If you were a fan of Fate/Zero, and follow Fate/Stay Night reboot, stay away. FAR, FAR AWAY. A show that, at first appearance, is a kids' version of the Fate franchise turns into a weird, pervy magical girl series. This is clearly marketed at some sort of 15-45 male demographic with social anxiety.

Why is it bad? A lot of things go wrong. First, the talking magical rods are about the most poorly conceived anime characters imaginable. They are lame and annoying, two adjectives that normally are too ambiguous for describing why a particular character sucks - yet, here, I use it quite accurately. Second, the hyper-sexualization of what must be fourth or fifth grade children is gross and disturbing, and also has the infelicitous effect of wrecking the atmosphere, and even narrative, at times. Third, overall plot is flimsy, as it pertains to some vague quest to gather some class cards or another. As if we needed another anime about collectible cards. Fourth, it's painful to see the successfully rebooted Rin in F/Z and the new F/SN slumming it out in an awful series.

Why not 1 star? Well. The animation is well-produced, and the fighting scenes are actually well-made. You do get a sense of danger from the clearly overwhelmed characters, although that's been typical of the recent Fate reboots. And Rin is pretty amusing as a straight man to her aristocratic funny man.

Otherwise, a sad show likely made for the enjoyment of males of questionable character. The reviewer is a straight male who loves his debauch, low brow anime (High School DxD, Demon King Daimyo, Strike the Blood, B Gata H Kei, etc.), so for me to write those words... I mean, I'm impressed, I'd never thought I'd get judgmental, but it's pretty bad to make an anime about sexualizing grade schoolers and slapping "Fate" on it to give it a franchise fanboy pull to it.

Avoid this at all costs. I'd give it 1 star but that dreaded number must be reserved for things like One Piece and bad hentai.

Edit for the disturbed fanboys: the yes/no is for reviews that are helpful/unhelpful, not reviews that you disagree with, homeys. Sorry but not sorry I implied you're all pedophiles!

I won't watch this because of how much I enjoyed the Fate/* series. I don't read manga - I never was one for comic books.

Fate/* was rare in the Anime world because it really was adult. There were often dialog that I needed to watch twice in order to really understand the depth of feeling that was being conveyed.

The scene between Kiritsugu and the Holy Grail was very light in approach, but extremely deep in meaning. It really made me stop and think "What would I wish for?" with a whole new respect for what that truly meant. I cannot wish for that which I myself am incapable of perceiving. "World Peace" is as illusory as wishing for my own inter-galactic space cruiser or wishing to become a God.

The scene at the end of F/Stay Night where Shiro turns down the invitation was also light dialog but really pounded home the theme that ran through the whole series.

When I started this series, I had no idea what it was. I was shocked and a bit sickened at how they completely fluffed the true depth of the original. They should have ditched the old characters and started fresh. Illya's still-beating heart will always remain with me, along with her death-cries to the cold stone surrogate father that lay in pieces on the floor.

This is NOT Illya.

When I saw "Fate" I thought I would pass out from excitement, I really loved Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay night as well as the games however once I started watching this my hopes really went down the drains. Now the anime is well made, vibrant, good animation and its interesting to see the cast in weird roles but I don't really feel magical girls are something that should be mixed into such a brutal anime.
Now it still is the first episode, its too soon to say its bad but I am going to say this it's definitely not something I'm gonna be looking forward to each week, more of a "once I see all this weeks new episodes", bottom line it's not for everyone, Its comparable to thebrony fad and if youre just a normal guy you will likely not be too into something aimed at small girls, but to each his own I suppose