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Corny Bones meets the Fate/Stay Series: Fate Zero

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It Begins
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    • CornyBones

    CornyBones

    Commission Artist
    At the age of thirteen, I was distressed by my lack of knowledge of on the subject of King Arthur.

    To rectify this, I sought out a collection of stories, "The Once and Future King." Recollection is hazy on the particulars, (as I only read it once and it...may not have actually been the book I remember), but it was readable enough to entertain for an afternoon. The accounting of the tragic tale about a King caught between his Wife, His best friend, and a couple of sniveling curs is not a difficult sell when your a skinny, shy, bookish, child that has not yet encountered his first true bullies.

    It certainly left a lovely rose-colored memory to refer to whenever the discussion of the Excalibur arose on the playground. I was now certain that I was the master scholar of Arthurian Legend that everyone needed when talking about Medieval England (I was not.) and I could at least say that I knew who Lancelot was now, and why he was a big deal.

    Time passes: I find a wikipedia page about some blue lady with a sword who was apparently "King Arthur"
    I roll my eyes and laughed, "ha ha ha, Anime! Japan's so silly" My youthful innocence was not yet attuned to the wonders of the Sassy Anime Girls can't confess their feelings to sempai.

    Fate/Stay/something or other was never a big hit on my rader. Not when I subscribed to Crunchyroll, not when the second series came out, not when Unhappy Anchovies made his denouncement on why it was "Not cool."

    Then I read Fate/Hollow Fake.

    It was very good.

    I am writing this as I prepare to watch the first episode of Fate/Zero. My knowledge is piecemeal and warped through the sarcastic conversations of a forum of fans, and a quest that I believe took several liberties in it's interpretation. The last Anime I watched was One-Punch-Man( like everyone), so this should make for an amusing contrast. This thread is for fun, profit, and an engine for those who aren't experienced with the series to ride along with me.

    I am starting with Fate/Zero, because sources have testified that it is the narritively stronger of the two series, and because if the salt I've tasted from the Nasuverse thread is anything to go by, things can get pretty stupid sometimes.

    Here we go: Anime King Arthur, and Apparently the Holy Grail.
     
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    • If you're starting from Fate/Zero because of your liking of the Arturian mythos, you're on the right track.

    F/Z's the one that draws the most from it.
     
    Ford Prefect said:
    It's also pretty bad though.
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    I laughed really hard at this, the hardest I've laughed at anything in two weeks, because this perfectly sums up everything I've heard.

    Even the people in the Type Moon thread have an absolute BALL tearing the series apart for all the stupid DESU~DESU Anime garbage.
    At one point, it was discovered that George Washington was a snowy-white buxom girl who fought the revolutionary war wearing nothing but three half-inch strips of cloth. The levels of "WHY, SO STUPID! BAKKA! BAKKA!" were poetic.

    But I digress. The first episode has been seen and I'm taking some time to formulate my thoughts. And find screen shots to annotate with sarcastic commentary.

    Rating something "bad" or "good" is a bit of a nebulous affair with me. I tend to ride along with a story as it is presented out of patience for slower narratives and because I like to consider a body as a whole before judging it's merits. This of course means I have to eat an entire buffet of garbage before declaring something garbage, but it also means i'm not scared off because the cook burned the appetizer. The experiences are certainly interesting.

    The Snappy First Impression: We need Shakespeare to write a play about how utterly screwed these people are.
     
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    CornyBones said:
    I laughed really hard at this, the hardest I've laughed at anything in two weeks, because this perfectly sums up everything I've heard.

    Even the people in the Type Moon thread have an absolute BALL tearing the series apart for all the stupid DESU~DESU Anime garbage.
    At one point, it was discovered that George Washington was a snowy-white buxom girl who fought the revolutionary war wearing nothing but three half-inch strips of cloth. The levels of "WHY, SO STUPID! BAKKA! BAKKA!" were poetic.

    But I digress. The first episode has been seen and I'm taking some time to formulate my thoughts.

    Rating something "bad" or "good" is a bit of a nebulous affair with me. I tend to ride along with a story as it is presented out of patience for slower narratives and because I like to consider a body as a whole before judging it's merits. This of course means I have to eat an entire buffet of garbage before declaring something garbage, but it also means i'm not scared off because the cook burned the appetizer. The experiences are certainly interesting.

    The Snappy First Impression: We need Shakespeare to write a play about how utterly screwed these people are.
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    You called?
     
    CornyBones said:
    At one point, it was discovered that George Washington was a snowy-white buxom girl who fought the revolutionary war wearing nothing but three half-inch strips of cloth. The levels of "WHY, SO STUPID! BAKKA! BAKKA!" were poetic.
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    Right, welcome to the Fate series, where hopefully you'll become accustomed to this and anything similar to it. Because it's never going to end.

    CornyBones said:
    The Snappy First Impression: We need Shakespeare to write a play about how utterly screwed these people are.
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    The fact that he's a servant and his entire point is to DO that, I doubt he could do it any better than what most of these people end up doing to themselves as you'll find out.
     
    CornyBones said:
    I laughed really hard at this, the hardest I've laughed at anything in two weeks, because this perfectly sums up everything I've heard.

    Even the people in the Type Moon thread have an absolute BALL tearing the series apart for all the stupid DESU~DESU Anime garbage.
    At one point, it was discovered that George Washington was a snowy-white buxom girl who fought the revolutionary war wearing nothing but three half-inch strips of cloth. The levels of "WHY, SO STUPID! BAKKA! BAKKA!" were poetic.

    But I digress. The first episode has been seen and I'm taking some time to formulate my thoughts. And find screen shots to annotate with sarcastic commentary.

    Rating something "bad" or "good" is a bit of a nebulous affair with me. I tend to ride along with a story as it is presented out of patience for slower narratives and because I like to consider a body as a whole before judging it's merits. This of course means I have to eat an entire buffet of garbage before declaring something garbage, but it also means i'm not scared off because the cook burned the appetizer. The experiences are certainly interesting.

    The Snappy First Impression: We need Shakespeare to write a play about how utterly screwed these people are.
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    Here's a simple phrase to help you understand the Fate series:
    No Gods.
    Lots Of Kings.
    Wait, Wasn't She A Man?
     
    Episode 1
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    • Episode 1: I can't believe that Anime King Arthur doesn't even show up!
    WiseFoolOfDeath said:
    there's going to be lots of talking.
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    Yes. There is indeed a lot of talking.

    Things start easily enough, but once the foreshadowing has finished and we leave the snowy castle in the middle of Antarctica, the barrage of facts, names, and dates that roar past like the storming ocean make me wish I understood Japanese. Because, wow, it's hard to read subtitles and watch people moving at a brisk trot in a circle. *The Symbolism for house Einzbern is obvious. They live on a white mountain, covered in white snow, in a white castle, with white hair. Clearly they're about value tolerance and open mindedness.
    The deluge is useful however, because in the brief seconds following it I became incredibly grateful to just watch a dude in a field talk with his niece. It gave me time to figure out what I just heard.
    *Oh. So that's what a Crest Worm looks like.
    This is something that the episode does well. It tells you about a thing, and then promptly connects you to it. I got to see almost every aspect of Mage society in a single episode: from the head of a successful family, to the desperate dregs of another, to the young rebel who's out to prove them all wrong. The perspectives are all varied, and I have an impression of how the system and the society work.

    It's….quite interesting, the background they give for the Grail War. Three Mage families get together to try and summon a Artifact of incredible power to use. The artifact breaks them, and seduces them into a ritual of dismemberment every few decades. Humanity's greatest hero's are used as glorified pawns to the wills of individuals, from the faithful to the secular, and each servant's is identity smothered by a class title.
    It's…..well it's the type of thing that looks like a punishment in retrospect.
    The game is an engine for a perpetual lesson on the futility of Human progress, the kind of thing that could be constructed as…..a curse?

    The lines that Emeya's wife says at the beginning are really hilarious knowing what little I know.
    Of all the things that the Grail is, of all the hopes and dreams that are poured into it, of all that it symbolizes, the Grail is always empty. Nobody every gets what they want.
    *it seems.

    Another part of this is that all obvious "good guy" leads have been cut away. Their's an emphasis that each of the competitors has an obvious villainous bent, and I'm not feeling a drive to support anyone in this competition.. There are some obvious people, like EMEYA, who haven't had their villainy trundled out on the screen for us to gasp over, but I'm already tasting the flavor of the corruption on all sides, and it's seasoned like Game of Thrones.
    (I've never watched Game of Thrones, but I know it's about several groups of people trying to kill each. Coincidentally, Fate/Zero also seems to be about several groups of people trying to kill each other.)

    My thoughts on our five "heroes"

    For a guy that seems to be set up as the protagonist….I'm having a hard time reading him. Perhaps it's my foreknowledge of what's to come, perhaps it's my focus on the characters I know nothing about, but most of what I'm getting from the episode is coming from other people.
    He's going to be explored throughout the series, I take it, but for a set of beginnings, he doesn't stand out to me like the others do.

    -Tohsaka Tokiomi: Clearly a guy that is going to die horribly. "Ah yes, you will assist me in acquiring what may, or may not, be an artifact from time immortal. There is no question of your loyalty! Let me just introduce you to my entire family, and my magic basement. Let's just set you up with a servant first, and have your assassin patrolling my amazing castle. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG FROM THIS ARANGEMENT. I AM CLEARLY AN INTELLEGENT CHARACTER WHO WILL HAVE A WEALTH OF INTELEGENT DECISIONS!" *And, of course, let's use the ancestral snake icon to summon a powerful servant. It's not like snakes are relevant in Christian mythology, or, you know, ancestral opponents to everything that Jesus Christ stood for. Nothing dire should come from summoning one into a competition, specifically constructed as being about a quasi-celestial artifact that may, or may not, be related to the Son* of God.
    *Or daughter. Because that is exactly the type of joke Fate would go for.)
    -Kirei Kotomine:
    aaa

    -Waver Velvet: He's going to go dark, isn't he? Those "seven murders" are going to be his, aren't they?
    I can tell from the shady way he uses spells on an old couple, and how he defaults to blood sacrifice to acquire a servant. Nobody who sets out with, "I'll show them all!" as their motivation every leads a life that's a showcase of human morality. He's going to be a rotten one.
    When your personality is likable, and the first episode has you try to give a sacrifice yourself to save your niece from a worm pit and be too late,
    the impression is that your someone destined for bad times. Especially when you're answering to what is obviously a cannibal worm monster.
     
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    • CornyBones said:
    *Oh. So that's what a Crest Worm looks like.
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    Pretty sure we don't get the best look at them in the series. For reasons that make everything about that scene a hundred times worse.

    It's…..well it's the type of thing that looks like a punishment in retrospect.
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    To be fair to the magi, I doubt this was how any of the founders of this mess envisioned things turning out. Once upon a time they stood together for a dream they all shared. Then everything went wrong. And kept going wrong.

    As for the heroes, well sadly the pawn description is pretty appropriate in a sense, for all their want for that wish that they might have, they're still bound to those who likely care little or none at all for what they want. But not all hope is lost, for there is still the chance that they will find a master who understands them.

    Spoiler: Kariya Tokiomi
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    It's Kariya Matou actually.
     
    Quite interesting insight on who you think they are....And as to whomever Tokiomi summoned, well:
    The use of snake symbolisms predates Christianity.
     
    CornyBones said:
    *Or daughter. Because that is exactly the type of joke Fate would go for.)
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    Fans have done much betterworse than just genderbending Jesus.

    There are dozens of fan-made Jesus sheets, some genderbent, some not, going from my boring 'Also Conquest' one, to this thing of beauty.

    As a result, the only way Nasu could surprise us is if he decided to do some research, and make his write up for Saver-Jesus actually biblically accurate.
     
    Xkeizer said:
    To be fair to the magi, I doubt this was how any of the founders of this mess envisioned things turning out. Once upon a time they stood together for a dream they all shared. Then everything went wrong. And kept going wrong.
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    Well...the ritual would be very straightforward, were it not for 7 people dedicating vasts amounts of knowledge, power and cunning to accomplish a goal of infinite power....for one of them, and only one of them.
     
    Fate/Zero (and the Fate series in general) has some pretty clear issues, but I do still enjoy it. I'm glad you're watching this and I hope you have fun.

    Out of curiosity, what do you already know about this show, going in?
     
    veekie said:
    Well...the ritual would be very straightforward, were it not for 7 people dedicating vasts amounts of knowledge, power and cunning to accomplish a goal of infinite power....for one of them, and only one of them.
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    The three families were at the very least united about the whole thing in the beginning, but after the 'only one wish' thing and a few other things, well we've got what's going on now.
     
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