Fate/Stay Night
Rating: 4
Fate/Stay Night has a story that is reasonably original but essentially nonsensical. Let's see - in a world that looks like ours, seven magicians are fighting for the Holy Grail, which is supposed to fullfill one wish of the winner. But the grail is not an inanimate object and it may refuse to accept the winner depending on the means they used to win - which given the no holds barred fight premise, this kind of setup doesn't make sense. Also, magicians are actually supposed to fight through proxies - spirit reincarnations of heroes through history.
So the story may not be cliched - but it has a strong "eh, so what?" feel to it. On the plus side, our unlikely lead wants to end the fight without killing anyone, so that moral angle is going to be the major deciding point in any confrontation we're going to see. Come to think of it, Trigun had this same premise - very powerful and potentially deadly person who doesn't want to kill anyone, and so this weakness is being used against him through most of the show. Something similar seems to be going on here as well and it may be enough to carry the show - if we get to see some serious character development and more of their history. Since the story premise doesn't really make one care about who wins, they should make us care about the lead and his friends. Thankfully, they do.
When I first started watching this anime back in January, I didn't know anything about its background. Apparently, it is based on a role-playing game. But it's a hentai (perverse, or more accurately, with sexual content) game - and if I'm guessing it right, it has harem and dating sim elements in it. That might not sound so strange, until you realize that the game actually has considerable depth - as much as any average japanese RPG!
I have only seen the anime, of course, but apparently it is a well-developed story with multiple endings (though for a dating sim harem its a given), a number of well-developed characters, and a large amount of battles between those characters, which are all unique thanks to a plethora of special finishing moves (called noble phatasms) - which is a given for a RPG. As I said, just like any decent RPG. But it has sex in it! Thats not very common at all, is it (its not a rhetorical question, I really dont know anything about japanese games that are not available in North america)?
But you should ask, how's the anime? After all, how many people outside of japan will play this game?
The anime is very good. Entertaining to watch, with great character design, good soundtrack and music, usually excellent animation - and there's plenty of battles to animate. It grabs you right from the start with a mysterious setting and plenty of information to digest: unusual magic, cool and cute characters (after seeing Rin Toshaka, if you're a guy, you know you will keep on watching!), some comedy to spice it up, awesome battles. And plenty of destruction of property going on.
As it keeps going on, the anime does lose some of its edge. First episode is superb, and so is the second, moving at a fast pace, with plenty of action. Well animated, with non-cliched character design and without any filler. Obviously lots of money spent. At first, anyhow. As one would expect, the story pace and amount of action drops from episode 3 onwards even though there's still some action in every episode. The show seemed to be losing steam as episodes 4 and 5 weren't nail-biting exiting nor they furthered the story that much. However the pace picked up again at episode 6. While it wasn't at the levels of episodes 1 and 2, especially in the amount and quality of animation, there was a lot of drama and we got to see two confrontations. The moral angle was a major part of conversation and it influenced the flow of action. In the middle episodes, it's hit and miss, and with notable exception of one episode heavily involving Archer, the show languishes at around 3.5 rating. In the last quarter, however, the pace picks up and even exceeds the initial episodes in the amount and quality of battle scenes - as is to be expected. So overall, Fate/Stay Night starts as a 4.5 star anime, and falls as low as 3.5 or even 3. 0 on occasion due to missteps in pacing and drop in animation quality and plot quality (as well as plot quantity in those wekaer episodes). It has its ups and downs, but final episodes are all good, and the ending itself is great. In the end, I give it 4 stars overall.
Now, people who have played the game - mostly people blogging around the web, as I persnoally know not a single person that plays original japanese games) - were somewhat disappointed with many aspects of anime, including ending. I'd say it is their curse. Remember Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers? If you're a book fan, I bet you walked out of the theatre at least partially unhappy. This is the same phenomenon - if you haven't played or read much about the game, but you do enjoy the likes of japanese RPGs, you'll enjoy this anime.