This review was written in late 2018. It contains Spoilers.

Fate/Extra is a massive mistake by studio Shaft. At the same time that the production is adventuring into strange waters by adapting a TYPE-MOON title, they`re diverting too much from their usual adaptations when they decide to go for a linear-focused narrative. Fate/Extra being adapted by this manner, in my opinion, is a recipe for disaster.

Fate/Extra Last Encore is a writing trainwreck, not even when the topic is the story in itself - the script is also a headless, footless monster. Shaft has again proven itself to prefer visual scripting rather than story-focused scripting. The show looks good. The visuals are well-constructed and the camera angles are nicely presented. Heck, even the animation is okay. Visual presentation is only the wrap of the present though, and when the present is trash, you know something's wrong.

In Fate/Extra, differently from other famous Shaft titles, there`s a linear narrative that has to be told by clear, objective and focused means. Fate's world is rich in important details that almost always need to be stated in a clear form for the universe to make sense. Shaft builds up a headless, footless monster when they decide to use the stylized approach that became famous in the non-linear "-monogatari" titles to be the vanguard of the series. This stylized approach, in Fate/Extra, becomes more important than the narrative itself. This becomes a serious problem for the linearity of the script because it leaves the spectator lost in the timeline and in the universe. Each episode starts and ends in a completely different manner than the previous – a basic continuity mistake that can wreck any show, anytime. I had to check the number of the episode while I watched to confirm I wasn't jumping over any of them by mistake.

The first episode of Fate/Extra is so badly-scripted that I thought I had been watching the second episode by mistake. It raises more questions than answers. Builds up an universe but doesn`t explains it. It completely ruins the suspension of disbelief. It's a completely horrendous episode debut.

What really irritates me when the topic is Shaft is the absurd quantity of unneeded, uninteresting, confusing and evasive dialogue. This is not only a problem of Fate/Extra itself, but of a lot of other Shaft-adapted titles: the characters say words, but they're not speaking anything. These types of pretentious dialogues make the characters look like college philosophers – they only serve as hole-fillers to extend the lifespan of the episodes. With its humble 13 episodes, Last Encore shoots its own foot when it adds these redundant dialogues. The script jumps over a whole floor because of the limited screentime – it`s a tragedy.

The story seemed to be reinventing itself every minute. There was always a coma, always a "but". When you think the main characters are going to get in trouble fighting Harwey, Hakuno pulls off the stupidest "rabbit in the top hat" to progress the plot further.

Character creation and development is horrendous in this show.

Fate/Extra is VERY objective when it only shows Saber/Nero in a 1-minute-25-second-action Opening. It tells us Nero is the marketing point, and she really is. Not only that, but Nero is the ONLY character with a backstory built-up that is concrete enough to be developed upon. The unforgivable mistake is, perhaps, the worst contradiction of the series – focusing the screentime on amorphous, monotonous, shapeless blobs that pretend to be characters - instead of in the actually interesting character that is Nero.

Just like other TYPE-MOON titles adapted to animation, the main character is once more an insertion mass for the spectator. Kishinami Hakuno is an extremely bad-built and bad-developed character, with the unique and essential function to react to the mishaps in the narrative while pretending to be you. Even after all this, he still fails to deliver while having, on average, two dialogues per episode and, on average, the most screentime of all characters. Hakuno`s backstory is badly-written, confusing and has many non-capped holes to be relevant. His personality has no taste and his motivations are empty.

Nero's relationship with Hakuno suffers so so much because Hakuno is a super confusing character. What were they thinking naming him the same as his girly counter-part? Whose idea was it to portray him as the memories of this girl we know and care nothing about? The show explains Hakuno's character a million times and it STILL makes no sense at all. And this absolutely ruins the 'climax' of this conclusion.

This doesn't get better if we compare Hakuno to the supporting characters. They are merely touched by the narrative, with no intention of development. Shinji, Rin, Rani – they're all characters with no development potential that are used solely as story-progression tools. They`re used, then get discarded. When the narrative freezes, there they are to unfreeze it. Then they get discarded again.

One of my problems with Fate/Extra is the monotony in the adaptation. The script is essentially descriptive. The series doesn't want to surprise you, or to make you feel with the characters, or even create a bond between you and the story. The only function of the narrative is to communicate the facts in the most tasteless, abrupt form possible. When only one of the characters is in the scene, it seems as like all the other characters are frozen in time, only to not ask anything about what happened when they were not in scene. This kind of wearisome approach was principally noticed in the final scenes of the series, when Hakuno makes the hard choice between Rin and Rani. A potential climax was being built only for the decision to be communicated in the most abrupt and monotone way. I was expecting nothing from the ending and STILL got disappointed.

Fate/Extra is a title to avoid. It is not fun to watch, not relevant to the grand scheme of FATE, and a completely forgettable experience.