I’ve come to an epiphany lately about the nature of Fate/ Watch Order disputes (and perhaps the same applies to other franchises), a lot of it is about which Fate/ project to start with will leave a newcomer the least confused for the shortest amount of time. Which Anime is quickest to get to some kind of accessible explanation of what the Holy Grail War is and how the Nasuverses’s Magic System works.
No one is willing to consider that maybe being confused is a deliberate artistic choice, that maybe part of the fun of this entire genre is being thrown into a world you at first don’t understand. People have gotten so invested in hating on J.J. Abrams style Mystery Box story telling that they are overcorrecting into rejecting any kind of story telling that doesn’t explain as much as possible right away.
In my last Fate/ Watch order post I’d already softened my past advocacy for starting with Fate/Zero. What I did say was that even if you want to start with the Studio Deen Anime because it’s the only adaptation we have of the first Route, you still should start with Episode 0 and Episode 1 of UFOTable's Unlimited Blade Works because they are the most faithful adaptation of how the VN starts regardless of Route, then you can start Deen/Stay night with episode 3.
A recent video about Fate/ Watch Orders I stumbled upon, (that I think may be AI at least in it’s Voice Over), specifically said Episode 0 was too confusing, it was a bad place to start because it seemingly expected them to already know all this stuff. But the original VN also began by being from Rin’s pov over that exact same period of time but probably taking even longer to get to the end of it. That is always how we were meant to be introduced to this world. And I think that was a very bold choice that fans need to start having more artistic respect for.
Maybe the people who can’t handle being out of the loop for that long simply aren’t this Franchise’s target audience.
Episode 0 of Unlimited Blade Works shouldn't have branded as specifically Unlimited Blade Works, it's 100% before the point of divergence between the routes, and then so is 99% of episode 1.
And honestly thinking about all this has made me care less about Watch Order correctness in the first place. Maybe recommend your friend to start with whatever Fate/ Anime you think they would like the most. If they’re a Magical Girl fan who doesn’t mind the lewder takes on that genre then have them start with Prisma Illya, it actually was the first Fate/ Thing I watched and I was not confused in any way that made it hard to follow.
Maybe there is even a kind of person for whom Fate/Apocrypha would be the Fate/ Anime they’d enjoy the most even if they jumped into it with no prior Nasuverse context.
There are certainly people for whom Lord El Meloi’s Case Files would be the best Genre for them to enter the Nasuverse through.
My past advocacy for starting with Fate/Zero was never simply because it was Chronologically first but because as a story bout Adults rather then High Schoolers it will be more accessible for many potential viewers. And that theory has been vindicated by the vast majority who have watched it first. The only thing that's come to bother me is when Video Essayists come to conclusions about what the show has to say about Saber's character and ideals when they haven't seen how her story concludes.
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