One of the most popular Fate anime in the Fate franchise. If you are looking for some action and great story, this masterpiece will surely not disappoint you. The story is fit together perfectly and the visuals are absolutely stunning. The characters are very well crafted that you would even feel for the villains and cry for them (expect for those which are just pure evil and were made just to be hated). The scenes in this anime are very symbolic which will require a bit of interpretation to fully understand the meaning behind them.

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Spoilers Ahead!

Turn back now before it's too late! You have been warned.

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The story begins when Emiya Shirou gets dragged into the 5th Holy Grail War, a secret battle royale involving seven pairs of Masters and Servants. The winner of the Holy Grail War receives the Holy Grail, an almighty wishing device that grants any one wish. Masters summon heroic spirits such as: King Arthur, Cú Chulainn, and Hercules to help them in battle. The seven classes of heroic spirits include: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Caster, Assassin, Rider and Berserker, each with their own unique abilities according to their own lore.

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Rin Tosaka summons Archer whose true identity is shrouded in mystery until late in the anime. Emiya Shirou accidentally summons Saber who protects him before almost getting killed by Lancer for the second time. Because of the strong enemies, Rin and Emiya decided to form a truce. There were a lots of twists and turns in the story, from Saber getting kidnapped by Caster and Archer betraying Rin for the sake of his own goals. There was also this surprise of an eighth servant who should not even be in this war. 

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Unlike the other routes of the Fate series, this anime is focused on the unique relationship between Emiya Shirou and Archer. It also addresses the idea of being a hero of justice in the most realistic and tragic way ever. In the last few episodes of the anime, It was revealed that Archer's true identity is Heroic Spirit Emiya. That's right, it's Emiya Shirou's future self. 

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Emiya Shioru has always wanted to become a hero of justice long before he became a Heroic Spirit. He was fixated on that ideal because of his foster father who saved him in a great fire, failed to become a hero of justice. Even after his foster father's death, Emiya Shirou still held on to that ambition. Because he is one of the only few survivors of the great city fire, He developed 'Survivor's Guilt'. Thinking that it was unfair for him to live while everyone else had to die. Therefore, he lived only for the sake of other people, not once for himself. Although there are many tragic ends to characters in this anime like Caster being unable to go home, and Illyasviel's death, it was still nothing compared to Emiya's fate. Instead of a short tragic death, it was a tragic eternal life.

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Some of you may be wondering: "how could an eternal life be tragic?" Well, it all goes back before he became a heroic spirit. After the timeline of the anime, he was in a situation where a hundred lives were hanging. Emiya made a contract with Alaya (The World) for power to save people in exchange for his service as a Counter Guardian after death. Of course he would agree to it because he could not only save the one hundred people, he could continue saving people even after death. Before death, Emiya had put an end to a great war. However, he was betrayed and was framed for the cause of the war and was sentenced to death. Even so, he never blamed anyone. After death, he was all ready to save people again as a Counter Guardian. However, how he did it was completely the opposite of what he stood for. He was required to kill everyone who caused disruption to humanity. This does not mean kill only those who are deemed guilty but kill everyone and everything close to the place he was sent to. Emiya was made to save the world by killing over and over again. The death count scales to millions of people everytime he was called. Realizing that his ideals were flawed and that he could not save everyone, he soon became fed up with himself as a Counter Guardian and wishes to cease his own existence. He finally had a chance in the 5th Holy Grail War where he could kill his past self before he became a Heroic Spirit. But he didn't. In episode 24, Rin watched as Archer faded away because the war ended and all the Heroic Spirits need to return. Watching Archer fade away was painful to watch as he was not able to free himself from the eternal hell. Watching him fade away was like watching the Shirou behind her die, knowing that Shirou would just one day walk the path of Archer, leading him to despair.

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Unlimited Blade Works, Archer's Noble Phantasm and inner state of mind. The Unlimited Blade Works was described as dark and cloudy with gears in the sky, a wasteland covered with swords and smog emitting form the ground. This symbolic scene reflects Archer's inner state of mind of how he is betrayed by his ideals and being fed up with his life as a Counter Guardian. The gears in the sky represent his existence being a Counter Guardian. He has no free will like a machine, forced to kill for eternity. The swords look like graves and represent how many more people he has to kill to achieve his ideals. And as we see in the anime, the field of swords is boundless, there no end to it, meaning Archer will never be free from this eternal nightmare of betrayed ideals.

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In general, this anime is a beautiful but sad story of Emiya Shirou walking down the path that will eventually lead to his despair. This anime tells the harsh truth that no one is able to save everyone. There is always a trade-off. The stunning visuals and the character development made this even more worth watching. The only problems I have are some characters not being fully utilized. Julian and Sakura were there for not much of a reason. And Saber in this route was being treated more as a prop for the story than an actual character that helps develop the story. But overall, this is a masterpiece and is definitely worth watching.

 

Score: 9/10