Summer Flame Day– Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, Unlimited Disappointment

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works was my most highly anticipated series of the fall 2014 and spring 2015 anime seasons. I came into the show as a fan of Fate/Zero and was looking forward to a follow up story. What could possibly go wrong? More than halfway through the series I became disillusioned with the show, disappointed at the inability of Ufotable to adapt a visual novel, and annoyed at the Fate/Stay Night fanbase in general. Today is the first day of summer and I can’t think of a better anime to throw into the fiery flames of Summer Flame Day.

What is the Fate story? To keep it brief, every 50 years the Holy Grail appears. People go to war for the right to obtain the Grail. In these wars, seven mages each summon a heroic spirit from various ages to fight to the death to obtain the holy item and have any wish granted. The heroic spirits are separated into classes based on their abilities, such as Saber (swordsmanship), Archer (projectiles), Berserker (raging warriors), Assassin, etc. The mages are masters to the servant heroic spirits and can make them do their bidding. For example, in this story King Arthur (who’s actually a woman) has Excalibur and is summoned to the Saber class. To hide their true identities and to give them an edge in the war, servants are referred to by their class name. So King Arthur becomes known as Saber. In the Fourth Holy Grail War where the events of Fate/Zero took place, Kiritsugu Emiya won the war. He realized Holy Grail was evil and had his servant Saber, destroy part of the grail. Everything literally went to hell, the city where the war was waged burned to the ground, the war was unresolved, and the Holy Grail manifested 10 years later. The children of the mages from the previous war are fighting to pick up where their parents left off and to atone for their mistakes. This is the start of the Fifth Holy Grail War or Fate/Stay Night.

 

Because I came in this anime as a Fate/Zero fan, in eyes of hardcore Fate/Stay Night fans, this is the “wrong” way to experience the series. After all, F/Z is a light novel prequel that was written well after the visual novel series. Additionally, the plot for F/Z was written by a completely different author. To clarify, Kinoko Nasu wrote the original visual novel, while Gen Urobuchi wrote the light novel. In 2011 Ufotable adapted F/Z into an anime. This is how I found my way into the Fate universe and it was solely due to being a fan of Urobuchi’s work. According to F/SN fans, The “correct” way is experience the series is to play all three story routes of the Fate/Stay visual novel, then watch the 2006 Studio Deen anime adaptation (which may be optional depending the fan), and then watch F/Z. After all of this, Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works can fully be appreciated.

Screw that.

Being told my enjoyment of something is wrong and I need to play a 60+ hour video game as a prerequisite really gets under my skin. I enjoyed F/Z and appreciated it without a larger understanding of the Fate universe. (I’d also rather spend my time playing a video game that actually interests me.) None of the games were ever officially localized, and based on watching Unlimited Blade Works, I doubt I could sit through Nasu’s writing. Just to be sure, I watched a few Let’s Plays and I found Nasu to be annoyingly verbose. Getting back to the anime, if Fate/Zero is a prequel then a fan that didn’t experience any of F/SN should be able to enjoy the series without prior knowledge. Furthermore, one should be able to experience Utofable’s take Fate/Stay Night with only knowledge of the prequel (or even as a complete newcomer). Unfortunately, Unlimited Blade Works isn’t a good anime adaptation and I’m convinced the Fate/Stay Night series is impossible to adapt into a competent anime.

 

Why? Because according to fans, in order to fully understand the motivations and growth of Shirou Emiya, our main character, the visual novels have to be played three times. In each route, the player guides Shirou’s actions and watches him develop as a person. This character development is spread out over three routes. In Fate/Stay Night he is so focused on fighting to protect that he refuses to let Saber fight in battle, just because she’s a women, despite her being a renowned warrior. His thoughts and actions are immature and misogynistic. In the Unlimited Blade Works route, Shirou faces down the hypocrisy of his own ideals. He believes that a “Hero of Justice” should work hard to make everyone happy, even at the cost of his own happiness. In the final route Heaven’s Feel, Shirou completely matures as a person. Each route has its own endings and it works for a video game. Utofable decidedly stuck with the Unlimited Blade Works route for its anime adaptation and it fails in key areas.

Unlimited Blade Works falls flat on its face because it tries to be faithful to the visual novel, complete with Nasu’s verbose writing. It also tries to be a sequel to Fate/Zero. As a fan of F/Z, I went into this adaptation expecting closure to the unresolved events of the prequel. The children and survivors of the Fouth Holy Grail War are fighting in the Fifth Holy Grail War to wrap up their parents’ unfinished business. The problem is that it takes nearly the entire series for events of F/Z to be addressed, and for the children to even learn about how the previous war went awry. Surviving characters know exactly what’s going on, but they rarely make any nods to the previous war. Some issues are never addressed at all. These inconsistencies exist because Fate/Stay Night was created first and these nods aren’t in the Unlimited Blade Works route of the game. Utofable didn’t even bother to bridge the gaps in the anime.

 

Another issue that exists is the difference between Nasu’s writing style for Fate/Stay Night and Urobuchi’s style for Fate/Zero. Urobuchi is a MUCH better writer than Nasu. The plot of F/Z is much tighter, the characters are better fleshed out and by the time the anime ends, you care about them and their motivations. (Urobuchi is fantastic at getting into a character’s psychology and letting you know what makes them tick.) In contrast, very few characters are well-developed in Unlimited Blade Works. They talk endlessly about their motivations, but you only get brief glimpses of their characters and don’t spend nearly enough time with them. It is the ultimate example of tell, don’t show. Worse, returning characters actually regress in this “sequel” and get dumber as the series wears on.

Saber was an awesome and proactive fighter in F/Z, but now she’s largely relegated to a helpless bystander/occasional bodyguard for Shirou. She never voices the tragedy of the Fourth Holy Grail War and how she her ideals clashed with Kiritsugu Emiya’s (Shirou’s deceased adoptive father) ideals. If Utofable was pegging this story as a prequel, they could have taken time to flesh out what Saber did between the wars and how she resented not have her wish granted. Rin Tohsaka is another character who gets worse as the story progresses. She starts off as a strong and resourceful co-protagonist. As the story goes on, she’s forced to take a back seat to Shirou and to carry the idiot ball, even when stuck in life-threatening situations. I’d imagine a conversation between the audience and Rin going something like: “Hey kid, that creepy guy is totally trying to rape and kill you. Maybe you should use a command seal to summon your servant so they can protect you!” Rin: “No thanks, I’ve had a good run.” Rin, you’re smarter than this! Moments like that are endlessly frustrating to watch.

 

One of the worst offenders in Unlimited Blade Works? Archer. His back story is hinted at throughout the series and his true character is finally revealed near the end of the show. Despite these hints, we have nearly two episodes dedicated to his reveal. Archer’s ideals are in direct contrast to Shirou’s and the two men clash with both swords and philosophy. Their showdown takes place over the course of three episodes. There’s one to episode for Archer to state how miserable he is as a heroic spirit (being a superhero sucks), another episode features him standing around and arguing with Shirou, and a third episode is dedicated to fighting over those beliefs. This part of the story is important, I get it. I just don’t understand why it couldn’t have been pared down to one or two episodes. Archer simply tells us how much he hates his job. Utofable could have added a flashback episode from his point of view showing us (not telling us) why his life as a heroic spirit is so terrible.

Utofable’s bad choices once again circle back to the original visual novel and their unwillingness to displease fans by making bold decisions for the adaptation. The game has three different routes, each with a very different story and the importance of each character is different in each route. Their unwillingness to not take any chances by trimming away unneeded fat from the story, and to further flesh out characters as needed made for a disappointing series. I wish Utofable could have brought Urobuchi on board to write a script for UBW that would better tie it to F/Z. Or at the very least, I wish the staff from F/Z could have returned. Takahiro Miura directs this adaptation instead of Ei Aoki, and the writing staff has been replaced as well. It’s unfortunate, really. Unlimited Blade Works is an adaptation that can’t stand on its own. I don’t see how it appeals to newcomers, as prior knowledge of the story is needed. F/Z fans don’t get to see the same version of characters they were left with from that story. The needed closure is explored in a different story route.

 

So, would it have been feasible for Utofable to simply tie all three routes together? Personally, I don’t know, but I understand Studio Deen tried this in their adaptation of Fate/Stay Night and the results were not good. Could Utofable just animate all three routes? I believe that would be way too repetitive and confusing to newcomers. It would also create continuity problems because each route can’t stand on its own. This is the problem that UBWs currently faces. Should Utofable have just appealed to the popularity of Fate/Zero and created a show that appeals to those fans, by using elements from all of the routes? I think so, but I doubt the studio wants to alienate hardcore fans that are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on expensive Blu-rays.

So where does that leave me? At this point, I’m fed up with how Unlimited Blade Works is an imperfect sequel to Fate/Zero. I get that F/Z was written later, but I’m disappointed the same studio that animated both shows couldn’t neatly tie both series together. If being a completely faithful adaptation meant the story doesn’t fully work without knowledge of the video game, then those impediments should have been thrown out. With them, UBW is terrible as video-game-to-anime adaptation. I know it isn’t impossible to adapt video games into anime. Persona 4 the Animation did a wonderful job even with a fraction of Utofable’s massive budget. In that series viewers weren’t required to play the game first to understand the characters or the story. Viewers shouldn’t have to be told by fans that they’re watching it wrong just because they didn’t invest the visual novel first.

 

You might get the impression that I hate Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. I actually enjoy the show, but much of the appeal from season one is gone for the reasons I stated. It is impossible to enjoy this show based on my enjoyment of Fate/Zero, especially when that story was penned by a better author. I simply saw the flaws in Unlimited Blade Works and realized early that it fails as good adaptation. My only consolation is the gorgeous animation and the beautiful music. Even if the plot moves at an infuriatingly slow and repetitive pace, at least I can ogle lots of eye candy. Thanks for that, Utofable.

 

I’m sure someone will mention the planned movie adaptations of Heaven’s Feel. I’ll watch the movies when they are released, but I’m keeping my expectations nice and low.

 

Images are courtesy of Random Curiosity.