The Fate franchise past, present and future – a guide

Yesterday, we got yet another addition to the Fate universe in the form of the feature length Fate Grand Order: First Order. The Fate franchise has been constantly expanding since it’s inception with the 2004 visual novel Fate/Stay Night (the most well known and popular part of the world), but that has possibly never been as true as what we are being promised looking forward to 2017. Before we look at these new adaptations, I’ll run through the previous anime appearances.

Fate/Stay Night (2006)

The very first anime adapted the Fate route of the original visual novel. It follows the now familiar story line of Shirou and Saber in the Holy Grail war against six other pairs of mages and heroic spirits fighting it out in a battle royale format for the Holy Grail. It’s full of well fleshed out main characters with interesting motivations which set a reasonable benchmark for future instalments, but it suffered from bad pacing and a questionable selection of sections from the visual novel (when you see the bit I mean, you’ll know exactly what I mean). My full review is here.

Saber is the main female character of the first incarnation of Fate/Stay Night

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works Movie (2010)

After a four year break, Fate/Stay Night returned in movie form adapting the second visual novel route, Unlimited Blade Works. I will admit I’ve chosen not to watch this particular adaptation because of some of the reviews I’ve read about it. The movie takes one of three main routes of the 50 hour long visual novel and tells it’s story in 90 minutes – I suppose that tells you all you need to know.

Review: Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works

In the wide world of anime there are very, very few shows that are generally viewed as very good whilst being popular. One such show was Fate/Zero, the anime adaptation of the light novel series and prequel to the Fate/Stay Night visual novel and anime. It’s two halves sit pretty in the top 100 on MAL and on the whole most people seem to have little to say about it. Personally I found the series to be generally very good, if a little slow at times.

The franchise more widely is perhaps slightly less critically acclaimed though it does maintain a certain reputation as a high class series, a point which has only been helped by the large budgets which have boosted the series along in the last five years – particularly on the part of the anime studio ufotable. This brings us to the point of this article: Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, the 2014/15 series adapting the second route, Unlimited Blade Works, of the 2004 visual novel.

Rin Toosaka is one of the main protagonists for the show and her tsundere traits don’t effect the show. Much.