ANI-MOVIES, *Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works

Four years before Ufotable did their extended take on the second route of the original Fate/Stay Night visual novel, Studio Deen first did a feature-length but highly condensed anime movie in 2010. The TV series adaptation did cover more of the game's content, even though it's possible that it covered more than it needed to as some of the 26-episodes were prolonged to a full hour. Deen's theatrical take on the Unlimited Blade Works arc is different than what they did on the Fate arc as it greatly abridges the plot. Similar to what eventually happened in the Heaven's Feel movie trilogy, Unlimited Blade Works fast forwards through a good portion of the opening chapters and picks up just after Shirou first summons Saber and learns of the Holy Grail War from the false priest Kotomine who was a major player in the Fate/Zero prequel but is largely unused here, along with Sakura who was the main love interest in Heaven's Feel. This route focuses more on Sakura's older sister Rin, even though their family bond is also never brought up in this version.

Taking place a decade after the disastrous events of the Fourth Holy Grail War, this Fifth one begins with young mage Rin Toksaka summoning up her own Heroic Spirit to act as her servant against six other mages for the Holy Grail. Rin was hoping for the Saber class servant but ends up with Archer instead. She later forms an alliance with Shirou Emiya, a boy from her school who lucked out by being Saber's master, and they immediately get into their first couple of battles with other servants including Hercules. Sakura's adopted brother Shinji is revealed to be the master of Medusa, but Shirou and Rin thwart his plans to absorb the spiritual energy from everyone at their school. As he's such a sore loser, Shinji goes to wine to the war's mediator Kotomine who offers him another servant, Gilgamesh who was the Archer from the previous war. Meanwhile, the wicked sorceress Caster has her own agenda as she uses her spells to bind Saber to her leaving Shirou out of the race, which also convinces Archer to seemingly join her but only to betray her, resulting in Rin replacing him with Saber. Archer is revealed to be Shirou from a future where he became a Heroic Spirit for the living spirit of humanity known as Alaya where he would go back and forth in time to assassinate those who would hamper mankind's survival, but after a few centuries of this Archer got tired of it, so he travelled back in time to kill his past self. Shirou and Archer have an epic duel which is interrupted by Gilgamesh who unleashes the Holy Grail which is one big monkey's paw and would destroy the world instead of granting a wish. Shirou ultimately slays Gilgamesh with help to Archer, causing Saber to disappear leaving Shirou and Rin to start their romantic relationship.

The entirety of the Unlimited Blade Works movie is a stand-alone from the prior Fate/Stay Night TV series but cut down to nothing but a series of bullet points that shifts the plot from one segment to the other with no breathing room. Studio Deen did provide better animation than they did in the prior series and does rise above the quality the Ufotable adaptation on occasion. Deen's improved production is the only real thing that brings it up over the TV series version, even though Ufotable did stretch out the plot longer than it needed to considering Deen was able to do the game's first route in fewer episodes than in Unlimited Blade Works. This entire movie cost more money for Studio Deen than the entire Fate/Stay Night series and wasn't given the time it needed to tell the whole story which is why the Heaven's Feel trilogy got a better deal with each of its three movies being well over two hours each.