There are slight, but negligible spoilers in this review.

This is a rewritten version of this article. If you really wish to view the former version, please contact me.

You deserve it, you ungrateful and annoying bitch.

Fate/stay night? Type-Moon? Well, the latter held no meaning until I watched Fate/stay night. Now, it still means nothing to me besides the fact that it developed Fate/stay night and is developing Fate: Unlimited Codes. The company, however, receives a lot of hate from what I understand, and its games, well basically, suck. However, this anime adaptation by Studio Deen managed to keep my interest throughout the show by using Rin and Illyasviel. Ignoring those two, the anime was worth watching for its action that was accompanied by (usually) good animation and some lulz here and there. There are moments that make me want to crush my hard drive to destroy the episode, but let’s just get on with the review, shall we?

Every ten years, there is a “Holy Grail War,” in which seven Masters and their seven Servants fight each other to obtain the Holy Grail. This magical object shall grant a wish from both the Master and the Servant that earn it. From what I remember at time of watching this show, Masters are only from magician-based families and require a magic circuit within them before they will even be considered (by the Holy Grail itself) to become a Master. These Servants are heroic souls from history that hold extraordinary powers and abilities. Each Servant also has a Noble Phantasm, which is some uber WTFPWN move that drains the user’s energy as well.

He’s obviously fapping. Duh.

Emiya Shirou is the protagonist, a high school student that wishes to be a protector of justice like his foster parent, Emiya Kiritsugu, once wanted to be. Admiring and believing his father’s belief and dream, Shirou takes on the same dream to protect the weak. He also cannot use magic very well, although there is a certain skill that he uses to his advantage later in the show. I considered him fairly annoying because I can’t stand characters that are completely for the good without any hint of bad intent. Rounding off the (main) cast are three: Tohsaka Rin, Saber, and Archer. Saber, a muscular yet attractive beast woman who is a unique spin on a famous character from mythical history. Tohsaka Rin, a fellow Master and talented magician, is a classmate of Shirou that is a valuable help to Shirou. Archer, a mysterious character that conveniently does not remember his real identity from history, is Rin’s Servant.

Fate/stay night’s story and characters suffer from numerous flaws that detract from the plentiful action. The story is unfortunately shallow and uninteresting. Every episode is filled with Shirou barking that he should fight alongside Saber and that the Holy Grail War is evil, Saber asserting her position as Shirou’s Servant and that she needs to fight, and new character introductions as if the viewer anticipated them to arrive. Each villain is defeated unreasonably and almost too easily; there were no surprises in the results of battles. As for the characters, Shirou may be the worst male lead I have ever seen. His whole “let’s-not-fight-but-be-friends!” characterization is irritating and poorly executed. Rin may be awesome, but I never understood why she was initially so friendly toward Shirou, given her seemingly aggressive personality. Shirou, like a few of the other characters, change as the show nears its finale, but the character development is never well done and leaves the viewer with a sour taste in his mouth. Some characters, like Taiga Fujimura, Shirou’s guardian and homeroom teacher, are plain unlikeable.

Heh heh… don’t really have anything to say for this one.

Art-wise, everything is pretty well animated, and the character design is excellent. I’m not one to care much about character detail as long as the characters don’t look like utter trash or devoid of detail (such as Minami-ke: Okawari and its black people). There aren’t any noticeably negative aspects to the animation nor the sound, so at least the viewer won’t be gouging his eyes out or plugging his ears; he, instead, will simply bash his head on his keyboard or table because of the show’s poor narrative and characters.

After reading plenty of good comments about Fate/stay night, I expected a show that successfully juggles being an enjoyable anime and a work of art. This anime taught me something I should have realized earlier, and that is that the mainstream audience is not to be trusted. I do hear the game is better from some sources, but I’m still hesitant on that as well. I will try it out once the translation is fully completed and error-free. I admit that the show did catch my attention with its fun action sequences in the latter half of the show.

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Verdict: If you love action, you will at least enjoy this show. It has something for fans of loli (Illyasviel), tsunderekkos (Rin, although she isn’t very tsundere in this show), and bishoujo (Saber), but don’t expect the characters to save the show. Although I stuck through Fate/stay night for more of Rin and Illya, I was left mostly unsatisfied at the end. Fate/stay night is definitely not a show I would recommend immediately; perhaps only if the person seemed to enjoy similar shows.

This post is tagged fate/stay night, review