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The Japanese adult visual novel Fate/stay night features a number of characters created by Type-Moon, some of whom are classified as Servants with special combat abilities. The characters listed have appeared mainly in two anime television series adaptations (Fate/stay night and Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works) with a movie trilogy adaptation (Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel) produced by Studio Deen and Ufotable respectively, and its visual novel sequel, Fate/hollow ataraxia. A Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works animated film was released prior to its TV series.
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Kinoko Nasu wrote only one Fate/stay night in college intending Shirou and Saber to be the only couple.[1] In his early drafts, Fate's heroine Saber was a man, and the protagonist was a girl with glasses.[2] This early draft was later embodied in the short original video animation (OVA) Fate/Prototype, which was released with the final volume of the Carnival Phantasm OVA series.[3] Nasu set aside the project and went on to found Type-Moon with artist Takashi Takeuchi. After the success of their first visual novel Tsukihime in 2000, Type-Moon transitioned from a dōjin soft organization to a commercial organization. In the beginning, Nasu was worried that because the main character was a girl, the story might not work as a bishōjo game. Artist Takeuchi suggested switching the protagonist's and Saber's genders to fit the game market.[1]
The novel Makai Tensho influenced Nasu to write a fantasy story in which famous heroic personalities from all over the world would take part.[4] The original idea was limited to the prototype of the Fate arc, where the main characters were the female master and her Servant Saber (the embodiment of King Arthur as a man).[5] According to Nasu, this version contained elements of 1980s romance and ideas of transformations to world order, while the final version focuses on changes within people and has other purposes for using the Holy Grail.[6] About a third of the scenario of the future Fate arc (up to the battle with Sasaki Kojiro) was completed at that time, but for several personal reasons, Nasu could not write further for more than ten years.[4] Scenes from the original visual novel that show Shirou having sexual intercourse with the heroines are commonly censored. According to the website Kotaku, Shirou's intercourse with Sakura has become an Internet meme that replaced Sakura's nudity with multiple images.[7]
Writer Gen Urobuchi was pitched a prequel of Fate/stay night by Takeuchi, Nasu was amazed by Urobuchi and had predicted in 2002 while unable to work on Fate/stay night due to illness that Urobuchi would write an interesting story. Ideas like Saber being lectured by Gilgamesh and Alexander the Great gave him a bigger impact. When starting the project for Fate/Zero, Nasu decided to give Urobuchi complete freedom for Kiritsugu's characterization.[8] In Fate/stay night, Saber explains she had brief interactions with Kiritsugu Emiya which led to the creation of the character of Irisviel. As Kiritsugu's wife, Irisviel plays the role of facilitating communication between these two, who do not talk to each other. The distanced and ultimately dark relationship between Kiritsugu and Saber caused by the former's actions in the story led Urobuchi and Nasu to change some early drafts in the story, including the addition of Kiritsugu adopting Shirou. These changes were to create a more coherent relationship between Saber and Shirou Emiya in the original visual novel.[9] Urobuchi had no issues writing the main characters' ideologies.[10]
Voiced by: Noriaki Sugiyama[11] (Japanese); Sam Riegel (Fate/stay night, UBW film),[11] Bryce Papenbrook (UBW TV, Heaven's Feel film), Mona Marshall (Young Shirō in UBW TV) (English)
Shirou is a good-hearted and honest teenager who always enjoys helping others. However, Shirō is a deeply scarred human being orphaned after a fire destroyed part of his hometown when he was seven and caused him to lose all memory of the first seven years of his life. He was saved by Kiritsugu Emiya, who adopted him and named him Shirō after discovering that the boy could not recall his real name. He has no interest in the Holy Grail and instead despises it. However, he is determined to win the Holy Grail War with Saber, for he hopes his efforts will ensure that another disaster like the Fuyuki fire will never occur again. The main plot of Fate/stay night focuses on his ideal and the three different ways he approaches it.
Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi[11] (Japanese); Kate Higgins (Fate/stay night),[11][12] Michelle Ruff (UBW film, Fate/Apocrypha),[12] Kari Wahlgren (Zero, UBW TV, Heaven's Feel film) (English)
The main heroine of the Fate route and the mascot of the franchise, Saber is an honorable swordsman whose true identity is the King of Knights Artoria Pendragon (アルトリア・ペンドラゴン, Arutoria Pendoragon) who sought the Holy Grail to prevent the events that doomed her homeland with someone else ruling Britain in her stead. She was previously Kiritsugu Emiya's servant during the Fourth Holy Grail War. Stunned to discover that the legendary King Arthur is a young woman, Kiritsugu refused to speak to her directly since her summoning, which Saber initially believes is because he believes the fact that she is a woman makes her inadequate. However, Irisviel later suggests Kiritsugu's anger towards Saber is out of the belief that he could not accept the decisions Saber made or allowed to be made in life yet he could not justify his reasons for why he believed she was wrong. Because of their incompatible methods, Kiritsugu arranges Saber to serve as Irisviel's bodyguard, while she questions her master's tactics before being forced into attempting to destroy the Holy Grail. Losing her memory in the process, Saber becomes Shirō's Servant for the Fifth Holy Grail War. Saber acts coldly and suppressing her emotions to focus on her goals. Saber is frustrated by Shirō's "protective" tendencies, believing his erratic and reckless behavior will jeopardize their chances of winning the Holy Grail War services as a Heroic Spirit.
Voiced by: Kana Ueda[11] (Japanese); Mela Lee[11][13] (English)
The main heroine of the UBW route, Rin Tohsaka is a high school girl who barely talks to other students in her school and exhibits a desire to be left alone, as exemplified by her tendency to stay on the school's rooftop, away from the rest students. She is also secretly a Mage, and a Master in the Fifth Holy Grail War.[14] Rin is reared as the successor to her family's magecraft, instructed by her father, Tokiomi Tohsaka, to prioritize sorcery over her own interests. When she was young, Rin was separated from her sister Sakura, who was given to the Matou family for adoption. After her father is killed in the Fourth Holy Grail War, Rin perfects her sorcery with some guidance from her guardian, Kirei Kotomine.
Voiced by: Noriko Shitaya[11] (Japanese); Sherry Lynn (Fate/stay night, UBW film),[15] Cristina Vee (UBW TV, Heaven's Feel film)[16] (English)
The main heroine of the Heaven's feel route, Sakura is a first-year high school student and the sister of Shinji Matou. After Shirou's father, Kiritsugu, died, Sakura often visits Shirou's home to help him with his daily chores. Though Shinji is from a sorcerer family, he asserts that she does not know her family's craft or history. Sakura is outwardly timid but possesses great magical strength. She has a long-standing crush on Shirou Emiya. Sakura plays a minor part in the Fate and Unlimited Blade Works routes, being nothing more than a dutiful kouhai (junior student) who is always there to help Shirou in both routes. However, in the Heaven's Feel route, she serves as the lead heroine and vastly expands on her backstory. In the anime-original storyline, Sakura is kidnapped by Caster as a sacrifice to summon the Holy Grail due to her possessing latent magic circuits.[17] During the rescue attempt, she and Rin are confirmed to be sisters who were separated when they were very young.[18]
Voiced by: Jouji Nakata (Japanese); Jamieson Price (Fate/stay night, UBW film, credited as Taylor Henry),[11] Crispin Freeman (Zero, UBW TV, Heaven's Feel film) (English)
A priest ostensibly acting as the impartial overseer of the Holy Grail War under an agreement between the Mages' Association and the Holy Church. He inherited the position from his father, Risei Kotomine. Due to his experience as an elite assassin for the Church, Kirei is an expert practitioner in Chinese martial arts whose proficiency is magnified by his monstrous physical strength and numerous Command Seals.[19] He ultimately emerges as one of the series' main antagonists upon revealing he has been manipulating the Masters into supplying the Grail with enough energy to destroy humanity.
At the time of his birth, Kirei Kotomine possessed Magical Circuits despite being of non-magus descent.[20] While possessing a strong moral compass, Kirei discovered early in his youth that he could only experience joy through others' suffering. During the events of Fate/Zero, Kirei apprenticed himself to Tokiomi Tōsaka at his father's behest in order to secretly serve as his spy and ally against the other Masters in the Fourth Holy Grail War. Over the course of the war, he became obsessed with another Master, Kiritsugu Emiya, whom he grew to despise because of his callous disregard for his own humanity in pursuit of lofty ideals. After murdering Tokiomi and forming a contract with his Archer servant, Kirei resolved to destroy not only Kiritsugu but the dream he has dedicated his life to as well. In a climactic duel to the death, Kiritsugu fatally wounded Kirei only for the latter to make a wish upon the cursed Grail that resulted in much of Fuyuki's destruction. Upon being revived by the Grail, Kirei committed his entire existence to unleashing the dark entity within it.
In the first route of Fate/Stay Night simply called Fate, Kirei Kotomine emerges as the story arc's main antagonist after kidnapping Ilya to use her as a vessel for the Grail's cursed contents. In the ensuing climax, Shirō ultimately defeats him by destroying his heart with the Azoth Sword. In the second route, Unlimited Blade Works, Kirei attempts to use Rin as the vessel for the Grail only to be killed by Lancer well before the story's conclusion. In the final route, Heaven's Feel, he serves as both a protagonist and one of the story's primary antagonists. By prolonging Sakura Matō's life [21] and facilitating her growth as the Black Grail,[22][23] he plays a crucial role in ensuring her corruption by Angra Mainyu. However, his plans are foiled when Shiro and Rin manage to convince her she is truly loved, thereby giving her the resolve to break free of the entity's hold. As the fully developed Angra Mainyu prepares to enter the world, a mortally wounded Kirei surfaces to prevent Shirou from getting in its way. Subsequently, the two engage in a brutal fight to the death until Kirei's heart gives out. Accepting defeat, he declares Shirō the winner of the Fifth Holy Grail War before collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
Voiced by: Rikiya Koyama, Miyu Irino (childhood) (Japanese); Kirk Thornton (Fate/stay night), Matthew Mercer (Zero, UBW TV), Marin Miller (childhood) (English)
Kiritsugu Emiya (衛宮切嗣, Emiya Kiritsugu) is Shirō's adoptive father who died before the events of Fate/stay night and is only seen in flashback and the protagonist of Fate/Zero, known as the Mage Slayer for his unconventional methods of killing. Born in Fuyuki City, Kiritsugu was raised on Alimango Island by his father Norikata Emiya, a magus who specializes in time magic. But Kiritsugu's life took a nasty turn when his friend Shirley, a local girl working as his father's aide, accidentally got vampirized and his hesitance to kill her resulted in the entire island being comprised. Marrying into the Einzbern family, Kiritsugu served as their representative in the Fourth Holy War as Saber's Master during the Fourth Holy Grail War with the intention of using the Holy Grail to wish for world peace. But Kiritsugu discovered that the Grail had become corrupted and attempted to destroy it by using a Command Spell on Saber which devastated the surrounding area, inflicted with a curse that shorted his lifespan and raising Shirō after being cast out by the Einzbern family.
Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese); Bridget Hoffman[24] (English)
Irisviel von Einzbern (アイリスフィール・フォン・アインツベルン, Airisufīru fon Aintsuberun) is the main heroine of the story and Kiritsugu's wife. She is a homunculus prototype created by the Einzbern family with the idea of giving birth to an ultimate homunculus. Like many of the Einzberns, she is skilled in alchemy. Irisviel serves as Saber's proxy Master, since Kiritsugu believes that he and Saber are incompatible. Due to possessing the inborn knowledge and reasoning of homunculi, hindsights gleaned from the 1000 years of history of the Einzbern as well only having nine years of life-experience, she has both the elegance of a lady and the innocence of a child. Her true purpose in the War is as the vessel of the Holy Grail itself. When four or more Servants are killed, she will manifest as the Grail, losing fully her humanity and sense of self in the process.
Created by Jubstacheit von Einzbern, the eighth head of the Einzbern family, she originally saw herself only as a tool to summon the Holy Grail. Upon first contact with Irisviel in the Einzbern residence in Germany, Kiritsugu noted that she had no instinct for self-preservation and expressed doubts about Irisviel's suitability as the Grail to Jubstacheit. In response, Jubstacheit threw Irisviel into a junkyard for rejected homunculi, a dangerous place filled with monsters and spirits, reasoning that if Irisviel could not even survive a night there alone, he would accept Kiritsugu's criticism and furnish him a new homunculi. In response, Kiritsugu rescued Irisviel and decided to give her a sense of self-preservation by personally educating her and teaching her what it meant to be a human. Eventually, they fell in love with each other. Wanting to show Kiritsugu that there could be a future for them after her fated death, she bears Kiritsugu a daughter, Illyasviel von Einzbern. They live together for nine years in total before departing to Japan for the War.
While approving of Kiritsugu's ideal and willing to sacrifice herself for its sake, she does not truly understand that ideal, but only wishes to walk the same path as her beloved. However, in order not to burden Kiritsugu, she decides to behave as a woman who would die for that same ideal rather than a woman that would die for her husband. Her Magecraft involves the creation and forging of matter, as well as its applications. In terms of magical ability, she is stronger than Kiritsugu. Her weapons are thin, long and flexible wires, which she uses to produce an instantaneous homunculus with alchemy that attacks the enemy while changing itself into numerous shapes. She may also use her weapon to immobilize her target.
Voiced by: Hitomi Nabatame (Fate/tiger colosseum, Fate/unlimited codes, Carnival Phantasm, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (anime), and Fate/hollow ataraxia (PSVita))
Bazett Fraga McRemitz (バゼット・フラガ・マクレミッツ, Bazetto Furaga Makuremittsu) is a mage from the Knights of the Red Branch sent by the Mage's Association to fight the Fifth Holy Grail War, born in Ireland as a descendant of old mage family and the protagonist of Fate/hollow ataraxia. She was the original master of Lancer who originally summoned him (her childhood hero), but was betrayed by her old colleague Kotomine and had her left arm with its Command Seals stolen. She was left for dead before she was discovered by Avenger, who created the time loop inside of Bazett's mind, so that she could stay alive from her fatal injuries. Bazett can directly fight and defeat Servants due to her family's combat-based magecraft and her ancestral Noble Phantasm: the sacred dagger Fragarach, which reverses time so that it always strikes first in response to her opponent's ultimate attack. She is mentioned very briefly in Fate/stay night but does not make an appearance.
The visual novel noted that such use of the heroes of the legends of antiquity could also encourage acquaintance with their original sources.[36] Reviewers considered Shirou's behavior and his attitude to his own ideals as the most interesting and well-developed part of the whole novel.[37][38] Uno Tsunehiro from Kyoto University compared Shirou's traumatic background in regards the city's fire to survivors from the September 11 attacks while also showing different ways the Japanese society used to take care of their lives in such time. As a result, Tsunehiro views Shirou's change in each route as a way to recover from the trauma, grow up and become an independent person.[39] A large number of sudden deaths, coupled with a sharp effect of losing control over the situation, according to the authors of the monograph, gave the gameplay an additional emotional coloring and motivated players to continue playing the game, aided by well-developed plot twists.[40] In his analysis of the magical system and details of the personalities of the characters, Makoto Kuroda sees in the idea of Shirou to become a “champion of justice” a direct analogy with the traditional view of the life of bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism, seeking to save other people at the cost of their own efforts and suffering.[41] In Kuroda's view, Buddhist concepts are opposed to the elements of Christian ethics contained in the plot through the opposition of Shirou and Kirei Kotomine in the form of the main character's rejection of the interpretation of Angra Mainyu as a creature who accepted the sins of others in the name of salvation.[42]
The images of Rin, Saber and Sakura received conflicting ratings. Thus, many reviewers recognized that the psychologically deepest arc is "Heaven's Feel", which is largely due to the sharp and versatile disclosure of the image of Sakura Matou,[43][44] and her romantic line with Shirou is the most "adult" among all the heroines.[44][45] Some reviewers commented on Shirou's relationship with Saber and on his growth in Studio Deen's anime that improves their personalities and adds romance to their relationship as the plot progresses.[46][47][48][49] Scenes from the original visual novel that show Shirou having sexual intercourse with the heroines are commonly censored, leading to memes.[50]
There was also commentary about the Fate/Zero cast. Kirtisugu's relationship with Kirei was the subject of praise.[51][52] The Fandom Post and Blu-ray enjoyed Shirou's characterization in the film, in which his ideals contrast with those of Archer and Kiritusgu, making him notably mature in the story.[53][54] The Fandom Post enjoyed the handling of Waver's past persona during the dream sequence he has, as he reflects on his past when interacting with Iskander.[55] Anime News Network writers Theron Martin and Michelle Liu listed El-Melloi II as the best anime character of 2019 due to his style when dealing with enemies. Liu regarded him as one of the best LGBTQ+ character, something she found that while it might come across as controversial, both Waver's younger persona from Fate/Zero and Lord El-Melloi II was often commented by writers and him to have developed romantical feelings for Iskandar, something which Iskandar was famous in real life.[56][57]
Beside the main Fate series, critics focused on spin-off incarnations. During his debut in Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!!, Shirou earned praise from Thanasis Karavasilis of MANGA.TOKYO, who said his heroic actions make his first appearance the highlight of the episode.[58] His role in the fighting scenes in the series were well received by Karavasilis, but he received criticism for being overpowered.[59][60] For the film Oath Under Snow, response to Shirou's protection over Miyu were received positive response,[61][62] while his characterization also earned praise despite similarities with previous incarnations.[63][64]
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