Alternative title(s): Here We Go Again
Light Novel Adaptation by A-1 Pictures
Streaming on Netflix in November

Premise

It’s another Holy Grail War, but now it’s 7-on-7 team-based multiplayer!

Iro’s verdict: Fate/Fanfic

Oh, this wants to be Fate/Zero so hard. Since the show itself is packed with tedious lore buzzwords and such, allow me to sum up: this is an alternate universe to mainline Fate where, in the 1940s, the Yggdmillienia clan jacked the underlying magic behind the Holy Grail War we know of and took it back to Romania. Now they’re running the ritual back home, but because the clan controls all seven Masters, the Grail designates seven more for a 7-on-7 team battle between Black and Red factions. Other than the inescapable anime bullshit, it seems pretty decent, and A-1 does solid work. It’s also a rarity in that it’s a Fate work where I’m not already aware of how the entire story goes, so I’ll probably cover this for at least a while. Strap in, I guess.

Zigg’s verdict: Apocralypse Now

This is the usual Fate house style, which is to say that the intriguing historical and mythical connections and fascinating setup of the Grail War is buried beneath a tidal wave of heavy handed lore explanations, sludgy dialogue and general fascination with minute apocrypha (see what I did there?), rather than actually making the story and characters interesting or relatable. It shouldn’t be possible to make ‘Holy Grail War against anime Nazis!’ boring but somehow this does it. It also follows the grand tradition of Fate stories never actually being able to stick to the supposedly inviolable rules that are laid down, though I’ll cut this one some slack as an alternate universe tale. A-1 do their best UFOtable impression to make the show look suitably swishy, and as ever there are some interesting ideas batted about, but I just don’t have the patience to do these anymore.