ehalcomb: Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works || Anime Review

I wasn't expecting much with Fate/Stay Night UBW. I knew that there was a whole universe to the Fate series and a lot of fans to the anime and visual novel alike but I didn't realize that it would be this good. Not only is the animation amazing but the characters are well fleshed out, the story keeps you on the edge of your seat, and the lore is given to you in an easy to digest, but not boring, manner.

First of all, the animation in this series is absolutely fantastic. I can't say the same for the other Fate series' but in Fate/Stay Night Ufotable did an amazing job. Their animation style is so fluid and fast yet easy to follow that I never once had to rewind the episode in wonder of what just happened. There is a term used in the anime industry, though not frequently, called 'sakuga'. The term itself literally means 'drawing pictures' but in the industry it says so much more about the actual quality of the animation being presented, at least of that which is really good. You can see examples of this in anime such as FLCL (which I still have not watched in full) but more recently it can be attributed to Studio Madhouse' 2015 success One Punch Man. Fate/Stay Night UBW doesn't ooze with this term like One Punch Man does but it does perform at about the same level during its fight scenes. The characters all have a certain weight to them that can only be described as 'real'. I say this because when the characters aren't using magic to enhance their acrobatics or do crazy powerful moves, the way they fight is just like what you would expect to see. The sword fights especially are very great but the fights between only magic users can seem a bit lacking at least for me.

The story, though not perfect, is very good and well deserving of all the praise given to it. All the characters are relatable in their own sense but still have a mysterious factor about them that makes them intriguing. The mysteries to the story is really great in this anime. It seems like there is a perfect balance of our heroes, Rin and Shiro, solving mysteries as well has finding new mysteries to be solved. When trying to solve a problem the two characters also have great chemistry that makes them all the more relatable and not forced. Not all the characters are this well done, however. There is a certain young mage who only gets an episode of backstory. Though this seems like a lot because of the overall length of the show I feel that she needed just a bit more explanation. The same goes for some of the side characters. There is a character by the name of Sakura (of course) who seems to just disappear after the first season and is only seen again in the very last episode. The only reason it bothered me is because, in a way, she is directly involved in the plot.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works is a fantastic work of animation with a great story to boot.
Fate/Stay Night UBW is great.