Type: Television Show
Episodes: 24
Rating: TV-14
Runtime Per Episode: 30 min
Director: Yamaguchi Yuji
Produced By the Fate Project, Studio DEEN, and others
Year Produced: 2005
A widely publicized visual novel turned anime, Fate/Stay Night was reserved just for the ending because of my love for it, and no matter what happened, I wanted to end on a high note (for me, not you. I don't really care what kind of "not" you end on, so long as you read this far).
I guess you could call this a cult classic, but I don't think it would be right to do so. I do know that the term "GAR" originated from here, but that's about as far as it infiltrated public opinion in so much as internet jargon (and I'll explain GAR later).
The visual novel was produced by a company called Type-Moon. If you know titles like Tsukihime or Melty Blood, then you know Type-Moon. They make good stuff. Though my current non-existent budget only allows me to buy Fate/Stay Night at the moment, I'll be getting the other two when I have the time to strike it rich.
If you're interested in buying these, I'll provide you with a link to a place that I know carries the Fate/Stay Night titles. There's also Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, and Fate/Zero, which are the top two on my shopping list.
The thing that you have to know about visual novels is that they are like those picture books that you might have been interested in when you were a kid. The way their set up is that they tell you what's going on, then give you a couple of choices on what to do, and then the story modifies around your choices/actions. It's pretty fun.
That being said, there are numerous endings, as well as entirely different story paths in visual novels, and Fate/Stay Night is no exception, and the visual novel version of it has three scenarios; Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel, all of which have been semi-combined into the anime, meaning that there are parts of all of the scenarios in the anime, but there are also a bunch of parts that are not there.
Emiya Shirou is the adopted child of Emiya Kiritsugu, who died quite a while ago after saving Shirou from a soon to be grizzly fate. The whole reason Shirou was orphaned in the first place was that the block that his house was on apparently exploded for, killing almost everybody, and leaving everything else in fiery chaos.
Shirou is generally over it by now, and is now living with his adopted elder sister Taiga in what I would call a mansion. Shirou is a high school student who attends the same school Taiga teaches at... in fact, Taiga is his homeroom teacher! But that doesn't really matter right now. What really matters is Shirou has a cute underclassman named Sakura coming over to his house every day and making him feasts. I don't know why (except the obvious, and does this happen all the time in Japan, and if so, how in the hell does it start?), but I'll go with it.
There's an important thing that you need to know about Shirou... he's a magician. I'm sorry, but I'm too lazy to try and sugar-coat it right now. His father (here meaning step-father) was a magician too before he died, and he's apparently taught Shirou a couple of things. Shirou's best at what's called "tracing", or determine the base materials that make up things, and using that power, he can find structural problems in appliances and stuff like that. He's also pretty decent at "strengthening" materials, which is just how it sounds.
He obviously keeps this a secret and nobody around him knows, not even Taiga.
All around the city there have been strange incidents that is beginning to scare people, people are passing out from suspected gas leaks, and the police obviously have no idea what to do.
One day, Shirou is staying late at school cleaning up when he hears something outside. When he goes to investigate, he finds two warriors battling each other with a lance and swords.
Unsure of what to do, Shirou is quickly found out by the warriors and is eventually chased down by the lance guy. After having seen the fight, it is some kind of law that Shirou can't be left alive... but a law for what?! And just like that, the lance guy kills Shirou.
End of Story? No. You might wish it was, but then you'd be missing one of the greatest characters of all time.
As Shirou is lying there in the hallway, dead, someone comes to him. His classmate TÅsaka Rin, the master of the swords guy (I realize that this is starting to confuse the hell out of you right around now, but all the more reason to watch the anime or play the game).
Rin is horrified by Shirou's death, and... somehow revives him. Freaking magic, man. Seriously.
When he gets back home, Shirou is still a little anemic, I mean, he got run through the heart, how could he not be?
When things couldn't get much worse, the Lancer guy, who's gotten away from the other guy (Rin's servant), finds him again. We don't know how, but we just accept the fact that this guy has a bug up his ass about Shirou, mostly because he saw something that he shouldn't have. The fact that he is a magician doesn't seem to earn him any points with Lancer, who eventually chases him down again into some kind of storage shack.
Just when Lancer is about to deliver the killing blow, something happens and a beautiful girl blitzes out a magic circle and beats Lancer back. She turns to Shirou and asks him if he's her master.
A "yes" would be an awesome answer here, by the way. If any cute girl comes up to you and asks you if you're her master... say yes. I know I will. Girls... since you're generally not considered to be as perverted or horny as guys, I don't know what you should say, but general consensus is that if it's a guy, it's up to you, and if it's another girl, guys will try to watch.
I loved this anime, end of story. It was nicely timed and well developed, and had a lot of awesome Taiga and Saber moments.
The plot line was a bit jammed in the beginning, to the point where I had to pause the anime a couple of times in the first several episodes to read the subtitles and the explanations that the subbers made.
The art was awesome. Among my top ten artists of all time. Woot to the max.
The animation was nice and smooth, and since there was a lot of action sequences in there, I had a lot of time to analyze it. There wasn't too much in the way of innovative animation that I could see, but that didn't change the base line that it flowed well.
Japanese is always the best. The actors that were in this weren't in a lot of other stuff that I remember noticing them from (but that means hardly nothing), but the actress for Saber was in more than a few things that I've seen.
And another thing... has every actor/actress that I've seen in all the animes that I've ever watched, played a part in a Gintama episode? What's up with that? Maybe I should just watch it already.
The music wasn't bad, but wasn't hard enough to keep my interest for too long. It was more long the whimsical side, which is okay for this anime I suppose, but I wasn't too interested in it. There you go.
Fate/Stay Night Mintheatre
Fate/Stay Night TV Reproduction
The second link is a link to something that they did after the final broadcast. They compiled all of the episodes into two 60 minute OVAs, and that's what's here. I don't really get it, and I didn't watch it because I was fine with the original versions (that and it was in parts... I hate parts), but it's totally up to you.
... and that is the end of this review, and the last review that I am going to be doing on this blog for a while... possibly forever. But if that's the case, I'll probably just shut it down, so don't worry.
Tune in tomorrow for a final thesis thing that won't interest you unless you're going to be wanting my final opinion on being a reviewer... which you won't.
Alert!
If you don't like spoilers, or still want to watch the show now, you'd better stop reading!
I totally understand why you're confused, and I'll do my best to explain it to you without just totally wimping out and copying it off Wikipedia or something, so here we go!
What you need to know is that those warrior guys are Servants summoned by magical Masters to participate in the Holy Grail War, a "war" that consists of seven Japanese mages fighting each other conveniently in a single city... in Japan. The only flaw that I see here is that it's only Japanese people who are invited... what's up with that? They're summoning people out of European, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean myths, so why weren't they invited?
The Servants are heroes out of the world's mythology, as well as out of the world's future mythology, since the summoning system works weird and summons heroes from any time in the world's past, present, and all possible futures.
As you might have been able to tell, these Masters and their Servants are fighting to obtain possession of the Holy Grail, a mythical object that grants the holder's wish, so the Servant-Master relationship is mutually beneficial to both parties... assuming they both survive.
Now if the Servant dies, the Master is out of the game, and technically safe, but not all Servants play by the rules.
Speaking of rules, Servants are kind of obligated to follow their Master's orders, but since the Servants are basically still humans, they retain their own free will, and as such, make their own decisions. If the Master's don't like their Servant's decision, they can use a "Command Spell", which is something that all Masters are given when they summon their Servant. Every Master has 3 ultimate orders that Servants have to carry out, or 3 impossible feats that are bestowed upon the Servant. 3 whatevers.
If the Master dies, then the Servant, who is sustained in the physical world by a mana-link to their Master, will disappear unless something happens, I'll get to that later on, along with GAR.
When there's only one more Master left, the Holy Grail will... I dunno, fall from the heavens into their hands and viola!
Back to the real story. Shirou's just unwittingly become a Master to Saber, supposedly the best Servant to be chosen from (though she gets outclassed by other Servants in domains like Skill and Strength, Saber's the best probably because of her all-around balance at a pretty high level... and another reason that I can't explain right now).
Rin is also a Master to Archer, that sword guy from the beginning, not that that matters right now.
Saber saves Shirou from a second immediate death and begins to fight Lancer, and it's to the point where Lancer understands that he's got practically no chance with the battle going this way. He notices that Saber's weapon is invisible and he asks her if that's her "Noble Phantasm", but she doesn't respond, so Lancer decides to unleashes his skill; Gae Bolg, which is some kind of homing attack that strikes for the heart.
Saber managed to dodge most of it, but still got clipped, and Lancer decided to retreat under his Master's order.
When Shirou tries to help Saber, he soon discovers that he can't... not without knowing how to use healing magic, which he can't do.
Chagrined by this, Saber decides to crusade out again, this time to take care of someone else, namely Archer and Rin, who've come by Shirou's house under Rin's order to try and protect Shirou from getting slaughtered by Lancer again. Their too late to do it themselves, and then they get to meet Saber, who proceeds to beat the crap out of Archer, to the point where Rin uses some kind of special magic to make Archer disappear.
When Saber is about to kill Rin, Shirou stops her, and after a "argument" during which Shirou states the obvious and tells them that he's got no idea what's going on.
Shirou and Rin have a rather short talk about the Master-Servant relationship that I've already described, and then Rin decides to take Shirou to visit a survivor of the previous war (there's one every 10 years (since when?)).
Turns out this guy is some kind of priest that lives in a church nearby. His name is Kotomine, and he was a loser from the last war.
Kotomine proceeds to fill in Shirou on everything else about the war, including the way to win.
When Shirou hears this, he has some kind of panic attack, and states that he won't be killing anyone, but he'll still play. I don't know if this is admirable... or just stupid, but I'm pretty sure that this is the reason most people hate him. I don't, but I did find his antiques kind of annoying after a while.
On the way back to his house, Shirou, Saber, and Rin are confronted by a little girl with white hair... and a huge, fucking giant with a hardedge. Yikes.
Turns out this little girl, named Ilya (for short, I don't feel like typing her entire name), is also a Master in this war, and she's the Master of Berserker, the strongest Servant.
He's also Hercules out of Greek mythology, a fact which pisses Saber and Rin off, because Servants are supposed to guard their identities because it reveals something about their skills, their fighting styles, and their weaknesses, but there you go.
Saber charges out for some reason (I'd retreat), and what with her injuries and her lack of a decent Master, Saber gets totally owned, but refuses any help from Saber. Ilya, already bored with the game, orders Berserker to kill Saber, but Shirou isn't going to stand for that.
Shirou grabs Saber and hauls her out of the way, but gets whacked in the back by the hardedge, and goes down... hard... dead hard.
Ilya is surprised by this turn of events... I mean, nobody sacrifices themselves for their Servant... unless their Servant is Saber (in case you didn't know... I'm a Saber freak). She decides to call the fight off, and leaves with Berserker, telling Rin that she'll kill her next.
Somehow, a seemingly frail Rin and a hacked-up Saber (my bad, apparently Rin on her own) manage to haul Shirou's dead, bloody ass back to his, and upon their arrival, they discover that he's regenerating himself. Handy technique... especially after you get smashed in two by a gigantic sword.
The next morning, Shirou wakes up again, and finds Rin criticizing his tea choices. They have a rather short chat during which it is again recognized that Shirou is an incompetent Master.
Upon her departure, Rin warns Shirou not to think of her as another human anymore, since she's going to be trying to defeat him win herself. It's nice that she's trying to give him a chance, but it'll be hard for Shirou to see a girl as not human. That's what makes him a harem lead character. Hey, I'm the same way as him! Where's my house-full of hot chicks cooking me meals and sleeping with me?!
Shirou goes out and checks around the house, looking for Saber, and he finally finds her in the house's dojo (doesn't your's have one?).
He and Saber have a talk during which Saber gets angry with him for sacrificing himself to protect her. Saber is somewhat of a feminist (I guess you could call her that), and she's got a problem with people treating her like a woman/girl rather than a warrior.
Saber tells Shirou that the way their bond is right now, she can't act to her fullest potential, meaning that their mana flow is bad... real bad. There's another way to improve it, but it involves siphoning humans of their mana... essentially killing them. Both Saber and Shirou are totally against this, and they finally find a common ground... then they go to eat breakfast.
When they get to the house, Shirou decides that it's a bad idea to show Saber to the other girls that keep coming over to his house, who knows what'll happen. Saber agrees and goes to sleep... for the whole day. At school, Shirou's reflecting on his actions, and decides that treating Saber that way was pretty rude.
When dinner time comes, Shirou feels another pang of guilt and goes to fetch Saber from her room, introducing her to Sakura and Taiga. Taiga especially has a problem with this and ultimately challenges Saber to a duel using shinai, but it totally defeated... even after the fake shinai gag.
Still unconvinced, Taiga and Sakura decide to stay the night to watch over the two, and Shirou and Saber reluctantly agree for their own reasons.
The next morning, Taiga and Sakura are cool with Saber, and they leave ahead of Shirou, who is held back by Saber to have a talk. Saber understands that Shirou would be in even more trouble if she were to follow him around for the whole day, but she also knows that Shirou is very vulnerable while he's alone, especially since Rin goes to the same school as him, so she tells him that if trouble comes up, that he should use one of his Command Spells to summon her. Shirou agrees.
At school, the day is mostly normal... until later that afternoon when Rin attacks him, using her own magical skills (which are pretty cool). Shirou manages to evade them until he's chased into an empty classroom, which Rin then blows up.
Amazingly, Shirou is still alive (okay, so it's not all that amazing any more, but there you go). He staggers out of the smoking room to find Rin waiting for him. Rin proposes a deal to him, his Command Spells for his life.
Shirou refuses Rin's proposal, and prepares for death. Just as he is about to be executed (for a record 3rd time, you know, if they can't kill you on the 3rd try, they're supposed to let you go...), Shirou is startled by a scream from another classroom.
He and Rin go to investigate, and find a girl passed out on the ground. Her mana's been siphoned out, and she'll die if she doesn't get help soon. Rin (not a passive bystander) begins to tend to the girl, and as Shirou goes to close the door, something comes flying out of nowhere towards Rin's face.
Shirou reaches out and protects Rin against the flying... piece of rebar on a chain... what the hell?
Shirou (like the idiot even I, probably his biggest fan (sad, yeah? (but then again, if you're playing the visual novel, and you still hate him, you've kind of got a problem because... you're kind of him.))) decides to go out and investigate.
For some reason, he walks into a dreary forest, and eventually finds what he's looking for. Another hot chick, this on in some kind of dominatrix outfit with a chain and some... spikes, okay, that's not to sexy. Actually, I kind of lose my interest at the chain part, I'm not that into masochism.
Surprisingly, Shirou is actually able to match strength with this Servant, who's still better than him for quite a few reasons. For one, she's got him chained to her weapon since the beginning. She hauls him up a tree and is about to kill him when Rin busts in and cuts him down. The Servant retreats from the scene.
Rin and Shirou have a rather awkward moment where Shirou asks her if she's going to finish him off, and Rin decides to call it a day, and takes Shirou back to her house to tend to his wound.
Once there, they discuss the fact that there is obviously another Master at their school, an unscrupulous one at that, since he's using other people's mana to keep his Servant strong.
They ultimately get on the topic of a forcefield that was put up around the school sometime that morning. In light of this other more threatening Master, Rin proposes a truce, which Shirou accepts.
Over the course of the rest of the night, Shirou ends up telling Rin that he's not actually blood-related to his adopted father, and that he didn't pass his "Magic Mark" down to him when he died.
When Shirou mentions that his father was indifferent to Shirou's interest in magic or not, Rin gets pissed, claiming that a magician's duty is to pass their magic down to the next generation, and the fact that Shirou's father chose to do otherwise pisses her off, since her father obviously didn't.
With the chime of the clock, the night is over, and Rin orders Archer to escort Shirou back to his house, which Archer grudgingly does.
When they arrive outside Shirou's house, Archer asks him if he really intends on fighting the Holy Grail War without killing anyone. When Shirou says yes, Archer lays into him. I'm not a huge fan of all of Shirou's decisions, but I generally find that I agree with most of them, so to me, Archer was being pretty bitchy.
In the end, Archer bounces off, telling Shirou that his meaningless ideals will soon be destroyed by reality. Damn, that's not very nice.
The next morning, Shirou sets off to school. When Rin shows up to walk with him, Sakura, who was looking forward to that herself gets sad/embarrassed and runs ahead of them.
Rin and Shirou agree to meet on the rooftop at lunch, but when Shirou runs into Sakura on the way up the stairs, he takes the time to explain things to her... in other words, more or less lie.
Rin and Shirou finally meet and Rin explains things about the forcefield to Shirou. It's a diabolical field that when completed, will lock down the school and suck the life out of everybody there. Evil.
The good news is that it's still under construction, and if they can locate and destroy all of the pylons that make it up, then they can destroy the field. Good. And so they set off, using Shirou's unusually high awareness of magical presence, and Rin's mad magical skills.
At the end of the day, Shirou and Rin go their separate ways, but a couple of steps after he they do, Shirou gets plastered by an overwhelming feeling of a magical presence. Upon further investigation, Shirou finds a huge magic seal inside the archery... dojo thing. And he also finds Rider and her master there. Rider, by the way, is that chick from the forest, and her Master is one of Shirou's "friends", and Sakura's brother, Shinji.
Shinji takes Shirou back to his place and offers him a alliance against Rin, but Shirou refuses and decides to leave. As he is leaving, Shinji offers Shirou one last piece of advice. Seems that there's a witch living up on mount Ryuudouji, which is the home of a temple filled with monks... and Issei, Shirou's friend (one of his real ones).
Unsure whether or not Shinji's words are true or not, Shirou runs into Issei himself on his way back home. When Issei mentions the beautiful women that has suddenly moved into the temple, Shirou decides that Shinji's information, no matter how untrustworthy it might be, is still worth consideration.
Back at home, Shirou fills in Rin and Saber on the events, and when Saber says that they should charge out and deal with the witch atop the mountain first, Shirou rejects the idea, unwilling to charge willingly into what was probably a trap. Rin agree with him, and then asks where her room is.
... What? Another hot girl moving in? Well, let's see, we've got underclassman (Sakura), comedy (Taiga), emotionally detached, and probably deeply emotionally wounded (Saber), and now the much needed tsundere (Rin). Harem route activated!
That night, annoyed with Shirou's lack of willingness to go out and meet the enemy, Saber goes out on her own to Ryuudouji, where she finds the next Servant waiting to block her path.
Assassin (I need to tell you something about him later) and Saber have a fight, during which Assassin eventually is forced to use his Ultimate Phantasm, but ultimately fails to actually hit Saber.
While all this is going on, Shirou's woken up and realized where Saber's gone, and has gone out to find her, and Rider has used the commotion on the steps of the temple to break into the actual temple. When she gets there, she finds dozens of animated skeletons waiting for her.
When she kills them, she discovers another Servant waiting for her; Caster, who's ability is... casting spells. Actually, if you want to get technical, she's Assassins Master. Because of her ability and power, the Servant Caster was actually able to summon another Servant to her. Cool, yeah? Two for one. Bitchin'.
Saber and Assassin are about to finish their fight. Despite her weakened condition, Saber decides to unleash her Ultimate Phantasm, but as she is summoning up the power to do so, Shirou enters the general area, and his presence caused someone else to move around in the underbrush. A spy from another Master, checking on other Servant's NPs.
Assassin lowers his sword and decides to leave for the night, since the duel is pretty much over in terms of momentum. Back in the main temple grounds, Rider takes advantage of the disturbance caused by Saber's NP to escape, her recon work is done.
After Assassin leaves, Saber passes out from lack of mana and Shirou carries her back home where he finds Rin waiting for them.
When Shirou and Rin have their talk this time, Shirou is strangely surprised to learn that Saber's body can't really handle unleashing a NP. Since the mana connection between the two of them isn't very stable, and mana is only (supposedly) flowing one way, Saber can't even properly heal on her own, let alone fight on such a high level.
Shirou tries to yell at Saber for going out on her own, but it doesn't help when she counters his attack with one of her own. It really pushes her buttons when you treat her like a woman. I can understand a woman being annoyed when she's being treated differently because she's a woman, but when it gets to the point where they lose it because someone's caring about their physical wellbeing... I'm sorry, but I'm not sure to do.
Saber finally agrees to allow Shirou to do most of the fighting... so long as he'll agree to be taught by Saber from that point on.
The next day, Shirou and Saber begin their intensive training, which pretty much consisted of Saber beating the crap out of Shirou every time he tried to do anything. It was kind of sad, actually.
After they had been working for a couple of hours, Shirou asks Saber what she wants the Grail for, what her wish is. Saber tells him that she wants the Grail to fulfill something that she didn't finish in her lifetime, or maybe just go back and redo the entire thing.
After that uplifting question, Shirou goes out get something to eat. As he's leaving the store, he runs into... Ilya! Oh holy shit!
She hasn't brought Berserker with her today, and has snuck out of her mansion in the woods to come out on the town. When she meets Shirou again, she's happy that he's still alive, the kind of happy you are when you figure out a toy that you thought you had broken was repairable.
When she pulls out the moe eyes, Shirou is guilt-tripped into accompanying her to the park, where Shirou asks her a couple of worthless questions, but also figures out that she's actually not technically a magician.
On his way home (yes, he's still alive), Shirou decides that it'd be better to keep that day's meeting with Ilya a secret from Saber and Rin.
When he actually gets home, Shirou begins cooking dinner. As he does, Rin comes in and tells him that Shinji's approached her today and proposed another alliance, but she rejected him hands down.
Shirou is later hijacked by Rin to study magic. When Rin asks Shirou to reinforce a lamp... he breaks it. Rin makes him swallow a jewel, which somehow allows him to control his magic circuit, which is allows the magician to control their mana.
As Shirou is taking a break, Archer comes from... nowhere, and tells him that he's got no chance to beat any Servant. But then Archer tells Shirou that he must imagine what he can beat, and that's about it. Too bad for him.
As Shirou is trained over the next couple of days, Rin comes to the conclusion that he's more than just incompetent at reinforcing... it seems he can't do it. And that was his only skill, too.
Actually it's not. When Rin checks the storage shed, she finds a bunch of crap that Shirou's summoned out of thin air, an even better and stronger type of magic.
Shirou gets a phone call. It's Shinji, calling from school. He's got something to tell Shirou, but doesn't want Rin to know, so Shirou goes alone.
When Shirou finally gets to school, nobody's around. As he investigates the school, he is suddenly overwhelmed by some force, the same kind that he felt outside the archery place. When he looks outside, he sees that the entire school is surrounded by a massive magical barrier. The only person not being drained is... Shinji, what a fucking surprise.
When Shinji finally tells Shirou that he's not sorry about what he's done, and the fact that he's ended up kicking Taiga, Shirou somehow activates some hidden recess of magic and charges out against Shinji, who casts a spell against Shirou, but it doesn't work. Shirou keeps running forward, and is about to kick Shinji's scrawny ass when Rider comes down and stops him.
Shirou tries to fight Rider, but he can't keep up, and gets cut a bunch of times, and when Shinji asks Rider why she's screwing around, Rider goes in for the kill, but when she tries to stab Shirou, the blade snaps and breaks.
Only slightly surprised that she can't kill him with a blade, Rider takes the proactive approach to the situation... and kicks Shirou out of the window.
As he falls, Shirou finally decides to call Saber, using one of his Command Spells. When Saber tries to convince Shirou to back down for the day and let her handle it, Shirou refuses, saying that they both need to work together to free the school from the Blood Fort (that's the forcefield Shinji put up). Saber agrees and they set off together.
They soon find Rider and Shinji again, and Saber holds of Rider while Shirou chases down Shinji. When Shirou finally catches up with Shinji, he pins him down and chokes him until he releases the Blood Fort, but after he does, before Shirou can make him give up his Command Spells, Rider comes to his rescue and uses her Ultimate Phantasm to escape, but in the process, she destroys like... half the freaking school. Damn.
When Shirou and Saber get home, they have another talk with Rin. They end up discussing Rider's NP, and everyone who's not already familiar with the Grail War discovers that theres like... different classes of NP. Saber's is kind of a one-on-one thing that can be used many times, while Riders is like an all-in-one that she can use once since it takes up so much mana. The only reason she could use it there was she had amassed so much mana from the Blood Fort, she had some to spare.
Saber and Shirou decide to strike while the irons hot. To prevent Shinji from setting up another Blood Fort, they begin to chase him, but are having some serious problems finding him in the middle of town. When they investigate a factory in a secluded part of town, they are ambushed by Rider. Saber charges after her, following her up to the roof of the factory, while Shirou (like a lame-ass normal human) uses the stairs to climb... very slowly).
On the top of the roof, Rider unleashes her NP, which turns out to be this Pegasus thing that she rides around on. I don't really see the awesomeness of this, but I suppose the speed advantage plus the ability to fly would be nice, but ultimately useless if you bring her down to the street level where those skills would be hindered if not totally useless. That's what Saber should have done, but like an idiot, she decided to stay up in on the roof.
When Shirou finally arrived on the roof, Saber realized that he was in danger of getting slaughtered by the NP, and is forced to release her own, a wind-based attack where her sword materializes (her sword being Excalibur, making her King... Arthur? Rule 63. Awesome.) and she can fire this huge beam of mana, destroying everything in it's path.
Needless to say Rider is defeated, and Shinji runs like a little bitch... right into his worst nightmare. Saber is exhausted from the attack and passes out again, but this time it's worse, she's drained her mana, and is fighting to even remain in the physical world. Servant suicide... almost.
Rin tells Shirou that Saber will ultimately fade from their world if she doesn't replenish her mana soon. Since there is no connection between the two of them, the only way is to suck the mana out of bystanders, and neither of them like that (well I'm assuming that Saber's not too thrilled, she can't tell us straight out becuase she's in a coma basically).
Shirou goes out to clear his head and runs into Ilya waiting for him at the park. When he tries to tell her that he can't talk at the moment, she mentions that she knows that Saber's dying, and when Shirou looks back at her, she casts a spell on him, binding him, and then putting him to sleep.
Congragulations! You caught a "Shirou"!
Would you like to name it?
>Yes
No
Saber wakes up from her very long nap. She staggers around the house looking for Shirou, but when she can't find him, she goes to Rin, asking her and Archer for help. Archer refuses, saying that Shirou'd be a waste of time, but Rin's moved by Saber's concern for Shirou and tells Archer; "Tough cookies, you're going.".
It's like their married.
Shirou wakes up again, and finds that he's inside Ilya's castle in the forest. Ilya tells him that she'll spare his life if he agrees to become her servant (and all I could think was 'What, Berserker II?'), but Shirou refuses, telling her that since he's Saber's Master, he couldn't do that, and Ilya decides that she'll just follow her original plan... and kill everyone, just like she killed Shinji, and she leaves Shirou alone in the room.
Shirou, desperate to stop her begins to try and use his magic to get himself out of the ropes that tie him to the chair, and finally manages to get out just as Saber and the others bust into the room.
They've come to save him! As if they couldn't.
Too bad they're found out and caught in a corner by Ilya and more importantly... her maids Stella and Liz, ohm and Berserker too, but nobody really noticed him. Okay, so I lied. It was just the maids, since in the doujins they kick serious ass.
With Saber out of mana and barely able to stagger, they have no choice... but to make Archer become a meat shield, which Archer agrees to. Actually what was originally proposed was that Archer would hold off Berserker while the others got away, but Archer asked Rin if he could basically commit suicide and Rin understood, agreeing with it.
Archer gives Shirou one last piece of nonsensical advice and then blocks the path so Berserker can't follow them any further.
I have to admit that at first I didn't like Archer. He was excessively rude in my book and didn't have a lot of air time to redeem himself, but all that changed. During my second viewing, I developed a new respect for Archer's awesomeness, and even though he's not my favorite Servant (actually not in the top five right now), he's still pretty good.
Archer's skill is that he can create anything that he wants to out of thin air so long as he has a clear vision of it. And that's not even his NP! He uses a bow, several different kinds of swords, and a rocket launcher.
Archer fought Berserker for a while, managing to trick him into a couple of traps, but was ultimately beaten down. During Archer's last stand, he creates another weapon and throws it past Ilya's head, showing that he could have killed her, but chose not to. He calls her Ilya, and Ilya recognizes something about him suddenly, but ignored it and ordered Berserker to finish him off, but you know it was just another trick.
Archer summoned/activated/whatever Ultimate Blade Works, his NP (though it's not an NP if you want to get technical, which I don't, so there you go), an alternate universe in which all of his weapons and whatever are all right there.
During his last fight with Berserker, he manages to do something five times before he dies, but I won't tell you quite yet.
That's right, if you were an Archer fan, I'm sorry, but he's dead.
As Rin, Shirou, and Saber run, Rin recognizes that Archer's gone, but they can't stop for anything... until Shirou accidentally trips and they decide that the way they're carrying on sucks, so they have to take another course of action.
Shirou and Saber undergo a ceremony that will transfer a part of Shirou's magic circuit to Saber, allowing her to produce her own mana, and supposedly have a better mana link with Shirou.
When they wake up again, Saber seems a lot more shy than normal, but that's kind of a side observation.
With no other real choice, the group decides to make a stand against Berserker and Ilya. Rin's pretty sure that if they can bait Berserker in far enough, she can use a powerful spell to own him, and then that'll be the end of Ilya. Happy that someone has a plan, Shirou and Saber agree and then head out.
They find a nice place to ambush Berserker, and Rin and Saber, who both have skills that they can use, are surprised when Shirou shows that he's not so useless anymore, and can actually turn a branch into like... a 50 pound bow. Good for him.
Shirou and Saber are found by Berserker (Rin's hiding in a tree above them), and the fight begins. Saber's still obviously outmatched by Berserker's strength (damn, didn't she ever play strategy games? You don't go toe-to-toe with someone who's stronger than you, you use redirection and their momentum... all that judo stuff), and eventually starts getting thrown around.
When Shirou tries to help, he discovers that Berserker's basically one big rock. The really sad thing about it is that Shirou gives up after one shot. At least try to nail him in the eye one, you idiot!
Rin finally sees her chance and leaps out of the tree, bombarding Berserker with spells, but they are useless against him, and he just grabs her. Rin (being of the "My best ideas involve me leaping into suicidal positions" persuasion), planned for this and blasts Berserker's head off with another barrage.
To all their disappointment, Berserker's not dead. Far from it. His NP is something called God Hand, a NP that gives him 12 lives, one for every trial that Hercules was put through before he was made immortal (if you know Greek mythology, you'll understand this). So that was what Archer managed to do 5 times, kill Berserker. Okay, so 5+1=6 and 12-6=6, so that means that Berserker has 6 li... 7 lives left.
...? What the fuck? Someone on the writing staff must not be to the "Basic Common-Knowledge Algebra" part of their "Preschool for People in their 40's" book.
Now Rin's in a bind. Berserker begins crushing the life out of her, and when Saber tries to save her, she just gets swatted away. Shirou decides that he can do better. Go for it!
No good.
After seeing Shirou get totally owned like that, Saber decides that the only way out is for her to use her NP, but since she's still very weak, Shirou knows that the NP will probably just kill her, so he uses another Command Spell and stops her from using it.
Shirou gets up again and stalks towards Berserker, this time not charging in bare handed, but rather deciding to follow Archer's advice and imagine something that he can use to beat Berserker. Shirou decides on the unbreakable blade; Excalibur.
The first time Shirou manages to summon the blade, he manages to use it to slice off Berserker's arm (the one holding Rin), but the blade's composition was flawed, and it broke, so Shirou manages to summon another one, but doesn't have the magical ability to properly use it... but Saber does. Together they wield the blade and ram it through Berserker, killing him 7 times. So even if the math is fucked, they still manage to defeat him.
With that, the battle is over. Shirou stops Saber from killing Ilya (which is actually supposed to be against her code, I think), and they retreat back home, where Shirou takes a nap for a week. Not really, but when he does wake up again, he finds that Saber's been watching over him the entire time... the entire time Ilya was sleeping in the same bed as him.
At breakfast, Shirou has an argument with Saber and Rin about letting Ilya stay with them, and when Rin points out that just because she's lost Berserker doesn't mean that she's harmless, Ilya states that she won't accept anyone other than Berserker as her Servant... except for Saber if Shirou dies, but Saber's not going with that one.
With that cleared up, Rin has only a slight problem with Ilya staying with them, and eventually Saber loses interest in fighting to keep her out and accepts her into the house (in her way).
Loli added to the fray, harem route set. You've got everything that you'll ever need.
Despite the fact that they just managed to beat Berserker, the group can't stop. Someone is causing similar Blood Fort accidents all over town, and everybody's pretty sure who it is... that bitch up on the mountain, and so they decide to stop her. Ilya tell them everything that she knows about the Servants on the mountain.
First, there are two of them, that Assassin guy, and Caster, the one that Rider faced.
Second, Assassin wasn't summoned by a normal Master (you already know this because I spilled the beans earlier), but was summoned by Caster, a powerful magician herself.
Third, Caster doesn't theoretically have a Master anymore. When she was summoned, Caster killed her Master and used her own immense mana to sustain herself, and is now using someone atop the mountain as some kine of pseudo-master or whatever. Confusing, yeah? Not really.
With this information, along with the fact that Rin sensed another Master inside their school who wasn't Shinji, along with the fact that Issei (during a random visit) practically told them, the group comes to the conclusion that the Caster's Master (ah ha ha, how lame) is probably one of their teachers, Kuzuki, who's been living on the mountain for 3 years.
The group decides to test this theory, and goes out that night to find out the truth... which is that Kuzuki is some kind of epic Boxing Master with hands of iron. I don't know why, but that kind of pissed me off randomly, but that doesn't change the fact that he was amazingly good at what he did.
That being said, Saber gets kind of owned, and Shirou barely stood a chance, even after summoning Archer's swords using his tracing power, but before they could fight any further, Caster and Kuzuki decided to stop, proposing a truce, actually an end to the war.
They said that if enough mana was gathered together, then they could actually make the Holy Grail, and that was why they were draining the people around town. One or two catches though.
Everyone in the town will be sucked dry, and they'll need another magician to act as a vessel for the Holy Grail, another sacrifice. A steep price compared to (worst case) 6 Master's lives, I'd say. An amazingly selfish plan.
The group refuses in a second, and with no more time to waste there, Caster and Kuzuki retreat from the battle to find their vessel. It doesn't take them long to realize that she's probably after Ilya, so they head back to the house, Saber going ahead because she can.
When Saber arrives at the house, she finds Sakura lying on the floor. When she goes to check on her, Sakura rises up and stabs Saber with a weird jagged weapon called Rule Breaker, Caster's NP, since Caster's possessed Sakura somehow.
Ruler Breaker is a bitchy little thing that has more relevance in different routes of the visual novel, but what it does it nullifies sorcery, or steals Command Seals. The weird thing is that in this route, Sakura (a blood magician, though she doesn't know it) doesn't have enough mana to nullify Saber's pact with Shirou, but in Unlimited Blade Works, Taiga's mana is enough to steal Saber away from Shirou... weird.
Well it doesn't really matter right now. The point is that somehow, Caster's managed to steal Saber's NP.
Shirou and Rin arrive in time for Caster to tell them that she's taking Sakura (who, like I said, is a magician by birth, not by practice) and use her as the vessel. Then she invites them to come to her temple and watch, but they decide to go and save Sakura (duh, but it's getting late).
The group sets out once again, and on the way up the stairs to the temple, Rin realizes that the temple's just a big waste of time, and rather leads the others into the forest where she finds a secret door which leads them into this sort of town that Caster created using her magic.
Inside the town there are skeleton puppets galore, not to mention two Servants and an annoyingly good Master (Masters should generally suck at everything, right? Rin's an exception, because if you look at any game and I guarantee the girl's will be better than the boys).
The group cuts their way up the the temple where they find Assassin waiting for them... well not for everybody, just Saber. Shirou and Rin go ahead while Saber and the time-challenged Assassin face off.
Up in the actual temple, they find Sakura (wearing the true dominatrix outfit, I'm sorry Rider, but you're trademark has been robbed (but more realistically, why in the fuck would you dress her up in this case anyway?)) who's already been put in the middle of a magic circle thing, and is being turned into a vessel for the Holy Grail.
As Rin goes down to get Sakura out, Caster tells her that she probably'll have trouble doing that, seeing as Sakura might not want to go. When she tells Sakura that "the person that she's longed for" is there, then Sakura goes nuts (it's not quite as explained as Heaven's Feel (since this is kind of a reference to that) but there you go)), and starts attacking Rin.
There are now three fights going on. Saber and Assassin are evenly matched (though I notice that Assassin leans back an abnormal amount, more than is necessary to compensate for the angle, and Saber never gets high ground, what's up with that), Kuzumi's kicking Shirou's ass, and Rin's having a moral dilemma with beating Sakura up, but she finally comes to the conclusion that there's only one way out, and goes up and purges the Grail whatevers from Sakura, but takes a hit from a knife in the process.
In case you weren't psychic, I'll tell you that Sakura and Rin are actually sisters, and Sakura was sent off to another family because she wasn't needed in the magician's family. God knows who made the idiot decision to send her to another magical family, but there you have it.
This is supposedly the reason that Sakura's going ballistic, although I don't really get it.
Caster reveals her true plan, to use Rin as the sacrifice now.
Saber and Assassin are both running out of time and Assassin wants to actually finish this fight, so they decide to both use their NPs on even ground, which they do.
Assassin, no matter how awesome he was, still couldn't beat Saber, and Saber goes ahead.
Shirou isn't doing so well, in fact, he gets punched off the high rise and plummets like 50 feet into the pit, but still gets back up after a second or two... wow.
As Caster tries to kill Shirou, but Saber manages to make it in time, even though without her true NP, she can't beat Caster. Caster begins to muse on what to do, but when she tells them that she'll spare Shirou if Saber replaces Assassin, someone on the sidelines gets kind of pissed.
Yippee, it's a whole new Servant. The Golden King, Archer-class has an immense NP... actually, he has about five or six thousand of them, which the throws at Caster and Kuzumi for trying to take "his property", namely Saber.
And the reason he's an Archer is because of his projectile way of fighting, if not, I would have made him a Lancer... it's just something about him.
Caster and Kuzumi are both killed (Caster actually died protecting Kuzumi who she loved (natura-freaking-ly)), and the town collapses around them. Shirou and the others haul ass out of there, managing to leave before they're killed in the cave-in.
Back at the house, someone did the math and figured out that there were 9 Servants in the game somehow. 8 was enough of a pain in the ass, add one more... one more with the power of nine or ten thousand and things get really bitchy.
But, as you could probably tell, he's not normal. He's actually a remnant from the last Grail War, and not a resummon like Saber, but has actually lived in the human world for 10 years after obtaining the Holy Grail and using the wish he got to have a second life.
Even though Saber remembers him from the last war, she was never able to figure out his true identity, but she does know that he has many NPs all of which are supplied by his actual NP, Gates of Babylon.
Another thing. During the last war, he actually proposed marriage to Saber in his prick kind of way. Saber refused and is still pissed about the idea. Being treated as a woman was bad enough, but a piece of property! Fuck off!
Later on, when Shirou asked Saber if it was true that Servants could continue on in the human world after the war, Saber told him that she had no intention of staying, when she got the Holy Grail, she'd use it to reset the past so a better person could become king.
Saber also reveals that her previous Master was Shirou's adopted father, who destroyed the grail and betrayed Saber the day they obtained it.
Shirou's kind of pissed that Saber didn't tell him that she was his father's Servant, but Saber just says that she couldn't quite understand the shift in personality between her Master and Shirou's dad.
Shirou decides to take a walk to clear his head, and suddenly finds himself at the church where Kotomine is, and he goes in to talk to him. Kotomine tells Shirou that it's quite easy to make Saber a... not-Servant. Just make her drink from the Holy Grail and viola! Saber'll stay in the human world as long as her Master (which she won't have if Shirou uses his last Command Spell to force her to drink...).
When Shirou asks about the eighth (ninth, you fool, what about Assassin?), Kotomine tells Shirou that he'll look into the matter, and Shirou leaves.
Back at the house, Shirou has made another monumental decision. He asks Saber out on a date, which she confusedly agree to.
They spend the day together (awkwardly for Shirou, who's having trouble inciting the romance into the situation), and at the end while they are walking home, Shirou incites... a fight, but I still got where he was coming from.
Shirou is convinced that Saber doesn't really want to fight, but rather is so wrapped up in guilt over her failures as king, she's driving herself to destruction and not accepting her past.
Saber's... being Saber, and denying all allegations that she doesn't want to fight, since that was what she existed for, to obtain the Holy Grail.
Shirou tries to tell Saber to live for herself, and accept her past mistakes and look to the future, and Saber rightly points out that this is a massively hypocritical statement coming from he overly-suicidal Shirou, and things eventually escalate to the point where Saber suggests that they cancel their pact if Shirou can't deal with it, and Shirou says "That's fine by me!" and runs off like some kind of child, leaving Saber alone on the bridge.
Back at his house, Shirou takes an "angry nap", and even when he wakes up, Saber hasn't returned.
Frightened that Saber might have gone off to fight the other Servants, Shirou runs out to search for her and finds her still standing on the bridge.
Shirou grabs Saber and tells her that she should come back to his house, and even though he doesn't care about her, and won't apologize to her (I wouldn't either in that situation... to the latter, not the former, I just wouldn't tell her that), she still belongs at home.
On their... intimate way back, they meet up with the Golden King... again. Freaking dandy.
Shirou tries to give Saber the chance to run, but is mowed down in a second almost during an ironic line, and Saber goes freak, but is still not strong enough. When she asks the Golden King who he really is, he tells her. I'll explain it in a math problem because it's funnier that way.
Golden King = King of Heroes = Gilgamesh
... Okay, so it wasn't that funny, but there you go.
Gilgamesh and Saber both use their personal NPs; Excalibur vrs. Enuma Elish, but Gilgamesh's overpowers Saber's and fatally wounds her.
Despite all the shit he's been through, despite the new breathing hole he's got in his chest, Shirou still manages to stand up and use his tracing ability to create a sword, but Gilgamesh pulls some historic math crap on him and then practically slices him in two.
Saber tries to stop Gilgamesh, but can't bring herself to be turned into his property... well, more like she didn't have the choice. Shirou stands up again (what the fuck is this guy on?) and then imagines... Archer. I seriously thought he was going to summon him, but to my disappointment, he just made some stupid scabbard. You know, the one that prevents King Arthur from ever getting hurt?
Saber and Shirou plug the Excalibur into the scabbard and repel Gilgamesh's attack, and that was the end of that blood-bath.
When Shirou wakes up again, he tries to convince Saber one last time not to use the Grail to redo the selection of the king. When she gets angry with him, he finally officially tells her that he wants her to stay with him. He kind of said it during the Gilgamesh fight, but he'd lost a lot of blood, it could have been fatigue or something.
Then Shirou hugs Saber despite her muted tsundere reaction, and ends up kissing her. Afterwards, Saber tells Shirou that her mana's been replenished and she's ready to fight, in other words, nothings really changed. And if you don't know how her mana got replenished, then I'm sorry, but you'll just have to look it up for yourself, and if you do know how... you should be ashamed of yourself.
If you're going to look it up, just remember that this is an eroge game and let your mind follow the natural path.
Shirou decides to go back to Kotomine the next day and talk some more about Gilgamesh. When he gets there, he is ultimately led to a small room... full of corpses that Kotomine's been giving to his old Servant Gilgamesh to keep him alive.
... Yeah, I didn't see this one coming until Shirou actually got to the church. Pretty good. I also didn't expect Lancer to be his Servant too. That's two people with two servants (algebraically speaking). Actually, Lancer's not technically Kotomine's servant. He got Lancer by slicing off his original Master's arm and taking her Command Spells.
Lancer spears Shirou for the last time.
Back at the house, Saber's looking for Shirou, and when she sees Rin, Rin tells her about Lancer's Master's fate, then the conversation ultimately leads to the fact that only a Master could be a Master, thus it was either one of them (Rin or Ilya) or a survivor from the last war.
When Saber asks Rin where Shirou is, Rin suggests that he might have gone to the church, and when Saber investigates, she finds Shirou's owned body in the cellar. He's not dead, just got speared... again. Wounds from the Gae Bolg don't heal apparently.
Kotomine makes a grand entrance, saying that there was a loophole in the whole Grail creation. When there are only two Servants left, all you've got to do is sacrifice someone worthy enough (another vessel), and there you go, Grail Tiime.
Kotomine asks Shirou if he wants the Grail, but Shirou finally reveals the reason he's been so insistent on Saber not redoing the selection, the reason being that if you were to erase the pain and suffering, then it'd mean nothing. The whole purpose of life is carrying all that crap with you and living on.
Saber is then asked the same question and she finally understands Shirou's words, declaring that she wouldn't use the Grail, and that Shirou is more important than the Grail or redoing her past, and there you have it.
Saber purges the effects of Lancer's Gae Bolg from Shirou (for the time being) and they are introduced to Gilgamesh. Lancer's not too thrilled with the fact that this freak is actually another Servant.
Kotomine reveals that the whole apocalypse thing was his fault, and the fact that the Grail is actually some kind of freaking joke that grants the bearer's wish through destruction. Not a good thing.
Kotomine leaves the cellar and tells Gilgamesh and Lancer to finish Saber and Shirou off, and as Gilgamesh goes in for the kill... Lancer, being totally awesome blocks the attack and goes up against Gilgamesh, siding with his own beliefs. I swear, if Saber wasn't there, Lancer would have been the best. If Lancer was a girl, that'd be... I've got to find a Rule 63 on him, though I don't like the idea of him/her dying...
Lancer is obviously outclassed and rather quickly killed (but he still put up a good fight), but he gives Shirou and Saber enough time to escape.
They make it back to the house, both of them finally agreeing to destroy the Holy Grail, and when they get there, the place's been trashed, and Rin's dying.
Rin tells them Kotomine's plan... basically it's the same as Casters, only he's using Ilya... oh yeah, Ilya's gone too, taken by Kotomine.
The special thing about Ilya is that she's not technically human, but rather a big magic circuit that was turned into something like a human. In other words, perfect Grail summoning material.
Rin gives Shirou a present, a dagger that's been infused with mana for a long time, and thus is very powerful. It's the best bet they've got.
And there's only one place that'd be ideal for a summoning... the temple on the mountain, so Saber and Shirou head there.
Up on the mountain, Saber and Gilgamesh meet and Saber tells Shirou to go ahead and save Ilya, she'll take care of Gilgamesh.
When Shirou finds Kotomine, he's already begun the summoning process and poor Ilya is stung up like some kind of... well, sacrifice.
Somewhere down the line, Kotomine admits that the person who killed (eventually) Shirou's father was him, through a curse and the use of the sludge that is dripping down from the sides of the Holy Grail.
Epic battle happen on both sides, Shirou and Kotomine's is basically Kotomine throwing sludge from the Holy Grail at Shirou that causes massive pain, while Saber and Gilgamesh's is basically Gilgamesh winning, but Saber fights on.
Finally, the two manage to rally together seperately, and Saber converts all of her mana into one last attack against Gilgamesh, which lands close-combat before Gilgamesh can unleash his NP, killing him. Gilgamesh was a total asshole, but the sheer awesomeness of his combat and whatever earned him a place in the top 5.
Shirou finally catches on and learns how to dodge a pitch, getting in close enough to stab Kotomine with Rin's dagger, and then unleash the magic inside.
With everything over and the Grail before them, Shirou and Saber both know that they have to destroy it, so Shirou uses his last Command Spell to allow Saber to destroy the Holy Grail, and the war was over.
Saber returned to her time as Arthur (Arturia), and died peacefully after the battle with Morgan.
Ilya, Sakura, Taiga, and Rin, all of who suffered from near-death experiences all managed to stay alive somehow and are now living at Shirou's harem house together.
The End.
Sucky, yeah? I believe it's best phrased as a "kick in the balls ending", this is taken from someone else on the internet, I'm sorry, my friend, I can't rightly remember who you are.
There were a couple of things that I wanted to talk with you about.
First; GAR.
A term originating from 4chan, GAR was a mistype of "gay" when used to describe his feelings for Archer after episode 14 (the one where Archer fights Berserker). Today, it is used to describe characters who are so manly that you're totally overwhelmed by their presence. It's a compliment... unless you're describing a girl.
Second; Assassin is different from a generic class that was there before him, the originals, also known as True Assassins. They're a generic Servant that is exclusively summoned by the Matou family, only not in this story.
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