Fate Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works is the fifth anime adaptation of the Fate series and third adaptation from the Fate Stay Night visual novel. It’s the sequel to the Fate/Stay Night prequel Fate/Zero and, with Heaven’s Feel in the wing, the second in a soon to be three-part Ufotable Fate Stay Night collection.
Its plot follows the Unlimited Blade Works story-line of the Fate Stay Night visual novel, branching off halfway through the story of Emiya Shirou’s Holy Grail war (a battle royal between ancient magical heroes) to focus more on the heroine Rin Tosaka and her Servant, Archer. Archer has ulterior motives for participating in the Holy Grail war that involves Shirou in more ways than one. Together with his Servant Saber, Shirou and Rin must find a way of stopping not only the other masters and servants, but stopping the complete destruction of their home city.
So far this anime possesses not just the highest quality of animation and best sound track for a Fate series but it also contain’s much more character development, better pacing and a twist that completely changes the way you will look at the series. A must watch for any fans of Fate, my only caveat is that you watch Fate/Zero before it as its context bring into perspective the cause of the main characters’ deep seeded ideologies.
Unlimited Blade Works is the first show from the Fate series I was able to follow and enjoy. I tried to watch Fate/Stay Night when it came out in 2005 and there were many parts of it I thought were awful, mostly just the execution. There was too much information dumping. Trying to watch Fate Zero also made it difficult to figure out who the characters were and follow the story. – Jordan8 years ago
Great review, always thought that UBW deserved a little more love than it was given. – CheesyJ8 years ago