Now I understand why the first episode felt so underwhelming to me: I just didn’t care about any of the characters. Normally I really like the “lots of talking”-series, but something didn’t quite work with me. Now, I realize that those first episodes were like some random stranger coming up and starting to quote Shakespeare for more than an hour: why should we care? I mean, even Mouryou no Hako didn’t immediately start with its incredibly long dialogues, but first created a hook with that fantastic first episode of its. So yeah, now I understand. This was by far the best episode of Fate/Zero so far and significantly increased my opinion of it.
Nearly the entire episode was just one big monologue of Rider. And it was glorious. I mean, the best character of the series just got even better when he explained exactly why he’s in the tournament, and what he thinks a king should be. It clashed wonderfully with Saber, and interestingly used the way in which Saber has been so timid for a king in a way that I really did not expect. The decision to include Archer made things even better, because now we have this drinking talk between three people who couldn’t be any more different from each other. I also love how everyone’s master just stood around, not knowing what to do in this situation.
But oh my god, it’s been a while since we had an episode that put so much emphasis on well written dialogue that worked so well outside of Hyouge Mono. I really began to fear that my tastes changed a bit after such an absence of series that would dare it. Especially after how Shaft hi-jacked this genre with shows as Denpa-Onna and moved it from well written dialogue to just random blabber that doesn’t go anywhere. With this episode, it’s great to see that the “lots of talking”-genre still is alive.
Rating: *** (Awesome)