My original title for this post was "Fate/Zero Box Set Leaves Me Zero in My Wallet" but I found it too long... This is my way of supporting the industry by buying this overpriced Fate/Zero set. Sadly I'm thinking I'll be encouraging Aniplex to charge this same price because someone like me will buy one set -_- Well... I was giving this a try and taking a chance to see if it's worth my money. It helped that my Canadian anime supplier had it at the same price as RightStuf but I didn't have to worry about shipping or Customs charging me tax. So let's see what's inside!
The box is actually pretty sturdy and a nice fabric feel covering the box. It consists of 3 parts (4 if you include translation book): Blu-Ray set which contains 5 discs, CD set which contains 1 drama CD and 1 original soundtrack and an information book in Japanese. The casing for the Blu-Ray felt cheap at first but it's actually tougher than just normal cardboard. Still flimsy but the external cover for is shiny and you can easily clean it if you get it dirty, especially since it's all white! Each external panel has a master's command's seal. All seven seals are here including all seven servants adorning each disc.
Here come the servants! Might look better to show closer shots of each one...
Of course Saber is on disc 1 and of course I had to show two pictures of her. Remove the disc and you reveal the class art for each servant. The first disc contains only the first episode which was 45 minutes.
I also went and watch the first episode before writing this post. The video looks great. Much better than the streaming for sure. The subtitles are well formatted to fit the scene. If the character is in the centre, the subtitle will be to the right or left of them. Instead of centred they are formatted to the left indent. Though I have seen some grammar mistakes, most of the subtitles seem correct. I am disappointed that the songs aren't subtitled unfortunately... The first disc have lots of extras including textless OP & ED, previews and servant focused promos. Which makes me wonder what kind of extras will be on the other discs.
The second disc features Assassin[s], while the third disc have Lancer adorning the front.
Gilgamesh the Archer is on the 4th disc and creepy Bluebeard, the Caster, is featured on the 5th disc.
Iskandar, the Rider, gets to be on the drama CD. I think I won't understand the drama CD at all since I see no translation for it at all... And lastly, but not least, is Berserker on the original soundtrack CD composed by Kajiura Yuki!
Here are some extras... The picture on the left are promotional items included in the Japanese book. The book on the right is the translation booklet that have the wrong table of contents. I believe they used the same table of contents as the Japanese one for the English one, which makes it very confusing...
Since someone requested the inside of the Animation Material book I've added these additional photos below.
Here's the inside front cover.
And the inside back cover.
The content is mostly a wall of Japanese text (which is good that they translated it to English).
Some of them have storyboards.
Some have screenshots from a scene or two.
They also showed some of Berserker's CG model.
And in one of the last few pages is an art by Takeuchi Takashi featuring some of the male masters.
For now, before watching the rest of the series, this set is definitely overpriced. It's nice that this is released the same time as the Japanese release but I doubt they can sell a lot of these sets in North America at their MSRP. I sense doom for the second set unless they can reduce the price. I don't even mind waiting for a year or so if that set can be significantly cheaper. I'll be sending the survey card they've included and give them a piece of my mind...
Edit: Looks like it's hopeless for those who wished for this set at a lower price because there are those who will pay this kind of money and Aniplex are counting on them since even my Canadian source is selling it at a steady pace. I'll see what kind of decision (and money) I'll have when the second set comes out.
Ok, now after that slightly disappointing anime box set review, here is a few bonus photos of the Fate/Zero opening single by Lisa, Oath Sign. I really like the song and I really like the other songs in the single as well.
There were two versions of this single. This one with Lisa on the cover and the other is the anime version with Saber on the cover. I thought about getting the Saber one but the bonus DVD is a textless opening of the anime, which is included in the Blu-Ray set... So I decided to get Lisa's version.
The CD single also includes some more photos of Lisa. The other version has a mini poster of Saber... I wonder if I should get that one too ^^;;;
