There's a very eye-opening moment in this show. Near the beginning, in the third episode (I think) Ryuunosuke, a serial child murderer, accidentally summons a servant named Bluebeard whilst Ryuunosuke was in the middle of killing a child. Bluebeard stops Ryuunosuke, and lets the child walk out the front door. The child, scared but relieved, walks towards the hallway, and opens the door. Right as he begins to open it, and see the light of the outside world, a giant monster thing comes from behind the kid and eats him whole. Bluebeard turns to Ryuunosuke and tells him how you can only see the greatest of despair right when you steal hope away. If you think that sounds like some stupid, overly-edgy, misery-pandering bullcrap, don't watch Fate/Zero. Because that philosophy is employed throughout the entire anime.

In a sentence, Fate/Zero is a fucking garbage show where none of the characters are capable of making intelligent decisions and death is constant for no good reason. I've never seen a show that actively infuriated me to this degree, even shows that are technically 'worse'. It's like this show wants you to hate it. It's not sad, it's not tragic, it's just stupid. I don't need Kiritsugu to be asked if he would sacrifice 200 people to save 300 when I basically saw him blow up a plane to stop 9/11. This isn't 'nuance' or whatever.

It's kinda funny how death is the only consistent thing in this show and yet there's only a single good death. Natalia getting offed is without a doubt the single best scene in this anime, as well as the only good part of Kiritsugu's backstory. Also, there are way too many characters, and the focus on them shifts way too much. Kiritsugu is technically the mc, but there are only three points where the story really focuses in on him. Waver and Kotomine are much more enjoyable as characters and have a similar amount of screentime. Waver starts out as some annoying femboy bussy bitch, but in the end, he grows into a legitimately likeable man who overcame his flaws. On the flipside, I'm sort of biased towards Kotomine because I think he's really funny, but him and his relationship with Gilgamesh is very enjoyable to see play out. I like their talks on philosophy and desires, and it's strangely believable that this mongrel-hating king would take interest in a very normal catholic priest that definitely doesn't have anything wrong with him. His weird six-sword Wolverine-grip thing is also very raw. Kiritsugu is just boring ass doomer dad, it sucks.

This might sound nitpicky, there are some parts that felt like kinobait. For example, Gil and Berserker's weird spaceship plane fight thing. Sure, it's cool, but am I the only one that felt it doesn't belong? Same thing with Kiritsugu's time accel. I really like time powers, but Kiritsugu just kinda has time accel for no real reason, and he only uses it four times. For one of the coolest abilities in this show, (which, I'll admit, is saying a lot) it sure goes underused.

The fact that some people consider this to be a good starting point for Fate baffles me. There is a whole episode dedicated to Rin, and Kariya's motives literally revolve around Sakura. Sakura and Rin are fan favorites FROM Fate/Stay Night, and you would not care about them without that context. Also, Shinji's dad appears for all of two seconds, and that would be a very confusing two seconds if i didn't know who Shinji was.

In conclusion, Fate/Zero is self-indulgent cry porn that doesn't make you cry and it doesn't hold up to critical analysis. Also Gil and Kotomine should've fucked