The series starts off with a light skirmish that took place 10 years ago in Fuyuki City; a light skirmish that burned the whole city down and left only young Emiya Shirou as a survivor! That’s what happens when a girl with a steel sword fights someone wielding a flint weapon. Fortunately for him, Shirou is rescued and adopted by a magician named Emiya Kiritsugu. Although Kiritsugu passed away 5 years ago, his selflessness has inspired Shirou to grow up to be a protector of justice. Shirou has very little skill at sorcery, but he is really good at analyzing the makeup of objects.
In the fight between engineers and magicians, it seems that 7 masters will summon servants and battle it out for the Holy Grail. Uber-student Tohsaka Rin is a talented sorceress, but even when she uses the heart of the cards she only ends up with Archer. How’s she supposed to d-d-d-d-duel with that?! Luckily for her, his power is like extraordinarily keen vision, so at least they can kite enemies for a really long time. Meanwhile, the other magicians are on the move, killing lots of people and setting fires. Fortunately, a mysterious young girl appears to Shirou and tells him to hurry up and summon his servant before someone beats the crap out of him in episode 2.
Thus begins the highly touted Fate/Stay Night anime. I kinda enjoyed the slow pace, and the mysterious atmosphere they built up. The characters were pretty good too, especially Rin and Archer. I was digging their vaguely clashing/romantic tension and the fact that they have no one to tank in battles. Rin better hope that Archer’s high agility will let him avoid damage, but how are they going to manage aggro? I think the RPG elements of the show are totally drawing me in…
As for everything else, well the music wasn’t that impressive and I didn’t care that much for the OP and ED. I think it’s the characters that will be the key to keeping me interested. There also seems to be a lame, do nothing but hope character in Matou Sakura, and an annoyingly cliche character in both Issei Ryuudou and Fujimura Taiga-sensei. The “Taiga”-tiger thing isn’t that funny, although watching Shirou’s cardboard tube samurai get owned by an iron bar was amusing.
BTW, why doesn’t Archer have a bow? Maybe he should use his awesome eyesight and find one…
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I wonder how this anime is gonna turn out. The game supposedly had some Hentai elements too… like SHUFFLE, and it seems that these h-game animes are turning out to be pretty good.
>> I was digging their vaguely clashing/romantic tension and the fact that they have no one to tank in battles. Rin better hope that Archer’s high agility will let him avoid damage, but how are they going to manage aggro?
I laughed a bit too hard at this… someone’s played too much WoW. :/
>> BTW, why doesn’t Archer have a bow? Maybe he should use his awesome eyesight and find one…
He did in the curtain raiser, so I’m sure it’s just in his oversized inventory right now.
Yes, Archer definitely feels vaguely incomplete without a visible bow. Now, if only he worked at McDonald’s too, he’d be Golden.
Team Red FTW.
Also, Sakura SCARES me.
There is no life in her eyes!
Oh, Archer can tank alright, we’ll see this much next episode. And with rare exceptions, the fighters won’t need major aggro handling or mob control, it’s very duelish to begin with
Okay – I don’t know the game myself, but have already gotten several summaries of the three different main scenarios. All hype aside (which only encourages people to look much harder for the flaws and thus don’t help an anime at all), I still feel confident to play Captain Obvious and strongly recommend it. Those people whose taste in anime never once let me down so far are all agreed: This is gonna be a great show.
What really counts in my eyes is this: First of all, we have full 24 episodes, which means that the story will be told with the sufficient care and detail. In a way, I found the fact that ep1 was so devoid of action and only with slow character setup reassuring – because it means that they can take their time. I wonder how many of the (very different) scenarios they will be able to merge.
As for the girls, I’m gonna be a Rin fanboy, will still like Sakura alot, and leave Saber to the fanatics
Oh… I’m not going to spoil anything.. but Sakura plays a MAJOR role…
.
she’s not like Kaede from shuffle, lol
Oh, and, Rin for the win.
. Love her character design
>>Tohsaka Rin is a talented sorceress, but even when she uses the heart of the cards she only ends up with Archer.
I can’t tell if Kabit said that to setup his yugioh joke, but does anyone else think she was unhappy with drawing archer? Rin did say “I have no doubt drawn the best card i could” after she finished summoning, but after her confrontation with archer, she made that upset look with her arms crossed (can’t tell if its because the guy destroyed her house, or if she was unhappy with the servant she summoned). Cause someone who played the game told me that she was aiming to summon Sabre in the game, but got archer.
This was too slow for my taste. Characters were bit dull in my opinion. I hope they stop Taiga jokes. There is no urgent need to see next ep, but i’ll try it.
That looked like a bow in girl hands when Shriou left school, maybe Archer takes that.
Haha yeah, I think you’re in a world of surprise if you think Sakura is just a ‘lame, do nothing but hope character’ ^__^
And yes Rev, Rin was unhappy with Archer because she wanted Saber, the strongest servant. Destroying the room is nothing.
H*ll, I liked the first ep. Nothing earthshaking, but good. The slow pace was a +. And I love the fact that the “hero” looks wishy-washy, I’m sure he’ll pull out something extraordinary at some point in the story. Worth watching.
(just read the baloon comments on the last pic)
…oh,and yeah, high jumper girls ARE dangerous to kinda-normal-female’s love-interests (^_^;)
Anyone knows about Shirou’s 100mt dash record O_o ?
To Rev and those interested: Regarding Archer’s summoning, it might be good for you to play the translated Fate/Stay Night demo available at insani.org. :3
“I didn’t care that much for the OP and ED”
I’m in the same boat. I really enjoyed the OP from the origonal game (available for download from the TypeMoon homepage under Sounds here at http://www.typemoon.com/fate/).
Let me agree with tragicsmile too in saying that you’ll get more out of the episode if you’ve played through at least the demo of the origonal game.
Archer use a bow? What blasphemy do you speak? He fights with swords!
If they leave out the other side of Sakura, I’ll be pissed.
Actually, i downloaded the game’s op from insani, personally i think the game’s op > the anime’s op. It’s not so much the different songs (since one’s just a cover of the other), its the sequence of pictures in the game’s op. The game’s op is… much more lively than the anime’s op where all you see is everyone sitting down, or standing n smiling, except for that short scene of lancer vs. sabre.
Anyway, although i’ve already read enuf spoilers to ruin the anime for me, i think playing the demo of the game would really tarnish the enjoyment of watching the first few eps, so I’ll just stick to reading spoilers and watching the anime. Thx though
A couple of things reminded me of The Law of Ueki: Kiritsugu looks kind of like Kobasen and Shirou was talking about upholding his justice.
Ok. The anime is 24 eps, and the PS2 game… is it an exact replica of the PC game but with no bad scenes? I’d like a lot of spoilers since i have no knowledge of Japanese and probably can’t fully play the game. One thing i wanna ask some of u- how many bad scenes are there in the game? A lot or just like here and there; I don’t wanna play a game with too many of those unnecessary scenes
Did you attend a newspeak course?