Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is an anime that adapts the Unlimited Blade Works route of the visual novel. The first season is 12 episodes long plus a prologue. The prologue, first episode and the last episode of the season are all double lengthed episodes. If you have already seen the first Fate/stay night anime then the prologue and more than half the season, will feel quite familiar, but slightly different. It’s familiar because the core concept of the story is the same and most of the events are the same. It’s different because instead of following Emiya Shirou, it follows Tohsaka Rin instead and we see events from her perspective. This is for the prologue only, but you do benefit from having already watched the first anime as there are sudden cuts that would confuse you if you weren’t already aware of what happened from Shirou’s perspective.
Once the first episode begins, it reverts back to following Shirou and goes through his perspective of the same events from the prologue. It’s not bad except that if you had already watched the first anime and then the prologue, then it’ll be the third time you’d have seen the same events. On the whole, this adaptation is better if only for the fact that it makes characters such as Shinji more unlikable, and Shirou not being as easy to be pushed around, although he’s still very amicable.
The story takes place in a world where there is the Holy Grail War. Seven Masters and their Servants participate in this war and their aim is to eliminate all the other Masters and Servants to become the last one standing. They’ll be able to claim the Holy Grail at that point and have any wish granted. The key relationship here is that Masters have enough magic in them to summon Servants to aid in their battle, and Servants are legendary heroes from the past.
It is hard to not do a comparison against the previous anime adaptation and Unlimited Blade Works is better. Not only is the story better paced but it takes the time to give context to their situation. Characters don’t spend as much time doing nothing at all. Rin and Archer are more proactive in their role within the war as they investigate other Masters and Servants. While during fight scenes, we actually see more of an effort from the characters as they dodge, strike and strategize. Shirou is not as whiny and pathetic, which does wonders in making him more of a protagonist that you can get behind and support.
Shirou has a different mindset to the others, rather opting for peace than victory by defeating everyone else. This ideology clash is messy and feels like extremely stubbornness when he refuses to adapt even when his life is in danger. Despite it being a war where every Master fights for themselves, Shirou manages to sway at least Rin to become his ally. Also, given he is the male protagonist of a work based on a visual novel, it is a given that all the female characters will develop some sort of feeling for him. It’s a shame that most of them are unrequited and you never see it play out.
Combat scenes are flashy with a lot of effects from the weapons clashing against each other. It’s visually fun to watch and doesn’t come off as completely all style and no substance. There are plenty of opportunities for the characters to fight against each other as well. It is somewhat of a shame to have Saber (who is Shirou’s Servant), wield an invisible sword so that her movements and attacks seem to be lacking weight. That’s probably why the animators added in mist effects to approximate her sword.
While the story is still slow paced at times, it does build up to have a better second half. There is a marked change once Shirou transitions from the clueless phase to being more experienced about the situation. He starts to steel his resolve to see this through as well as refining what limited magical abilities that he has into something more usable. The ending to the season at first seems to be at a bad place. However, it’s actually not a terrible spot once you think about it afterwards. It’s a cliffhanger in the middle of the story, right after an unexpected shocking moment (especially if you were still comfortable with what to expect based on the first anime adaptation). It sets up several of the characters for the next season and it’s mostly just a shame that it stops right as it was getting interesting.
Overall, Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works seemed like a retread of the story at first and that is the case for over half the season. However, the second half starts to diverge more with the final episodes being a completely different set of events. It also starts off slow and gathers steam right at the last minute to make for a fairly decent and worthwhile season.
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