Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works

The Holy Grail War is a battle royale among seven magi who serve as Masters. Masters, through the use of the command seals they are given when they enter the war, command Heroic Spirits known as Servants to fight for them in battle. In the Fifth Holy Grail War, Rin Toosaka is among the magi entering the competition. With her Servant, Archer, she hopes to obtain the ultimate prize—the Holy Grail, a magical artifact capable of granting its wielder any wish.

One of Rin's classmates, Shirou Emiya, accidentally enters the competition and ends up commanding a Servant of his own known as Saber. As they find themselves facing mutual enemies, Rin and Shirou decide to form a temporary alliance as they challenge their opponents in the Holy Grail War.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Saber Main

Kawasumi, Ayako Japanese

Toosaka, Rin Main

Ueda, Kana Japanese

Archer Main

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Emiya, Shirou Main

Sugiyama, Noriaki Japanese

Emiya, Kiritsugu Supporting

Koyama, Rikiya Japanese

Gilgamesh Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Kotomine, Kirei Supporting

Nakata, Jouji Japanese

von Einzbern, Illyasviel Supporting

Kadowaki, Mai Japanese

Matou, Sakura Supporting

Shitaya, Noriko Japanese

Lancer Supporting

Canna, Nobutoshi Japanese

Takeuchi, Takashi Producer, Original Character Design

Iwakami, Atsuhiro Producer

Kondou, Hikaru Producer

Kameyama, Masahiro Assistant Producer

Reviews

Mar 6, 2025

Excalibaaaa

Recommended

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is Ufotable’s most recognizable work even a decade after its debut, and that’s by no means an accident. UBW is amazing, a rare occasion for a film adaptation that surpasses the original work.

UBW adapts the prologue and second narrative route (Unlimited Blade Works) of the 2004 visual novel Fate/stay night by Kinoko Nasu. Nasu’s talent as a writer is what made FSN such a success; the original story is incredible: its portrayal of the heroic ideal, bombastic action, and timely comedy, mixed with Nasu’s characteristic character subtlety make for a truly entertaining story. The narrative structure of FSN (three diverging ... narrative routes) is also something to be lauded. However, FSN wasn’t perfect, looking back on it two decades after its release, it becomes clear that it was written by a man in the early 2000’s, and the medium itself, visual novels, is somewhat limited, and (in my personal opinion) kind of silly.

Ufotable’s adaption maintains the integrity of Nasu’s writing, while simultaneously up-ing the bombastic action to a level that would become the gold standard for all of anime. The show is more fluid in pacing than the VN, the long expositions fly by much faster, and the dialogue is less separated from the action. And the Ufotable's writing team takes it upon themselves to clean up the awkwardness and lurking misogyny from the VN, as a result, the story is just, better. The only thing that holds UWB back is that Ufotable has not yet adapted the first route (Fate), which would have made many of the moments in UBW much more impactful.

If you want to get into Fate, this is the place to start! I absolutely recommend you watch it. At this point, it’s a modern classic, and it's earned that spot!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 2, 2025

LordBeanzoid

Mixed Feelings

Action is Win, Romance is Fail
There are 2 primary elements worth mentioning: action and romance.

The action is SUPERB. Animation, choreography, sound effects, everything is top tier. Kinda wish they'd tone down the monologues, but it's anime. Whaddyagonnado.

The romance is thoroughly lame. First, I cannot express how much I hate the tsundere archetype. "Prone to domestic abuse" makes for a garbage human being. It does NOT equal depth or relatability. PLEASE talk to someone who's been in an actual relationship for more than 5 minutes. I'm BEGGING you. Second, the "love story" concludes on yet another big fat nothing sandwich. They're supposedly in a relationship by ... the epilogue, but... no kiss, no holding hands, and future plans are all variations on "let's go on adventures together!" What are we, 6?

The plot is decent, even if it resembles Fullmetal Alchemist. As far as characters go, the protagonists are crap, but the servants are actually pretty interesting. Though I have to ask, why does King Arthur keep showing up in these shows?? It's so random! And if you didn’t notice it, they gender swapped him in this one. Yep. Blaringly obvious once you see it.

It's a decent watch, the production value is very high, but tbh it kind of fell flat for me. It's just a lot of the same old stuff. However, I was able to finish it without feeling like I was grinding so there's that. I was at least reasonably entertained.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 30, 2022

VaioletteZ

Not Recommended

Funny

Where is the story? After completing it on the strength of the animation alone, I realized Shirou has so little personality that my brain somehow achieved the unprecedented feat of learning muscle memory, as in whenever this garbage character's mouth began to animate, my brain shut off and went on a vacation to something, anything more interesting, such as summoning memories of corporate meetings with interns freshly out of university who only know how to say "synergy, win win, vis a vis, breakeven point".

I could maybe tolerate this garbage "protagonist" if the plot is actually interesting, but the plot can be described as "hack ... of a writer who has no clue how writing works reads half of the first paragraph about legendary figures on wikipedia, turns them into cute girls, and makes them put on an apron and learn how to blush at the weirdest times as if this writer has never met a girl before.

This show is the natural evolution of Evangelion's "when you have no idea what you want to write, just talk vaguely about christianity/religion and pretend like your story is deep". At least when evangelion did it, it was fresh.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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