I'd agree with the fact you rate Fate/Stay higher than Tsukihime, but I'd bump both of their scores up pesonally. As for your review I have to disagree with one part and agree with another. The second opening song wasn't too loud, in fact it was the best song the show had. I can't get it out of my head even now. Yea it was a change of pace from 'Disillusion' but still awesome. And I have to agree with you on the Dragon CG scene. That scene blew hard chunks, and actually got me to drop my 'Art' section a point in my review (forthcoming). Oh and I suppose I have to agree with 'ending you definetly MUST watch'. Too true too true.
Fate/stay night tv Review
Fate/stay night was originally a game developed by TYPE-MOON, and is also the first creation which TYPE-MOON made after going into business (instead of being a group of Doujinshi artists).
Seven Masters, Seven Servants. Only one can correspond to the Holy Grail.
In the legend, the Holy Grail is an artifact that can make your wishes come true, in order to summon the Holy Grail, a ceremonial is required. The seven Masters chosen by the Holy Grail will be granted the seven Servants chosen by the Holy Grail: Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker. The Master must prove him/herself that he or she is the only one qualified to use the Holy Grail. In other words, he or she must defeat all the other Masters to prove him/herself.
Shiro Emiya lost his parents in a fire when he was young, and was adopted by a magician, even though he denied teaching Shiro magic, the un-talented Shiro still master a little. When the magician died, Shiro remained a worthless magician. Entangled with the "War of the Holy Grail" by accident, Shiro was granted the Servant "Saber" and was chosen to be one of the seven Masters.
Credits: kulthuzard
NOTES:
- Alternative retelling from the perspective of different characters will be merged here.
- Tag only what you see! e.g. do NOT add the "Saber" tag if only Saber Alter is in the image.
Story & Characters
The story was better than average. For one thing, the basic premise was un-usual and interesting, and if one were to do more research into the background material of the series/game, it just kept getting better and better, as the anime(due to time constraints) cant go into detail about everything, but it does give you a good understanding of the concepts used throughout the show. The setup of the servants also keeps you guessing constantly as to who their identities are...specifically saber and archer, as the rest of the servants have their identities revealed very quickly. Saber's true identity is a real shocker approximately halfway through the series and one of the best storyline twists i have ever seen. While Archer's identity is only hinted at in several scences, he does have a complex and sad backstory, but unfornately it was not elaborated.
The series is an anime adaptation of an extremely popular visual novel/eroge. Consequently the script is much better than average, as the selling point of a visual novel is the story. Unlike Shingetsutan Tsukihime, Type-Moon's earlier anime adaptation, the storyline followed closely to the game with good results, probably because Type-Moon insisted on overseeing the production of the anime(probably because how horrible the previous anime company handled the anime adaptaiton of Tsukihime). The storyline mainly follows the Fate route of the game, with bits and pieces from the other 2 routes.
Character development is above average. We can see Shirou and Saber's relationship deepening from that of mere Master and Servant as the series progresses, and Rin also starts caring more about Shirou than simply wanting to kill him as a rival. Unfortunately several major plot points seemed to be left out or glossed over, such as Illya's relationship with Shirou(particularly why she keeps calling him "Onii-chan" or "Younger brother"), and why she hates him so much at the start of the series, but overall the characters behave in more or less realistic ways with reasonable explanations for their actions.
The ending is highly controversial. Many people disliked the sad way the anime ended, and wanted a "Everyone lives happily ever after" ending. However, considering Shirou and Saber's characters, that would simply have been out of character, and besides, there was no way for them to live happily together. This was one of the most well done sad endings ive seen, it is properly explained why the characters are doing what they need to do.
Rating:
Art
Art was definately above average. Saber was beautifully and faithfully drawn, and so were the other servants. Fight scences contain some serious eye-candy and the noble phantasms are serious eye-candy by themselves too. Archer's battle with Berserker and Saber's final scence are absolutely beautiful.
Rating:
Sound
Slightly above music. The OP and ED songs are decent, although the 2nd OP was a surprise, a hard rock track that was seriously way too loud. The music used throughout the show really sets the mood well, depressing, moody tracks are played when appropriate, sad classical tracks played during sad scences, Fuji-nee's theme really sets the mood for her comic relief scence and the track played during the ending portions of the anime is just perfect. OSTs are, for this reason, NOT worth the money however...most of the tracks are very scence specific, and there are only a few tracks that you can listen to without viewing that specific anime scence that they were made for. Overrall, a wide variety of music that suited the show well.
Voicing was quite well done, all the seiyuus played their job and really did a good job fleshing out their characters, in particular Saber and Illya's seiyuus.
Rating:
Presentation
Although they left out some plot points from the game, they did an overall good job of integrating 3 route's storylines into the anime storyline. The way they artistically hinted at Archer's true identity was impressive, they didnt want it to focus on Archer as it wasnt his storyline, but they gave enough hints so that someone could figure it out if they paid attention to the show and thought about it for a while. The storyline flows nicely and concludes with a sastifactory, if very sad ending. One cant help but keep watching to find out about Shirou's progress in the war until its conclusion.
Humour is there, and is very good. Fuji-nee is the clusmy sensei and makes a very good comic relief character, and in the later part of the show Illya has some of her moments. There are also 2 scences where Shirou barges into saber while shes in the bath, and those not only provide comic relief, but showed more of Saber's character.
One unfornate bad point is the decision to replace the forest shed sex scence with a dragon CG scence. In the game, Rin gets Shirou to have sex with Saber to give her mana, obviously that couldnt be shown in an all-ages anime, but instead of doing it off-screen, they replaced it with a horribly drawn and animated CG dragon scence that had a paper thin explanation and was extremely cheesy. This was a serious low point of the series and many people hated the scence.
One strange note is that Bedivere's seiyuu is female, causing confusion at the end of the series, as they saw Bedivere speaking with a female voice. Other than however, the final ending scence was executed beautifully.
Definatley a highly enjoyable series, with major points in plot, fight scences, and an ending you definatley MUST watch.
Rating:
Final Verdict
7.8333 (good)
Reviewed by Question, Feb 03, 2007
Comments
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shoujoboy Feb 04, 2007
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Servant Mar 05, 2007
I agree with both of u with the fact that the cg dragon was a total failure haha
fate stay night overall was the best anime i've ever watched compared the numerous others. i really didn't expect it to be so good in terms of story and emotions. i especially like the last episode with the 2 theme songs Bonds and La Sola which are in the soundtrack. However, i really wished they had elaborated on Archer. Anyone who didn't do their research on him would have only seen an awesome character come to a tragic end...its really a shame... -
vatican92 Mar 09, 2007
I personally thought the Fate/Stay night story was rather simple....
I think I would've given more on sounds though -
ealpha-scorpio Mar 18, 2007
Thank you for review...
I cannot wait to see this anime. I've been searching for it for quite sometime but apparently they still don't have the whole-series DVD, here in the Philippines. Saber infact has been the main character and reason that draw me in. About the story-line and the whole "Holy Grail" thingy, I'm eager to know more details about it, although I don't expect much deep concept. But the idea of masters and servants is interesting...
ThanX again :) -
starcraft2 Dec 06, 2007
I wish that there's a continuation of the anime series because the continuation is on the game.
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zergger Feb 12, 2008
After watching FSN,now I can't waiting for Fate/Zero????????
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Warpten29 Oct 13, 2009
It has good cjharacters but plot seem incomplete for me....
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SchRita Jan 15, 2010
Thanks for the review!
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Sanisa Feb 24, 2010
Thanks for the review! Nice ^__^
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back07 Sep 16, 2012
Good review, i Love Fate/Stay Night too
:D
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