Monday, June 1, 2020

Fate/Apocrypha Part 1 Episodes 1-4

Near the end of World War II, a legendary mystical conflict known as the Holy Grail War, raged in Fuyuki City.  The final battle ended with the Grail being stolen by the head of the Yggdmillennia family, and has been in their hands for decades.  Now, in the present, the Yggdmillennia, have defected from the Mages Association and declared their independence.  With seven summoned Servants on their side, the Yggdmillennia seems invincible.  But the Mage Association isn’t letting this slide by a long shot and have summoned a force of seven Mages with their own separate Servants for battle.  The Holy Grail War begins once again, this time on the grandest scale ever conceived.

With all three routes of the original Fate/Stay Night story (Fate, Unlimited Blade Works & Heaven’s Feel) all adapted at last, what’s next for the Fate franchise?  Well spin offs of course.  The Fate Universe seems endless with countless heroes from history to choose from to give to all manner of skilled or messed up mages to battle for the Holy Grail for all eternity.  We’ve seen a Holy Grail War in The Matrix (Fate/Extra: Last Encore); a Holy Grail War with an army of Cardcaptor Sakura’s (Fate/Kalied Liner Prisma Illya); and even an equally neverending Holy Grail War on mobile devices (Fate/Grand Order).  So how about a Holy Grail Team Deathmatch?  That’s generally what the setup is for Fate/Apocrypha, which does away with most of what we know from the standard Holy Grail War premise in favor of an all out throwdown that might be on the more quantity over quality side but it’s still too early to tell.  Still, for an opening set, Apocrypha isn’t off to a bad start.

I am definitely going to need a character chart on me at all times to keep up with this enormous cast.  You have two teams of 7 Mages, each with their own Servants, so that alone makes 28 characters from the get go, plus the two supposed series leads (who don’t actually meet each other until the end of this opening set).  Factor in a couple of extra faces (including a very welcome and familiar one, HI WAVER!!!!) and yeah, Fate/Apocrypha is throwing a helluva lot at you in just four episodes.  I also had to backtrack and see just how many of these initial 28 players weve seen.  One thing I noticed is that Apocrypha’s beginning tended to focus on the…yeesh, the Yggdmillennia (that needs a shorter nickname ASAP…you know what, let’s go with Black Team) more so than the Red Team sanctioned by the Mages of the Clock Tower.  And what time we spent with Black Teams Mages was…eh, no ones really standing out other than the boisterous Gordes and I cant wait to see how that guy gets whats coming to him.  Oh and there’s Celenike, who is shown twice trying to get freaky kinky with Rider…who is bored out of their mind.  A couple members of the Black Team seemed like the wide eyed optimists and dreamers with dreams they hope the Holy Grail can grant…and I think ive seen enough Fate/Stay Night up til now to know that some hearts are going to get shattered in the worst possible way.

The Red Team had most of their Servants on display (and we’ll get to them) but we only really got to hang around two key players.  The first is Kairi, a necromancer who, let’s face it, is a dead ringer for on Dog the Bounty Hunter (so much so that whenever he was onscreen I couldn’t help but think of the South Park parody with Cartman as Dog the Hallway Monitor, them song and everything).  His visual look aside, Kairi seems chill enough and a good, level headed foil for Mordred.  Then there’s Shirou Kotomine, yes you read that correctly.  This clear fusion of the hero and villain of the original Fate/Stay Night clearly has his own agenda and im starting to wonder if he’ll just take full control of things on the Red Team side and kill everyone else…would cut down on an already overwhelming number of players.  Still, I’m reaching to conclusions pretty quickly based on only a couple of short scenes.

But let’s jump from Masters to Servants shall we?  One benefit of having such a large scale Holy Grail War is the abundance of heroes to draw upon.  Achilles, Spartacus and even William Freaking Shakespeare (and is Lancer of Black Dracula?  Im pretty sure he’s Dracula) are on the board along with the usual surprise gender bends of familiar names like Mordred, Jack the Ripper and Frankenstein’s Monster.  Mordred I think was the only Red Team Servant to get a lot of screentime and she is a treat.  Cute, hot tempered and ready for action, Mordred continues to be proof for me that the more eccentric I see other Sabers, the less I kind of like OG Fate/Stay Night Saber (hence why Saber Nero from Fate/Extra: Last Encore is still my current fave, but Mordred might get up there before long).  Possibly my favorite of the bunch belongs to Black Team’s rider, Astolfo.  Astolfo has got such a zest for life and is both the most fun loving and caring Servant we’ve met yet.  They don’t care for their crazy master who keeps trying to have creepy dungeon sex with them, have a ton of fun battling Spartacus and risks all, virtually betraying their team, to protect a total stranger in need of help.  Personally, I’m not sure which overall team I should be rooting for in this war.  Frankly, I still need to feel things out but I’m loving individual Servants like Morded, Astolfo and poor Saber Siegfried (who gets taken out of the game way too soon) and will gladly cheer them on more than anyone else in Apocrypha right now.

Man, this freaking cast and I haven’t even gotten started on series leads Sieg and Jeanne D’Arc aka Ruler.  I guess I’ll touch on them for a moment before I start wrapping things up.  Sieg (though he hasn’t gotten that name yet, though im sure I know how he gets it) is a Homuculus that was to be used as a power source for Black Team who escaped his prison and is faced with the prospect of only having 3 years of life in him.  In a way, Sieg reminds me of a Replicant from Blade Runner, artificially created with a limited lifespan as a failsafe.  Sieg doesn’t seem as evil or demented as Roy Batty though (yet) and he def has a desire to live that im sure he’ll be looking to the Holy Grail to take care of that.  Then there’s Joan of Arc herself aka Jeanne, who is classified as Ruler, aka a mediator for the Grail War.  Basically, she’s meant to make sure things go smoothly though she can already sense things are off about this unorthodox war.  Judging from her brief scuffle with Karna, Jeanne might be the strongest player in this conflict, though she isn’t supposed to intervene and take a side.  Pairing up Jeanne and Sieg will be interesting and fill the void of “lead characters” that’s usually filled by someone with a Saber servant in a Fate Story, i.e. Shirou Emiya or Haruno Kishinami.

Wow, I spent a lot of time talking about characters and its hard not too with the large cast and all.  What about everything else in Fate/Apocrypha’s grand debut?  Well the premise is appropriately epic enough for a Fate series.  And, if nothing else the prospect of two teams of powerfl warriors duking it out all at once is wayyy too awesome not shrug off.  One particular thing of note is that A-1 Studios is handling the production of this title.  While Studio Ufotable might be the Masters of the Fate franchise, with them having done the bulk of the main series so far, A-1 is more than up to the task and is bringing some great energy to every frame theyre animating.  Say what you will about A-1’s most prized project, Sword Art Online, the series can deliver on some stellar action scenes and Fate/Apocrypha isn’t slouching.  Siegfried vs Karna continues the trend of kicking off a Holy Grail War in grand style with a Saber fighting a Lancer.  And Dog, er Kairi, using a double barreled shotgun against Homunculi and Mordred using sword and fist to mow down Golems is pretty freaking cool as well.  Basically, if you’ve come to Fate/Apocrypha for action, much like you do any Fate series, you’re gonna be satisfied.

Alright, for real, time to wrap up this rather long opening review.  Back when I did my First Impression on Fate/Apocrypha (you can read it right here if you want: http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/fif41-fateapocrypha.html) I admitted I was worried about giving it more than a one episode shot because of the size of the cast, the complexities of the new conflict, and the lack of familiar faces like my Waifu Rin Tohsaka.  Now, I feel like I might be ready for Fate/Apocrypha.  Despite the shortcomings of forcing a ton of characters and rules all at once, there’s still plenty to like and hope that the series will sort itself out over the course of 25 episodes (heck they’ve already dealt with two Servants on both sides (I think?)).  Still, I’m willing to commit and this is absolutely happening.  Also, I cant wait to see what happens when Mordred and Jeanne cross paths…cause you know, two cute powerful warrior women and what not.  Ok, Fate, you wanted me back, you’ve got me back.  Let’s just hope this turns out better than Last Encore yeah?

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