Fate/Stay night is the first of several adaptations of a VN with the same name. It is also regarded by many as one of the worst because of non-canon mix of routes. In my opinion, however, its positive features greatly outweigh its flaws as it is an awesome standalone story.
Story:
We follow our protagonist, Emiya Shirou, as he fights in a battle royal with six other contenders for an omnipotent device that grants wishes to the victor. They each get their own servant, a spirit guardian with unique abilities and personality. It is a simple plot, with some twists along the road, but mostly with a linear structure. The show has several battles and a consistent romance story between them. There is little strategy involved in planning those battles, so the show is probably less appealing for those who prefer an intellectual approach to fighting, but they all follow the character’s motivations and personalities. It is very hard to refrain from comparing this adaptation to a 2014 F/SN: UBW title, where, despite an overwhelmingly better quality of animation, the plot got a huge downgrade with a lot of strange turns and twists for the sake of turns and twists. It almost seems like the story gets better the farther it moves from the source and the more it gets reimagined and explored.
The magic system in the series is mostly explained, and rules regarding the specifics of controlling your own spirit or some extra details to their strengths are shown and noted on the go – a golden mean between narration and not telling anything at all. That being said, anime does experience some problems in consistency of magic brought from VN. This mainly happens because each servant is overpowered in their own way. Overall the story has a medium pace, is decently explained and has a satisfying ending.
Characters:
The protagonist of the story, Emiya Shirou, is portrayed as heroic, selfless and mostly bland. He has his ideals of saving all the people, not letting anyone suffer or get hurt and so on. There is not much going for him and because the plot does not conflict with his ideals too often, his character does not grow throughout the story. This also means, however, that he does not become childish and annoying, which is a positive aspect in my book. Shirou’s most defining feature (aside from his triangle face) is his reliability. You can almost always tell when, during a difficult fight with small chances to win, he will barge in to save the day (and get absolutely crushed afterwards). Is it predictable? Yes, it is. Does it make the anime less enjoyable or coherent? No. There is a bottom line for Shirou, which makes him so much better that in any other adaptation: he is idealistic, not stupid.
The other focus of the story is Saber, Shirou’s servant. There is not much that could be said without at least somewhat spoiling the plot. In this particular anime, Saber serves as a voice of reason for Shirou, which is satisfying to watch, seeing as how their ideals are similar, while their life experiences are not. In the latter part of the anime, the influence factor is rotated, so she also experiences changes in character. Saber, as the name implies, wields a sword and handles the front line of the assault, which could have led to some really enjoyable moments if it wasn’t for the animation quality.
There are other characters, some of which are important for the story, but they are not shown much, and as such lack good characterisation. Most of them only get their traits revealed through interaction with protagonists, which somewhat limits our perception of them. As this particular anime tries to focus on Shirou’s and Saber’s relationship, it mostly neglects other characters in favour of it. This somewhat changes in the second half of the story, where all of the characters get decent screen time. Even considering that, the main heroes are detailed enough so you will probably not miss the others.
Animation:
This is where the show gets really low. Even considering the year of creation (2006) and the attempt to recreate a specific visual novel style of graphics, the result ranges from somewhat tolerable to extremely bad. Some episodes will leave you wondering if the anime was drawn by a drunk or in a hurry because sometimes characters barely resemble humans. If the particular person is not the focus of a scene, and is only present in the background, you will be lucky to see something closely resembling a face. This could be caused by budget restrictions or outsourcing some of the less important scenes. Probably the latter, since the fights in this anime are actually portrayed fine, compared to the overall style.
Sound:
There is not much to say about the sound other than that it is present. The voice actors do a decent jobs portraying the characters, the background music is okay (and slowly moves towards ‘great’ in the last few episodes), two OP’s are also fine, but forgettable. I’d like to distinguish a most frequently played ED (Anata ga Ita Mori), because the music perfectly fits the tone of the story, even if the visuals are mostly a still image.
Verdict:
There are many reasons to watch this show. It is a good gateway to the franchise for those people who mind plot more than the visuals, it has epic battles, decent character interactions, and a solid romance story. If you can handle some mediocre animation and faces of people who look like they have been cut out of a tree, you will most likely enjoy the positive aspects the show has to offer.
Score: Story (7*40%) + Characters (8*30%) + Animation (4*15%) + Sound (8*15%) + Enjoyment (+1) = 8
Personal Achievement: Not Sure If Anime Or VN (tried to click on a video several times to skip a line of dialogue)
