If I'm being honest, even as VN reader I enjoyed myself very much with this adaptation, and if you scroll down you'll see I rated it 8.5/10, which is a very good score. However, as an adaptation it's quite a mixed bag and there are multiple problems (and strengths) of this adaptation I want to properly address.
As always, this review contains spoilers. I expect you to have watched the anime. Now, grab some popcorn while reading because this review will be long.
#Content
Fate/stay night is and always will be a character-driven story. Each route explores the psyche of our main character Shirou Emiya, and each route offers a different answer and solution to the problem our protagonist struggles with. Given that they’re 1000 different watch orders for no reason, I won’t elaborate more on other routes, but it’s important to understand that Fate/stay night is one story as a whole with Shirou as its centre. Especially UBW as second route explores his psyche a lot and sets necessary stakes for the final route, Heaven’s Feel.
#Emiya Shirou – A character study
Shirou suffers under severe survivor guilt and has little to no self-worth. Instead of valuing himself, he places importance on saving others, becoming a superhero who can save everyone. He’s aware he’s no superhero, and he’s also aware that he’s powerless, but all he cares about is the path he took and the goal at the end. His survivor guilt is that severe, that he can only accept the fire as outcome if he thrives to be a hero of justice. For him, it’s logical and obviously the “right thing”.
Even if this type of mindset is highly self-destructive when he doesn't care about himself. Archer explains it with money: You can help someone by giving them money, and you may feel good about it. But if you don't use money for yourself and keep giving it to others, you will have nothing left. It doesn’t matter what type of person you are, but you will eventually run out of money and that’s where you’ll collapse.
UBW focuses heavily on the self-destructive aspect, not only by having several characters pointing out Shirou's flawed mindset but also providing a mirror with Archer, who is the future version of himself in an alternate timeline. In that timeline, Emiya made a contract with the world, Araya, and became a counter guardian. By that, however, he basically made himself a slave, by having to counter threats to mankind over and over like a machine. This cycle of killing he was forced to go through eventually led to desperation, because he never was able to fulfil his ideals. Instead of saving everyone he had to choose lives over others, even if it destroyed him inside little by little. As a result, Archer cannot stand Shirou, who will go down the same path as him and his main goal becomes to kill the Shirou who will become Archer.
It’s important though that Archer still wants to save people. He lost his faith in his ideals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this ideal itself is false. Ever since Kiritsugu saved Shirou in the fire, the idea of saving people became beautiful to him. The beauty of his ideal is the conclusion Shirou arrives at, which becomes the fundamental reason why he simply can’t give up on them. Difference between the two is therefore a matter of faith; Whether you still can believe in your ideals of not. And the solution UBW offers is that, in fact, you can still believe. But in order to do so, you need great perseverance and belief, a struggle Shirou sees himself conflicted with when quite literally his own self tells him to give his ideals up. In the fight in the Einzbern castle Shirou even experienced memories from Archer, picturing clearly before his eyes what path he may end up on.
The thing is, Shirou only has his ideals. Saber once asked him the reason why he wants to be a superhero, and Shirou struggled with an answer, because saving others is something natural for him, it defines him. It's like having to answer why sugar tastes good. People meme about the "even if you're correct, you're wrong" line, but given the context, it makes a lot of sense. If Shirou would give up on his ideals, he would end up like Archer: Disillusioned, desperate and bitter. The struggle in UBW lies between facing an apparent inevitable truth and staying true to oneself. The final clash between Archer and Shirou in the Einzbern castle will always be one of my favourite fights in all of Fate/stay night simply because it drives Shirou’s perseverance and determination to the utmost limit.
The VN showed this by having Shirou fight in a very self-destructive way, where he would simply collapse once he stops to fight. At the brink of death, he still couldn’t bring himself to admitting Archer is right, even under massive headache and a body which screams at him with incredible pain, he still kept his belief that he can’t be wrong for pursuing his ideals. And even if Archer was able to finish him off (which he initially intended) Shirou's determination lasting throughout the whole fight frightened him, and he couldn't fathom that Shirou would be able to keep fighting in such a state. But, contrary to his expectations, Shirou kept fighting like a dead corpse, ultimately leading to Archer not being able to stop the final attack of Shirou and getting stabbed.
UBW openly shows Shirou's flaws, and it also shows that his ideal in itself is not bad. As long as he can keep believing in it, he can either die satisfied by having tried to live up to his ideals the outmost, or arrive at a different answer previously given. And as long as he doesn't let himself get destroyed by his own ideals, they can be a very beautiful and admirable thing in themselves. You can say that UBW as a whole is one big challenge for Shirou to prove, that he can do just that.
#Where Ufo’s UBW failed
As beautiful as it is with how deeply layered the VN explores Shirou’s character, it also exposes the issues I have with this adaptation. The fundamental issue lies with leaving out a lot of monologue which never should’ve been removed. Leaving out monologues may work in a plot-driven story, but in a character-driven story like Fate/stay night it removes one of the core aspects of why this is such an incredible story. I will not say that they didn't try: We see the fire and the tragedy of the previous grail war multiple times, and the anime takes its time to show that Shirou is clearly not normal. But it's simply not enough. An extreme example would be the date in episode 12 of season 1, which actually receives a rather dark tone in the VN due to Shirou blaming himself for having fun and actually enjoying himself.
Leaving out this piece of monologue completely transformed the meaning and tone of the scene, making it simply a nice cutesy scene. That’s not necessarily bad, of course, but given that the VN uses every opportunity possible to break down Shirou as a character the end result is much more impactful than the anime, which reduces his characterization to the necessary minimum. Instead of having insight into Shirou’s mind, we only see people bashing him and pointing out his flaws, which doesn’t help with relating to his struggle and leads to not being very impactful. It even feels jarring at times, because it seems like the anime just keeps repeating the obvious.
I think it’s also no secret that people dislike Shirou as a character, because he is “stupid” and “dense”. And while this sometimes is not an issue of UBW itself, but fans for example having different expectations after watching Fate/Zero (which is a whole other topic in itself), I think it’s also a fault of the adaptation. We know Shirou has survivor guilt, we know that he has no self-worth. But because it’s not that apparent on many occasions, his behaviour seems stupid and illogical from an outside perspective. His mindset and worldview are so warped, that it’s important to gain as much insight into his way of thinking as possible, in order to be able to relate to him properly.
It’s not only core aspects like his survivor guilt, however: Removing monologue removes some nuances to his personality as well, a good example would be when Tohsaka wants to talk to him in episode 8. In the anime it looks like he is pretty slow for not picking up immediately, that she wants to talk to him. VN readers know however, that he indeed realized she was waiting for him, but was unsure how to handle the situation. There were multiple approaches to handle it (you can make choices in the VN to alter the story) and the anime went with the choice where he decides to play dumb on purpose.
It just saddens me that people don’t know that Shirou can be pretty snarky as well, but unlike Archer he still cares about being polite and leaves certain thoughts to himself. And this is not to blame on the viewer, but on weird adaptation choices.
The climax of the route, Archer vs Shirou, also felt a bit hollow in the anime because of the missing characterization and build-up. I also dislike, how there is a clear cut between talking and fighting, which takes away a lot of the intensity in this battle. It’s not visible enough that Archer clearly intended the kill at the start, but his confidence wavered as the fight progressed. Changing the scenery to UBW also felt a bit overblown, with Archer and Shirou going back-and-forth instead of one continuous clash which stakes are on whoever will surrender first. I will admit however, that the climax is satisfying, and LiSA’s song “Last Stardust” is great.
With all my criticism I nonetheless still immensely enjoyed the UBW anime. Usually it’s the other way around when critiquing something, but now that we looked at its main flaw first, let’s have a look at stuff I actually really liked.
#Nothing beats a smiling Saber
I think it’s no secret that UBW has high production values. Of course, what first comes to mind are the jaw-dropping fights, which’ storyboards visibly had a lot of freedom to work with to create well-choreographed and intense action scenes. You can argue that this is natural by having a more talented director and storyboarder like Miura than for example what Demon Slayer got with Sotozaki, but I feel the fewer limitations from the VN source material are also a big factor.
▶ Video Key Animation: Akihiko UdaAnd maybe that’s just my own bias speaking, but I feel like Yuichi Terao (head of digital department in Ufotable) really shines more in an urban setting like Fate/stay night and Kara no Kyoukai. Fuyuki at night looks wonderful, and structured high-rise buildings transition so well into 3D.
The Noble Phantasms of the servants also give him plenty of opportunity to be as flashy as possible, assisted by incredible key animation from Ufotable’s strongest animators. Abe, Kunihiro, Obunai… UBW received the full package and it shows.
▶ Video Key Animation: [Nozomu Abe]( /staff/116271/abe-nozomu) Technically freelancer but let’s call him half-employed at this pointThe beauty of the visuals extends to simple character movements too. It was a joy to see all these characters animated, and they did a great job capturing Fuji-ness quirkiness, Rin’s charm and Shinji simply being Shinji. The modernized character designs of course are a matter of taste, but I enjoy them for what they are and they accentuate the traits of each character fairly well.
▶ Video Key Animation: [Masato Nagamori]( /staff/124353/nagamori-masato) (presumed)And of course, we can’t forget Saber, the epitome of holiness itself, a goddess I will never stop simping in my lifetime. Seeing how all the little moments of her are brought to life simply left me in awe.
Soundtracks and sound design are also great, can’t comment much on that however because I know shit about music. I thoroughly enjoyed the OST though, especially [Fukasawa’s]( /staff/103288/fukasawa-hideyuki) take on EMIYA.
In total it’s hard to deny that the presentation of Ufo’s UBW is nothing but stunning, and that’s why I love it nonetheless even while knowing the VN, which, in my opinion, is still the superior version. Maybe it’s exactly because I know the VN that I’m able to fill gaps an anime-only is not able to? I don’t know. I want to address as last topic though that there is actually stuff in this adaption the VN doesn’t contain. I spoke in great length about how they butchered Shirou’s characterization, but that’s not by any means the only change/addition in this anime. And some of these are actually (at least for me) pretty welcomed.
#What the anime has which the VN doesn’t
You either have an adaption which leaves stuff out, an adaption which changes content slightly or an adaption which is extremely faithful and adds anime-original content on top. Ufo’s UBW somehow managed to tick all the boxes.
The anime-original content is most likely to be credited to Nasu Kinoko himself, the writer of the VN. He was fairly involved into the production process in writing scenarios for the anime and attending meetings, and some of the changes are probably also to be credited to him. That man somehow seems to dislike everything he wrote in the past, to the point that Miura (and also Sudo later on for the Heaven’s Feel movies) had to restrict him in his desire to rewrite everything. I just hope once Fate Remake happens Nasu can show some love to his original work lol
As a VN reader, I did like the anime original content though. Examples would be Illya vs Rin in their first encounter, Rin investigating the gas incidents or the extended backstory for Illya in episode 3 of the second season. It’s not anything major, but it serves well as both filler but also interesting content and in my opinion, it also shows that there was a lot passion to be found in the anime as adaptation. The very last episode is also completely anime-original, not only providing great fan-service with Rin’s and Shirou’s life after the grail war but also giving pointers to connections to other franchises of the nasuverse. You can argue that this episode should’ve been an OVA and we should’ve gotten the normal epilogue in full length instead but it is what it is and I don’t think this is necessarily a dramatic change. For the very last scene I do prefer the script version (not VN, but the scenario written by Nasu) more than what actually ended up being the final product though.
To the other things I mentioned above, I think I don’t have to explain why there is cut content. This is bound to happen in a VN to anime adaption, but it can happen in a small scale that it doesn’t really matter that much. I think that’s the case of UBW, because while there is cut content they still included everything needed and there aren’t many question marks except when it comes to more detailed stuff in lore or systems. And even that is not that huge of an issue, because worldbuilding is mostly done in Fate (with Heaven’s Feel digging deeper into the lore).
When it comes to changes, they are there in numerous occasions and sometimes it’s pretty much a whatever, sometimes it’s a bit questionable. We all know that Ufotable likes to make fights flashy, so I don’t think anyone raised an eyebrow (I hope) when Shirou literally jumped 10 meters in his fight against Gilgamesh or was suddenly able to move in inhuman speed. Other examples would be in episode 2, where they changed the boundary field around the Emiya residence into a mechanical warning system (and 10 episodes later Rin praises their boundary field, very consistent writing) or in the first encounter of between Assassin and Saber. In the VN his sword was actually bent, which is the only reason she survived his sword technique. Since it’s pretty much a technique being able to warp space and time, her luck wouldn’t have saved her opposed to Gae Bolg.
#Conclusion
Especially among VN readers, you either love or hate it. It’s undeniable that the UBW anime did create misconceptions about Fate/stay night: For example, that it is a sequel to Fate/Zero or that Shirou is just a generic shounen protagonist. Does that mean it’s a bad adaptation? I don’t think so! I still enjoyed it for what it was, and I would prefer such an adaption, which sometimes was more experimental, any time over a bland boring adaptation, which may be more faithful but feels empty as an overall product. However, I think not every change made in this adaption was good, and I hope whoever is in charge in the Fate Remake (it’s not confirmed, I know, just let me have some hope) will revise some adaption choices, especially when it comes to monologue. As it stands now, Type-Moon X Ufotable is still a very exciting collaboration and I look eagerly forward to the Mahoyo movie in 2023.
Thank you for reading through this long review, and I hope I also gave some information you didn’t know before (for example if you’re an anime-only). Now that we’re at the end, enjoy this wonderful cut from the one and only [Nozomu Abe]( /staff/116271/abe-nozomu).
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