Fate/Stay Night: Volume 3

Introduction

Ten years previously, a secret war over the possession of the Holy Grail raged between mages and the powerful servants they had summoned. It was a conflict that laid waste to Fuyuki City, and the sole survivor, Shirou was rescued by a mage and adopted as a son. Shirou Emiya has an instinctive rapport with machines, and can sense how things are supposed to fit together, but before his father died, he was told that he had no magical talent at all. Having inherited the Emiya estate, he now lives alone, and goes to high school in New Fuyuki, but his past has left a mark on him. His ambition is to help people, and become a champion of justice. He's unprepared for the havoc that is to come. New Fuyuki will be the battleground for a new Holy Grail War, as seven mages will draw forth their servants and clash. He's also unprepared for the fact that he will be one of the mages, and he's totally unready for summoning the most powerful servant of them all, a cute girl named Saber. Now it's up to him to prevent the destruction that previously devastated his home.

The next four episodes of Fate/Stay Night are presented on this MVM disc.


9. Elegance in the Moonlight
In the previous volume, it had transpired that there was a Mage and Servant operating from the Ryudoh Temple, home to Shirou's friend. But given the strategic situation, with the school still threatened by the barrier, and too many unknowns yet to be uncovered, Shirou and Rin decided not to take the chance and venture onto the temple grounds. That wasn't good enough for Saber, who disobeyed Shirou and headed off by herself. Assassin confronts her there, the new mage's servant, and battle commences between the two. They're pretty evenly matched as well, and both are pushed to their limits, forced into revealing their secret abilities. Except that there is a spectator, as Rider is using the distraction to sneak into the temple and confront the Mage. Meanwhile Shirou wakes up and finds Saber has vanished. Realizing what she has done, he sets off after her.

10. The Calm Interlude
Saber finally understands. Shirou isn't a coward, or a chauvinistic idiot. He's just a well-meaning idiot who always acts before he thinks. She accepts that he'll always try to protect her, so she decides that it's better for him to have combat training so that he knows what he is up against. Shirou takes a day off school, and it's a hard and painful workout, interrupted by Saber's growling stomach. But when Shirou goes out to get some food, he meets Illya again. Illya is the childlike mage whose Berserker almost killed Shirou at their last encounter. But the Illya he meets today is surprisingly friendly and likeable. Meanwhile Shinji is trying to make a deal with Rin.


11. Temple of Blood
The intensive training continues, combat from Saber, and magic from Rin, and while he keeps failing miserably at Reinforcing spells, it turns out that Shirou isn't even aware of the true power that he possesses. But then Shirou gets a phone call from Shinji, telling him that he has something important to tell him at school. Shirou runs off alone, and runs straight into a trap. A barrier has been activated at school, and everyone's energy is being drained. Shinji has shown his true colours, and when Shirou tries to stop him, Rider appears. It's finally time for Shirou to use one of his command seals, and summon Saber.

12. Splitting the Sky
Shirou realises at last that he can't do everything alone, and his protective instincts towards Saber are misplaced. They will have to fight together if they are to prevail in the Grail Wars. But first they have to deal with Shinji and Rider, if they are to protect the city from another of their soul-sapping barriers. But exhausted from the previous fight, Saber insists that Shirou takes some time off from the search to rest. A romantic moonlit park bench doesn't seem to have the expected relaxing effect on him, and when she offers her lap as a pillow, his colour gets worse. Odd, that!

Picture

Fate/Stay Night gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. It's an NTSC-PAL standards conversion of course, but it's the best one that I have seen in a long time. The animation is smooth, there's certainly no ghosting, judder, or problems with aliasing, despite all the dark scenes and well defined edges. In fact the only indication of a conversion that I can spot is an overall but not excessive softness to the image. The anime is impressive, well animated, with good, memorable character designs, a pleasant world design, and fluid and energetic motion

Sound

We have just the basics for the audio, with DD 2.0 English and Japanese soundtracks, with optional translated subtitles or signs. The dialogue is clear in both versions, although I must state that I found the dub to be surprisingly inferior given the current state of anime dubbing in the US. It's been a long time since I watched a dubbed anime that actually sounded cartoonish, and it was a shame to see this particular blast from the past. The music itself is fairly innocuous and forgettable, despite Kenji Kawai's name over the end credits. There is a hint of Vampire Princess Miyu in the opening credits theme, otherwise the music just didn't register with me.

Extras

It's your usual anime disc treatment, with animated menus and a jacket picture for when the disc isn't spinning.

There are a few more extras this time around, beginning with the Opening and Closing Music Clips, offering 2-minute snapshots of the music videos for the theme songs. Rider's diary is a 6-minute long comedy piece, reediting some of Shinji and Rider's interactions with Rider adding her own commentary. I could only find the English track on this, but given the captions on screen, there ought to be a Japanese audio track for this somewhere. Trailers on this disc are for Slayers and FLCL.

Conclusion

The third disc in a row, and I find that I'm still at a loss for words when it comes to Fate/Stay Night. I had hoped that this volume would throw up some quirk, some spark of originality or individuality that I could latch onto, and justifiably praise it for its brilliance. Alas, there is none of that, as when it comes to Fate/Stay Night's story, it almost makes the heart sink with its familiarity. When it comes to the stereotyped and prefabricated characters, it ploughs such a well-worn furrow that it's scraping bedrock at this point. It's almost as if it's anime by the numbers. And once again, this makes me sound like I hate the show. Far from it in fact, as while it is an anime show by the numbers, it's put together with such vibrancy, such elegance, and such skill, that it outshines all of its identikit peers, and even surpasses some of the more original titles. Fate/Stay Night is ultimately just fun to watch, it's entertaining, and what more can you ask for than that?


Fate/Stay Night does step it up a gear in this third volume though, with a greater emphasis on character development now that the main players have been introduced, and some higher stakes action sequences, as the Grail Wars intensify. It doesn't seem that way at first though, with a rather abortive encounter with the new Servant on the scene, Assassin, and a fleeting glimpse of the mysterious mage that controls him. But it does lead to a major development in Shirou's character, the realisation that if he continues to insist on leading from the front, he'll have to have the skills to back that up. So sword training with Saber commences. There's more character development in the next episode, The Calm Interlude, which lives up to its name with a distinct lack of Grail Wars action and emotional intensity. But it does offer a more human side to the mage Illya, whose appearances thus far have amounted to a veiled warning, and an outright attack. She breaks free of her servants (and Servant) for the day, and decides to spend some time in Shirou's company, who Berserker previously tried to kill. However this time she's more like a kid sister than a ruthless Mage, raising questions about just what is motivating her.


This episode also sets up the finale of this disc, when Shinji tries to make a deal with Rin Tohsaka, and is roundly rebuffed. That sends him off the deep end quite frankly, and the final two episodes are devoted to the first major battle of these Grail Wars, with Shirou having to deal with his friend Shinji before he goes too far and kills someone. It's the battle that tempers the partnership that has been forged between him and Saber, and both finally learn that they truly have to work together to succeed, Saber's chivalry, and Shirou's instinctive protectiveness notwithstanding. The problem here is that Shinji is Shirou's friend, even if he is a little psychotic at the moment, and more than that, he's Sakura's brother. There's more than just Shirou's innate reluctance to do harm staying his hand in this, and that reluctance could prove disastrous.


This third volume is the best of Fate/Stay Night so far. The animation is of high quality, and the action sequences are thrilling. Also the mythology of the show is really beginning to tantalise, with each of the Servants apparently resurrected heroes from the past. We learn the identity of Saber's sword in this volume, and the implications it has for her own identity are enticing. I hope we find out more in the next volume. I can definitely say this is a worthwhile anime now, especially as it's one where I can't wait for the next volume to turn up. But annoyingly, it still remains extremely middle of the road in terms of narrative and character. It's just that it does it better than all the others.