Genre: Action / Drama / Fantasy / Romance / Maho Shojo
Anime Type: TV Series
Original Release: 2005
Original Story: Shou Aikawa
Director: Yuji Yamaguchi
Original Concept: Kinoko Nasu
Original Character Design: Takashi Takeuchi
Character Design: Megumi Ishihara
Distributor: Geneon
ANN Link: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=5394
Availability: Common
Package: Complete Collections 6 DVD's, 24 30min Episodes
Price Paid: ~$35.00
Retailer: Best Buy (Retail Storefront).

Have you ever played a fantasy card game like Magic: The Gathering, or any D&D type RP games, video or otherwise? If so then you are part of the demographic market that Fate stay / night is aimed at, as its concepts and story are based squarely in a J-RPG fantasy universe. In order to fully enjoy the series its best to imagine yourself in a high-school daydream fantasy where you and other RPG players like you are actually able to perform feats of magic and summon forth real fantasy characters to fight for you.

Here you enter the alternate reality modern Japan of Fate stay / night where, magic — as well as magi — exist. Much akin to the concept of Harry Potter, magi and their arcane art form is “hidden” from normal mortals devoid of mystic powers. In this world, every so often a number of “master” magi are chosen to compete in an ancient rite — the Holy Grail War. In this tournament, magi masters summon forth powerful servants drawn from the spirits of ancient heroes of legend, such as Hercules, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, etc... The spirit servants manifest as a type of spiritual reflection of their master (and are physically not a duplicate of the heroic spirit they represent), and are usually (and conveniently) opposite in gender to their master. Thus the masters and servants engage one another in a winner-take-all battle royale for the Holy Grail. Because of the nature of these battles they typically happen at night in unpopulated areas (hence “stay / night”). Furthermore the object of the tournament, the Holy Grail, is not simply the cup of Christ as is normally associated with the object. Indeed Christian dogma is not really a part of this series at all, rather the Holy Grail is a supernatural object, one which once obtained grants the winning master and servant each their greatest wish. Think Link and the Triforce, not Indiana Jones and immortal life.

The story takes place in a modern Japanese setting, and there are modern locales like some building interiors, the high school where the main characters are students, the roof of a tall building as a battle setting, or places where some characters go out on the town. Also every now and then there is a shot of a TV showing the news or some other thing. Although for the most part, the series setting is typically abstracted (usually most battles) to an almost non-descript time and place. These distractions from the modern world allow the viewer to become more readily absorbed into the heavy fantasy elements of the series.

This situation adds up to yet another story that can only be crafted by and told in the world of Japanese Anime. This Anime, when described as a genre of Anime is "Shojo", and specifically "Maho Shojo" (magical girls). Though the main character is a boy, the story is not simply about the magical servants of the magi masters fighting it out, but rather the relationships between the characters. One might easily confuse this title as a Shonen (boys) harem anime, but I don't believe it is. It certainly contains aspects of a harem series, as at one point the main character is surrounded by up to 5 females living with him in his samurai compound. Most Shonen harem series feature overly stereotyped harems of fan-service girls fawning over a central male character who remains indecisive and relishes the affections of the harem. Usually great portions of those series, whole episodes and arcs, are devoted to the harem members attempting to woo the boy on the pedestal. This is not the case with Fate stay / night. I have watched harem series, and found them rather silly and gratuitous, and while I fully expected Fate stay/night to evolve into that, it never did.

CHARACTERS

The story’s main protagonist is a male high school student named Shirou Emiya. When he was young, Shirou survived a terrible, and unexplained conflagration that destroyed his home and took his parents and many of his neighbors as well. This event scars him emotionally. After this tragedy Shirou was saved and later adopted by his "father" a man known as Kiritsugu Emiya. Unfortunately Kiritsugu dies while Shirou is still a young man, chronologically before the beginning of the series. Kiritsugu leaves his large estate, an old Samurai compound, to Shirou and entrusts his care to a local school teacher named Taiga Fujimura, a ditsy, boisterous and seemingly always hungry lady whom Shirou refers to as "Fuji-nee" and whose class Shirou is in as well. Shirou has a good childhood friend named Shinji Matou. Shinji’s younger sister Sakura, a rather subservient girl with an obvious crush on Shirou (which he is of course oblivious to), visits Shirou’s samurai compound every day and cooks food for him and Fuji-nee, as well as helping them with the chores around the estate to keep things up.

Shirou has a secret, he has a limited amount of magical ability that he learned from his late father Kiritsugu who was a magus who forsake his abilities. So far Shirou is able to divine the nature of objects and machinery and is also able to repair or magically "reinforce" them, but that is the extent of his powers. This makes him an emotionally-scarred orphan with latent magical powers who lost his parents in a mysterious tragedy…someone call Ms Rowling, I think her premise is missing.

As the story unfolds Shirou, who is a rather introverted and selfless person, seems the least likely candidate to become a magi master in the Holy Grail War, however exactly that happens. Shirou is thrown into the rite when he unwittingly witnesses an occult event. He is semi-traumatized by what he has seen, but unfortunately he comes under attack by a powerful servant-warrior of another master (who was causing the ruckus in the first place). Under duress he is somehow able to summon his own magical servant. The servent turns out to be a beautiful sword-weilding female knight known simply by her "fighter class" as "Saber". To whom Shirou promptly becomes smitten by. Saber defends Shirou and thus starts the two on their sojourn together in the Holy Grail War.

Fortunately for Shirou this unlikely situation he has found himself in is somewhat clarified by the help of a rather "black sheep" raven haired female classmate, who turns out to be a fellow magi master, Rin Tohsaka. Rin, unlike Shirou, was formerly instructed in the ways of magic by her parents.

The series moves forth as Shirou with Saber at his side and with the grudging help of Rin and her servant “Archer” the "team" such as they are confront the various challenges that the story throws at them.

As this unlikely character blunders his way through the series, one of the biggest complaints I hear and read about is what is perceived as Shirou's whiny, milquetoast personality; his relative unworthiness as a leading character in an Anime series. While I'll admit there is something to that criticism, especially depending upon your taste, I think writing the series off on that point is to miss the central concept of the story. The one major aspect of the series is that of Shirou’s traumatic childhood. His personal dictum is to protect others and promote justice, and this causes him to chaff at the idea of not being able to protect loved ones, and he therefore hates the idea of Saber fighting and possibly dying for him, especially because he is in love with her. Because of this he quite foolishly attempts to defend her in the master-servant battles though he obviously has no ability to do anything about them. This may seem silly but in a way it is also ridiculously chivalrous and romantic. He also questions the purpose of the Holy Grail War (what kind of justice is in it — is it only for material gain and personal agrandisement — why fight to the death?) this and his very limited magical powers wear on the other masters, especially Rin and specifically his servant Saber.

In the end, I think this story is not really about the holy grail wars and their outcome, its not about Shirou being or becoming an archetype hero, and its not about magical battles or action. What it is about is a normal, yet troubled young man finding himself in a decidedly abnormal situation, and how it changes him. I find this decidedly interesting and actually somewhat engaging for even a more mature viewer. Faced with the scenarios proffered by the story what would you, the viewer do? How would you act? Granted, Fate stay / night is not as deep as a “Crest of the Stars” or “12 Kingdoms”, but Shirou’s character goes through the same kind of emotional crises as does Jinto and Yoko in those respective series. Perhaps this is an over analysis of escapist fantasy where the viewer has some vicarious involvement with at least one principle characer (which is an element often found in RPG stories). I don't know if I personally identify with Shirou, but I do think I'd have some trouble falling for someone who I learn must fight and possibly die for me in situations where I am found completely incapable of being able to stand at her side in any meaningful way. I'm not a *real* warrior, and even if I did have military training, a gun, a blade, martial arts skills, or even some arcane and fantastical "magic" ability; wielded as a mere mortal I would be woefully inept at overcoming the battles that Shirou and Saber are forced to confront. Indeed it is really about the emotional battles Shirou confronts, and perhaps the emotional battles we all have to face — and as mere mortals battles of the mind and heart are often more troublesome than battles fought with the blade or gun.

If what you've read so far sounds like a nice bit of escapist fantasy for you then perhaps this series is for you. My only big complaint is part of the ending. The series taunts you with Saber's true spiritual identity. One servant is named as the spirit of Gilgamesh, one is of a famous Samurai, yet another as Hercules, but Saber stays mute on her identity. Obviously I won't spoil it, but I will say the choice is a rather gender bending one. Some other figure, like the obvious choice of one famous french knight would have actually been most appropriate, considering Saber's personality and suggested piety. The choice made, I believe, was to put a twist on that since it would have been very obvious. For me sometimes the obvious choice is the best...but then it wouldn't be Anime...

PRODUCTION

Fate stay/night boasts modern, clean, and well done animation. There’s nothing ground breaking or amazing, but there is nothing really subpar or plain bad either. There is some CGI but I don't think it was heavily used; which isn't a derogatory statement, simply an observation. There was one pure CGI sequence, and while the CGI looked very cheaply produced it is easy to write it off as it portrays a surreal nightmarish dream sequence. The magic and servant-summoning sequences are also rather entertaining. All in all it was visually very good and all other things aside easy to watch.

Aurally, the music and sound effects were good, and appropriate. The theme songs in the opening and closing were straight up J-Pop fantasy bits that had an enjoyable sound more reminiscent of mid-90's Anime than something only two-three years old. One thing I did notice was that one sound effect that I can only describe as a "star wars blaster ricochet" was used as a Foley in action sequences just a little bit too often and I'm not sure why. As usual I chose the dubs, and I thought all the voices were well placed and correct for their characters.

In terms of graphic elements, well, unfortunately for you hentai fans and hormone-soaked teens, gratuitous fan service is fairly low. All the girls are stereotypically pretty by Anime standards, but not dressed in impossible nympho suits, and there aren't any "Zeppelin Boobs" bouncing around either…oh the humanity. By far, Saber's outfit is the most functional set of feminine armor I've seen in Anime, and it's downright prudish and puritanical by comparison to some other Anime depictions of female "knights" (can we say Lemnear or Princess Minerva?). I mean she wears a skirt that goes below her ankles, and she doesn’t show off her bouncing cleavage or anything. I think the male characters are likely also stereotypically handsome for Anime as well, there’s at least one Bishounen style character, I’m not as good at judging these things, since well, I’m not going in for that, however I didn’t see any overt female-oriented fan service either. Seriously though, there are two cases of situational "nudity" both involving Saber, but her odd demeanor and attitude actually make both instances character building, story moving plot points. That and they're not frontal or explicit in any way. Perhaps the only weird bit was an episode where Rin's character needs to get “physically attuned” to Saber and Shirou for a specific magical rite and as such she does some interesting things to both characters, one scene borders on what might be called Yuri, though there really is no Yuri, Yaoi, or ecchi elements in this series. It is actually pretty conservative for Anime, it could likely be shown on Saturday mornings in the USA, but would likely get at least a TV-PG13. So for you parents, its pretty clean — visually — for younger viewers but does have a good deal of mature content otherwise, and does include some bloody but not gratuitous violence. Most of the violence is magical, and fairly typical of your standard RPG video game.

CONCLUSION

Overall this is a good solid TV series, and would likely appeal well to the 12-18 age group the best. RPG players will get the most out of it, and I do think Harry Potter fans might appreciate it as well, as there are some similar concepts. As far as pure high-fantasy goes, well it is a bit more of a situational romance than a true fantasy story and is set in modern times, but will likely keep fantasy fans entertained. I’d also recommend it to couples into RP gaming, Anime, and high-fantasy – as there are elements suitable for entertaining both viewers and the romance of it will likely please both.

Because I like the escapist concept, and the fantasy nature, and to me it was an overall fun watch, I like it a slightly above average; 3.75 out of 5. ~(P)~