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Now in Japan
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Written by maehara
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Friday, 17 February 2006 00:00 |
 From the people who brought us Tsukihime Lunar Legend, Fate/stay night is a tale of magicians, secrets, and an age-old battle between magic-users and their Servants for the power of the Holy Grail. It seems to have captured the atmosphere of its predecessor quite well, but hopefully it'll improve on the pacing a little...
1 - Opening Day
A battle between two Magi leaves a city devastated, and young Shirou Emiya as the only survivor. With his parents now dead, he's been living on own (although his relatives have a habit of trying too hard to take care of him). His father was a Magi himself, but while Shirou has some latent ability that he's put to good use to become a mechanics whizz, there's not enough there for him to hope of becoming a Magi himself - although he still harbours hope of becoming an "ally of justice", regardless. A series of unusual events around town has Emiya suspicious that something's going on, but what he doesn't know is that schoolmate Rin Tohsaka seems somehow involved...
2 - Fateful Night
Rin's father left her 10 years ago, with only a warning that the Holy Grail would soon appear and that it would be the Kohsaka family - her family - that was destined to retrieve it. Since then she's been working to become the strongest of the seven Magi that will fight for the Grail - although since she was only able to summon Archer as her Servant, and not the strongest Servant Saber, she doesn't appear to be quite there yet. Just as well the rest of the Magi haven't appeared yet, then - but she's beginning to sense that someone's been watching her. When her watcher finally decides to take the direct approach and attacks, Emiya is caught up in the battle. When his life is placed in danger, the true extent of his magical ability is revealed...
Emiya seems to have the hots for Kohsaka - not all that surprising as she's one of the better-looking anime characters out there - so he's not pleased to hear about a possible rival, Shinji Matou. His mood brightens when he hears he got shot down in flames, though. Shinji is the older brother of Emiya's friends Sakura, but while Emiya's voiceover introduction classes Shinji as a friend, these episodes paint him more as someone happy to use Emiya for his own ends. Sakura is far more like a friend to him (and potential love interest, if she had her way and Emiya wasn't payingso much attention to Kohsaka) - she's been looking after him for the past year or so.
Kohsaka initially doesn't seem to be the sort that Emiya would have much chance with - cold and distant, and almost completely focussed on her "destiny" of retrieving the Holy Grail. He hard exterior begins to break a little when Emiya is killed during her battle in episode two, when guilt leads her to revive him against the explicit "rules" of the battle. How she'll see her act of kindness when she realises Emiya has inadvertently summoned Saber remains to be seen.
It's hard to get a real feel for Fate/stay night from these two episode, but it's a very promising start. The pacing and characters seem to be a marked improvement over Tsukihime, and the show is just dripping with atmosphere. It's also very impressive visually. Unfortunately, Geneon have already picked up the licence for the series, so this will be as far as I get to see for the time being, but the eventual DVD release has just made it onto my "very interested" list.
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