02.06
Note: I have discovered recently that the fan translation of this visual novel is considered bad and stilted by people who can actually read Japanese. My complaints about Nasu’s prose have been rendered void in light of this, so you should probably not read the following article.
The first season of the Fate/Zero anime will be concluding its run in a few days’ time. Packed with huge thrills, great animation, and a manly eminence on par with that of Dragon Ball Z‘s entire run, it’s absolutely one of the best new anime you can watch this year. Before my full review drops, however, I figured it’d be a good idea to present you fine fellows with a piece about its parent story; an exceedingly long visual novel that’s been poorly adapted at least three times named Fate/Stay Night. It’s supposed to be written with a lowercase “s” and “n,” but that looks weird to me when I type it out, so I won’t.
A visual novel is a storytelling format wedged somewhere between the concept of “the longest book ever” and that of “a video game with almost no actual gameplay.” Basically, it’s an electronic Choose Your Own Adventure novel inspired by a certain famous work of Leo Tolstoy’s. This is not to say that no visual novels have legitimate gameplay elements; for example, Fate’s 115th and latest spin-off — JRPG Fate/Extra — and classic(?) SRPG Utawarerumono feature a hefty amount of VN reading while also functioning as traditional video games. As you can imagine, the overseas audience for visual novels is even more niche than Suda51’s, so they don’t really receive much exposure outside of Japan. Of course, that doesn’t stop fans from releasing their own translation patches (as with F/SN), and their prominence in the western world has actually been on the rise over the past few years; recent PSP title Corpse Party has released to good-to-great reviews, publisher MangaGamer has officially localized Higurashi no Naku Koro ni as well as a large amount of porn, and upcoming visual novel Katawa Shoujo isn’t even made in Japan!
Fate/Stay Night is Type-Moon’s cash cow, and Type-Moon is perhaps the name brand visual novel producer, considering how many anime fans who’ve never read a VN in their life have still heard of them. Thus, Fate has been aptly dubbed “babby’s first VN” on the internet. Tsukihime (also by Type-Moon), Higurashi & Umineko, and 999 have also received this honorable title (among others, I’m sure), but F/SN really is the quintessential work as far as babby’s first VNs go due to its accessibility and probably some other factors that I’m ignorant of. As such, it makes sense that even a cynical bastard like myself has read Fate/Stay Night and lived to write about it.
Truth be told, it’s a worthwhile read, despite easily taking more than 50 hours to finish. On the whole, it’s a very good experience, but (and I’m sure many Type-Moon fans will crucify me for saying this) it’s definitely a flawed one. I can’t really recommend it over many of the “traditional” print books I’ve read, but that doesn’t make it bad at all. Fate/Stay Night is filled with interesting ideas, yet it never truly lives up to its own potential for a few reasons. I’m not trying to be unfair here, either; I’ll just go ahead and say right now that this visual novel is objectively far superior to Higurashi‘s — something which I absolutely adore.
Fate/Stay Night is divided into three different interpretations of the same basic story (routes). Unlike some visual novels, where you can go directly from the prologue into any of the available routes if you play your cards right, F/SN forces you to play ’em in order. Perhaps the biggest flaw present in the entire VN is that the first route, Fate, is incredibly boring and often monotonous if not outright tedious to read. Despite having no significant connection plotwise to the other, better routes, this first one spends somewhere around 25 hours setting things up and presenting the reader with backstory about the various characters, especially protagonist Shirou Emiya and his Servant, Saber.
“Whoa,” you say, “slow down! The fuck’s a Servant? And why the hell is there a talking sword character?”
Fate expends hundreds of pages worth of exposition clarifying such matters. Shirou, the shittiest magus in the world, is somehow granted the “most powerful of all servants,” Saber, at the beginning of the newest iteration of a centuries-old war for something called the Holy Grail (no, not that Holy Grail). A Servant is summoned by each of the seven maguses to help them fight for their ultimate goal, with the Servants each representing a different legendary hero. Saber is calm, cool, and professional about everything, a major contrast to Shirou’s unflinching naivety that often borders on stupidity. The other Servants — Archer, Lancer, Rider, Assassin, Caster, and Berserker — are all far more interesting than Saber (well… maybe not Berserker), but this is forgivable because she’s still quite likable. The biggest problem with the story in this route is that it doesn’t really go anywhere and is jam-packed with amateurish, poorly-handled exposition that often repeats itself. Some of the fight scenes are very cool (and well-written), and it features a nice conclusion to certain character arcs, but actually reading through Fate is unquestionably a slog.
Assuming you can make it to them, Unlimited Blades Works (route 2) and Heaven’s Feel (route 3) are both far, far better. Unlimited Blade Works tones down the unnecessarily wordy explanations and delivers an exciting action-oriented take on the material with some great plot twists thrown in to keep things interesting. There really isn’t much to say about it aside from “it’s pretty cool” and that I found it to be a very enjoyable read. As for Heaven’s Feel, it’s definitely the highlight of the entire VN. By dropping the overcomplicated “magic rules” jargon of the other routes, making the fights brutal instead of fantastical, and darkening the overall tone of the story, it delivers the more focused and well-written take on the concept I’d been begging for since the prologue. Unfortunately, it’s also overlong and at times obnoxious.
On that note, author Kinoko Nasu desperately needs an editor. And not just in Fate/Stay Night, I mean in everything I’ve ever read or seen of his. He needs someone who can trim down his work to make it more palatable. Someone who can help him become more accomplished at his craft. Someone who can say “no” to him when he decides to implement more painfully awkward cooking scenes or horrifically embarrassing sexual encounters. I’m not calling Nasu a bad writer, but if Mirror Moon’s seemingly excellent translation accurately reflects the prose and overall writing style of his original manuscript, I can’t say he’s a good one, either.
The narrative relies far too heavily on exposition to explain things to the reader. As previously mentioned, Fate is rife with overwrought explanations for things that could have easily been implemented into the story in such a way as to make them more pleasurable to read. These explanations tend to extend for pages at a time, breaking (and sometimes outright annihilating) the flow of the story. Worst of all is that he actually repeats certain bits of exposition at multiple instances, merely phrasing them differently each time. I frequently found myself yelling, “show, don’t tell, goddamn it!” at the screen during the first route, because the expository narration and dialogue (yes, dialogue) just drags on and on. This is, quite frankly, depressing coming from a man who had written at least three traditional novels and two visual novels prior to the release of this particular one. Many have described Nasu’s writing style as being “unconventional;” I prefer “amateurish.” EDIT: After having read Tsukihime to completion, I’d just like to say that Nasu is a much better writer than I once thought. My problems with Fate/Stay Night remain, but he’s definitely quite talented.
The dialogue doesn’t fare much better. It is, in all honesty, some of the most stilted, unrealistic dialogue I have ever encountered in a piece of writing people are expected to pay money to read. Conversations between people don’t come across as natural or even conversational; the characters appear to be talking at each other rather than to each other around 80% of the time. This is hammered home extra hard by the interaction between three of the major characters; Shirou is dumb beyond comprehension, Saber has no sense of humor and speaks very plainly, and Rin Tohsaka is a tsundere archetype (causing me to have a hard time tolerating her in general). Things improve significantly whenever other characters are involved — especially when those characters include Archer, Lancer, or Kirei Kotomine — but whenever someone’s cooking or eating at Shirou’s house, you better be ready to groan.
Furthermore, there is too much padding throughout the story. The sex scenes are unnecessary and obviously shoehorned in, while the feeble attempts at comedy (aside from a certain scene involving mapo tofu) and aforementioned exposition explosions will make many contemplate suicide. On the subject of sexual situations in Fate/Stay Night, they are very (poorly) detailed and 100% pornographic. They also feature some of the absolute worst erotic writing I’ve ever seen, delivering unto us such gems as:
- “Our membranes rub against each other. My grotesque member is wet with foaming love juice. Her contracting walls suck on my blood-congested penis.”
- “Maybe she can’t breathe out her mouth because it’s filled with my penis.”
- “The varying movements are like those of an educated prostitute.” (Keep in mind that the girl in question has been raped hundreds of times by this point.)
and
- “My cum ejaculates as if to shoot down her womb.”
Worst of all, despite everything being way too long, it never pays enough attention to the actual Holy Grail War. However, when it does, the writing really shines. Every action scene is beautifully detailed and paints a wonderful picture of what the battle would look like if it were to be animated (please note that the anime adaptations of Fate and Unlimited Blade Works are downright disgraceful and should be viewed by no one).
If it seems like I’m being harsh, I am. Fate/Stay Night is very good overall, but the amount of wasted potential on display here is positively frustrating. You have to dig through layers of poor writing and useless padding to really see the gem that is this visual novel for what it is, and that saddens me. Fate/Stay Night could have been a masterpiece, but it’s not, and unfortunately doesn’t even come close. It seems content being just “pretty good,” and I guess you can’t really fault something for simply being great.
When everything’s said and done, I recommend this visual novel to anyone willing to read it; especially if you plan on watching or reading the excellent prequel, Fate/Zero. Look for my review of that one’s anime version sometime next week!
Originally posted on December 22, 2011