I'm sure those two will cause trouble in Fate/stay night.
I plan to watch Fate/stay night this weekend. I am invested and hope to see Rin, Sakura, Illya and Shirou (Kiritsugu's foster son) getting some screen time in the next Holy Grail War. It also hurt me that Kiritsugu was denied his daughter after the War and never saw her again before he passed away.