The obligatory Magical Girl spin-off...

Written by penguinspolarteddy on July 21, 2013 at 9:21 AM

A magical girl spin-off off Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Kaleid is as different from its sourcing work as can get. Its characters re-appear, yet these are the only ones to be recognized among the setup; and they're different enough from their source counterparts to seamlessly fit into a clichéd Magical Girl setup. The plot stares you in the face from a mile away; and the technical merits don't help either, as both music and animation aren't quite what I would have expected from the Fate series after Fate/Zero.
Nevertheless, there's something about Fate/Kaleid, clichéd or not, that works. Story and animation failing IMHO, what's left is less entertainment 'just because' than dialogical fun. Sly jokes and cross-references to the rest of the series, Fate/Stay Night more so than Fate/Zero, are sure not to bore Fate fans, and where parts of the dialogue may be quite obvious as well, there's also parts that do their job with much tickling of the laughing muscles and, from time to time, the definite sense of a Fate/Stay Night parody. And then, Fate/Kaleid sports the second-worst magical girl mascot in anime history right after Madoka Magica's Kyubey. The Fate version doesn't even seem to be planning anything bad so far; it's simply sarcastic, perverted, and all in all giving poor Illya a hard time adjusting to magical girl life, sarcasm from my side meant to be un-abundant.
Fate/Kaleid doesn't work particularly well. It's disappointing if you really expect anything story-wise; also, 95% of it consist of clichés, which are only semi-functional. Where it works, however, it mixes eye-rolling moments with a lot of laughter and a couple nice parody-reminiscent moments, and is all in all sure to evoke a reaction, if nothing else.
5.5/10 from me; beware of feeling silly while watching.