Although the very first “Fate/stay night” anime adaptation left much to be desired, the recent “Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works” television series and the “Fate/Zero” adaptation were both excellent anime, so was looking forward to the “Fate/Apocrypha” anime.
Adapting the original “フェイト/アポクリファ” light novel series into anime, its story is set in an alternate timeline where the events of “Fate/Zero” and “Fate/stay night” never occurred. Instead of a Grail war between seven servants and their masters held in Japan, “Fate/Apocrypha” takes place in Romania where two factions fight an all out Grail war, each faction pitting seven servants and their masters against the other.
As was to be expected for an adaptation of a Type Moon story, the first episode introduced a slew of characters and had quite a bit of plot exposition. Luckily the episode opened with an eye-catching, action packed battle sequence that fired you up, making viewers curious to see more and discover what is to come.
While the anime is slated for a twenty-five episode run, am somewhat apprehensive that its large cast could lead to a portion of them being generic characters that have little screen time and are never truly fleshed out. The fact that some servants have far more outlandish designs than the iconic characters from earlier Fate stories reinforces my impression that most will serve little purpose besides being window dressing.
Nonetheless, do hope the show will be an entertaining fantasy action anime like “Fate/Zero” and “Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works” are. Am anxious to see the rest of the story unfold and the epic battles between servants and masters alike because I am confident “Fate/Apocrypha” could be another addition to the great fantasy action anime based on Type Moon’s ‘Fate’ franchise.
