Fate/stay night

VN Route Rating: 8.0

The Fate series consists of three-story routes. I am rating the source material (Visual Novel) for this route, not this anime adaptation. The Fate/stay night Fate route was great, the lore was executed well and nearly all major questions were answered. The dark undertone of the story was well done and the ending was satisfyingly realistic. It was unpredictable and there were little to no plot armors. Cons: it had a slow start, there were large wordy info dumps, there were a little too many flashbacks and it doesn't have a good anime adaptation. Other than that this is a solid story.

It holds visually well for almost 14 years. There has been great development in the main character and some light hearted comedy for the first half of the season. Saber was probably the best part of this show. It does fall abit in terms of power creeping as the main characters are at a tug of war. It should have been more of a free for all. Certain character routes didn't make sense and some felt underultilized in certain roles.

When I started watching the show I said "Oh, no! It's as corny as Elfen Lied and not even that bloody!". And indeed, the setup is almost identical, with the single young boy living in a big house all by himself, then suddenly getting involved into a fantastic adventure while sexy young girls come live with him.

But this is where the resemblance stops. The love story is almost as subtle and intense as the one in Inuiyasha, while the childish remarks and behaviors are very few. The magical setup is a bit corny, because it's about seven people, with seven servants, fighting for the Holy Grail, all servants being someone famous, half of all masters being from the same school, rules of engagement, etc. However, this soon dims and fades from the beauty of the drawing and of the script.

I actually watched all 24 episodes in one day and, without comparing it with animes that I liked more, but were from other genres, I have to say that I was very pleased.

It has its flaws with keeping consistency with majority of the characters present but it does a well done job beong consistent in the atmospheric and emotional impact department, If you care so much I would recommend you watch this first then watch the remake show Fate: Unlimited Blade Works, the tone is completely different and characters are behaving differently as well, I'm almost halfway through the remake and it tries so hard to fix the mistakes the original did and I appreciate it so far even though they made it feel more anime and cheesy the original is more grim compared to it, so it's your call if you want to watch both or whatever.

Fate Stay Night is a very entertaining anime which focuses on the survival of a young guy who, without really wanting it, takes part in this elimination tournament to get The Holy Grail.

To win, each contestant get a servant to help them. These companions are summoned from either the past, present or future and that is one of the most intriguing parts of this anime; finding out who each companion is as most do not reveal their identity until the very end.

Overall the story has a few plot holes in my opinion when it comes to the servants and some of the characters in the story don't seem very realistic, however, the battles are quite fun to watch and the ending managed to get me extremely emotional despite me not truly being attached to any of the characters.

Definitely worth watching!