Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Fate/Stay Night: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Staying the night might be something of a chore even if fate is involved.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 29, 2013

Dan Brown may be most famous for reinvigorating interest in the Holy Grail via his mega bestseller The Da Vinci Code, but he’s also notable for a perhaps more subtle contribution to pop culture, namely the reintroduction of what might be termed the literary cliffhanger. Observant readers of any of Brown’s thrillers may have noticed that the author is extremely skilled at ending either sections within chapters or chapters themselves with something akin to those perilous moments that would wrap up old Saturday serials, a technique that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas famously sought to exploit in Raiders of the Lost Ark. While it’s an unabashedly manipulative approach designed to keep the reader hooked, breathlessly turning to the next page for more information and a hoped for resolution of whatever catastrophe or dangerous situation has just been posited, it’s also a brilliant way to maintain momentum. It’s arguable whether or not cliffhangers might have helped another outing that deals with the Holy Grail, the rather static Fate/Stay Night, but as a wise man once said (or at least should have said), it certainly couldn’t have hurt. Fate/Stay Night is yet another franchise culled from a so-called visual novel series, and from talking to those who have “played” this version (I admittedly never have), it was a less than thrilling experience in that form to begin with, which kind of begs the question as to why Studio Deen and the Fate Project decided there was sufficient source material for an anime version. Though not completely tied to the less than inspiring source material, anime fans may also be wondering why the feature film adaptation of one of the visual novel’s story arcs, Fate / Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, was released before the actual anime series, but there’s often even less sense in the anime releasing business than there is in the visual novel business. This new release of the first part of the anime series will at least perhaps help those who watched Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works and wondered what the frell was going on a lot of the time, but in terms of its intrinsic entertainment value, Fate/Stay Night might decidedly be in desperate need of a cliff or two.

For a series supposedly built around a so-called Holy Grail War, Fate/Stay Night is a strangely blithe outing, one that coasts by seemingly interminably at times on content that is much more in line with tradition shōnen anime. While we’re quickly introduced to the idea that several magically endowed young folks are going to be involved in a sort of epic scavenger hunt for the Holy Grail, and therefore “summon” help from equally magically endowed spirit servants, the series takes an unbelievable amount of time in kind of inconsequential sidebars where we get long, drawn out discussions and elements of high school life before we actually settle down into a good, old fashioned battle.

There’s a kind of Harry Potter at Hogwarts feel to some of Fate/Stay Night, for we get a kind of “know it all” young female magician named Rin Tōsaka (think Hermione Granger) who takes the series’ hero, Shirō Emiya (think young Master Potter himself), under her wing to help the young man start to harness his powers more effectively. Shirō isn’t even fully aware of what exactly he’s capable of, which leads to him almost mistakenly summoning the most powerful servant aide, a strong willed young girl named Saber. Some anime fans may therefore already be starting to realize that Fate/Stay Night has the oft-used cliché of pairing unlikely duos who must battle various opponents, as in such other outings like Soul Eater: Complete Series, as I mentioned in my review of Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works.

This opening set of episodes falls into a fairly predictable rut of Shirō and Rin making their way through school while at the same time starting to engage in their own battles. What’s at least partially different about this approach that it’s more often than not Shirō who finds himself in danger (and in a couple of instances literally at death’s door), while Rin is the one doing the rescuing. But even the action elements don’t seem well knit into the general storytelling, leaving Fate/Stay Night to kind of amble along genially enough, with sudden bursts of frenetic energy. In the meantime, while Shirō and Saber are developing a somewhat contentious relationship, Rin is similarly trying to figure out the history of her servant, Archer, a kind of obsequious type who claims his memory is missing huge chunks.

The series tends to pick up at least a little steam as it goes along, especially after more characters are introduced and we have several sets of battling pairs. But there’s kind of a “been there, done that” quality to a lot of Fate/Stay Night that may test even the most patient anime viewer’s tolerance. The series at least offers a bit of visual flair to increase interest, and there are occasional character beats—ironically more with regard to Rin than Shirō—that help to pump up a somewhat lackluster opening set of episodes. The ironic thing about all of this is, there’s that old adage that states “the book was better”, but considering the feedback I’ve received about the “book” (meaning the visual novel) version of Fate/Stay Night, the anime would seem to simply be following in an already established tradition of less than thrilling entertainment value.

Fate/Stay Night: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fate/Stay Night Collection 1 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This series' original broadcast date of 2006 may hint at a native standard definition source, though this high definition presentation is nowhere near as soft and unimpressive as, say, Shakugan no Shana: Season 1, which comes from more or less the same timeframe. The chief problems with this presentation are not due to an overly soft image (though some of the battle scenes are rendered intentionally in a sort of smeary context) but in some artifacts, including some pretty prevalent banding and occasional macroblocking. That said, generally speaking the series looks pretty good, if not spectacular, with really nicely saturated color and an appealing design aesthetic.

Fate/Stay Night: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fate/Stay Night Collection 1 features lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks in both the original Japanese language as well as an English dub. In a reverse of how things typically sound on many anime releases, the Japanese track is noticeably more aggressive, with more amplitude in both the dialogue and sound effects. That said, both tracks offer very good fidelity, though the Japanese is certainly overall the more impressive track. Dialogue is cleanly presented and while there's really not much overt separation to speak of, everything is very well prioritized and nicely mixed.

Fate/Stay Night: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements other than trailers for other Sentai Filmworks releases, as well as a Disc Credits screen, are offered on either of the two discs in this set. I never count either of these items in my "official" scoring of supplements.

Fate/Stay Night: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fate/Stay Night may simply be one of those anime that takes it own sweet time working up a decent head of steam, but if truth be told, the second half of episodes is going to have to amp the excitement factor way up in order to compensate for the really slow and often weirdly talky opening half of episodes. There are some diversions here, to be sure, including a couple of nicely delineated characters (especially Rin and Saber), but the series is too often an exercise in déjà vu that recalls other, better series that deal with some of the same basic ideas. The animation here is one of the chief pluses, and while this Blu-ray doesn't offer the sterling presentation that a lot of anime fans have come to expect from more recent productions, there's a lot here to enjoy on a purely visual level.