Fate Zero Season 2 focused more on weeding out characters fairly quickly to get to the final battle in 12 episodes. Unfortunately with all the characters that were still around that meant that there were deaths almost every episode and it got pretty predictable.
Season 2 Review – Major Spoilers Within
After all that has happened to him, he should not look so surprised at this point.
Seems like Lancer got part of his wish by the end of the series.
A major problem for Fate Zero Season 2 was that they ignored some of the characters for so long and suddenly they had to do something about it. While people felt strongly about some of the characters key players like Kitsurugu, who was the actual master of Saber, were not as fleshed out as they could have been. This leads to two whole episodes of flashback about why Kitsurugu thinks the way he does. Those two episodes were such a waste of time. It could have been better spent if they cut down that flashback and added some background to Kariya as well or added to the fights at the end of the show instead. Having the flashback episodes just ruined the pace of the show and did not leave much time for the battle at the end. If they felt the story really needed to be told they should have made it an OVA or something.
Kariya and his servant were mostly ignored which hurt their battle at the end.
Since they made some poor choices with the flashback the ending fights were so anticlimactic. The fights that should have been the most exciting were cut so short it was not funny and there was no room to even find out about Lancealot. Saber freaked out so much and then it was just over all of the sudden with very little information on what happened. I expected at least a flashback to the problem or some kind of story. No. Not to say the fights did not look good because they did.
Rider can take several full weapons stabbing him and just keep going. That is my king for you.
Rider was the best part of the show and I am glad they sent him off the way they did. When he left though it felt like the show should be over. He was the only character that seemed to be learning from his life and his time in the real world. Rider was the only one that was worthy to have wish brought to life. Also all that was left after him were assassins and their poor puppet. Hope in the show was lost along with Rider.
Do not care who wins this.
Overall this season is the weaker of the two. After the strong beginning they did not seem to know what to do to get the show where it needed to go. The characterization of the show was lopsided and when some of the more fleshed out characters were killed off the only characters left were ones no one cared about. In the end, if someone did not know what was going to happen they probably would not even care who got it. It was going to be bad either way.
Season 2 Score: 3/5
Overall Review of Both Seasons
Overall Fate Zero did a good job setting up for Fate/Stay Night which was the whole idea. The fight scenes were very impressive to the end even if they were sometimes a bit shorter than I would have liked. The first season was a lot stronger than the second which was a race to the end. The second season was still pretty good despite its flaws. I wish that that they had made the Fate/Stay Night anime even half as good as this one.
Overall Score: 4/5
