Mar 31, 2018
When it comes to what makes the Fate franchise what it is, some will might say it's the very well-made fight scenes while others will say it's the dark psychological tone that it has. While all of that is definitely true, what really makes the Fate franchise what it is; it's the interesting philosophical dialogues between the characters and that is really, what Fate/Extra Last Encore succeeded at most.
Fate/Extra Last Encore is a studio Shaft's adaption from a game and it serves as an alternative setting to Fate/Stay Night's. The concept of the story is pretty much the same as you can imagine, there are
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chosen masters that summon a servant each, each servant and master are fighting together to be on top and get a wish granted. The big difference is that it's happening in a tournament in the far future, year 3020 where not a lot of humans are alive. It's hard to get any deeper than that in the story because otherwise, it will be a spoiler. I also don't think you came to check this anime out thinking it will be very different than the original series story anyway. What is very different is that compared to Ufotable's adaptions of the Fate franchise, Fate/Extra focus more on the philosophical dialogues and less on the flashy fight scenes but it has those as well. As I mentioned before a lot of twists will be discoverable later in the story but I will not mention them to not spoil, just so you know that there are a lot of other interesting differences. The downside of the story category is that it doesn't explain the settings really well.
The characters are easily the most interesting part here. There is the protagonist, Hakuno who seems a bit uninteresting at the start but don't worry they made sure he will be interesting, there is a lot of focus on "who he is?" which make the character a lot more interesting as the story goes on. For the face of the series, it's obviously the Saber "UMU" Nero, she will get a lot of focus, even more than you imagine which is a good thing in my opinion since she is probably the most fun character to watch (Red Saber>Original Saber, fight me). Rin also gets a lot of shine here, she is more badass than the usual herself. Besides that, there are the other servants and masters, I will assure you that they all have an interesting unique design so you might enjoy watching them.
Well for the art it's really a matter of opinion, those who are familiar with Shaft's works like the Monogatari series and such will welcome the art easily and would even find it great and suiting, others might despise it, as it doesn't look like ufotable's art and flashy animation. I personally belong to the group who are familiar with Shaft's works and finding the art great even though ufotable is my favorite all-time studio. The one thing that most fans will most likely won’t admire shaft for, is the different character designs for the characters that aren't new to Fate like Rin, Sakura, and Shinji. Overall, the art and animation style is a plus for me as I think it's really suited for the psychological and mystery tones of Fate/Extra.
For the music part of the series, the opening ("Bright Burning Shout" by Takanori Nishikawa) is amazing, it's rocky and catchy, really suiting for this series, it took my favorite opening spot this season (Winter 2018). Visually it only shows Nero fighting with different hairstyles, take that however you want. (Fun fact: It's the first time that a male sings the opening song for a fate series). For the ending ("Tsuki to Hanataba" by Sayuri), I think it's quite suited, don't sure if I love the song but I do like it, what I love is the visuals, they are showing the connection between Hakuno and Saber while also showing the Master and servant they are currently fighting, I really liked that. For the voice acting there is, of course, the umu so enjoy it. The ost has all kinds of tracks from futuristic to emotional, nothing crazy but I think it's very suited.
Summary:
Pros:
- Characters are fun to watch.
- Interesting philosophical dialogues.
- Great and catchy opening.
- Suited animation style. (Makes the dialogues more psychologically interesting)
Cons:
- The art style might look weird to some.
- The story isn't explained so it'd be easy to understand.
Fate/Extra Last Encore isn't for everyone, that's for sure and that's why I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't a huge Fate fan. Because if you have only watched Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night [Unlimited Blade Works] then you have nothing to do with this series, you wouldn't enjoy it. However, if you are a huge Fate fan who have read the original visual novel, watched all the anime adaptions or of course, if you played the game then watch it, it was made for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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