Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works Blu-ray Movie Review

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Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 29, 2012

Let’s just come out and be honest about it: a lot of anime doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But the shows themselves are paragons of comprehensibility and logic when compared to their titles, many of which just seem to have gotten, well, lost in translation. Anime titles seem to exult in typographical gimmicks and weird interpolations of words that don’t really make a lot of sense together. Witness the "unusual" capitalization gambit of Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, the bizarre combination of words and punctuation marks in .hack//Quantum, or the at least almost understandable semicolon inserted into Chaos;Head for example. And so in that same vein, don’t go looking for even a base line of meaning in Fate / stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, at least with regard to its title. I frankly don’t have a clue what Fate / stay night itself may refer to, but at least Unlimited Blade Works is a reference to some of the nonstop action this anime offers, one based on one of several optional storylines that players could wend their way through in the original light novel version of the franchise. (The phrase also turns out to be a summoning spell of sorts that the main hero utilizes.) Fate / stay night: Ultimate Blade Works gives a very brief précis in its opening few minutes that attempts to bring newcomers to the franchise up to speed with the basic outlines of the plot, but even with that quick summation, there are probably going to be head scratching moments, especially with regard to all of the characters’ back stories and how various interrelationships (some of which are familial) play into the plot.

We learn in the recap which opens Fate / stay night: Unlimited Blade Works that there is a long running Holy Grail War, a battle between seven maguses to find and claim the long lost Holy Grail, which in this particular storyline is an object which can grant immeasurable power. (In other words, there’s no mystical bloodline to be ferreted out, a la Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.) Each magus is able to summon a spectral servant, with each team of two battling the other Magus – Servant duos, supposedly to the death, until the ultimate victor can call The Holy Grail his (or her) very own. That much of the story is at least understandable (and may well be kind of familiar to those who have watched other similar “magical duo” animes like Spice and Wolf or perhaps most analogously Soul Eater, another series which has at least some of the same elements as Fate / stay night: Ultimate Blade Works, but delivers them all in a decidedly more outré manner than this outing.

The main protagonist of Fate / stay night Unlimited Blade Works is Shiro Emiya, a young man who has no real interest in The Holy Grail War, but finds himself sucked into them anyway. Fate / stay night Unlimited Blade Works picks up somewhat after the main story arc of the light novel, as Shiro agrees to be a Magus in the opening few moments of the film, and then just about as quickly is able to summon his Servant, a sort of Xena Warrior Princess knock off named Saber, who fights with an invisible energy sword. Shiro makes for a rather unlikely warrior, and in fact has a hard time maintaining objectivity with regard to his various supposed nemeses, especially the comely young girl Rin Tosaka, for whom Shiro has obviously more than just a passing interest. While Rin keeps insisting that the two need to be enemies for the sake of The Holy Grail War, she, too, shows that she has feelings for Shiro that she’s perhaps not willing to be completely forthcoming about.

The two main Servants go hand in hand with Shiro and Rin. As mentioned above, Shiro’s Servant is Saber, who helps to make up for Shiro’s lack of real fighting skills with a more rational, calculating manner and superb (invisible) swordsmanship (swordswomanship?). Perhaps the most interesting Servant is Rin’s companion, Archer. Archer is a rather complex character who has a surprising secret or two up his flared sleeve. Initially he’s seen as a formidable enemy to Shiro and Saber, but then some unexpected information is forthcoming that casts a whole new light on what he’s up to and why he’s so single minded in making certain things occur. This aspect of Fate / stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is initially one of its most confusing elements, though the pieces tend to fall at least partially into place as the film develops this particular story arc.

There is a rather large cast of supporting characters charging through Fate / stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, and it can frankly be kind of confusing ferreting out their various motivations (other than the basic desire to kill off their competition). There is obviously a lot of back story here that is only alluded to and those without a really solid grounding in the Fate / stay night universe, let alone the Ultimate Blade Works storyline, may find themselves (as I did) momentarily confused as to why certain things are happening. Still, there is a surfeit of great action sequences here, and some really fun character designs, as in the mammoth demon Berserker, who resembles the devilish character in Fantasia’s “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence. While there are all sorts of allusions to various magical powers, and levels of attack, some of which frankly aren’t all that clear, the central focus of Shiro’s attempts to end The Holy Grail War (by winning it) is kept more or less intact despite a lot of tangential information being thrown at the screen with fair regularity.

Fate / stay night: Ultimate Blade Works gets sort of hyperbolically silly in its central section, as various warring Mages and their Servants repeatedly change sides and forge new alliances. The dialogue in this section is often pretty hilariously over the top, and it should be noted that the film gets rather gruesomely bloody as many characters meet their fate. So many characters coming and going so quickly probably makes this a bit too convoluted and hard to follow for newcomers to this franchise, and even some who know the basic story well may wish that more time had been spent developing fewer characters and storylines, allowing for a more visceral dramatic arc.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

It's hard to know what exactly to make of Fate / stay night Ultimate Blade Works' AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1, as presented by Sentai Filmworks. This is a relatively recent vintage film, so one would assume this has obviously been sourced from an HD master, yet this is an unusually soft looking high definition presentation, one that I assume must be due to intentional animation style choices by the filmmakers. A lot of Fate / stay night Ultimate Blade Works plays out in hazy, almost surreal looking environments that no doubt add to the softness factor. While the general impression may be somewhat gauzy, the fact is that there is quite a bit of sharp line detail on display in this offering, as well as some very good to excellent looking CGI in the summoning and battle sequences. There are some flashback sequences here that are intentionally overly grainy, and many of the sequences in the film are bathed in one hue, like blue or red, and those colors, while they add to the softness factor, are very nicely saturated and robust looking.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both the original Japanese language track and an English dub are delivered on Fate / stay night Ultimate Blade Works via DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes. The mixes are virtually identical save for the voice work, and it seems obvious that a lot of the English voice cast modeled their character voices on the original Japanese versions (hence Shiro's kind of quiet, breathy voice on both tracks). There is a lot of surround activity on both of these tracks, with really bombastic LFE and very well placed discrete sound effects in the many battle sequences. The film tends to get pretty loud in the last 45 minutes or so, with one "scream fest" after another as various characters grunt and yell their way to victory, so there isn't a whale of a lot of dynamic range here. But fidelity is excellent and though both these tracks are fairly busy a lot of the time, the various elements are well prioritized, dialogue is cleanly presented and overall both languages offer a very fun and immersive sonic experience.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Rather surprisingly, there are no supplements included on this Blu-ray other than trailers for other Sentai Filmworks releases (along with a credits page), neither of which I ever utilize in scoring.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fate / stay night: Ultimate Blade Works is one of those pieces that is going to speak to fans of the franchise but probably few others. While the basic elements of the story are relatively (relatively) easy to follow, I can say as an "outsider" there were a number of things that I was wondering about, mostly because characters just kind of show up out of the blue and everyone in the drama already knows them and simply seems to pick up conversations from where they left off in either the light novel or the anime series. This release has a somewhat subdued visual sense from a sharpness perspective, but it's full of lots of mostly great looking CGI that helps create the supernatural aspect of the story quite well. While this isn't something that those unfamiliar with the Fate / stay night universe are probably going to want to check out, fans of the franchise may want to consider a rental to revisit the Ultimate Blade Works storyline from the light novel.