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Shinigami no Ballad is a brief 2006 anime whose story is split in 6 indipendent episodes.

I found the stories somehow enjoyable till episode 5, although most of them were based on common clichés and only one or two of them really kept me interested.

The characters were pretty plain. The reason why I didn’t enjoy the last episode at all is the appalling stupidity of the main character, Sakura. Really, she took like 1 minute and a half to realise each thing. The dialogues were so silly and badly written at times, like in the last episode, when Momo told Sakura that Daniel had ... told her she was dead just to “joke around”. Haha, yeah, you made me think I was dead but I actually wasn’t that’s so funny. No it isn’t.

I wouldn’t say animation is low-tier, but it often gets static and boringly stuck on some scenes. Rather, CGI and SFX were visibly horrible and bad handled. When the camera focuses on the rainy sky I shouldn’t see the place were the rain animation originates. I know it’s 2006 CGI but I honestly expected something more.

Both the Opening and the Ending themes definitely pissed me off: they were in theme with the sad atmosphere of the show just because the singer appeared to want to end her existence because of how bad and bland the lyrics were (the verses didn’t even rhyme!). Also I could make a better base for a theme song in smth like 4 minutes. Soundtracks don’t deserve praise as well.

FATE/ZERO SPOILERS AHEAD.

Assuming that the events covered in this brief one-shot are set in the Fate/Zero universe, they take place after Kiritsugu’s childhood, in 1978, and manage to describe in a relatively short story how he had grown up at the time, being raised, or rather, saved, by Natalia, adding an important episode of his past to the ones the main story dealt with (I’m talking about episodes 18 and 19 of the series).

The story is quite simple, inasmuch as being it just some sort of gusset for the main plot, but still it mantains Zero’s settling, especially in terms of atmosphere: that dark ... one that I recognized even months after watching the show, this time chilling and full of action; it talks about a business of Kerry and Natalia in a small village that resembles the one Kiritsugu lived in during his childhood.

I believe this opera is important for Kiritsugu’s development, since it narrates a part of his apprenticeship, his relationship with Natalia and shows which flaws of himself he had to deal with before becoming the so-called “mage hunter”. Hence, I suggest it to the ones interested in his character and such.

Kiritsugu’s capacity not to give in to madness nor to pain, his astonishing propensity to change in order to survive and the way he decides wether or not to stick to his morals are why I had this high enjoyment.