Fate/Zero

As a look into human nature when embroiled with competition and ambition - it's good. Those who lack flexibility fail; those who adapt and compromise win. Other than that, Fate/Zero is bog standard anime.

Not very good, one is to expect over written and overacted dialogue in anime, so you give that a pass, but this pushes those limits, the story is pretty much nothing and even the fights, by anime standards, are VERY underwhelming. The best episode with any character was a side story of a little girl that had nothing to do with the plot. Was the only one with any atmosphere and feel to it. Some of the violence is SLIGHTLY ballsy, but its rare and doesnt lift the whole much. just boring. Don't.

The concept is cool and had me pretty hyped, but as it turns out a battle royale doesn't really work when you have every encounter end inconclusively with one or both sides withdrawing. Emiya's a cool dude, and things pick up some towards the end, though there's some typical Urobuchi-esque senselessly tragic stuff happening seemingly for the hell of it. Ultimately it's hollow spectacle, too insipid and unstimulating to even work as mindless entertainment.

Good but not the best

Beautiful visuals, good fight choreo, and neat strategies in the second half don't make up for terrible theme execution, disgusting util stance for 2/3 of the runtime, and wack philosophical conversations. The first half is especially "philosophy I read on Wikipedia attached to chars without any sense". Waver carries with an interesting dynamic and motivation, everyone else is an Urobuchi cliff that overshadows how much it butchers Nasu themes. Skip this and play Fate/Stay Night instead.

s1,s2

s1 82, s2 85

s1 83.8, s2 86.1

I think I appreciate this a little more than Stay/Night in terms of premise, but it's arguably more stupid. The show is full of juvenile philosophical waxing that is incredibly hard to take seriously, especially given how overacted and overwritten everything is. The show might not have been too bad if it relied more specifically on Waver/Rider's dynamic but the narrative is decidedly not about them and it tries to balance its attention on various different characters who are far more boring.