keely04 - 2015-09-22 19:15:33

amazing made me cry in the end 10/10 for me by far this goes to my favorite anime list

mbashirian - 2015-06-22 20:39:53

DEEN, that's all you really need to know.

Just read the VN though. Seriously.

juanita.rau - 2015-01-07 01:28:24

The introduction adaptation to the unlimited blade works route. This is the best series to come out of 2014 and it shall be one of the top 3 best series in 2015.

mozell37 - 2015-01-03 16:03:28

Originatingfrom a visual novel, the 2006 release of Fate/stay Night was thefirst time the story was represented at all in anime form. At thattime, the series was heavily praised, likely by being the only optionin anime of experiencing anything of the universe. The universe ismainly held in that single visual novel, but contained inside it arethree separate tales that use many consistent assets and the basicpremise. In general, adapting material from medium to medium canprove to be a bit difficult, but when faced with multiple plots itwouldn't be too hard to guess that things become even morecomplicated. I haven't yet played the visual novel and haven'texperienced any of those routes in their pure forms, but I dounderstand the driving factor of each route. The visual novel is aneroge after all, so it shouldn't be too hard to guess what directsthe existence of the differing stories - even though they all seem tohave been thought out quite well in that they carry a good amount ofunique content and reveals. That aside for the time being, the 2006Fate/stay Night decided to try what seems to be a light merge of theroutes, while for the most part choosing one direction. Purists seemto despise some, or all, of these alterations. I'm not too sure ifthose criticisms are relevant to the discussion, however, amazing asit may sound. I'll explain further.

Besides hate directed atthe handling of the adaptation, Studio Deen also happens to be in thepicture. The studio has received some widespread hate in recenttimes, while they have produced some popular material, mainly fortheir lacking skill at the art design as a whole. Some may even useFate/stay Night as an example for that, and I could understand someof the criticism, but Fate/stay Night is not a display of failure asa whole. Firstly, this events of this story take place mainly atnight as the title states. There could have been many blander ways ofhandling this, but Studio Deen decided to give night scenes in theanime a somewhat unique look. The scenes generally carry some J.J.Abrams-like effects with how he handled Star Trek, being lens flare(obviously being imitations as this is animated). For Star Trek, itdidn't work as well as it wasn't used in a consistent way, but inFate/stay Night it is actually used more properly. The night sceneswill usually have a bright edge towards the top of the screen and adarker hue to the bottom, giving a unique atmosphere that contraststo normal daytime scenes. The directing style also changes betweenthe time of day, night-time usually having more jolting angles tomake the nights feel more ominous and mysterious.

While whatwas stated above was more in tune to the art direction, the plaindirecting of the events was also handled quite well. This is whereStudio Deen also begins to fail, however. The director does a goodjob in adapting the visual novel to anime in making the entire waythe story is told feel more as a genuine anime. There are momentswhere the scene will be set very much resembling a visual novel, butthese scenes are sparse and are so blatant that they almost feel likesmall panders to the visual novel crowd (while, in the end, it didn'tseem as though they were pleased). Some scenes were impactful too anddid a fabulous job in working an interesting scene with the music.The director was also the leading story-boarder, however, and that iswhere I just can't praise him. People will continually bash Fate/stayNight's animation, but it isn't particularly bad when looked at as awhole. There are some wonderful animations in there, but the problemis that the majority isn't too wonderful. The first half carriesnoticeably worse art and animation than the second half. Itsurprising that some close-up scenes will unshamefully present a verypoorly sketched drawing of a character and zoom it out to the actualresolution in which it was drawn. It's possible that digital art wasnew at the time and they weren't quite understanding of it, but thelow quality is just too obvious. There are plenty of wonky animationsand even what is arguably the longest and best fight is fairly poorin terms of proportioned animation. There are plenty of frames, butthe skill is just not to the necessary level. In the second half thatdid seem to fix a bit and more quality animation was shown. Even withthat negative being said, all of the fights were still entertaining,just most weren't too impressive.

What partly keeps thosefights as entertaining as they are is what is played alongside themin the audio, and the music of Fate/stay Night is some of the best inanime. Not only is Fate/stay Night's soundtrack arguably one of thebest, but it is also one of the most unique soundtracks I've had thepleasure of hearing. It is almost its own genre at times, and Ihaven't yet found a proper way to describe some of the songs. Thesoundtrack is very various, but for the most part carries a mellow,electronic vibe with a moderate presence of soft vocals. There iseven an inclusion of Mozart's "Lacrimosa" done with asingle vocalist which not only manages to perfectly capture thespirit of the rest of the soundtrack, but also manages to be one ofthe most unique takes on the material as it prioritizes simplicity tosound more effective. The first opening is also fabulous ispresenting the night atmosphere of the series perfectly while alsocreating an infinitely catchy tune. The second opening, however,turns to a more generic direction and completely doesn't fit with theseries, but more with something the big three might carry. The endingtheme is right at home, thought, while not being too creative. To thesoundtrack, one song in particular, "Unmei no Yoru", is myfavorite track of any anime and is the standout most unique of thebunch. All of this wonderful work isn't carried out by a nobody, butthe same composer behind the soundtracks of leading movies of the"Ghost in the Shell" franchise - Kenji Kawai. He's donemany other works, but I haven't had the chance to experience themyet. He's someone to definitely keep in mind.

The music issplendid, and so is the sound design in general. Studio Deen seems tobe very capable in this department and carried out the soundimpressively. All of the noises during the night sequences would makeimpactful transitions from light to heavy, while being accompanied bysome music that could relate to a bed lullaby. It creates acomforting, while deadly, atmosphere that is also quite unique in theanime world. While people likely don't analyze aspects like that toooften, I feel that the atmosphere carried out by the sound is one ofthe greatest draws to completing this take on the series. You canbash on Studio Deen for some of their lacking work on art inFate/stay Night, possibly compared to the newer Fate Zero, but thework they did on the sound design is something that would bedifficult to extensively ridicule. This may also be a good time tomention one of the laughing points to the 2006 Fate/stay Night, beingEmiya's tasteful line "People die when they are killed". Ihaven't experienced Fate/stay Night in its whole in Japanese so Icouldn't confirm if that translation was an error that was fixed, butI can offer you a solution - being the wonderful English Dub. Evensomeone who hates dubs will have a hard time knocking this one. Wehave a handful of actors from "Monster", The Count of MonteCristo from "Gankutsuou", Simon from "Gurren Lagann",Asimov from "Cowboy Bebop" (if you remember him), also witha surprising acting role by the Sakura voice actress as the mostpopular character of the Fate series. You can choose to experiencethe translation-work of those official subs first-hand, move to thirdparty subs, or to take on this quality dub.

That's thetechnicals laid out, but that isn't all the good and bad of Fate/stayNight. The premise isn't actually too unique in it being a forcedbattle to the death. There have been numerous iterations of this inthe recent crave for it, but Fate/stay Night isn't quite as plain asthe rest. It clearly takes on a fantasy perspective to that premise,and relates a mechanic of the combatants summoning spiritual servantswho are also combatants of their own. This creates an added layer ofcharacter interaction that brings about some interesting situations.These situations are also carried out using some solid characters.The designs for these characters are generally enough to make themmemorable, but that isn't all they have to them. There is somepleasant personalities, while there can also be some moments wherethings feel like they're going close to falling out of place.However, re-watching this and keeping an eye on that possibility, Ihave came out with the conclusion that while things were close attimes, character development certainly did not fall out of areasonable direction. Characters all had reasons to act as they did,even if some times annoying. Not only that, but some of thesecharacters had a genuine personality that changed naturally as thestory progressed, not being too blunt about the transformation attimes to further respect the viewer. That isn't to say the charactersof Fate/stay Night are all perfect, however. One thing that would'vebeen a welcome edit is the weighing of priorities to fleshing out theactual premise than working on the main character's relationship anddevelopment. There are also a few characters that don't really addanything to this particular story of the Fate universe when the otherroutes are out of the picture. Characters interaction also make theanime seem as if it wants to become a harem at times, but it nevergoes the whole way and continually pushes itself back withjustifications. There is also some fan-service here, but rememberthat the source material is an eroge so that should be somewhatexpected. I never felt that the fan-service held the story back andthere weren't many moments of it. Also, while the merging of routeswas done well enough that it won't be too noticeable to someone newto the franchise, there was some moments of character developmentthat felt unnecessary in the end in that the director chose to leaveout the results of those developments making it all feel ratherpointless. Also, while the subtly of some things was respectful,there were times where being a little more blunt would have been moreeffective in making characters mindsets more concrete. In the end,though, most of the characters of Fate/stay Night are memorable andwere able to stick to my mind from the years prior when I firstexperienced this anime. At the time I was a tween and I ended upfinding the story quite impactful. I saw all the criticism in themeantime and underestimated my past self, but watching it now I canstill say that this story is certainly impactful and a great one.Although it isn't perfect, it's one of the better ones outthere.

Fate/stay Night is a once-acclaimed anime that's nowmore criticized and laughed at than anything. In the time away fromit, the complaints seemed genuinely possible, but there is just somuch that is being looked over to call Fate/stay Night bad. Thesoundtrack alone makes watching this anime worth it in theinteresting use of it. Studio Deen fails to an extent on theanimation (and a brief inclusion of CGI), but there are great momentsand the art style is quite pleasant overall. The direction in everyaspect is impressive as-well, with a less consistent good job by thechief story-boarder. It's hard to pick out who worked on eachepisode, but there were moments of really well-proportioned fightsthat were very short and spliced in-between lesser quality work. I'mnot sure who you are, mysterious story-boarder, but know that atleast I noticed you. The characters of the Fate universe are here,and for those who just want to see them in action, what's here willlikely not disappoint. I didn't expect to be as impacted as I was inthe present by this series, but Fate/stay Night does deliver. I wouldalso say that the particular route of Fate/stay Night that thisadaptation mainly harbors is also likely the best route of Fate/stayNight in the originality it brings in it's romantic side, as that's aconsistent genre element of all the routes anyways. This is the onlyanime adaptation that carries any parts of that route, so thatimmediately gives it a slight advantage to that aspect. There aren'ttoo many romances like this route either, "Hanbun no Tsuki gaNoboru Sora" being the closest I can think of. To those who turnaway due to the impure adaptation compared to the visual novel, knowthat an anime and a visual novel are two very different things. Avisual novel is dependent on words, and in certain situations wherethere wouldn't be dialogue in anime, there will be in a visual novel.The change that brings is that there is more details coming out fromthe visual novel than the anime. I wouldn't be surprised to see thatsome of the detailed information on how things work, told by thevisual novel, is broken in this adaptation. The irrelevance of thatcriticism, however, is that there is no requirement to have read thatvisual novel before watching this. Anime is at its best when it hasmore freedom to work about how to present itself. When it makesmodifications to the original work, that is not an inherently badthing - which is a huge misunderstanding that has been spreadingabout recently. Staying true to the source doesn't directly correlatewith how good or bad something is if the person in question is trulya fan of visual media. I hope you enjoy this series, but know it'scertainly not perfect. Things can be a bit subtle and you may have tothink into things to reason them out. This shouldn't be watched atdaytime either. The atmosphere is much more relevant at night.

Also,know that there is an alternate ending that can be found elsewhere -coming from the visual novel. Reading the novel isn't required, and abit of Google searches should get you there (I won't mention it hereto avoid spoilers). I do like where it ended though to leave theviewer to choose the preferred way of things.

madalyn.gerhold - 2014-07-06 22:20:58

This is my first review, so please forgive any inconsistencies ;D

(Small spoilers ahead, don't worry, I won't cover anything TOO major)

While I don't think Fate/Stay Night is worthy of too much praise, it is an essential member of the Fate/ anime series. I see so many people starting out the series with Fate/Zero and I just cry inside every time. To clarify, Fate/Zero is a PREQUEL to Fate/Stay Night, and should be treated as such. You cannot properly enjoy Fate/Zero without having seen the original, I don't care what anyone says. Without any further complaining let's get on with the review ;)

Story: The story of Fate/Stay Night is a mash-up of all the routes of the visual novel with the same name. With that in mind, the story gets rather messy at times, and loses consistency. Primarily though, the anime focuses on the Fate route of the visual novel which is centered around our main heroine, Saber (I'll talk more about her later).
      Our protagonist, Shiro Emiya, is a rather ordinary guy, with one small exception. He's a magus. Basically he has the ability to see the structure of objects and reinforce them with magic. One day he encounters a fight between two strange people, one with a lance, one with twin swords. Upon finding them he is chased down by the lancer and killed. Or so you think. Shiro wakes up mysteriously and casually walks home as if nothing happened. After he gets home he fights the man with the lance (again), and accidentally summons a "servant" named Saber.
      After this Shiro becomes part of the "Holy Grail War", a fight between 7 masters/servants for the Holy Grail, which grants the victor's wish. That's a good synopsis of the plot, don't want to get too spoiler-y

Animation: Fate/Stay Night was animated by our friends over at Studio DEEN, and therefore looks like shit. Sometimes. I'm not too overly fond of Studio DEEN, as they have brought us atrocities like Higurashi (Which arguably has the most terribad animation I've ever seen). However, there ARE times when Fate/Stay Night looks legitimately good. Overall though, it looks fairly meh.

Sound: The soundtrack of Fate/Stay Night is absolutely brilliant, although it was taken almost entirely from the soundtrack of the original visual novel. There are some slightly edited tracks but overall it's mostly the same. The first OP in particular, Disillusion, gives me chills every time I hear it ^_^

     
      The Japanese dub is once again amazing. It has the same actors as the visual novel and the acting is really good (for the most part).
      The English dub; however, sounds horrible. Shiro sounds like a complete douche, Saber doesn't have enough emotion, Tohsaka is meh, and Sakura has the most irritating voice I've heard in a long time. Overall, English dub = nope

Characters: I have a TON of comments on the characters but I'll keep it to a minimum.
      Shiro is our main protagonist. He is meant to be the 'ordinary guy' of the series. Overall he has no extraordinary traits (Except for his ability to keep Saber from doing anything because she's a girl) and he's kinda useless. Towards about the halfway point his character starts developing into something legitimately interesting with several spoilerific abilities that I'll be avoiding in this review.
      Saber is the main heroine/love interest of the story. She's a stunningly beautiful warrior who is tasked with protecting Shiro and guaranteeing their victory in the Holy Grail War. Saber is known to be the most powerful of all the heroic spirits, but her strength is greatly limited because of Shiro's low magical capabilities. See, the servants require a constant mana source from their masters, which Shiro does not give (because he's a complete noob). Also, Saber is constantly being kept from doing her duty because Shiro believes that girls shouldn't take part in battles. This makes the story go SO SLOW at some points because of all the bitching going on between the two of them.
      Tohsaka is the main side character, I guess you could say. She assists Shiro in learning magic and is his partner in the War. Her servant is Archer, who's character makes almost no sense unless you play the visual novel. Tohsaka is basically an average tsundere, except her character actually has some depth.

Enjoyment: I absolutely loved this series, although this is majorly because I played the visual novel first. Had I watched the anime without the visual novel, I most likely would have enjoyed it a LOT less. There's a few points that make very little sense unless you have the necessary background information.

Overall: Fate/Stay Night is a pretty good anime. While I wouldn't necessarily call it AMAZING, I wouldn't say it's bad either. I DO recommend that you play the visual novel before you watch this series, although I understand if you don't want to. The visual novel is a MASSIVE time sink, considering that it takes about 3-5 days of play time to 100% every route + bad ends. I do recommend that you watch this ESPECIALLY if you plan on watching Fate/Zero or any other parts of the Fate/ series. It just isn't complete without this story to back it up.

leonard07 - 2014-02-23 20:58:53

From my blog: http://hsmedianerdreviews.blogspot.com/2014/02/anime-review-fatestay-night-2006.html

As I mentioned in my Fate/Zero review, I tried to watch this anime a few months back only to be incredibly bored by it and dropping it after 5 episodes. For those who don’t know, I don’t normally stick to the regular reviewer’s policy of finishing an anime or book that I don’t want to finish. If I can’t find anything of value in a piece of entertainment that will take up a lot of my time, I don’t normally hesitate when I decide to drop it. That also happens to be the reason why most of the reviews I will publish are positive ones, or ones that were so entertainingly bad that I was able to enjoy it. Well, this is a special case. Since the new ufotable Fate/Stay Night remake is going to be released in October and it’s the anime that I’m most excited for this year, I figured I might as well go back and watch the original despite having dropped it a few months ago. So, am I glad that I watched it? Sit back, relax, and read as I review the original Fate/Stay Night.

The Setup:

So, to give a little bit of background, Fate/Stay Night is an anime based off of a Type Moon visual novel of the same name, or, by gigguk’s terms, it was based off of a hentai game. With that being said, Fate/Stay Night takes place in Fuyuki City, Japan, in the same city that Fate/Zero did. The protagonist of this particular story is Shiro Emiya, a boy who survived a tragic fire as a child and was saved by his late adoptive father Kiritsugo Emiya ten years ago, who taught him all about being a hero and saving the innocent. Now, Shiro lives alone, with his guardian/English teacher Taiga checking in on him every once in a while and his friend Sakura Mato helping out around the house. Everything is all fine and dandy until a string of mysterious murders began occurring and Shiro witnesses something he really shouldn’t have: two men, one with a spear and the other with two blades, fighting each other to the death with supernatural power. The man fighting with the spear then proceeds to kill Shiro (no, this is not a spoiler) because it is against the rules for a normal human to witness such an event. Thankfully, a girl named Rin Tosaka saves him with her powers, and leaves him in the school. After waking up, a disoriented Shiro heads home, only to encounter the man who attempted to kill him earlier. In defense, Shiro summons a woman who goes by the name of Saber, and she promptly defeats the other man. You then learn that this is all a part of the 5^th Holy Grail War, a battle royal to the death between masters, who summon servants from either legend or history to try to win the Holy Grail. In order to stop this death game, Shiro decides to partake in the Grail War, but only to destroy the grail and prevent further casualties. Normally I would say that this is an excellent setup, but the main problem I had with it is the fact that the anime really begins on episode 2, and you have to watch a good percentage of flat-out filler to get there. Shouldn’t the setup be taken care of within the first episode? You aren’t going to hook an audience looking for an epic fantasy adventure if your first episode is watching high school kids be high school kids and getting kind of annoyed by Shiro’s inability to think for himself. Speaking of characters…

The Characters:

I’m just going to cut to the chase and say that I really do not like Shiro. He’s the most straightforward character that I’ve ever seen, and is truly irritating to me because of it. His gimmick is that every innocent person must be saved from danger and that he’s willing to sacrifice his life for the cause of saving another’s life. That’s all fine and dandy, but did they have to make him such an idiot? He literally has no regard for his own life and practically throws himself in danger so he can save people when they can fight on their own. I think that the worst part about him is the fact that this is all that there is to him. He wants to save others because he couldn’t when he survived the fire, and it makes him happy. Good for you, Shiro, but beyond that he has no depth to him whatsoever. And then there are times where he completely contradicts himself. So, he wants to protect the innocent, but he’s not afraid to kill anyone who’s apparently evil? Um, okay… but what if the apparently evil person has a different motivation that’s pure at heart? For example, if you encountered Kariya Mato, would you kill him knowing that he’s committed some terrible acts, even if his intentions were good? Would you kill Lelouch vi Britannia, because he killed a lot of innocent people even if he were searching for peace? In fact, according to this logic, Kiritsugo should’ve been killed! He committed some truly awful crimes in Fate/Zero, and Shirou looked up to him as a father! I don’t believe that you can solve a problem as easily as Shirou seems to and protect everyone, and it just seems unrealistic. You have to make sacrifices and learn from them, but Shirou remains static throughout the anime, and even when he does have to sacrifice something, he’s like, “Yeah, it was for the best. I’m so selfless that I don’t even care about the fact that my heart’s been broken.” Dude, you just sacrificed someone that you loved in order to accomplish your goal and you feel no remorse or even heartbreak due to the action? How unrealistic is THAT?! I know that I’m probably looking way too deeply into this, but Shirou’s character is so black and white simplistic that it just bugs me, and the fact that he can be a hypocrite just annoys me even more. As for the other characters, they hold up relatively well. My favorite character is without a doubt Saber. I really like how there’s a majestic atmosphere surrounding her, and how you can feel humbled by her presence. Her personality is also very well written and her backstory is fantastic. Though, to be fair, the only reason I understood it was because of Fate/Zero, but I’ll be covering that more in the story section. I also really liked Rin, though to be fair she really isn’t focused on all that much. She basically got downgraded to just being a side character, which I wasn’t very happy with. All the other characters are pretty good too, with standouts among them being Archer, Rin’s servant, and the villain characters, but the main problem that I have with the character cast as a whole is that we only get to see Shiro’s side of everything. In Fate/Zero, there was no true main character, and we saw what every character’s goals were and what they wanted to do when they obtained the Holy Grail. We learned different ideologies, different backstories, learned about each character and potentially related to them, and overall it just made the character cast interesting because you could choose who you wanted to side with. In Fate/Stay Night, I felt like Shiro’s ideals were being shoved in my face, and if I didn’t believe in them than I was a bad person. Yes, I know protecting the innocent is good, but shouldn’t you also consider how to save them without getting yourself killed instead of recklessly sacrificing your only life? Now, I’m not saying that I dislike having a main character in a Battle Royal, but when you have a setup like the Fate franchise, where you see a whole ton of heroic philosophy thrown around by famous heroes from history and legend, you probably want to see more of that instead of listening to some naïve kid, right? That also happens to be one of my main problems with the character cast: why are all of the Holy Grail masters HIGH SCHOOL KIDS?! Considering how dangerous this Grail War is, especially after viewing Fate/Zero, why the heck does the Holy Grail think it’s a good idea to select HIGH SCHOOLERS to participate in its death game? At least in something like The Hunger Games there’s a pretty good reason for it, but in this anime everyone’s all fine and dandy about the fact that HIGH SCHOOLERS are participating in a death game. You know, there’s no way that it’ll harm anyone, right? No scaring kids for life, no making them grow attachments to their servants because they’re young, no making stupid decisions due to lack of experience, I don’t think ANYTHING can go wrong with that! Now, I know some might criticize me for saying this stuff while I, myself, am currently in high school, but it takes one to know one, and I don’t think that high schoolers are cut out for something like the Holy Grail War. Heck, I don’t even think that adults are cut out for something like this! Yeah, it’s kind of nitpicking, but it still bothered me enough so that I had to mention it.

The Story:

I thought the story was engaging to some extent, because it had some problems with tone and mixing of genres. There were two types of moments in this show: the funny and lighthearted ones, and the dark and suspenseful ones. While on their own these two types are entertaining, when you put the two together, you’ve got some issues when it comes to balanced storytelling, as the tones are as similar as a blue whale is to a mouse. I also can’t help but criticize the insane amount of questions in this anime that were barely explained or just flat-out glossed over. In fact, I’m sure that if I hadn’t watched Fate/Zero beforehand, I would probably be pretty confused. Everything from Rin and Sakura’s dark history to Saber’s backstory to who the villains and their motivations are to information about Kirtsugo to even the background about the Holy Grail War is about is all explained better in Fate/Zero, and some of those elements weren’t even relevant to the main plot! In Fate/Stay Night, they literally don’t address some of these elements to make way for the totally important character that is Shiro, and it just left the story incomplete. In fact, there were moments in the show where I was seriously thinking, “Hey, remember when this was covered in Fate/Zero? Remember how much better Fate/Zero is than this anime? I really want to be watching Fate/Zero right now instead of this show!” That’s not a good thing when you want to watch a show’s prequel that came out after the original did and explained everything that was left ambiguous in the original. Another problem that I had with the story were its scenes that were pretty obviously based off of adult scenes from the visual novel. I mean, in episode 15, Shirou, Saber, and Rin were all trapped in a shack, with one bed, and Shirou had to share some of his magic circuits with Saber, and then when Shirou’s inside Saber’s head (I’m assuming) there’s a dragon. I’ll get to that. Seriously, though; I’m pretty sure that you could’ve come up with a better way to integrate a scene like that without making it so obvious.

The Animation and Sound:

The animation, especially for its time, is great. Considering this is from Studio Deen, whose animation can be…strange…but they pretty much nailed it with this anime. The movement in the action scenes is fluid, I liked the camera angles, and the lighting was sometimes a bit over-the-top, but still a nice touch. If I had to point out my favorite aspect about the animation, however, it would probably be the facial expressions. I really liked how you could tell what a character was feeling just by the subtle or not-so-subtle facial expression without outwardly telling it to the audience, and it’s a nice cherry on top of a generally good ice cream sundae. As for the sound, the OST was pretty good. My favorite song is definitely Emiya, which you can find on Youtube (a link will be featured). As for openings and endings, the first opening will get stuck in your head rather easily, the endings are okay, and the second opening is god-awful. I absolutely hated the second song, it just sounded wrong in so many ways. Finally, should you watch this in English or Japanese? Well, with this one you should probably just go with your personal preference. The English version is okay, with the best performance being Kate Higgins as Saber, but other than that the voice acting is average. If you like dubs, this probably won’t convince you otherwise, but if you like subs, this won’t change your opinion of English dubs as a whole.

Final Judgment:

Overall, I thought this anime was a waste of potential. While the characters (except Shirou) were enjoyable and the story was entertaining, it just felt like something was missing, something that would have made this series epic beyond belief. I can’t quite pinpoint what that element is exactly, but I think it may just have to do with the fact that while there are unique ideas and concepts in this anime, Fate/Zero just handled them better. I give the original Fate/Stay Night a 2.25 out of 5, and a recommendation to just wait for October when the new remake comes out. I can’t guarantee that it’ll be amazing, but I get the feeling that it will at least be better than this. Maybe I was a little too harsh on it, especially when comparing it to Fate/Zero, but considering how similar the two are at the most basic level, it's hard not to. Well, like always, it is up to you to decide whether or not you like this show.

Emiya OST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSm6nnwesV4

tina.johns - 2013-08-26 00:09:58

Introduction

Fate/stay night is an adaptation of the incredibly popular VN (visual novel) of the same name, covering mainly the first route scenario, "Fate." The VN tells the story of 7 mages designated as Masters who each summon a legendary figure from the past as a Servant in order to compete for possession of the Holy Grail, which can grant any wish. The story is told over 3 routes, each of which is an alternate continuity, but must be read in a specific order as each consecutive route references and builds on information and events from the previous route(s).

The first route, which the anime takes the majority of its material from, provides most of the introductory exposition and revolves around the main character, Emiya Shirou's, Servant, Saber. However, some less than inspired attempts were made to incompletely integrate details from other routes, as well.

As an adaptation of the first route, the anime is mostly accurate and complete, however it suffers from flaws, some worse than others. The most obvious flaw is that as a representative adaptation of F/SN as a whole, it's not adequate for understanding the full story conveyed in the source material, as at best it only covers approximately a third of the VN. Due to the way the VN is constructed, the anime does tell a complete story with a conclusion, but without the material from the later routes this story feels somewhat underwhelming and leaves some major points unaddressed. On the other hand, this does not completely ruin the series, and as a relatively standard action-adventure urban fantasy tale it succeeds.

One of the most common complaints about the series is with the characters, especially the main character, Shirou. Thanks in part to the lack of Shirou's first person narrative, he has a tendency to come off as rather dense and unlikable, but additionally, because the anime does not cover developments in the other routes, the parts of the VN where he really comes into his own as a character are omitted. The major romantic subplot in "Fate" also has a tendency to feel more forced than it already did, which was also a flaw in the VN.

Fate/stay night has relatively average production values for a TV anime, aside from a few hiccups (like a certain infamous scene involving a dragon) and deserves praise for its above average soundtrack. On the direction front, it feels like a very by-the-books production. It doesn't achieve anything particularly inspired creatively, but also does not make any terribly glaring mistakes. However, ideally it could have done better at replicating the atmosphere of the VN and making the world feel more fully realized.

The success of the far better adaptation of Fate/stay night's prequel light novel, Fate/Zero, has likely gotten many people interested in checking out this anime as well. While it's not a masterpiece, it has some enjoyable points and is worth a watch if you've enjoyed Fate/Zero and want to see the sequel. However, if you have the opportunity and don't mind a long read, the VN will offer a much improved experience and tie in better with Zero. If you haven't seen Fate/Zero, you're less likely to be disappointed, but the VN is still highly recommended.

If you aren't up for reading a visual novel, a new adaptation of Fate/stay night by the same studio as Fate/Zero is also in the works, but with few details available as of this writing.

joesph23 - 2013-08-23 17:02:49

Possible spoilers ahead, but that should be a given, this is a review and as such draws on the show as a whole, now that that's out of the way, Fate/Stay Night

The Fate franchise as a whole has a rather well done story system for itself but the problem here is that the show tried to incorporate parts from all three versions. This worked while not working in a sense. For me, with some of the parts that were left unexplained, like the history between Sakura and Rin that was heavily hinted at, left me confused and feeling like I missed something. While this wore down the story, it did get me to look into the source material.

The animation is good, nothing extravagant, but not piss poor and all over the place either. It got the job done.

Music, I personally really enjoyed the score, it added the right amount and type of energy where is was needed, always helping to push whatever feel they're going for a little better.

The characters are probably the weakest part about this show unfortunately, the romance between Shiro and Saber just feels too forced for what's going on and the span of time the show covers. That being said, in the other two versions of the story, characters get more and different development, giving a better or fuller look at who they really are.

Over all I really enjoy this show and stand by it, even through Shiro's duller moments (see joke at top) and would recommend it, and also suggest if you are going into the fate franchise to start here before fate/zero, mainly because it's hard to go from off the charts quality in animation to average, but I personally feel that it provides a better experience in this order.

farrell.sierra - 2013-07-23 15:50:10

I always found that Fate/Stay Night had an interesting concept but was just executed so badly. I mean 7 Mages summoning 7 legends from history/Myths all coming together to fight in a free for all for the Holy Grail. It sounds pretty epic and while it can be pretty dark it more of a story of the most chiche goodie too shoes male lead and how he tries to stop everyone from fighting and killing each other "Yeaaaah!" (sarcasm)

Story:

As i said above Fate/Stay Night is about 7 Mages (or masters) summoning 7 legends (servants) from history or myths all battling out in the Holy Grail war. At first glance it sounds like it's going to be pretty cool and some times it can be i mean where else can you see a female King Arthur battle it out against Hercules? But sadly this isn't the main focus, the show seems to be more about Shiro Emiya and how he try's to settle every fight by either getting in the way, talking his opponent to death or just generally getting his ass headed to him in combat or while talking about his own very "special" and "unique" philosophy. Plus alot of it i felt like was Saber just storming Caster's castle only to fail a few times

An other problem I had with the story was the mood. I mean some episodes it's lighthearted and up beat, other times it's about school and romance and other times it feels dark and just hopeless. I mean it's like the different people directing the episodes had a completely different views of what they wanted the show to be.

Story:6.5/10

Characters:

There's actually quite an interesting cast of character and that's mostly due to seeing the legends or servants and their personalities along with interacting with eachother and seeing their different fighting styles. You get really interested in there past and their story and i was alittle disappointed that we never really got any back-story for really anyone but Saber. Plus Lancer is an Irish Legend (I'm Irish btw) and if there's any Irish characters in any anime i will fan-boy ever them lol xD.

The only character that i hated was Shiro, surprised? He's just sooooo chiche and stereotypical in the wrost possible way and really just gets in the way of Saber... In-fact if the show was just about Saber and Rin it would of been 3X better. Plus people die if they are killed enough said.

Characters:8/10

Animation:

The animation was done by Studio Deen, the same people who brought you Rurouni Kenshin, Rave Master and Hetalia. The animation is nothing really too special. It's not terrible but it's not Exceedingly good either for it's time (2006). Everything is animated well but the color palette was abit on the dim side for my liking. Action scene are animated okish i guess while some fight scenes where very fluid other times it just looked a little chucky. But overall i had only one major complaint and that's was with that CGI dragon at episode 15 i think.... Man that was terrible

Animation 7/10

Sound:

I actually loved the soundtrack to Stay Night granted it's not amazing but every track does it's job right from being mystical, to eerie, happy go lucky and the epic music during the lack luster fight scenes does kinda huff the scenes up a bit. The 2 openings for the show are pretty good. I really liked the 1st because the tone really feels like your diving into a world full of magic and mystery.

The Japanese cast was very good all giving life to their characters ( I can't speak japanese so i can't really judge it) As for the English Dub it's abit "Meh" some actors such as Liam O'Brien as Archer and Jennifer Sekiguchi as Illya nail their character to a tee and Mela Lee as Rin and Kate Higgins as Saber i found to be above average in some case and in others fell a little flat. I would recommend the Sub rather than the Dub but if you like Dubs like me you shouldn't be too disappointed.

Sounds:7.5/10

Enjoyment:

Despite all of Stay Nights flaws i rather liked the show as a whole and has became one of my guilty pleasure over time. Although this show is properly one i wouldn't recommend to everyone. I only watched it because i saw Fate/Zero and just wanted more of the series. I would only recommend it if you really and i mean REALLY enjoy the Fate series and are interested to see the events after the affects of Fate/Zero. I guess the main reason i actually like it so much is because it finishes off the Fate series...... Sure it doesn't do it well but it does finishes it non the less.

9/10 (For me personally)

Overall:

Overall I feel Fate/Stay Night source material was good but it's anime adaptation was just terribly planned out. If you have only seen Fate/Zero and want more i would recommend you to wait for the remake Ufotable is currently working on or try and check out the Visual Novel. I just feel the 2006 version doesn't capture the Fate grandness or epicness.

Overall Score: 6.5, 7 / 10