Lets start off by stating; Fate/stay night has some big shoes to fill. Its predecessor, Fate/zero, was a smashing hit and was well received by the anime community. Can the sequel to such a monumental anime live up to expectations? No, it couldn't, but it did do a lot right in its own regard.
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is an anime adaptation, created by ufotable, of babies first visual novel... Sorry, Fate/stay night. The visual novel has three separate routes: the Fate route, the Unlimited Blade Works route and Heavens Feel route. This anime, as the title says, is the Unlimited Blade Works route, adapted into a 25 episode series.
Story - 6/10
The Holy Grail War is an age-old tradition that happens in Fuyuki city where seven Masters summon seven Servants. These Master Servant pairings must fight it out and eliminate one another until there is only one Master Servant pair left. Once there is only one pair left, the omnipotent wish granting device, the Holy Grail, reveals itself and grants one wish. The fifth Holy Grail War is the setting for Fate/stay night, and takes place ten years after the events of Fate/zero.
The premise sounds interesting and unique. The story can be riddled with surprising twists, unexpected alliances, betrayal, tactical warfare, and interesting relations between characters. The fear of knowing one could be killed at any moment sounds exhilarating. However, none of that really comes into play and instead we get a high school setting, with a bland main character, who has his own harem that he has to deal with. They story of Fate/stay night is unrealistic of the situation our characters find themselves in. The characters make stupid decision after stupid decision that can hardly be rationalized. The atmosphere feels far too care free given the circumstances. This is where Fate/stay night falls short compared to Fate/zero. The viewer doesn't get the same sense of urgency that Fate/zero offered, nor does it make the viewer feel as if the characters may die at any moment if they overstep their bounds. The pacing of the show is also incredibly slow and feels as if there is a lot of "filler" in each episode. Most of season one takes place at school, filled with characters have nothing to do with the grail war in the first place. The amount of time something just wasn't explained, or had an awful reasoning for an explanation is ludicrous. I know that Unlimited Blade Works was just one route of a possible three in the visual novel and that a lot of key elements might be distributed throughout all three routes, but come on, make it at least a bit of a better Anime viewing experience.
Overall, the premise of the story is interesting and continued off of what Fate/zero had going, but was executed poorly and riddled with missed opportunities.
Characters - 4/10
The characters of Fate/stay night can be summed up into one word: Unlikable. Forget the comparison to Fate/zero, which, by the way, had an incredible cast of characters; Fate/stay night has almost nothing going for it in terms of characters.
You can put make up on an ugly person, but at the end of the day, even though you made he/she look a little better for the time being, he/she is still ugly. That pretty much sums up three of the four main characters. Shiro, Rin, and Saber are so bad it's laughable. The show has it's brief periods of brilliance with adding depth and development to our main characters, but after the scene/episode, they go back to their same old self. The only character among the main group that doesn't completely suck is Archer, and even then he really wasn't that great. In terms of supporting cast the only characters that got any sort of spot light was Caster and Caster's master. Beyond that maybe Berserker, Ilya, Shinji and lancer... but at that point you're reaching. Everyone else is pretty much a write off with how little screen time they get and how little importance they have on the story itself and that includes the main villain, gilgamesh.
For a show that is so heavily focused on the adventures of Shiro and Rin, they sure dropped the ball. Unlimited Blade Works focused so hard on the main two characters that it cut time from other supporting characters and they couldn't even get the relationship for Shiro and Rin to work, let alone make them stand alone, likable characters.
I don't know if ufotable did an awful job adapting the characters from the visual novel, or if the visual novel itself just sucks, but something went horribly wrong...
Animations - 10/10
Finally, a shining light for this god forsaken anime.
Yes, ufotable does it again, creating a stunning looking anime. The animations quality was that of Fate/zero or even better. This might just be their best work yet. The motions were fluid and clean. Fight scenes, even the minor ones, were beautiful to watch. Everything, from the gorgeous fight scenes, right down to even basic scenes such as Rin and Shrio talking to each other looked great.
Overall fantastic animations quality. So good it should be reason enough to at least pick up and try the show out.
Sound - 8/10
The other shining light, the soundtrack.
The soundtrack, composed and created by Yuki Kajiura, was overall very well done and put together nicely. Each scene had a fitting piece to it and nothing felt out-of-place or awkward. The tracks themselves are also all incredible in their own right. Honestly, this was one of Yuki Kajiura weaker roles... but was still great none the less. The soundtrack did not live up to Fate/zero's soundtrack, but it definitely has more than a passable grade.
Both opening and endings we're great as well. Kalafina, Aimer and Mashiro Ayano all made awe-inspiring songs that set the mood perfectly for the start of the show and as a lasting impression after the episode.
Overall - Watching Fate/stay night as a "sequel" to Fate/zero is a mistake. It is a misleading title that has next to no "sequel" attributes to speak of. Watching Fate/stay night as a stand alone project that is not bogged down by the weight of Fate/zero is an actual good viewing experience. Fate/zero was a monumental, once in a life time Anime that Fate/stay night just could not live up to. Honestly, Fate/stay night is not even that bad of a show as a stand alone project. Just getting past the "sequel" part might be hard to wrap one's head around. If anything, watching Fate/stay night first, then going to Fate/zero would be a better viewing experience instead of the other way around.
The show, overall, was a train wreck, but was thankfully salvaged by the all-star line up of ufotable and Yuki Kajiura. It had its moments of brilliance but squandered the moments the show itself created. Unlimited Blade Works was incredibly hit or miss, it's just too bad it was more miss than hit.
