IHAO on ... Fate/Zero

Normally, I try to make sure I have watched everything I review completely at least once, many times twice, to get a strong critical opinion, as well as personal opinion of the subject.  But television shows become difficult to review because of that.  I can put three or four hours into watching a film twice, or six hours for a wrestling PPV, but even the smallest of television shows take almost twice that long for me to watch and review.  So I thought for this review I would instead give my impressions on the first five episodes, and a lengthy and personal backstory to the franchise it belongs to.  Plus, the next collection of One Piece is coming to my home the day you all can read this because Amazon pre-orders are great, and I'm just in a crazy excited anime mood.

Fate is the ... prefix? category? ... think like "Dragonball" - it is a set of entertainment stories that all take place in a shared universe.  That universe is a modern fantasy world, where mages and arcane pedigrees and ancient relics exist.  Where the Holy Grail is summoned into being every somethingorother years and is fought over by seven Masters, all who have summoned Servants, each connected to a particular class of Servant: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Assassin, Rider, Caster, and Berserker.  It is a crazy imaginative world, and Fate/Zero is a pre-sequel to the main story, Fate/Stay Night.

In college, a friend took a chance and thought I may enjoy Fate/Stay Night, a visual novel video game semi-adult entertainment ... thing.  It is like a voice-acted, slightly animated choose-your-own-adventure novel.  It was amazing.  It was mindboggling, and kept me up many evenings as I went through its massive story.  The story is so massive it requires time travel-y, alternate future shenanigans to hear it all to completion.  It got an anime I cannot wait to own and watch of its own.  The plot of Fate/Stay Night is the events of the Fifth Holy Grail War.

Fate/Zero is the events of the Fourth Holy Grail War.  And it is realized completely in one story, which is the anime I just started.  So let's talk about that anime.

The first thing to know is it is a dense show.  The entire first episode introduces you to so many characters and concepts, you almost have to know what Fate is before you start watching.  I knew bits and pieces of the story that was told to me during the events of Fate/Stay Night, and I still got lost a little first time through.  The second thing to know is that it is a beautiful animated anime.  It reminds me of Attack on Titan and DeathNote, both of which are shows with amazing animation (and a whole lot of ridiculously overblown terrible plot ... man, I need to write my thoughts on DeathNote I guess ... or just point out I have the same opinion of it as I do on Attack on Titan ... yup, I did that.  Mini-review, DeathNote gets a C+-).  It is almost on par with a Studio Ghibli production of sheer artistic skill, though it is achieved in a different way.  I ALSO really need to get more Ghibli films a chance, considering how much I love My Neighbor Totoro ... here we go, another mini-review: My Neighbor Totoro is an amazing film.  Completely amazing.  Grade: A+++

I can go on and on about the technicals of Fate/Zero.  The voice actors all do a GREAT job, with some recognizable voice talents in there like Crispin Freeman, Kari Wahlgren, Jamieson Price ... really, go look at the imdb page and just check out these actor's workloads. The animation is smooth and beautiful in all its magic and all its fantastical details and even beautiful in its mundane elements.  They do an awesome job of using 3D animation represent a lot of the magic and the backgrounds, so that every move and cut and slash and fight and stab and magical attack and effect all have actual effects on the background.  You ever notice how in cartoons, if a character was going to interact with something in the background, it would be a different color?  Yeah, that is completely mitigated here and looks really great.  Oh man, and the music!  The score is absolutely gorgeous, and I've really come to love the opening theme.

The first episode should absolutely hook most anime watchers, though it is dense.  The second episode should do even more.  And if you aren't hooked by the third, I just don't know what is wrong with you, but I suppose there is no point in pushing on, to be quite honest.  There is absolutely a barrier to the enjoyment of this anime, but by episode three Fate/Zero has established everything you need in a good way that has you invested in the story, hopefully.  But, there is a huge problem ... this is absolutely a sequel.  Yes, it takes place chronologically before Fate/Stay Night, but it assumes you understand the premise, it introduces elements that you are supposed to understand how they work quickly so it can move to new stories.  It is not an easy anime.  I like that, personally.  It was the thing that got me interested in Attack on Titan and DeathNote, and while my opinion on both of those shows soured, that comes from them lasting much too long, in my opinion (obviously).

Fate/Zero has two seasons.  Both on Netflix.  Both no more than 13 episodes.  And it finishes its story then and there.  I think it is absolutely worth any one who found anything I said interesting so far a chance to give this show.  That sentence was very poorly worded, but I'm not gonna change it.  Watch Fate/Zero.  I recommend, as a fan, and as a critic.  I cannot wait to dive in even farther to the show.

Grade: A++

Edit: I try to write these reviews ahead of time so that I can have a nice bank and keep myself up to date, just in case I get sick or busy and am unable to find time to watch things like I need to.  Well, I did get sick, with a sore throat, so I spent this entire morning before my review got posted tearing through the first season of the show.  I can say, without a single doubt, that this show is phenomenal.  I would still recommend that if you are at all interested in the Visual Novel of Fate/Stay Night to not watch Fate/Zero yet, but if you aren't interested in the enormous amount of hours to put into Stay Night then I cannot recommend Fate/Zero enough.  The fights are amazing, the animation is immaculate, and the story is intense and thrilling, all in one of the coolest anime worlds I've seen.  This is probably the second best anime I've ever watched.  It is intense, thrilling, and awesome.  I have gone ahead and added a grading because I feel much more confidant in that grade now.

IHAF ... One Piece

All right, so now that I'm 155 episodes in, I suppose I finally feel confident enough to talk about what has easily become the best anime I have ever seen in my life, with the best writing and art design, music, themes, and just ... everything.

I Have a Favorite (Anime) ... One Piece

One Piece is a hugely long running anime.  I own 6 collections of it currently, and there are three more to be bought, and many more episodes created, waiting to be dubbed, subbed, and Funimation-ed so I can add them to my collection.  I watched it when 4Kids had it, it was fine, but I got tired of it.  I decided to, on a whim after talking with my roommate, give it another go.  I love the Pirates films, I love fantasy, and I'm a fan of good shows, anime, cartoon, live-action, whatever, and I have never heard a bad thing said about One Piece.  So ...

Yup, I got nothing bad to say either.  Because it is perfect.  Even the filler episodes have a purpose, which is hilariously obnoxious.  I can't, won't, and don't want to skip the episodes made to be pallette cleansers between arcs.  Not only that, but this show is perfectly plotted.  Let's talk about that a moment.

Many animes start you out in the middle of the story, or at least a little bit after the beginning of the story, and then after a few episodes, backtrack you to the actual beginning of the story.  It is an irritating practice, and one that if you do too much, makes you start to go a little insane, as I showed reviewing Attack on Titan.  Yes, we do get backstory and flashbacks, but they show up when they are narratively important, to give us a better understanding of these characters.  For all intents and purposes, we start this journey with Luffy, riding along in a barrel, waiting to be opened up.

I mentioned the characters before, and yes, these characters are great.  They are fully fleshed out and complete, with weaknesses, strengths, likes, dislikes, goals, dreams, flaws, and are completely realized.  It is so wonderful to see a cast of 7 now (a new cast member was just added) and for me to be able to completely immerse within them.  I know these characters as well as I know the best characters from any book or film.  And there is still more to learn, and still points to be surprised, as well as times to watch them grow and change, as Usopp becomes braver, as Luffy becomes wiser, as Nami becomes more trusting, and as Zoro learns to open up more.

The plot of the show, well, metaplot, as with episodic shows you have other plots going on, is that they are pirates going out for not only their own goals, but to find the One Piece, a great treasure lost in the Grand Line, a dangerous current filled with dangerous islands.  It is a battle anime, just like Ranma 1/2 (the first one, and my other favorite anime, whose collection sits nicely next to One Piece, both unfinished ... for now) or Dragonball Z or Yu-yu Hakusho (man, I gotta get this too ... ).  Our heroes have villains that stand in the way of their goals, and they take them down, to move on to the next.

Except One Piece is different from all the three the others I mentioned.  One Piece is truly character driven.  It isn't about doing your Spirit Cop duty, or competing in more and more ridiculous Anything Goes Martial Arts challenges.  Luffy is going to become the king of the pirates ... somehow, he isn't quite sure.  Zoro will prove he is the world's greatest swordsman, even though he pretty early on learns he is nowhere near good enough and he continues to train to reach that goal.  Sanji looks for a mythical paradise for a chef like himself, as well as love (though that is very much something we are meant to infer, as he would never say it directly ... or well, maybe he does, just not seriously).  Usopp's goals are a little more amorphous, to become a better man, a man worthy of the woman he loves and left behind.  Nami wants to map the dangerous Grand Line, creating the first grand map of the world.  And so on and so on.  Instead of "guy shows up, wants to destroy world or inact some other evil plot, good guys stop them" we have our heroes finding their way to where they are going, and because of their CHARACTER, they stop the bad guys, or help the people around them.

Not only that, but sometimes they fail.  Of course, as heroes, they ultimately will win (or at least, I believe they will).  But still, sometimes they fail as they go on their journey.  Sometimes they make big mistakes.  Sometimes their own character flaws make things more difficult.

Not only THAT, but One Piece gets around one of the biggest problems of a battle anime: exponential power growth.  Super Saiyan sure was cool, yeah?  Well, nope, it sucks, because they eventually reach Super Saiyan 4.  Really?!  4?  Ok, how does that even begin to make sense?  And lots of animes work like this, with people just getting more and more powerful, and villains becoming more and more ridiculously powerful to counteract the heroes power, which means that the heroes get more powerful again ... it is non-stop.

But One Piece is more clever than that.  155 episodes in, and the only character that has trained at ALL is Zoro, and that is a character choice - he pushes himself to continue to train.  Luffy may have learned a new way to do what he does, but in the end, he isn't Super Luffy.  He is the same power level as he was before.  But how do they keep the stakes high?  By having every challenge be a different problem.  I would love to spoil stuff, to be able to better explain, such as with Crocodile, or with Arlong.  But nah, just go watch it!  It is glorious in how they are able to masterfully tell stories without ridiculous character power growth.

I could gush on and on and on.  And I hope you enjoyed hearing/reading me gush as far as I did.  But ultimately, I plead you find a way to start watching if you can.  I didn't even begin to talk about the amazing water color artistry to accompany the unique character designs, or the amazing music, or the incredibly talented Funimation American voice actors.  I cannot get enough of this show.  I devour it as fast as I can, and will be getting Collection 7 as soon as possible so I can continue to do so.

A+++++++, all the pluses.

Edit: P.S. There really needs to be a parody of Pharrel's "Happy" with "Luffy".  I'mma find it!

IHAO on ... Attack on Titan

Grade: C+-

*inner monologue*

I knew going in that I was watching something unique.  How could it not be?  Anime in itself is harder to write about, as it doesn't flow like a regular show.  It has its own way of telling a story.  But how could I have known back then what I knew now ...

~~flashback to the beginning of this review~~

So everyone is talking about Attack on Titan.  The first (only?) episodes are on Netflix so I suppose I should go ahead and watch.  As the man with an opinion, I really should share mine on this show.  And now that I've finished it ...

~~flashback to my thoughts on episode 16ish~~

This is utter garbage!  This doesn't make any sense!  These characters motivations are terrible.  You cannot run an army by not telling anyone anything.  You cannot survive in this world by just letting these Titans you can easily kill now that you know how and have the skills to do so and the skillful Scouts like Mikasa and Renier to do so, you cannot just let them wander about clawing at the trees.  And NO, believing in yourself OR believing in your friends ... that is not a dichotomy!  That is not two sides of the same coin, you can do both at the same time, Eren!

~~flashback to my thoughts on episode 1~~

What an intriguing premise.  The action and adventure aspects are incredible, and the debates on how to proceed come across as surprisingly human.  The mystery with the key and the basement are awesome, and the strange variant Titans ... I'm very intrigued with what I'm watching.  The show is beautiful, with amazing music, and as long as they don't screw things up, I bet this show will live up to the hype I've been hearing ...

~~back to the now, after finishing the last episode~~

What a garbage show with a cool premise.  The action and adventure aspects are incredible, but the debates on how to proceed come across as rehashed and just keep happening over and over and over.  The mystery with the key and the basement are STUPID because our characters refuse to even try to do anything about it and instead spend a whole bunch of downtime doing other garbage.  And the strange variant human Titans ... ok, that reveal is cool, and I have my own theories about who the other two are ... I'm very intrigued with what I'm watching, even if it makes me super pissed hearing them talk.  Just don't talk, the dialogue is atrocious.  The show is beautiful, with amazing music, and as long as they don't talk, this show is really good.

 But ... they talk ... all the time.  And it is terrible.  And WHY CAN THEY NOT JUST SHOW THE STORY LINEARLY?!  You gain nothing by doing this non-linear approach ... me, being satirical in this review.  You jump ahead to something interesting, then just as things get cool, hit the brakes and go backwards to watch Eren try really hard to pick up a frickin' spoon!  JUST TELL THE STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER!!!

I think this show could have been amazing ... and it just isn't.  But I like it ... but I HATES it.

I know, I know, but this show is so stupid ... but so beautiful ... it makes my D.I.D. act up like you Gollum.

For the first time ever, I'm giving this a +- review.  I love and hate this show.  And I cannot wait for more ... though I super do not want to hear any of them talk every again.  Maybe I'll just turn the subtitles off.

I Have an Opinion ... on Ranma 1/2 the Movie 2: Nihao My Concubine

Back on track and feeling good, the newest IHAO is here.

I Have an Opinion ... on Guyver pt. 1

Bringing up the AWESOME quota!