Given its narrative structure in its original visual novel form, it’s no wonder a pure adaptation ofFate/Stay Nightis impossible. It’s constructed with three different storylines, or routes, that must be played through in order. They’re separate storylines, and yet they build upon each other as if they were part of the same narrative. They’ll even make references to story beats and elements from the other two. The plot device of parallel universes isn’t brought in untilthe third and final route,Heaven’s Feel, but once that falls into place, the idea that these are all canon timelines existing simultaneously makes more sense, oddly enough. More so, when taken into consideration the fact thatFate/Zero, as a prequel, takes into account setting up all three of theFate/Stay Nightroutes.
With that being the case, which route’s adaptation did the best that it possibly could have in adapting it? Whichanimeadaptation ofFate/Stay Nightdid the best job of bringing the route it was adapting to life in animation, with a passionate narrative that best conveyed its story not just to fans of the visual novel, but also toanime-only watchers?
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Deen/Stay Night
For a long time, the onlyanimeadaptation that existed wasthe 2006 adaptation by studio Deen. Technically, it adapted theFateroute, which features Saber as the main heroine. However, the route itself was too bare-bones for a full series adaptation. Moreover, the creators appeared to have set forth on the premise that they could do like many other visual novel adaptations tend to do, and focus on one route but still pull the best parts from other routes and include them in the same adaptation, as a means to tie disparate storylines into a unified narrative,not unlike what series such asClannaddid. For what they came up with, it was an admirable effort. Anyone familiar with the visual novel could easily pick out the parts that were from theUnlimited Bladeworksroute, and for the most part, those parts worked well enough alongside theFatestoryline, with enough of the former there for fans of the visual novel, as well as foranime-onlys, to be intrigued and make a fairly decent guess at things like how Archer’s identity is tied to Shirou.
However, incorporating parts of theHeaven’s Feelroute proved tricky. That one has quite a lot going on, andcan be confusing without being given breathing roomto explain itself and its place in the story. That andHeaven’s Feel’s more explicit content meant that many of its story beats had to be cut out simply for their explicitness. In the end, Deen came up with an anime-original homage of sorts to theHeaven’s Feelroute with mixed results. Then they ended theanimeproper with an original ending based on theFateroute. Given what they had to work with, it was a noble effort. Unfortunately, it resulted in the overall story being a bit of a mess in terms of story focus and pacing in some parts, even if it did find a way to give Tohsaka and Sakura their due even though this wasn’t for either of their routes.
ufotable Takes the Wheel
For those fans who were upsetthat theUnlimited Bladeworksroutejust didn’t get its own adaptation, Deen later came out with one, only just as a feature-length film. This, again, meant stripping the story down to its basics to keep the runtime down. So, while many were content at least that ananimeadaptation of theUnlimited Bladeworksroute existed at all, since for the longest time there was no discussion of any further adaptations, it’s fair to say that visual novel fans of the film over the TV series were probably settling, deep down.
ThenFate/Zerowas adapted into ananime, this time by ufotable, and it was a massive success. It reinvigorated theFatefranchise, even brought in new fans. And many praised it as being superior toStay Night, which, comparatively speaking, wasn’t exactly hard to be. Still, ufotable shot for the moon in terms of their adaptation of the orignal light novels penned by Gen Urobuchi. However, there didn’t appear to be any talk of anotherStay Nightadaptation–that is until it was announced officially that they really would be helming aStay Nightreboot.
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Fans were all the more excited that they were planning to doUnlimited Bladeworks. Likely the only ones who were not entirely happy perhaps were fans of theHeaven’s Feelroute. Thankfully, ufotable had that covered too, promising that they were going to adaptHeaven’s Feeltoo, though as a film trilogy. Again, given its explicit content, a TV series was still out of the question, but ufotable had built their successon movie adaptations of Type-Moon propertiesfrom theirKara no Kyoukaiseries. SoUnlimited BladeworksandHeaven’s Feelwere both in good hands.
Conceivably,Unlimited Bladeworkshas the best adaptation, simply because it has the most time to flesh out its story without having to shove in other route story beats to fill out anything for a 26-ish episode run. But while both of the ufotable adpatations are stellar to say the least compared to Deen’sFateroute adaptation, there’s something to be said with parts of theUnlimited Bladeworksroute from the Deen adaptation played on repeat in the ufotable adaptation that could makesome arcs slightly more tedious to get through, if only slightly.
WhileHeaven’s Feelfans didn’t get a whole series, most of the filler slice-of-life chapters from that route in the visual novel could actually be cut without losing the crux of the story. This meant there were few places where the pacing dragged, but the overall narrative remained coherent. And as the final chapter inFate/Stay Night’s story, it wrapped things up with the same satisfaction that the route itself gives its fans, as the darkest timeline with the happiest and most satisfying ending for most of its characters.
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