“Saving one person means not being able to save another.”
I’ve got to say, this has to be one of the best new animes released in awhile, probably on the scale of Bleach. You can visit the Fate/stay night official anime homepage or visit the original game site. Fate/stay night was originally an H-Game (click on link for definition). Like the other Type-Moon game, TsukiHime (月姫) was made into an anime. The animes themselves have no adult materia, but it was because the popularity of these games which gave a reason for these to be converted into anime series.
Check out this intro video: Fate/stay night Curtain Raiser.
Images from the game:
Fate/stay night Episode 1 – The day of the beginning
Fate/stay night Episode 2 – The Fateful Night
Fate/stay night Episode 3 – Curtains Up
Spoilers: (Show)
This series consists of fighting, comedy, and cute girls. Tons of cute girls. Though common elements in many animes, this one also consists of a pretty good start for a storyline. The story starts with a scene of battle 10 years ago. Along with that battle was a great fire. Many had died and there was this young boy who was rescued by ‘a magiciain’. This young boy was determined to be the protector of justice, even now when he’s a teenager. The man had adopted him and treated him like his own son. This man didn’t have any family, so Shirou Emiya was his only companion. He said something very powerful to Shirou one day (I’ve already mentioned it at the top of this entry): “Saving one person means not being able to save another.”
It fastforwards into the present time and you find a young teenager who had lost his foster father a few years ago. He lives along in a gigantic mansion, but a fellow female classmate comes and helps him make breakfast and dinner and tidy around the house. You could say they’re very close friends. There doesn’t seem to be any sexual tension between them “yet”. There’s also the teacher that always drops by to freeload. The teacher is actually the daughter of Shirou’s financial manager and before his father went away, he asked his financial manager to take care of Shirou. Shirou apparently had some magic in him too. He is able to see the composition of any material he touches as long as he can focus. With that he can also strengthen the composition or even alter it, making it a completely different material, somewhat like alchemy. I’m not sure what the basis of this magic is yet, but I don’t think this story will be explaining how magic works.
The story continues. There’s this girl rated prettiest in the school, but she’s cold toward every guy. She’s actually the 1st preset day character you see. She had summon a servant, hoping it to be of Saber class, but it turns out to be of Archer class. She was still satifisfied though, since Archer seemed strong.
So let me get into the Servant/Master business and what this little game is about. Every 10 years, a game starts again for the battle of the Holy Grail. The winner of this game is entitled to the Holy Grail which will grant whatever wish they may have. The Holy Grail chooses 7 Masters and these 7 Masters can each summon 1 Servant. Servants can be of different classes and so far in the anime, we’ve seen an Archer, a Lancer, and a Saber. There’s this new gigantic monster which will probably be introduced in the next episode. I’m guessing Summoner, but I can be wrong. The game is to be the last person in the game. The Masters can lose in 2 ways, either get killed or have his Servant killed. Of course the former is the easier route and when Servants lose their Masters, they can choose take another Master’s sides.
So, let’s continue the story. Shirou always likes to help out people, even when people are taking advantage of him. He doesn’t really care. So one night, he was asked to help clean the dojo, while his friend went shopping with some girls. He didn’t mind and made a the dojo really clean. When he walked out, Rin, the Master of Archer was battling the Servant Lancer. Archer apparently can also weild 2 swords, though I have yet to see him use an arrow yet. Guess he wasn’t meant for close battle. Actually I have seen him use an arrow, but that was during the promotion video which I’ve posted. Shirou couldn’t believe what’s happening in front of his eyes. There’s been several homocides recently and the weapon matches that of Lancer’s. Lancer notices Shirou and suddenly stops fighting and makes it his priority to kill Shirou. Shirou runs away, but ultimately gets stabbed in the heart and dies. Weird as it may sound, Rin, the prettiest girl at school, actually has something for Shirou. At first, she was going to see the student as a casualty of the war, but when she found out it was Shirou, she wasted a jewel to resurrect him. According to the rules, any outsider who sees any event of this battle must be killed and Lancer even made it a priority to stop Shirou and leaving the current fight.
However, Lancer finds out Shirou’s not dead yet and comes back to kill him. Shirou tries to defend, but gets his ass whooped. Right when he was about to get killed, he somehow summoned Saber. SABER IS SO CUTE!!! I posted an chibi drawing of her a few days ago. But anyway, she pushes Lancer back and even has the upperhand during the battle. She uses an invisible sword, though it’s not really explained that well what she uses. At first I thought she was using her aura to fight. Lancer busts out his ultimate move (or maybe just one of his special moves) where the lance actually follows the movement of the heart and tries to stab it. Luckily Saber was able to dodge it, but it still got her in her shoulder. Lancer says his Master is a coward and said if his ultimate move failed, he was suppose to return immediately. Saber was about to chase, but Shirou told her to stop.
A little more info regarding the Servants. The Servants are actually hereos and warriors of the past and present and is chosen by the Holy Grail and materialized in today’s world. The Servants can be in 2 modes: hidden or materialized where normal human beings can see them. They can only fight when they’re materialized, but can still provide magic and support when they’re a spirit.
Saber notices another Master and Servant in the area. Rin and Archer had come to see Shirou. Rin wanted to make sure he was okay. Archer wanted to make sure he was dead. But anyway, Saber starts attacking them and right before Saber is about to kill Rin, Shirou stops her again. Saber says she must kill the enemy. Shirou as you can imagine is very confused at this point. He doesn’t even know what the game or fight or battle is about. So Rin tells him about the things and magic and jists of what it was about and then takes him to the supervisor of the game and he gives a more detailed explanation. I’ve already provided the explanations along this summary.
The 3rd episode ends where Shirou and Saber actually meet the next Master and Servant. Actually, Shirou’s already met her once and she warned Shirou that he’s needs to summon his Servant soon or else it’d be too late. This series is getting exciting!
Did I mention how cute Saber is?