Having watched "Unlimited Bladeworks," first, this is just a paradigm of that; they are both the same story, with some different outcomes. Not sure why.Once again, as an author of many sci-fi & fantasy works, I am constrained to point out the severe problems for writers that create stories with magic in them. Put most simply, they tend to use too much of it and let it be unlimited; and nothing is unlimited. "Fate/Stay Night" has this problem. The overall storyline is a decent one, that of seven Masters and Servants pursuing the Holy Grail (as nebulous a thing as it is); that gives you an adventure where all kinds of things can happen. The reasons for PURSUING the Holy Grail, however, are pretty thin, and ofttimes ridiculous, but that's the story, and we can leave it at that.There are many characters in this series and many things happen as they square off against one another. Magic itself can be an interesting device, but when the creators let it do anything at all, that is, let it be unlimited, then you've trashed your story, at least a little. And the more you use this infinite magic with no bounds or rules, the more of your tale you trash. Why - because there is no problem that is so difficult that a little more magic can't get rid of it, and villains become more menacing by giving them more magic than the heroes - and for no particular reason other than to further the good-guy-bad-guy story. It's too apparent, and dull. One finds him or herself asking why the author didn't use it in one place with one character when it has been used liberally with another: arbitrary by the author, rather than an intrinsic part of the characters. Magic is not infinite - nothing is - and we should know what the rules which govern it are, so we can know what the characters can and cannot do; then you'd have a real story, because there is no easy way out of a difficult situation just by creating more new magic that wasn't there before. The author can't just whip it up to solve a problem; he has to develop some clever story to keep the drama going. "Fate/Stay Night" suffers from this often; the creators rely on too much magic in too many places to create story and drama, rather than employing imagination. They give more magic to one character and take it away from another character, and there is no reason for it except to artificially create plot. Add to that, there is way too much talking by characters, which in the end doesn't matter, because the creators will only make more magic later to destroy whatever it is they said or planned. One more irritating thing: evil characters are way too pointlessly evil and enjoy psychotically torturing people way too much. Having one character like that you might buy, but many is simply tiring and ridiculous.Visually, the battle scenes are good, but occasionally too long, developing more and more magic forces to carry the action and drama, when it is the characters and their motivations and skills which should be driving those things. The art & graphics are very good for this type of anime, colorful and interesting, so that you don't feel so much like you're watching a cartoon. The animation itself is typical for this type of thing, certainly not awesome, but decent enough to carry the story without problems. Overall, less magic, fewer psychotic villains, more character development would have made this a far better work.

This show is one of the worst example of Japanimation period. The setup is a re-hashed orphan saves the world. Despite having several female characters the male character who is by all rights the weakest takes center stage to become the hero. I watched every episode and it follows this basic formula. Enemy steals mana from people. Emiya finds out and tries to confront them on his own. Emiya finds himself in trouble after getting in a fight with a servant. Dagger shows up to help him out. However, mid fight he tells Dagger not to fight and yells out her name "Daaagger" (Queue the pulsing big anima eyes at each other). Dagger fights anyway and Dagger and Emiya find a way to win/draw and everything resets. Next episode they do the same thing over and over until about episode 18. I had to finish the show however so I could see if it had a good ending.

Fate/Stay Night is an animated series inspired by a h-game. Somehow the producers turned it around making this a successful series without any of the h-stuff. It couldn't have been any other way because the development of the characters is great just the way it's pictured in this series and any alteration of that could only ruin perfection.(You'll understand once you see all the episodes).Despite a relatively slow start (the producer took his time on presenting the characters) things gain momentum quickly and soon after mid-series the action gets so intense that glues you to your seat.The topic of the series concentrates on the War of Holy Grail that has been taking place in the Fukuky City for the last 50 years. The pilot actually starts with the conclusion of the previous war and develops from there on. Shiro is the only survivor of the fire that started during the last battle and enveloped a large portion of the city.He unwillingly witnesses a fight between two Servants that triggers his Reiju (Holy mark) to summon one of the most powerful Servants of the battlefield, Saber. His first contact with Saber left him stunned "Such immeasurable beauty ...I was at a lost for words". You mustn't compare this series with any other to fully understand it's plot. FSN offers much more than some cool sword fights, good animation, spectacular lights, great soundtrack, it offers excellent character and relationship development. It presents the changes that take place within the characters personalities as the events precipitate. The action reveals believable dynamic emotional and behavioral patterns of the individuals (not similar to the linear type other series use) that are constantly shaping their personalities to reveal, from under the mask of perfection, flawed characters.The Saber character is tied to a medieval legend that has been altered to fit this series and should be accepted as such. You shouldn't watch FSN thinking that it doesn't present the viewer with the historic fact, just remember that this is adventure/fantasy series and not a documentary and enjoy this as long as you can. The ending is sudden and unexpected and if there were twice as many episodes I would have watched them in the same breath.

This anime seriously rocked my socks. When the anime first opened itself, I felt it was too slow; the story wasn't quite moving forward, and Shirou was quite an unimpressive male lead. Once he learns more about tracing, and you learn more about Saber and the Holy Grail War itself, the story pans out and you can see multiple facets of it moving together. It was fantastic.Additionally, I felt that the way the characters developed was very true to form with the way real people develop, in the real world. There wasn't any stupid completely obvious things going on; the development of Ilya and Rin was interesting to watch, but I think the way Shirou and Saber grew in their certain personalities was just interesting to watch all on its on. A few of the "surprise" people that show up (Gilgamesh?) seemed to also be unique from the rest of the cast in one way or another, meaning we didn't have "Generic Bad-ass A" being replaced by "Generic Bad-ass B" as soon as A died.Anddd, I loved the music. The opening music rocked, and the finishing theme from the final episode just...Seriously pushed forward the theme of the last episode even more. Good job, Type-MOON!