Let’s get this out of the way: I’m looking at, and only at, Unlimited Blade Works, the anime. I will not be considering any other Fate routes or properties or any other components of the Nasuverse in this review. I will also get out of the way that I’ve alluded to Unlimited Blade Works before, using it as something of a benchmark for super-powered action. So part of this review will be setting the record straight regarding a topic I can’t help but reference.
For those who don’t know, Fate/Stay Night, including Unlimited Bladeworks (UBW for short), is a sort of Urban Fantasy death game where a small selection of wizards conjure the spirits of heroes of myth, legend, and history (categorized by “classes”) to do battle and claim the wish-granting Holy Grail. Like most good death games, things aren’t what they might seem to be at first, but it will take a while to get there.
The main character we start with is Rin Tohsaka. Rin is a wizard with a burning desire to win the Holy Grail War, not because she has any wish she wants granted but rather because it would be a mark of pride and accomplishment. She summons her Servant, receiving the Archer class servant… Archer. He doesn’t seem to remember his identity or legend, so for the moment he’s a tall, dark, broody, red-clad warrior with magic powers, and that’s enough. We start learn the rules of the setting and the War from their interactions, and that Rin is a grade-S tsundere with issues.
Following that, we meet the real lead character, Shiro Emiya, a high-school boy with chronic hero syndrome who just happens to very technically be a wizard, since his adoptive father tried to teach him and he learned some extremely basic, janky magic which he can perform with negligible skill to fix things. When staying late at school he witnesses a battle between Rin and Archer on one side and another servant, Lancer (Cú Chulainn, it turns out), on the other, which becomes a problem when Lancer notices since outsiders aren’t supposed to know about magical goings on and thus he’s obliged to kill Shiro in order to protect the masquerade. After Lanxer leaves, Rin manages to save Shiro’s life, but Lancer goes ahead and checks on his kill status later, attacking Shiro at home. That time, Shiro puts up a somewhat better defense before accidentally triggering a magic circle his father left behind and summoning the final Servant of the Holy Grail War, Saber.
Saber’s true identity is eventually revealed as King Arthur, which when she is a cute and somewhat socially awkward girl tells you the general tenor of what Fate/whatever is known for. Oddly enough, in UBW Saber is actually the only flipped character, and I always took it as a tongue in cheek explanation as to why “his” marriage with Guinevere was never fruitful. That isn’t really dug into in UBW, though, since Saber is a surprisingly minor character all things considered.
Saber fends off Lancer, but then Shiro’s in a bit of a pickle, having to decide whether it’s better to join the Holy Grail war in earnest or abandon Saber, drop out, and hope non-involvement protects him. Seeing as Shiro can’t help but stick his nose into any situation where there could be people in need and ignorance has already failed to protect him once, it shouldn’t be hard to guess what his choice is. This also technically makes him enemies with Rin (who was guiding him from summoning Saber up to this choice) in the kill-or-be-killed Holy Grail War, and it’s not like she’ll ally with you or anything, bakka.
Before they can really have a falling out, they end up in battle against another master, Illyasviel von Einzbern, a white-haired loli who calls Shiro her brother and dropped some cryptic nonsense earlier, along with her Servant, Berserker. This gives us our first real all-out fight between servants and masters and… what can I say? The action in this show is amazing. It really holds up, possessing speed, clarity, and good choreography and control of its pace while weaving in tons of superpowers and even the exposition necessary to understand them without dragging the fundamentals down. There are a number of shows on a similar level, but I can’t really think of any that do it markedly better, at least not considering the hoops that UBW jumps through. These characters, especially Archer, really love the sounds of their own voices but they don’t let that distract from what’s really important, and the writing is great at keeping the drama high even when the characters are yakking seemingly endlessly about their powers or philosophies.
In the meantime the fight with Berserker is a push, especially given that Berserker appears to be immortal. From there, Rin and Shiro are able to go their separate ways for a moment and we can take stock of the remaining players in the game.
On the table, there should be seven servants. We’ve seen Lancer, Saber, Archer, and Berserker, but there are also Caster, Rider, and Assassin running around, and sure enough they turn up bit by bit. Rin finds evidence of Caster’s work with a mass fainting incident caused by her attempts to harvest life energy for power. While Rin has every intention of knocking out Caster quickly, before Caster can snowball, she also spares a thought for Shrio
When Rin and Shiro are alone after school she attacks, and though she’s absolutely casting deadly spells, the scene is kind of funny in that you get the sense she’s doing it more because he was too dense to take her warning about being caught out and too nice to stop treating her as a friend, rather than out of any actual malice – reinforced when she tries to demand he hand over Saber via the magical Command Seals that let him control his servant rather than just finishing Shiro off. The conflict is interrupted by an unrelated scream, which turns out to be the work of another servant, Rider, attacking a student. Rin and Shiro each save the other’s life from Rider, causing them to finally agree to a “temporary” truce.
They uncover evidence of another Master at the school as well, and he approaches Shiro. That Master is Shinji Matou, owner of quite possibly the most punchable face in anime. He’s lucky his sister seems to be everybody’s friend, because I doubt the little slimeball would get nearly the mercy he does otherwise.
He’d deserve what was coming to him too, but before that, Caster takes a swing. She uses magic to lure Shiro to her lair at night, and everybody else has to try to bust in to save him from getting his command seals stolen. Saber gets stalled out fighting Assassin, who acts as Caster’s servant, and Archer comes to get Shiro. After driving off Caster they have a philosophical argument that ends with Archer stabbing Shiro in the back and telling him that his ideals will drag him down, before Saber is able to come and get Shiro out.
After that, Shiro starts to learn to fight, though it seems Archer’s style, rather than Saber’s, is a natural fit for him. Rin reaffirms their alliance, though, having given Archer new, sterner orders to not go teamkilling. Their talk is interrupted when Shinji and his servant, Rider, attack the school, trying to suck the life out of everyone there. Rin and Shiro, able to stay active thanks to being wizards, fight back, but somebody beats them to the punch, killing off Rider and leaving Shinji a blubbering wreck who runs off at warp seven the first chance he gets. Rin lets him go, at least in part because it’s the servants, not the masters, who must die for the progress of the Holy Grail War – it’s just usually more convenient to eliminate a squishy wizard than a powerful hero spirit from across time.
Shinji flees to the same neutral ground with its weird priest dude that Shiro was taken to when he had a choice of whether to join the war or not, but the scheming “priest” Kotomine offers him a second chance to get in on the game with an “extra” servant, who ends up revealed to be Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh has a nicely warped philosophy and a plan to use the Grail to wipe out most of humanity in order to reset the world to a state where everyone who’s left has value, as it supposedly was in his time, and Shinji seems totally okay with this, if you didn’t think Shinji was bad enough already.
Meanwhile, Rin and Shiro attempt to track down Caster. They find out that her Master is one of their teachers, and stage an engagement which mostly doesn’t go their way but does at least allow Shiro to upgrade from strengthening objects to conjuring them. That leaves him in a bad way, but Archer is able to help, having gone through a similar magical backlash in his time (though he still doesn’t identify himself). Even as they make plans, Rin and Shiro go on a “date” and have some fun… only to be interrupted by Caster who holds their friends hostage and steals control of Saber (though she resists Caster as much as she can), leaving Shiro technically out of the game and Rin out of useful allies.
After Caster takes out the church (though Kotomine is expected to have escaped), Rin tries to take her on, but Archer backstabs his own Master and gets converted to Caster’s cause, revealing in the process that she’s Medea and has the power to magically break the rules, which manifests as a cool dagger. Shiro comes in to rescue Rin, and after they escape they agree to keep messing with the Holy Grail War, servants or no.
This sends them looking for Illya, who might be the only master left able to tangle with Caster, thanks to Berserker Heracles’s astounding toughness. Unfortunately, by the time they arrive, Illya is already under attack by Shinji and Gilgamesh (though Gilgamesh clearly wears the pants in that arrangement, using Shinji mostly as a victim prop for physical comedy). After a pretty amazing battle, Gilgamesh manages to win, killing Berserker and ripping out Illya’s heart as materials for the true Holy Grail. Shiro and Rin again escape (this time by using Shinji as a hostage) and reassess their position, which is still planning to get Caster first, and still without allies, which is Lancer’s cue to say hello and that he’d be able to help them take on team Caster.
Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, it’s time to go up against Caster. Again. Rin and Shiro have what’s actually a pretty good plan, having Lancer engage Archer, Shiro hold off Caster’s master (who’s a powerful melee fighter), and Rin take on Caster. But, rather than trying to spell duel a Servant-level magic-user, Rin uses her magic to improve her own physical ability and just punch Caster. It gets close to working, but in the end the kids need a rescue and it comes in the form of… Archer, totally backstabbing Caster as he apparently planned. His dramatic entrance also finally reveals his identity beyond all doubt as none other than Shiro Emiya.
This is a pretty good twist. Archer’s previous interactions with Shiro set it up, and we were explicitly told that the list of summonable heroes includes all of time and space, so getting one from the future was never impossible. It also finally explains his motivation: Archer hates the role he got himself into, acting as a “Guardian” that cleans up humanity’s messes forever, and when offered the opportunity wanted to either turn Shiro from the path into becoming him, or kill his past self in order to delete his own existence.
Archer, in pursuit of his goal and given his general case of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, follows up his backstab of Caster with an immediate follow-up Backstab of Rin, putting her in a sword cage while he tries to kill Shiro. Again. Rin makes a pact with Saber, becoming her Master, but gets kidnapped by Archer and used as a hostage to draw Shiro into a battle to take place before Archer fades away thanks to not having a Master.
Naturally, Shiro gets dragged into the battle, and Lancer comes with to help rescue Rin. Rin is busy facing molestation from Shinji. Lancer arrives in the nick of time and unfortunately doesn’t skewer the little worm, but the “priest” from earlier, Kotomine, shows himself and reveals that he’s Lancer’s Master. Through a technically complex but actually good interchange, he ends up forcing Lancer to stab himself through the heart for disobedience, but Lancer survives long enough to kill Kotomine in retaliation and free Rin.
Meanwhile, Shiro and Archer spend the meat of an episode and a half fighting to the death while simultaneously arguing about their ideals, in the weird demiplane that is the titular Unlimited Blade Works – a mental space belonging to Archer (and Shiro) where they have vast power to conjure weapons. The fight is both well-designed in terms of its choreography and engaging in terms of its ideas, moving between representations of Shiro’s past and future. For what it is, it’s really well done.
At the conclusion, Shiro has won the war of words and, to a lesser extent, the war of blades as well. Archer is finally silenced, though, by the arrival of Gilgamesh, who impales him to death once they’re back in the normal world. Shiro gets away with Rin and Saber, and they’re now onto Gilgamesh’s apocalyptic plan. Gilgamesh uses Shinji as a host of sorts for the Grail, which at least seems to hurt. Rin and Shiro gear up for battle, including sharing a tender moment as Rin shares her magical power with Shiro in order to give him a chance, and engage the final battle.
The fight comes down to Saber against Assassin (who’s still around and guarding the path he was supposed to guard), Rin against the evil flesh mountain spewing curse muck that is the Grail, and Shiro against Gilgamesh. Saber manages to win her rematch, Rin drags Shinji free of the Grail to reduce its power, risking life and limb I want to say for Shiro’s ideals and not that rat’s anus. Shiro’s duel against Gilgamesh is pretty much Shiro v. Archer round two since Gilgamesh’s main ability also involves conjuring weapons (technically the originals of every legendary weapon, which Shiro counters blow for blow with his fake copies) and Shiro pulls them into the Unlimited Blade Works for the end of the fight. He takes Gilgamesh’s arm when he tries to pull his trump card, and a portal to the Grail appears to consume Gilgamesh. He’s finally knocked in by the sudden appearance of, who else, Archer.
I don’t know if Archer somehow survived his previous impaling or if this is him acting as a Guardian independent from the version of him that Rin summoned, but whatever. They get closure there, and Saber obliterates the Grail and its evil with her ultimate move before vanishing herself. All’s well that ends well and we get an epilogue episode showing Rin and Shiro living together in London and attending Wizard School, getting us a couple comedic moments and some extra closure.
What can I say about Unlimited Blade Works? Well, as I’ve stated before, the action is really on-point. The way it weaves in heavy exposition about an urban fantasy universe the likes of which the most irrepressible chuuni would dream up along with excellent choreography and connectable characters to engage the audience on intellectual, emotional, and visceral levels at once is something that many shows strive to do but few actually master. This is a show where we learn about the characters, who they are and what matters to them, through the fighting, and the fighting is still badass.
It’s also a good take on the Death Game genre. Technically, the Holy Grail War has the structure of a Death Game, but it never feels like the competitors are hollow kills just waiting to happen, maybe because in twenty-four episodes there are only seven(ish) sides and they’re all introduced, used, and developed well before they actually get axed. Gilgamesh is sort of the surprise villain, but you’re introduced to him doing evil things in a big way when he kills Illya, and much earlier than that when he’s just talking with Shinji or stalking folks in an ominous manner. Rider doesn’t amount to much, but her master Shinji goes on to be a perpetual thorn in our sides, and even Rider herself does more than a lot of Death Game early victims (I’d say she’s about on par with Third). Caster and Illya, meanwhile, get enough pathos and development that I know some viewers prefer them to the actual heroines like Rin and Saber. Caster has not only the longest run as the show’s villain apparent but a tragic backstory and reality that would have probably gotten Shiro’s sympathy if she’d gone with the sob story rather than intimidation, and Illya was so popular she got her own alternate universe magical girl spinoff.
Which brings me to the characters. Most of them are, in my opinion, perfectly serviceable. They’re at or above the call of duty for an action show. They aren’t, largely, particularly deep, but the few notes they do have are engaging and iconic. Even Shiro Emiya himself, for all that his hero syndrome can be annoying at times, is a vehicle for some good turns. And do I even need to go into detail about Rin Tohsaka, the girl who redefined both Tsundere characters and Zettai Ryouiki style for a new era of anime? I don’t know that she’s one of the best female leads – she really is heavily of an archetype rather than unique and complex – but there’s certainly a few reasons why she’s so popular, and it’s no sin to go with a loud, single-noted sort of character if that’s what the story needs. And when Unlimited Blade Works has as much plot to cram down your throat as it does, perhaps having simpler characters is for the best.
Because there is, absolutely, a lot of that. As long as my summary was, I didn’t go into a fraction of the detail the show had. It’s obsessed with showing the viewer the inner workings of its universe and the great and tangled reality that’s been crafted in the background. In a sense, it’s amazing that Unlimited Blade Works does that as well as it does. In other senses, it’s still sometimes too much. We don’t need to know exactly how every super-power works or the technical name and definition of every magical effect in order to enjoy it. That sort of stuff plays well in Lord of the Rings or Dune because we accept that a novel can be a zillion pages, and it has the luxury of shifting a lot of that off into appendices where only interested readers will actually look. Unlimited Blade Works speaks its appendices in the middle of heated battles, and it’s a marvel that this doesn’t render the scenes where it strikes dead on arrival
In the end, I’m very glad I watched this show, but I feel only lukewarm towards it. It makes some mistakes on the constructive level, possibly informed by having started life as a visual novel (which has different standards) rather than as the anime we’re looking at, but it manages those issues with grace and skill. It has high quality ceiling along with a moderately high floor, but most of the show does hang out on the lower end of its range, worlds beneath the peaks of its best action choreography. It’s fun, and has good dramatic motivation and emotion, but also isn’t as important or meaningful as it seems to think it is at times.
All said, I give Unlimited Blade Works a B+. It’s mostly B work, the good sort of standard, propped up to a higher level by having one aspect in which it displays absolute excellence. And I can, at least, recommend it without reservation.