Last time I wrote a review about a game, this time its about an anime series called Fate/Stay Night. First, some background story about Fate/Stay Night.
Fate/Stay Night was originally a visual novel in Japan. A visual novel is basically a story, but instead of just reading a story out of a book you watch the story from your computer. You also have to power to "influence" the story by making crucial decision through out the story. Then depending on what you did, there is different endings for the story. So, a person can watch the same visual novel multiple times and get different endings.
After Fate/Stay Night became a huge success for the company that created it, they decided to move from just a visual novel and branch out to other popular forms of media in Japan. The first thing that they did was to release a manga series based on the visual novel. Eventually they even made sequels to the visual novel and then they adapted the original to a 24 episode anime series.
Since you can't make a TV show that keeps repeating over and over again with different endings, they decided to take the main story arc of the visual novel (along with bits and pieces from other arcs) and adapt it to the anime series.
So the basic idea of the story is that there is people that can use magic called Magi. Among those people, there is a select few that can use their powers to control a hero from legend that are known as Masters. These Masters use their servants to wage war against each other every 10 years in hopes of being able to control the Holy Grail. If one of these masters were to control the Holy Grail, the Master and the Servant could then each have one wish granted.
There is a total of 7 classes of servants that are allowed to fight in each Grail War. They are: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Berserker, Rider, Assassin, and Caster. The picture above is the warrior of the Saber class also know in history as... King Arthur. Well, her name in the visual novel is Arturia Pendragon. The creators thought that it would be interesting to switch the gender of a king from a famous legend. Personally, I like it better this way. :P
Anyways, I won't write more about the series because I'm afraid that I'll give to much of the story away. If you haven't watched this, I totally recommend it. I always watch anime in Japanese with English Sub-Titles because I don't always like the voice actors in english. But I guess this is more about personal choice.
Thanks for reading.
Christian,
ReplyDeleteThis anime sounds quite interesting. It reminds me a little of Inukami and also of Fullmetal Alchemist. Am I on base, or totally off? Anyway, I really like the two I mentioned, and I plan to check out Fate/Stay Night. Which studio produced the anime?
Also, where can I read the visual novel? That sounds fascinating to be able to influence the story. Is it like a manga, only online? I've never read a visual novel before. Are there a lot out there? If so, I wouldn't mind your suggestions.
Great blog!
I've never heard of Inukami before, so I don't know. But its not like Fullmetal Alchemist either. While Fullmetal has to do with magic, the main characters aren't heroes from famous legends like King Arthur and other people like that.
ReplyDeleteIn North American, Fate/Stay Night is licenses by Geneon. But you can also "find" them online from fan sub groups like Eclipse. Personally I like the Japanese audio better, like I mentioned before.
You can also "find" these novels online or you can import them from Japan. You need a windows computer to see them, so I've never actually seen a visual novel because I have a Mac. Visual novels share the same art style as manga, but they aren't online. You have to buy the story and run it on your computer.
There is a TON of visual novels out there. But since I've never seen a visual novel, I don't really know of any more. But let me warn you in advance. Visual novels, including Fate/Stay Night, do have some adult material in them. They don't show any of that on the anime series, but the visual novels aren't restricted as a televised show is.