This is also coming from someone who has not read the Fate/Stay Night visual novel, or seen/read any other Fate/ related media.
Art – 9
This probably deserves a 10, but I just couldn’t get past the fact that some of the wider scenes just looked so odd because the character quality diminished. Obviously this is because you can only draw so much detail on an A4(?) piece of paper and the fact that the rest of the art is incredibly high caliber makes it’s shortcomings forgiveable.
I really appreciated the close up shots of the servants, especially saber. So much has gone into her character design and the metallic look of her armour is just superb. The character designs are original and really nice to look at too, without conforming to any particular style.
There were a couple of 3D scenes which look awful but I can’t rate this any less than a 9 because it looked so fantastic.
Animation – 10
I’ll just leave this here… (minor spoilers as to a servant saber fights, but just watch that from 36 seconds for a bit, it’s insane)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVJKo4nMaTo#t=00m36s
Sound – 10
There should be an extra tier just for Fate/Stay Night’s music; it’s absolutely incredible.
Fate/Stay Night’s soundtrack consists mostly of stunningly beautiful vocals and clarinets, which really sells the medieval fantasy feel surrounding Saber. La Sola, the vocal piece that plays during the (intricately constructed) final scene is just beautiful. This is - in my opinion - the best vocal piece of music I have ever heard and in terms of anime is more beautiful than Elfen Lied's opening, Lilium. Also of note is Mozart’s Lacrimosa, sung by a single vocalist which is absolutely mesmerising. Considering the entire soundtrack manages to be on par with a Mozart piece, I'm just shocked.
The soundtrack is amazing.
Story - 8
Now this is a very controversial topic but in all honesty I can't pick any glaring faults in Fate/Stay Night's story. I thought Fate/Stay Night had a really solid story up until about episode 16. The lore is a great strong suit of this show. Having all the servants rooted in history makes this so much more relatable and makes who Saber actually is, that much cooler.
Now I won’t lie, I don’t watch this show primarily for the action, I watch Fate/Stay Night because of the romance. I particularly appreciate the use of subtext, which is not often used in anime.
I won’t give away who the couple is, but this is one of the few anime where you cannot immediately pick the couple. You might, but it’s not blatantly suggested and it takes the entire length of the show for the romance to build which is perfect. Too often in anime romance just happens way too quickly but in Fate/Stay Night it is paced perfectly, building and building in an exponential way before the beautiful, beautiful payoff at the end.
One thing I noticed (also that many anime fail at) is that Fate/Stay Night uses violence to great effect. It only uses the exact right amount for the amount of emotion it wants to elicit. There is one particular scene towards the end – now I won’t go into detail, but needless to say, it’s one of the most violent scenes in the show which heightens the emotion of the scene, creating one of the most powerful scenes in the whole show. It has some very, very memorable scenes and I'm honestly not sure why people don't appreciate its merits for what they are.
I’m not sure what people are on about when they say the pacing was off, I’m thinking those people were just impatient that there wasn’t an epic action scene each episode. This series has one of the best uses of foreshadowing I’ve ever seen. Things are revealed, but out of context and as such, nothing is spoiled but makes it that much more amazing when the foreshadowing is paid off. I very much like the almost slice-of-life feel towards the start of the show and the transition into a more action-oriented style towards the end.
I thought this series was paced really well and really tightly written for a 24 episode series. Generally anime over 12 or 13 episodes tend to have little bits of filler here and there, but everything included in Fate/Stay Night advanced the story and/or the characters; nothing was out of place.
I’ll finish this section with the comment that the ending was kind of cliché, which really saddened me because I loved every other element of this anime.
Characters - 9
Shirou. Everyone seems to hate him and that may be because at first, he seems cliché. But one thing Studio DEEN did to help this was have people mock him and have the world disagree with his hero complex. Furthermore, at least his motivation was clear as to why he wanted to be a cliché ‘champion of justice’. Also, having watched the dub (which was really quite good; Kate Higgins was born to play Saber), I didn't get any of the 'people die when they are killed' nonsense.
The same was with the main bad guy (I won’t name names), though I really didn’t like him. He had his motivation, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was really cliché.
Saber was really interestingly written. I love the way she seems stoic and emotionless, yet she’s actually a very complex character with inner and outer conflict.
Rin was just great. And I think I’ll end it there, whew…
Emotional impact/Enjoyment – 10
While this review may be more subjective because Fate/Stay Night was one of the first anime I watched, I still enjoy it immensely. I'm absolutely befuddled as to why people think it's so average. Just watch the final scene, with La Sola playing and TRY not to cry.
