Fate/Stay Night: Volume 1 (Review)
Saturday, 2nd January 2010, 16:04

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Extras
It’s your usual anime disc treatment, with animated menus and a jacket picture for when the disc isn’t spinning. The extras on disc are limited to the textless opening and trailers for Saiyuki Reload and Rozen Maiden. If you had opted for Region 1 or Region 4, you would have had a production art gallery as well.

Conclusion
Where there is a ‘Jack of all trades’, you expect a ‘master of none’ to swiftly follow. Not in the case of Fate/Stay Night however, as while the anime does try to wear more than one hat, delving as it does into the harem rom-com, supernatural, action, adventure, and character battle genres, it somehow manages to do well at all it attempts, even though it may be too early to say whether it excels or not. I must say though that nothing about Fate/Stay Night really stood out for me. Its sole selling point may be its ability to combine the various genres successfully, as there’s nothing about the show that instantly grabs you by the throat and demands that you watch it. It isn’t the next big thing in anime, and there’s nothing particular about it that marks it as unique. Quite the contrary, on the strength of this first instalment, it appears to be another safe anime show, giving you more of what you have come to expect from the medium. I found it to be a lot like Shakugan no Shana (complete with protagonist dying only to be brought back to life), tinged with some light Love Hina style antics. The unique selling points of this show would be the Mage Wars and the Holy Grail, and while the master ‘drawing’ a servant may smack of more juvenile Pokemon style antics, in execution it’s anything but.

The story is interesting and entertaining, which is the main point of course. It also helps that the characters are appealing as well, even if Shirou fits the usual male lead stereotype of being a little bland and non-descript. When we meet him, he’s already surrounded by the beginnings of a typical harem, with meek young Sakura doting on him and happy to cook and clean around his bachelor pad, now that his adoptive father has died. To balance that, we have his teacher, and friend of the family, Taiga Fujimura, who fills the loud, obnoxious, boisterous hedonist stereotype, Kitsune to Sakura’s Shinobu. At school, there is the aloof and elegant girl Rin Tohsaka, who catches Shirou’s eye, but as we know from all such harem antics, the ineffectual male usually falls for the Tsundere stereotype, which is where the servant Saber comes in. She’s a tough warrior knight, who’s ruthless with her enemies, and straightforward with her allies, yet even by the end of this first volume, her tough icy exterior is already beginning to melt with Shirou’s charm.

It isn’t all comedy though, and in fact the balance is pretty fair between the romantic nonsense and the Grail Wars storyline, so that we get a goodly amount of drama and edge of the seat action, lives in peril and big swords being swung, in between the playful banter and blushes. In terms of the set-up of the Grail Wars, it seems to be another tournament anime of sorts, if not quite as structured. Seven mages, summon seven servants, and they all do battle in pursuit of the Holy Grail, but it seems to be more of a free-for-all, with battle liable to commence at any time. It certainly makes things interesting, and there seem to be secrets behind the secret war that are yet to be revealed. It also looks as if enmities and alliances may be fluid, and the lines between hero and villain aren’t as clear cut. It certainly keeps the viewer interested.

There was one aspect of the writing that I didn’t appreciate however. The formative moments of Shirou and Saber’s relationship seemed forced and contrived. It’s as if Saber appears and Shirou’s instantly infatuated with her. One of the aspects of the servants is that they are spirits, they draw their energy and power through spiritual means, and one of the shortcuts is to feast off human souls. Shirou hasn’t even got to grips with what he has gotten into, certainly doesn’t know the rules and ins and outs of the contest, and beyond an oath of loyalty and a couple of action sequences, doesn’t even know Saber that well. When Rin tells him that Servants can devour human souls, he’s instantly denying that Saber would do such a thing, defending her to the hilt when he doesn’t even know her yet. Of course subsequent events prove that she is one of the ‘good guys’, but the order of events just seems wrong to me, and it was one moment that threw me out of the show.

Fate/Stay Night is a good solid anime, a little predictable perhaps, and not too challenging, but if you know what to expect from your anime, and want those expectations filled, then Fate/Stay Night is perfect, middle of the road stuff, entertaining and unchallenging. This first volume was good fun and enjoyable. If the writing gets sharper, then the series should only get better as it goes along.

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