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Well here's a good a start as any since it'll be good practice before I give the apocrypha my full review when it ends.

Now when i heard what we were getting i was hyped about it since on a surface level the story sounded promising but then after roughly 4 episodes it was easy to tell things were not gonna go well. to start with the pacing of the episodes were just terrible and it goes too fast or too slow in some. you don't even feel the slightest bit of attachment to the cast and it's disappointing too since even Jeanne falls into ... this and she's one of my favorite servants to date so it's sad to see her character being poorly portrayed here.

the next problem is the fight scenes. in comparison to what Ufotable has set for a new standard A-1 set the bar to a new low and literally became the example of what not to do in fate for future projects. the characters moved too fast so you don't know what the hell is going on and half the time they become blank designs to cut costs in movements. when it comes to battles in the Fate series there's a sense of connection and ideology being challenged by 2 servants where you get hooked into what's happening and apocrypha fails to even do that which it's no surprise given how this is A-1 Pictures we're talking about and the only times they have any success in visuals and fight scenes is either SAO(to some extent) and Fairy tail(to a more higher extent). it becomes apparent at episode 22 where it shows they literally blew their budget on something in this project.

the other problem is that too much shit was happening at the same time where you can't focus on one thing to get a grasp or enjoy what could be potentially good fights. like one minute you're watching Astolfo vs Mordred then you go to Karna vs Vlad for a minute then you go to Atalanta fighting Spartacus then Fran fighting Shirou and just to remind us we see Jack on the phone and Jeanne fighting dragon tooths. and that's just one example of having to swallow a lot of shit happening too fast where basically it tells you not to be invested in anything else happening.

problem 3 is the overly large cast. you already have a large enough cast with 7 masters and 7 servants who have their desires and goals in what they want. that's already enough to keep anyone busy in trying to keep characters interesting but roughly give or take 30 plus characters where more than half of them are cannon fodder at best. and even in the light novel you don't really feel all that attached to anyone and the manga doesn't do much better either.

problem 4 is something another guy brought already but I'll say it here to remind others. the lack of fucking resolve with these characters especially coming from the servants of all things. a good half of these servants are here cause they don't really give a fuck. yeah I know we've had that happen in other fate stories but that's like one to two out of every set of servants in the story you don't need that many of them having that whole I don't really care about the grail attitude. at best you only need 1 to do that. 2 at a minimum if you're trying to through a minor twist there. not having any desire for the grail from half the servants really takes away potential growth for these servants in learning that their lives were to some extent shitty and want something. that whole "don't have a desire for the grail" i think only makes sense for Siegfried given his entire history of serving others and that's the only one who should have that really. it makes no sense for so many servants to not really care and are just there simply cause they think it's fun or interesting and that's where the lack of resolve argument is extremely true.

problem 5 comes down to main character choices. oh my god aside from the yggmillenia cast where yeah i get those guys were gonna be throw away fodder so no sense in getting attached to them but jesus christ at least try to make them interesting. have at least one or 2 of them planning to betray the black team because they want their wish granted or something. it was already a waste to even have or mention the other masters in the red team. I can understand putting Jeanne in a main character status. she's the ruler servant this is kind of her job anyway although that begs the question of why bother with fate stay night's choosing of a priest to oversee the grail war when a ruler servant apparently does it just as good if not better. the problem I have is that you don't really feel anything when they show Jeanne's history in the flash backs or in the recent episode in shakespeare's noble phantasm. you don't feel anything like sorry for her or anything you just kind of watch with meh kind of attitude. and I don't think the author of apocrypha fully understands the implications of what it meant for Jeanne to sacrifice her ability to love one person. while I don't think it's impossible for her to get it back eventually I just don't think in the particular way they went about it in apocrypha was just too god damn forced and really stupid and goes against a lot of Jeanne's character where yeah she'll protect people but she's not gonna deny them their right to choose to fight or get too worked up about a person choosing to put their lives in danger when that kind of shit has happened multiple times in different stories. best example of how she can still care but not in the way apocrypha went about it is extella or her interludes in fate grand order. I'm sure there's better examples out there too but those are the only ones coming to the top of my head.

then you have Sieg. where the hell do I start with this guy. when i first saw him i honestly wasn't expecting much of him but unfortunately i'm forced to expect some stuff from him due to the openings. like the whole basic premise for Sieg was that unlike his other brothers and sisters he somehow through some unexplained concept that we're just supposed to accept happened in the short span of an episode Sieg had the mana capacity caster of black was looking for but sieg somehow developed enough of a self conscious to realize something was right about they lived and died? okay that right there is already a god damn plot hole. yeah other artifical humans did this too but not like during their process of being born where at best Sieg should have had something of a curious personality since he got out of his pod prematurely you'd think he'd lack common sense to some degree or fail to understand why the thought of dying scared him. then he somehow understands he has to choose to fight to somehow help and teach his brothers and sisters to have free will when he doesn't even do good job at expressing that.

I'm gonna stop here as this is my preview of what's likely going to be a more detailed final review and i have my doubts the final 2 episodes will change much especially this late in the game.

for those who don't know my name just know Fu-reiji is here on MAL now and I will either give hope to the anime you love or send it down a spiral hell in trying to explain in reviews as to whether an anime is good or bad at the end of their run. or in Boruto's case seasons.




Edit


completed my review here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f7LW0wFt70VJCXSLqitKxuwPVLsZNqMuMXnAspUNDM4/edit?usp=sharing