Anime Corner: Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files {Rail Zeppelin} Grace Note Review
Welcome to Fate Lore 101, now please turn to page 10,003 of your textbooks.
What’s the Story?
Waver Velvet once fought side by side with the King of Conquerors, Iskandar, during the Fourth Holy Grail War. Now it’s ten years later and a fair few things have changed for our favourite mage, he now bears the title of Lord El-Melloi II and teaches in the Clock Tower, where all the most powerful and prominent families in magedom go to learn their craft. He even has his own apprentice in Gray, a girl who bears a striking resemblance to a certain knight of legend. However, things aren’t all rosy for the new Lord El-Melloi, not only is he up to his eyeballs in debt, but he often finds himself wrapped up in all the magical and mystical mysteries that surround the Clock Tower and the mages within.
The Review
I’m just going to say this upfront, don’t watch this series if you’re not a fan of the Fate series. Then again I consider myself a fairly big Fate fan (I don’t love every series that comes out, but those that I do I generally love with all my heart and soul) and even I had a hard time with this series. This is definitely a series made for hardcore fans by hardcore fans, there’s so many references and characters from other works that it was a challenge to keep up with them all, and I’m pretty sure I missed a load (it doesn’t help that my experience with the Fate franchise is limited to only the stuff that’s been animated so if this is a character’s first time in animation, then I ain’t going to recognise them). It was great seeing the ones I recognised though, especially when some of them got paired up in fun ways. The series also has plenty of interesting new characters that I want to learn more about, like Gray.
Another stumbling block for this series though is just the utter denseness of fate lore and magic. In fairness that’s a problem a lot of the Fate franchises struggles with, there’s just so much information and detail to this universe that I feel like I need to take a five-year course just to grasp the basics of it all. Fortunately a lot of series can avoid having to deal with this by focusing on the epic battles between Heroic Spirits and introducing some non-mage or novice mage characters. Unfortunately that’s not something this series can do. There’s no Holy Grail War here, no Heroic Spirits (well, not really), and the focus is squarely on the mages and the Clock Tower. A lot of the mysteries are based around the magic system of fate and to call it complicated is like calling Game of Thrones a light read. I’m sure if I spent a few hours digging through the various wikis I’d find out all I needed to about magic in Fate, but I’m lazy and a TV show should not require reading material to accompany it. This does work against several of the mysteries in the series because without an understanding of how the magic in this world works, you’ve no chance of working out what the answer is before Waver (I mean you have no chance anyway, but you might be able to pick up on a few things).
Let’s talk about the mysteries in this series though and I think that’s going to be something else that puts people off. The style of mystery this series chooses to go for is the one where our genius detective (Waver) is the only one that gets to put everything together. You’ll see the clues, you’ll be given the suspects, but you’ll never work out the answer until Waver tells you because he’ll be holding on to that one vital piece of information you needed to put it all together, but you don’t get it because you’re not the genius detective. It can be frustrating, and while I generally prefer a mystery that you have a chance of solving alongside the lead detective, I don’t mind these kind of puzzle piece mysteries, as long as in the end I can see how all the pieces fit together. Having said that, I don’t find the majority of these mysteries all that engaging. Between the lack of understanding with the magic and so many references being thrown at the screen, everything just feels so dense and I can’t quite get through it.
All of this being said, I can’t think of many people who I’d recommend this series to it’s market feels very niche, but who is it’s market? Well, Fate/Zero fans for one. If you want to see what happened to Waver after the Holy Grail War, then I will definitely recommend this series. Waver is the best thing about this series, seeing how he’s matured and what he’s had to deal with in the aftermath of his actions in Fate/Zero. I also love his arc throughout the series, seeing how he’s still haunted by the events of Fate/Zero and his slow path to finding peace with that and a way forward. Honestly the ending of this series, with his little dream chat with Iskandar, almost had me in tears.
The Verdict
All in all, Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files {Rail Zeppelin} Grace Note (seriously, can we go back to shorter titles for these series?) is a show for die-hard Fate fans, especially fans of Waver Velvet. The lore and the magic is just way too dense for the uninitiated to get through, so if you want to watch this series, then I recommend either watching a few of the other series first, or reading the whole of the Fate wiki. For those die-hard fans though, seeing how Waver has matured and continues to grow is a joy. Add not to that some interesting new characters like Gray and a whole host of cameos from across the franchise and this series is a treat, if only for the fans.
Chris Joynson, aka the Infallible Fish, is a writer, blogger and lover of animation living in Sheffield. The blog updates every Friday or you can follow me on Twitter @ChrisGJoynson.