Fate/Stay Night: A 20-Year Retrospective

The world of Fate is probably the single most complex franchise in all of multi-media. Originally a visual novel that came out in 2004 from Type-Moon, Fate/Stay Night was adopted into the same reality which includes Tsukihime as well as The Garden Of Sinners all dreamed up by video game writer Kinoko Nasu in a continuity fans call the Nasuverse, even though there is little crossover between the various games. The game had three different paths for the player to follow, each focusing on one of a trio of love interests, the basic first route was labeled Fate. Because of the game’s success, an anime TV series was released in 2006 named after the title it came from. This was only the tip of the iceberg as the two other routes in the game got their own separate anime outings. The second route was covered in an abridged movie and a much lengthier TV series titled Unlimited Blade Works, afterwards the third and darkest route was produced into a trilogy of movies named Heaven’s Feel. There has been some major contempt between fans of the game and the various anime that came from this as to which is better.

The Fate/Stay Night timeline is complicated enough with three branching outcomes, but the addition of the prequel manga Fate/Zero which came out several years after the original story, so no matter what path you follow the prequel acts as a pseudo-prologue which isn’t fully compatible with the story of the game. This has made many fans accept Fate/Zero as the canonical lead-in the whole Fate/Stay Night continuity with Unlimited Blade Works or Heaven’s Feel as the only acceptable way to view anything of the primary video game adaptations. Putting aside that there are dozens of other Fate titles that take place in alternate timelines or parallel universes like Apocrypha, Grand Order, or Strange Fake, all of these are spinoffs or spiritual successors to the primary Stay Night game, making the original Stay Night anime series the main pillar holding up this nearly infinite multiverse.

A quick rundown of the main plot shows our young protagonist Shirou Emiya living in the Japanese mountain town of Fuyuki City who was adopted by his father Kiritsugu after an inferno burned down a large portion of the city a decade prior. What Shirou didn’t know about his departed dad is that he’s the cause of the disaster in a battle between mages called the Holy Grail War who summon heroic and villainous characters to fight on their behalf, sort of like picking your own historical figure to battle in a Pokemon match. The time of the Fifth Holy Grail war is upon them, and Shirou is caught up in the struggle with a servant of his own, a short blonde girl in an armored dress wielding an invisible sword calling herself Saber who protects Shirou from some of the psychopathic mages. One of these seven mages happens to be a girl from school named Rin with a servant of her own whose origins are covered in one of the other routes. Rin allies himself Shirou to gain the Holy Grail which can grant a single wish to the winner and their servant. Saber is revealed to be a gender-swap King Arthur who wants to redo her run on Camelot even though Shirou develops feelings for her. In the end, Shirou has Saber destroy the Grail otherwise it would cause another calamity, and Saber flashes back to near the end of her original life after her fatal clash with Mordred.

There was a retconned epilogue that showed Shirou reuniting with Saber in Avalon far off in the future, although this hasn’t been represented in an anime yet. This has driven many Fate fans to advocate a new retelling of the Stay Night route which incorporates the extra ending and flattening out the inconsistencies that Fate/Zero introduced to the lore. Therefore, a good portion of the fandom normally recommends completely skipping the 2006 series as the production by Studio DEEN didn’t have the more fluid animation that Ufotable included into their productions of the other two routes. The original Stay Night anime does contain certain intricacies and a genuine otaku charm that the other Fate anime lack, even though the primary series could have benefited from having a full 26-episode run that most other Fate titles had.

Some of Fate/Stay Night’s low points are pacing issues which do tend to meander while taking time out to drop expositions about the magical world all this takes place in, plus gives away a little more of the spoilers you would run into in the other Stay Night routes. The animation is also limited to characters giving speeches but their lips flapping offscreen to avoid movement, plus the quality picked up considerably for the fight scenes in later installments. The use of some CGI brought about the most criticism which looked as good as 3D animation was for mid-noughties’ television productions. Obviously when the fandom for the game and the first anime busted out that future anime would be given a bigger budget and higher quality which unfortunately makes the 2006 series nadir on most fans’ wish lists.

The advantages of viewing Stay Night before any other Fate titles or indeed at all are that it is simply the best place to start off in the nearly infinite Fate universes. The initial TV series carries over the style and storytelling that anime was known for after the turn of the century while simultaneously transitioning its urban fantasy setting into a more mature viewpoint. With titles like Death Note, GintamaMushishi, and Code Geass on the rise, Stay Night’s 2006 was the prime time to introduce this game-based anime during an era when visual novels weren’t as big among American otakus. There are plenty of standard cliches that would satisfy the occasional anime fan, but there is true sincerity behind Studio DEEN’s production despite the limited resources they were given. Not every anime studio can afford the unlimited budget works that Ufotable was blessed with.

Fate/Stay Night’s brightest example is the fact that out of all three routes that Fate is the lightest one. There is more slice-of-life comedy here than in the other adaptations which lead to the creation of the Today's Menu For The Emiya Family that has arguably become most every fan’s favorite series out of the entire franchise. There is a closer bond between the main characters and a deeper respect for each other as the shared alliance of surviving mages continues to grow.

A final selling point for the first TV series is that of the romance between Shirou and Saber. Shirou already had a long-established relationship with his friend Sakura as well as finding Rin attractive but became awestruck when he first summoned Saber. They share a deeper understanding of the other as opposed to when Shirou’s father was Saber’s master. Shirou views Saber as an equal and treats her like a genuine person when he refuses to hide her away from his friends and thinks of her as young woman who should be freed from the burden of her former life as the King of Britain so she can take on a new life with him. In the canonical original series finale, Shirou has to say goodbye to Saber after the Holy Grail Wars are over, but as further incarnations of Fate has shown that their shared future is still in flux either as friends or lovers. Hopefully, there will be a reckoning of this relationship as many other anime titles such as Ranma and Sailor Moon have enjoyed success in a remake, so a more fleshed out retelling of Fate/Stay Night is worthy of considering. Please check out the original version either on Blu-Ray from Sentai or on numerous streaming services.