So I just finished watching the first 4 episodes of Fate/Apochrypa, the newest anime adaptation of a Fate property, and it was…decent…I think. I’m actually a bit hard-pressed to call this a “good” show so far, though it does contain a decent amount of enjoyable and intriguing elements, and because of these elements it may actually shape up to become a more interesting show down the line. Then again that may just be my demented hope as a diehard Fate/Zero fan. My main problem with the show so far though, and what I’ll be properly exploring in the following paragraphs, is the story’s detrimental lack of emotional weight and how that negatively affects my investment in the show’s plot and characters as a whole.

If you’re not familiar with the Fate franchise in the first place, I’ll try to give you a quick rundown of what it’s all about. Basically the Fate series chronicles what are known as the “Holy Grail Wars”, holy wars fought in the present day between 7 “Masters” in a battle for supremacy. To join the war you’ll need to be a magic user, a “mage” if you will, and the war’s participants usually (but not always) hail from prestigious mage families.

In addition to their magical arsenal, each participant is to summon a “Servant”, the heroic spirit of one of history’s greatest heroes, rulers, myths or legends, ranging from Alexander the Great to Gilgamesh to even King Arthur. These servants will then aid their respective masters and fight for them in an all out death battle between masters, where the winner will be rewarded with nothing less than the Holy Grail itself, a magical wish granting device with the power to make your greatest dream a reality, be that peace on earth or world conquest.

It’s a pretty amazing concept when you get down to it, pitting history’s greatest men and women against each other in a battle of power and ideals. Not to mention the multitude of possible pairings between master and servant, be that pairing the noble and chivalrous King Arthur with a cold-hearted and underhanded realist, or pairing the extravagant and world conquering Alexander the Great with an overconfident teenager. It’s a concept that may appear a tad silly on the surface, but when you get into it it’s actually quite intriguing. Fate/Apocrypha on the other hand? Not so much…..

I actually do want the show to be good, really good if possible, but it’s already got so very many things holding it back in only the first four episodes that I kinda doubt that will ever be the case. I won’t go through and analyze the episodes scene for scene, however I will point out specific things from some specific scenes that I feel are worthy of mention, starting with the opening scene of the show, which is a fairly impressive looking battle sequence.

The scene starts by lingering on a half moon in a cloudy night sky, whereafter the camera quickly pans down past an imposing castle in the distance to reveal a giant nearby battlefield. On this battlefield we see an army of spooky scary skeleton monsters fighting an army of young mages. Why this battle is taking place we don’t know yet, but clearly the stakes are high as skeletons and mages alike are being violently disposed of by their opponents in a bloody fashion.

Next we see an equaly as impressive battle, but it’s not a battle of armies, but rather between two armoured swordsmen. Well actually it’s a swordsman and a swordswoman who are waging full-fledged magical warfare between eachother, and judging by their flashy abilities you can instantly gauge them to be among the top dogs in this joint.

Lastly we see a spear-wielding woman dressed in black facing of alone against a giant multi-headed monster, with no sense of scale lost going from the other fights to this one.

Cutting back to the dueling swordsmen the whole sequence flashily ends by having them both unleash their special attacks on eachother, creating a huge flash of light that envelopes the screen before finally revealing the series’ title card.

Now I’m sure that to many anime fans this all sounds pretty cool, and I’m not saying it isn’t. On paper this is pretty awesome, and in execution it’s pretty awesome as well….in a way. One of the major problems however, comes in just how shallow it is. It’s cool to look at sure, but I don’t know any of the characters involved here, nor do I know what excactly brought on this specific conflict in the first place (aside from my arbitrary knowledge of the Grail War from watching Zero and Stay Night), so for me as a viewer there are literally no stakes, it’s literally all for show at this point.

This really isn’t a huge complaint from me in itself, and it really wouldn’t have bothered me too much if only the rest of the following scenes weren’t just as shallow as this one. I realize this particular scene was placed here as a sort of teaser for the battles to come later in the series, as this actually seems to be one of them, and it’s not like the general coolness factor of the scene is lost on me. At the same time though it does quite neatly exemplify a lot of the the inherent problems of this show compared to shows like Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night, but especially Fate/Zero.

Apocrypha lacks weight. We’re already four episodes in and I’m neither invested in nor do I care about most of what is going on in this show. The opening battle as well some of the later scenes have mages being brutally murdered in mass, there’s even a moment when we see several mages impaled on stakes in a forest. It’s brutal imagery sure, and it may evoke some emotions because of that alone, but aside from that it’s basically worthless as I’ve got absolutely no attachment to the events unfolding before me. But hey, at least the show’s got stakes now, though they’re a bit too literal for my tastes…

I’m not saying that these scenes necessarily needed that much weight to them in the first place, they’re just there as a visual representation of the opponents power, but if almost every other scene in the show is basically just as weightless as these scenes are, then that’s a problem. Just go and compare all four episodes released thus far of Apocrypha to just the very first episode of Fate/Zero and you can get a pretty good picture of exactly what I’m on about here.

What made Zero such a great show in my opinion, and why it resonates with so many people, is because almost every aspect of it had a very tangible and often crushingly emotional weight to it. Several of the characters in Zero have both their motivations and fears explored in just the first episode, and even if having such fears isn’t a major part of their character to begin with, then they at least have some other aspect that makes you interested in their plight to substitue that. Not only do you immediately get to know about half the cast in the first episode this way, but they are also given enough individual screentime to where you can actually start to care about (or even despise) their motivations from such an early point of the story.

Be it between Kiritsugu’s goal of obtaining the wish granting grail through any means necessary for the ultimate purpose of world peace, or Waver’s goal of proving to his stuck-up magic teacher how anyone can become a great mage through hard work and determination, even without a prestigious bloodline, it all goes such a long way in making me care about these characters and their circumstances from only the first episode.

Not to mention Kariya Matou, who willingly implants himself with deadly magical worms in an attempt at increasing his magical abilities and taking his adopted niece’s place in the grail war. To see such a fundamentaly nice guy putting himself through arduous torture in a seemingly futile attempt at saving an innocent little girl is pretty heartbreaking, and a great setup for such a tragic character. And despite how hopeless it all seems, you really do want to root for him as he’s undeniably a kind-hearted man, despite being gradually twisted by the Grail War.

Because of all this, when the Grail War finally starts the stakes have already been set, and most important of all you’re already invested enough in these character’s stories to where you actually care what happens to them. Compare this to the first episode of Apocrypha where more than half of its runtime consists of boring and drawn out exposition scenes where characters sit around doing nothing that would make even the infamous circling scene from Fate/Zero blush.

Of course I can’t forget to mention just how likeable some of the characters of Fate/Zero can be compared to the characters in Apocrypha, with Rider (aka Alexander the Great or “Iskandar”) and Waver Velvet being two of my favurite characters in all of anime, and they’re not even the main characters of the show. From the very beginning they’ve got some great chemistry between them, and their interactions never fail to amuse me. To have this puny university student be the master of one of history’s greatest rulers is truly a spectacle to behold, and what really sells this relationship to me is how Rider immediately embraces his newfound circumstances instead of simply rejecting them like you’d expect.

He actually treats Waver as an equal more or less, and is the only servant to fully embrace the time period he’s suddenly been flung to. He even prances around in a t-shirt like a common pedestrian, watches TV and buys video games, and it doesn’t even phase him in the slightest. As a king he respected his men and realized their significance in his conquests, something which directly carries over to his relationship with Waver.

He sees Waver as a soldier in his army, and the mutual respect they develop for each other and their conversations through the course of the series even helps Waver grow as a person. It helps him understand that there’s more to life than having silly grudges towards stupid people like his magic teacher, and he learns what pure and unadulterated ambition can truly be like. It’s an extremely interesting dynamic that immediately captivated me and made me want to follow their story to the end.

In Fate/Apocrypha however you do get a few decent tidbits of character introductions, but nowhere near enough to really care what happens to most of them on a meaningful level. Not to mention the sheer amount of characters present in Apocrypha compared to both Zero and Stay Night which makes caring about any of them individually an even more daunting task than i already was.

I mean both Zero and Stay Night had a pretty big cast to begin with about 14 major players each, in addition to some minor roles. Apocrypha on the other hand has around twice that amount, with a whopping 28 contestants in the Grail War, plus an overseer, plus another male character, plus eventual minor characters. It’s ridiculous, and so far the show has only made me slightly care about approximately three of them, if even that much. I do find some other characters fairly enjoyable, but mostly on a surface level, they’re not actually deep characters. If it weren’t for some characters having fairly cute designs and personalities I’d have no other reason in particular to care about them.

What has without a doubt intrigued me the most about this show so far, aside from the general concept of the Grail War, has definitely been both the characters and story moments with the most development to them. I’ve actually come to care somewhat about Sieg, one of the countless homunculi created by the Black faction (the bad guys I guess?) as human batteries to power their magic circuits. Unlike the other homunculi he actually manages to escape his research tube and gain his own independence, only to learn that as a homunculi he only has three more years to live.

Feeling depressed about the fact that he might never have the time to leave his mark on the world he is filled with a deep feeling of inadequacy, and he wonders if his life is even worth living in the first place. That is until a servant named Astolfo tells him that all he really needs is the will to survive, and if he ever feels like making a difference in the world or be loyal to someone at any point, then he should do it because he himself wants to, and not just because of some silly ideal. Hearing these words finally gives him the reason he needs to keep living, and it later drives him to take a more prominent role in the Grail War together with Jeanne of Arc (or at least that’s what the series’ promotional artwork has me to believe).

I personally find this concept exceptionally interesting, and Sieg’s plight can easily be compared to that of a real life medical patient (or any other person in a similar situation) being informed that he only has a certain amount of time left to live, and the inevitable turmoil that comes along with that knowledge. And the fantastical way this conflict is presented in Fate/apocrypha makes it immediately more interesting to me personally than if it was just presented with an actual medical patient (not that I wouldn’t like to see an anime about that too though).

Aside from Sieg however there really arent any other characters that I’m truly invested in. And the fact that about half the characters are based on historical or mythical figures that I often don’t know a thing about beforehand really isn’t helping matters. And yes, you are indeed expected to know who most of these people are even before watching the show, though that’s a problem with Fate in general, not just Apocrypha.

All in all though, I really don’t have too much of a drive to continue this show because of the aforementioned problems. The show simply lacks weight, and its level of depth so far is miniscule compared to Fate/Zero, not to mention the comparatively lackluster character designs, animation and fight scenes. But of course, in all of my benevolence I will eventually give this show the time of day and actually finish it at some point, just don’t expect me to fall head over heels for it anytime soon…