| I've known about the Fate series for a quite a long time and finally decided to get into it, starting with this Studio Deen adaptation. I did quite a bit of research into the watch order and found out that you're basically spoiling yourself or ruining your experience in some way or another no matter which anime you start with, and that playing the Visual Novel is by far the most optimal way to get into the series. However the Visual Novel has never been officially released in English, and I really don't want to go through the pain of getting a Japanese copy and patching it, so I decided to start with the anime. The two biggest watch order arguments I've seen out there are whether to start with Fate/Zero or the Fate/stay night Studio Deen adaption. Fate/Zero is a prologue and from my understanding was created with the intent that you had already finished Fate/stay night before you played it. As someone who is heavy into the Monogatari series, I'm a pretty firm believer that the author's release order is the ideal way to enjoy a series, rather than chronological order, so I opted to start with the Studio Deen adaptation even though everything I've heard about it has been nothing but slander, claiming it to be a terrible slug of a watch that does a horrible job adapting the Visual Novel it comes from, being mediocre at best. It's not like I really had a better way to learn the basics of the universe and experience Saber's route anyway. But to my surprise, this anime was nowhere near as bad as I had heard it was. I'm not claiming it is a masterpiece, and as someone who has read plenty of Visual Novels, I could tell pretty easily when they rushed some segments of the story or poorly adapted them (especially the H-Scenes), and it honestly did hinder my enjoyment of not only the episode but a small portion of the overall arc a bit. But since I'm someone who hasn't read the visual novel and hasn't yet seen the other fate routes adapted by Ufotable, I don't really have anything else to compare it to that would cause it to ruin the entire series for me, or make it unwatchable. The fact is that this Studio Deen adaptation did a great job of hooking me into the Fate universe, explaining the core concepts of the story and world enough so that if I watch any other iteration of fate, I have a basis on what's going on. That alone makes the watch worth it for me, as it establishes a good majority of the characters, solid development, and lore that I couldn't grasp as well if I just jumped right into Fate/Zero, and I think helps cement it as the starting place for the Fate series, rather than something you should skip. As for the quality of the show, It's not bad at all. You're watching a Visual Novel adaptation, so it'd be kind of crazy to expect anything more than a good story and good dialogue, which I think were delivered on. If you watch this adaption after you play the VN then, of course, it's going to be lackluster in comparison, no anime is going to be better than the VN it came from, the anime only has a limited number of episodes to adapt a much longer story. I can completely understand complaints that an anime fails to capture any of the magic that the VN creates (Such as the Chaos;Child anime adaptation) but I don't feel that's the case with Deen/stay night. I'm someone who was just interested in the Fate universe and found the anime to be very gripping and it caused me to become heavily interested in the world of Fate. The fight scenes were actually pretty well animated for a visual novel adaptation that came out in 2006, the majority of them feel very fluid (The fights with Kuzuki and the Assassination were particularly nice). The story is told in such a way where I don't feel like I'm missing out on any part of the original Fate route, It doesn't feel like any major plot points were flaked out on just to make sure the anime finished in time. I do think more character development was needed (Especially in the cases of Rin and Ilya who I have no idea why their characters are motivated in the ways they are), but I don't know if that's a flaw on Studio Deen's part or if the first route is intentionally written that way; regardless, It sparks interest to watch the other routes and figure it out. My point is that the Studio Deen adaptation of the Fate route is not a bad show and deserves to be seen as a great starting point to get into the Fate franchise. The story, characters, and fights are all just good, nothing more, nothing less. The pacing of the storytelling combined with the superb plot written by Kinoku Nasu makes for a very enjoyable and enthralling watch that comes with good fight scenes and art reminiscent of the VN itself. It's not a super amazing show and it isn't an abysmal watch, it's the telling of the original Fate route from the Fate/stay night Visual Novel, delivered in a digestible and accessible form, making it a solid anime and a great place to start your journey into the Fate franchise. |
KinkyToaster6Jul 12, 2019 9:31 PM
| I think that it was very enjoyable despite the changes that were made for this adaptation. The ending was not as satisfying for this route, but that is due to how the route normally ends from the source material. I liked the art style for this adaptation too. |
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| Why do you think it's so laughably bad? |
| I understand that the other Fate adaptations are better than Deen/stay night but the point of this post was I think it's still a fine starting point that doesn't ruin your enjoyment while giving you an easy introduction to the franchise. I haven't watched Fate Zero yet because I'm waiting for the 3rd Heaven's Feel movie to come out first, but Unlimited Blade Works and the first two Heaven's Feel movies are fantastic; Deen/stay night didn't ruin their characters in any way. |
HenreLoucoBR said: For someone that haven't played the VN you are right,but in the VN there are 3 different routes,they put content of the 3 of them in the first route,each one of them is a different story,it doesn't make sense to simply put them together.And in the visual novel you have such a stong feeling in each fight and even in the slice of life moments that you don't have here,it could have been so much better,that's why it get so much hate. It could definitely be improved on, but for an anime adaptation the fights all had really strong feelings to them, I can see where you're coming from with the slice of life moments though, besides the saber stuff near the end it's all pretty meh, the Visual Novels are always gonna be better than their animes and slice of life in VN adaptations are very often poorly adapted. But even if they are meshing up the contents from 3 different routes into one, it really doesn't feel like any of the information is out of place or forced in. I get your point though, the hate from this adaptation comes from expectations from the Visual Novel, not from an anime-only standpoint. |
| It unnecessarily brings elements from UBW and HF which is cringe. Direction and storyboarding is also incredibly bland even for a '06 anime too. For example, the KnK adaptions Ufotable have made still aged well even 12-13 years later and so will Zero/UBW/HF. The point of an entry point to a franchise is to get you hooked and a lot of it's hard to say DEEN FSN is reliable on that point. I personally don't care where people start this franchise anymore(I even laugh when people start asking, "WHY didn't Fate/Zero ending make sense!?"). That said, DEEN FSN is just a mediocre adaptation compared to every other adaptation... |
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| CG Dragon. It turned out to be a huge mess. I, and many other, have "unfortunately" read the VN before watching it, so it only makes sense to point out, and in this case, hate, the BS they've done with the story. It's a shame, since I liked 06 esthetics better than Ufotable's visual filters & Rin's triangle face. Zero was fine, but I have trouble watching UBW(same will probably happen with HF) partially because of it. Guess they amped up the effects, or that it just didn't bother me back then. |
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Aemnesias said: CG Dragon. It's a shame, since I liked 06 esthetics better than Ufotable's visual filters & Rin's triangle face. Zero was fine, but I have trouble watching UBW(same will probably happen with HF) partially because of it. Guess they amped up the effects, or that it just didn't bother me back then. I feel the same, the ufotable stuff is pretty but it feels kinda overdone. 06's art and fight animations feels nice and grounded. |
| Deen's adaptation is flawed but a great building block into the series. I used to not recommend it to people who wanted to get into the Fate series. After giving it another watch years, years later, I realized as much as you have; that the series ain't as bad as everyone make it up be. I'm pretty sure this whole 'skip Deen's cause it sucks' bandwagon only existed when ufotable took on Zero and UBW. I did play the VN when TakaJun first translated the other routes too, and I still found overall enjoyment in this. |
| 2006 had the best soundtrack ngl. I could not point out a single standout soundtrack from ufotable's versions aside from the opening/ending songs and EMIYA which is already an existing one. |
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piecemealcranky said: Deen's adaptation is flawed but a great building block into the series. I used to not recommend it to people who wanted to get into the Fate series. After giving it another watch years, years later, I realized as much as you have; that the series ain't as bad as everyone make it up be. I'm pretty sure this whole 'skip Deen's cause it sucks' bandwagon only existed when ufotable took on Zero and UBW. I did play the VN when TakaJun first translated the other routes too, and I still found overall enjoyment in this. You played the VN first and still defend deen/stay night? I applaud you for your bravery to speak against the crowd lmao |
| I very much enjoyed Fate/Stay Night. The biggest problem I had with it was the main character, who was too dumb to live. He would have been killed many times over if not for the scabbard and Rin. Also, Gil's first appearance was a real deus ex machina, without having seen Fate/Zero. But Saber is too cool. In fact, I prefer the original over UBW. I think both should be watched to fully appreciate all the characters, but there were things that really annoyed me in UBW. On the other hand, the fight scenes in UBW were definitely superior. |
RMikami said: I very much enjoyed Fate/Stay Night. The biggest problem I had with it was the main character, who was too dumb to live. He would have been killed many times over if not for the scabbard and Rin. Yeah, I definitely felt this way too. I know it's a more direct adaptation of the VN but the VN was written with "bad ends" in mind. Shirou's stupid decisions in the anime just don't end up killing him because they don't have enough episodes for stupid "bad ends". There isn't really a clear indication that these are parts where a "decision" was made that caused him to live, it just feels like a stupid boy makes stupid decisions but gets saved because of plot and luck. I personally thought the "fight" in the forest between Shirou and rider was just a stupid game of dumb luck and felt like it had no place without the context that there were other decisions that could have been made leading to a "bad end" |
Anthornis said: KinkyToaster6 said: watch fate zero and you will know how bad this anime is and the awful things it did to some great characters.Why do you think it's so laughably bad? As someone who read the VN I have to say you're totally wrong, the characters are written pretty faithfully to the original story, you just think otherwise cause you can't even understand the characters from Zero alone and you probably watched that first. And Zero in general is just professional fanfiction for the original story, it hardly adds anything of value if you already know the heaven's feel route. Yeah, the animation is cool and all but that's it, it's just a nice addon prequel that's incredibly overrated for some reason. Edited typos. KinkyToaster6 said: piecemealcranky said: Deen's adaptation is flawed but a great building block into the series. I used to not recommend it to people who wanted to get into the Fate series. After giving it another watch years, years later, I realized as much as you have; that the series ain't as bad as everyone make it up be. I'm pretty sure this whole 'skip Deen's cause it sucks' bandwagon only existed when ufotable took on Zero and UBW. I did play the VN when TakaJun first translated the other routes too, and I still found overall enjoyment in this. You played the VN first and still defend deen/stay night? I applaud you for your bravery to speak against the crowd lmao Same here, some changes are annoying but it's not as game-breaking as the bandwagoners would have you think. I'm actually angry as hell that I waited this long to watch it because of this retarded hate-train going on. To be honest though, the Fate route itself seems to get a lot unwarranted hate from action fanboys, since it focuses more on drama and romance and so it's not edgy enough for them I guess. Shirou and Saber are two really similar characters and their dynamic is truly great in this one, which really is a a core part of the fate franchise. Overall I probably still prefer the other 2 lines, but this one is up there too, and has it's own unique charm. It's sad to see how toxic the fanbase is towards it. Mod Edit: Merged duplicated posts; please use the edit button. |
MonkeyDHunterDec 30, 2019 6:55 AM
| I agree that F/N is a good starting point. As a complete novice in terms of the Fate universe, I first started with Fate/Zero on recommendation, but I could honestly not understand most of what was happening. I felt like I was supposed to understand the core elements and basic premise of the story from the first episode ongoing, and naturally I didn't, because I had no clue what the Fate series was all about. All I had were a few lines in a summary that really did nothing to foreshadow the depth of the story. The deeper the story went, the more detached I found myself becoming. For me, it's really important to understand what is going on quickly or have a grasp of the basic outline of a story. If not, I'm quick to drop the story, and quickly dropping it was what I did. Years later, and with a lot more free time on my hands, I thought of trying to get into the Fate series again. This time, instead of going on the advice of others, I decided to watch the series in order of release order. I'm glad that I did. I've got the basic gist of the story and characters. And sure, the anime was most certainly not the greastest thing I've ever watched, but it was nice enough. It helped set the foundation of things to come. In hindsight, starting a show in order of release is the right thing to do for novices, because anything made after, is made under the presumption that the viewer has seen what came before that. Edit; I just felt I should also mention that a lot of people, who seem to shit on this adaption, seem to be those who are already familiar with the Fate series to some degree. Naturally, if you see something that you like/are already familair with and it's adapated in a way that is below your expections, you're going to shit on it. But if you're a beginner (meaning you're unaware of the different routes, novels etc.) trying to get into the Fate series through watching the animation, then yeah, start with this one first. |
StarisametaphorNov 26, 2019 7:36 AM
...At least let me finish.   |
Starisametaphor said: Edit; I just felt I should also mention that a lot of people, who seem to shit on this adaption, seem to be those who are already familiar with the Fate series to some degree. Naturally, if you see something that you like/are already familair with and it's adapated in a way that is below your expections, you're going to shit on it. But if you're a beginner (meaning you're unaware of the different routes, novels etc.) trying to get into the Fate series through watching the animation, then yeah, start with this one first. See this would be fine if this adaptation didn't try to shove the other routes into it. Obviously the Fate route is where to start its where the VN begins but this adaptation spoiling other routes makes it hard to recommend as the first thing to watch. Half the reason I want Ufotables to do the fate route is so we can have a clear anime starting point. I have tons of problems with Ufotable's adaptations as well but I'm sure they can at least do it without spoilers. |
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