The Fate series generally revolve around a simple premise of seven mages who summon seven servants, who are reincarnations of legendary historic figures, to fight for them in a battle royal with the goal of obtaining the Holy Grail, which can grant the wielder any wish conceivable.
While the premise is fairly simple and kind of silly sounding when you think about it, with proper handling, it can work. While I have my gripes with Fate Zero, it served the series well and presented some interesting ideas and conflicts. So with good execution, this show can work. But unfortunately, Unlimited Blade Works execution is rather sub par and fail to do anything interesting with the material.
When I first start watching this show, I was under the pretense that this show was suppose to be like a battle royal, with each of the master trying to get the upper hand on each other. However, it instead feels more like a 3rd rate battle shonen than an actual death tournament. All the major events that transpire throughout the show always feels unbelievable forced and contrived. I think a big factor that comes into play is how the anime heavily relies on “plot convenience”. Plot convenience is a tool that a lazy writer would use to move a plot in the direction he/she want it to go without necessary making sense in the context of the story. This happens multiple of times over the course of UBW. At one point, the main villain Gilgamesh was ready to face off the main heroes Shirou. Rin, and Saber. But Gilgamesh decides not to fight them for absolutely no reason. The “plot convenience” makes the entire show feel forced and unnatural breaking any of the suspension of disbelief that the viewer might of had.
The anime try to gives some justification to these conveniences, but most of them come off as weak and silly at best. For example, Gilgamesh excuse for not kill the Shiroe and Rin is because of his extreme arrogance, That is like the most used excuse for why the main villain doesn't kill the main villain. And who really buys that argument? No one I know would be that stupidly arrogant to let an enemy go and think that it won't be any repercussions. And it doesn’t help that Gilgamesh level of arrogance is taken to such an extreme that he might as well been a James Bond villain.
Also, since this is a Type Moon adaption, there is a slew of magic terminology being used. Without any context of these terms, many of the plot twists fall flat on their face. I know the fans would excuse this by telling me “go read the visual novel”, and I would point them to the first paragraph I typed.
As for the characters, there isn’t actually that much to write about most of them. Most of the cast except for the Shiroe and Rin get very little in terms of characterization. Caster and Lancer, who have a fairly big roles in the story, only get a some flashback as the extent of their characterization. Some characters don’t even get this treatment. Rider, for example, was just there and ended up just to be killed off screen some randy. Archer, Saber, and Gilgamesh, though received more than the rest, characterization can be summed up in a few words.
So that would leave the two main characters, Tosaka Rin and Emiya Shirou.
Rin is suppose to the be primarily love interest and partner for Shirou. Bizarrely, she is the best character in the entire show. Yes, her motivations make no bloody sense ( i have no idea why she decides to help Shirou in the Holy Grail war since I am pretty sure she knows that she have to eventually turn on him since it is a death tournament ), but she has the most characterization out of the entire cast and actually change as a character ( though it is quite dragged out). And she is a character who actually takes an active role in the story. She isn’t necessarily a great character, or even a good one. But one thing I will admit I prefer Rin over mentally impaired Shirou Emiya.
Shirou is one of the most repulsive character I have ever seen to date. He have some sort of complex where he put lives of people around above his own life. This isn’t bad on its own, but the anime take this complex to such a degree that it comes off as idiotic. He’s an annoying, bland , obnoxious character who is sadly the spotlight of the entire show. But the most frustrating part of his character is his idealism. At first, show seem to know where to take ideals. In the second season, Shirou fell under the criticism of Archer, who calls out on Shirou’s bullshit and try to convince Shirou to abandon his unreachable ideals and bring up convincing points like how contradictory his idealism is. Archer saids these exact words to Shirou "Fighting for others, but not yourself, is nothing but hypocrisy." And there is Gilgamesh who calls Shiroe a “fake”, since he claims tha Shirou inherit his ideals from his foster father Kiritsugu. For some time, the show actually look like its trying to make a point. Normally, one would expect Shirou to realize how naive his ideals are and gasp* actually abandon his ideals and develop as a character. Sadly, that was too good to be true. Instead he just have some random epiphany out of nowhere that some how his ideals are right despite all the evidence against his ideals. I guess the thought “ Just because you are correct doesn’t mean you are right.”
Unlimited Blade Works is mediocre show at best. It’s has a extremely linear plot and lackluster characters polished up with good animation and music. If you simply want to watch an anime for good animation and music and nothing else, I would recommend UBW. But if you are looking for more than that, I would urge you to look else where.
