I'm getting my hats off to ufotable for making such a spectacle in both series. The artwork is gorgeous and splendidly meticulous (I especially appreciate the job they did with the lighting and the dust effect), the animations are fluid and it shows the exciting fight scenes very satisfyingly, for both series.
Absolutely gorgeous. (The GIF might be slightly large)
Fate Zero had the blessing of Gen Urobuchi to work on the its story and characters, so I also like how each Master is given a chance to grow within the series, with the help of their Servants, as a mirror of their ideals, yin to their yang. I liked how the setting is played out as a death match between powerful heroes. Each character is separated from the normal tropes we normally see in a lot of anime now, and they have their own ideals, thoughts and desires, making them incredibly humane, even though somewhat twisted. I also like how Gilgamesh is potrayed and animated as a bad-ass, which is his original setting, instead of how he is downplayed in Fate Stay/Night, in favor of the "plot".
Which brings us to the sequel to Fate Zero, Fate Stay/Night. The first thing I want to say is how lucky I am to watch Fate Zero first. The character motivations are much clearer compared to how I watched the Fate Stay/Night Fate arc from 2006, without watching Zero first. Unfortunately, even with all the eye candy, bad story telling is still bad story telling, no matter how many times you remake it. I guess the problem with UBW is how it tries to wrap the plot around Shirou, who is really, as Arcada puts it, an idiot. Unlike in Fate Zero, where our characters are mature, Shirou, our main protagonist is a high school student, so I can accept that Shirou might be somewhat immature in his thinking, but not really to this level. What he does completely conflicts with what he says, and even though he is powerless compared to the others(and he knows it), he still drags other people who has the power into life threatening situations by putting his own life in danger.
While I may understand that this is a show of courage, did he really had to chase Saber while she was focused on fighting Beserker, and then just do absolutely nothing except getting nearly killed? Of course, the explanation for why he acts like he acts in from around episode 4 is that he is so angry that he has become calm and emotionless and brainless. Now, I may be getting too harsh with his character, since I actually understand where he is coming from, i.e. the immature always-in-anger stubborn child, but he is really painful to watch. In fact, to get a sense of what I'm saying, go watch the interactions of Shirou and Archer in episode 6 and 7, and tell me why Shirou acts like that. He has shown repeatedly that he has no magic, is useless against Caster, and yet he wants to go after Caster, who has already disappeared into thin air. He asks Archer to chase after Caster, and even after Archer explains that defeating her Master is the better way to defeat Caster, he still does that. Where the heck is he going to chase after, thin air? Then in episode 10, he acts nonchalant towards the clues of Caster's master's indentity, as if his desire to save people has suddenly vanished to thin air. I could almost understand why Archer wants to kill him so badly.
Every time, Shirou is dependent on the powers of others, but he acts like he actually can do it by himself, which either makes him delusional or thoughtless towards the sacrifices of others, which makes his altruism fake and pointless, since he doesn't have empathy at all, which contradicts his so-called good guy setting. So unless they want to show how Shirou goes down the dark path, I don't see why are they are doing this.
Next, I also don't like how Rin is potrayed as a bad-ass at first, but suddenly becomes a confused damsel when Shirou is around. So at first, she takes on a building full of monsters by herself in one episode, and then she acts scared when she is with Shirou in a school full of the same monsters in another. What the heck? This can be explained as her infatuation with Shirou clouding her judgement, I guess, which is probably the only reason why someone who had been training as a magician in a deathmatch for more than 10 years under a killer of Magi, could suddenly lose her professionalism. Love is blind. But other than that, I like her character pretty well, just like how Asuna in SAO makes the story interesting.
Other than the problem with Shirou's character, the rest is pretty good, I think. What I really want to see though, is Sakura. A girl who got sold to another family, and got tortured with worms all over her body, witnessing how a person she has once took as a kind uncle die in vain, thinking that it is his fault for not listening to her grandfather, who was also the one torturing her, getting raped by her brother, among all the other things, and yet she managed to potray herself as a normal high school girl, who seemingly has a crush on a "kind" senpai. All that psychological and physical trauma hidden under a facade of smiles...I want to see her break free of her facade and get saved (Well, its not that I mind a Bad End anyway, I just want to see her story).
So don't mess up the Heaven Feels movie, please.
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