Fate/Zero Blu-ray Disc Box I

After a long delay in customs (over a month), finally received Fate/Zero Blu-ray Disc Box I

I pre-ordered it several months ago in Amazon.jp, but when the payment day arrived none of my credit cards was accepted. At the end I bought it at AmiAmi, but since I bought it before the release date I didn't received the pre-order bonus (a set of posters) ;_;

The contents are the discs, sorted in two digipaks, and the booklet Fate/Zero Animation Material I.

Inside the digipaks, each disc features a serigraphy of a Servant. The discs above are the blu-rays (3 episodes each except the first disc that contains only the first -longer than usual- episode), and below are the Fate/Zero Drama Cd I and the Fate/Zero Original Soundtrack I cd discs.

Fate/Zero Drama Cd I is a 37 minutes long drama cd that narrates the events 9 years before before the anime starts, how Kiritsugu and Irisviel meet and fell in love. Is really a good piece of information that fleshes a lot both characters.

Fate/Zero Original Soundtrack I cd disc includes the excelent BGM for Fate/Zero. the disc is 24 tracks long (47 minutes) composed by Kajiura Yuki, who also did the OST for the Kara no Kyoukai movies.

Fate/Zero Animation Material I is a bunch of interviews to the main staff. The first one includes the main persons for the scenario: Urobuchi Gen (author), Aoki Ei (director) and Kondo Hikaru (producer), and after that features interviews to the people responsibles for episodes direction, key art, backgrounds, photography, music...

Random page. Key animation section interview to Sudou Tomonori and Ikariya Atsushi (character designers and key animation directors) and Shimizu Keita and Motegi Takayuki (key animation directors).

Another random page in the photography section explaining each step in production (right) and the use of 3DCG elements (left). The illustrated pages in the booklet are very scarse.

Last page includes a message from Takeuchi with a picture of Waver, Kariya, Kayneth and Ryuunosuke.

The blu-ray themselves are great, with nice sound and picture quality. There are several new scenes included, some of the dialogues were lenghtened (mostly the scenes between Kotomine and Gilgamesh) and scenes that had subpar quality were redrawn (most noticeable in the kings meeting of episode 11). Some random new scenes:

New scene in episode 3, Iri and Saber arriving to Japan and followed by a bunch of homunculus maids in the airport.

A talk between Saber and Irisviel in the castle added in episode 9.

Ryuunosuke and Caster "deeds" were censored with shadows in the TV version, but in the BD are visible. Those gore scenes are not as shocking as I expected...

Sola-Ui talking to Lancer in a roof, scene added in episode 13

The extras included are creditless opening and ending, previews and commercials in disc 1, commercials for the blu-ray box in disc 2 and the special episodes Onegai! Einzbern Soudanshitsu (Please! Einzbern Consultation Room) included in discs 3, 4 and 5.
Those 3 special episodes are about 10 minutes long Q&A sections that serves as the Tiger Dojo corner of Fate/Zero. The host are Irisviel (the "Instructor") and "Student 0", that is a young Taiga (in Tiger Dojo Taiga was the Instructor and Bloomers Illya was Student nº 1).
All the discs have both Japanese and English subtitles, but for some reason those 3 special episodes have only Japanese subtitles available.

The first special episode is used to intoduce Iri and Zecchan (Student Zero-chan) and explain the basics of Holy Grail War system.

The second special is used mostly to explain the magic world and a bit about Masters and Servants.

The 3rd special is focused in the special rules applied to Assassin class (only one of the Hassan i Sabbah can be an Assassin) and the Noble Phantasm of this time Assassin (gives multiple bodies to his multiple personalities). Zayed, one of the multiple personalities of Assassin that was killed in episode 2, appears as a guest.