So before I begin I want to state that after the comparison between Danmachi and How to be an Adventurer (which I was able to get Yaroshien to read and he responded quite well to it) I expected that the very next one of these I'd do would be on The Seven Deadly Sins vs. The Seven Deadly Schmucks since I spend a lot of time watching that one and I know that both parties have interacted with each other before. However, I want the season to end before I begin and the more I think about it the harder I find to criticize it objectively for reasons I'll discuss when that comes around. However, I am on a Fate kick right now and Logan Laidlaw seems like no less of a chill dude than Yaro so I'm hoping for two for two on this one. And before anyone asks, yes, the most recent Episode of the Abridged Caster Away is the first episode of Season 2, both the new OP as well as the end slate confirm it.
So compared to other people and works that I discovered back during the heyday of abridging, Project Mouthwash is a recent development for me. Truthfully I don't know how long they've been around but I only discovered them after having watched the second Heaven's Feel movie for like the dozenth time which goes to show just how recently I discovered them. That said, I've watched the series front to back and also watched Unlimited Blade Works, as well as the Heaven's Feel trilogy in preparation for this. However, while I have viewed Dean Stay Night before, which seems to be vital for understanding some of the decisions during this production, my research on that front is a bit limited as I'm having difficulty revisiting it. So, Logan, if you ever read this, if I get anything wrong, feel free to let me know.
So I'm going to approach this largely the same way I approached the previous one, starting with the narrative similarities on the subject of communication, followed by the divergences and my general thoughts on them, followed by objective praise because I don't want to be an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. Also be aware that I strive for objectivity whenever possible so any flaws I highlight are simply flaws that I notice in the production and writing consistency, this is not intended to be an attack on the series nor on anyone involved.
Communication
So beginning with the openings, the first episode of each series has Rin Tohsaka beginning to summon a servant as per the prologue of the Fate/Stay Night Visual Novel and this is going to be the first snag when commenting on any of this. You see, when I talked about Danmachi vs How to be an Adventurer, I talked primarily about what was in the anime and not the source material. This is because while the source material is ahead of the anime, ultimately the narratives are going to be identical, therefore even if Yaro had read ahead in the light novel to gather context for the anime, the light novel would've been far enough ahead that the anime itself would've benefit from the same thing. Likewise DBZA, SAO Abridged, and various others have anime adaptations that are largely identical to their very linear source material, so it only makes sense that taking the anime as the season presents it compared to the abridged series makes sense.
The difference with UBW though is that the source material is a visual novel, which is not the same thing. Normally I'd skim past this but since there are still people that think a visual novel is a comic of some kind, a visual novel is a type of video game that consists mostly of text, character portraits, and specific CG's for iconic or dramatic moments in the story. Many visual novels have multiple storylines, many have different outcomes based on romantic interests, Fate/Stay Night has both. In Fate/Stay Night there were three storylines: Fate, which is the first entry that all players could play from the beginning, Unlimited Blade Works, which was the second entry that, on release, required a completion of Fate to view, and Heaven's Feel, which upon release required the completion of Fate AND Unlimited Blade Works in order to view. Disregarding Realta Nua, which has every route unlocked from the beginning, as well as anime adaptations which mess with this issue quite a bit, the original release of the visual novel had a clear progression in terms of story stakes, complication, and general isolation of the storylines. Each progressive storyline relied on context from the previous ones, which meant the earlier ones had to rely more on themselves and not spoil anything about later storylines. This is why you can find out in Heaven's Feel that Sakura is the true master of Rider while in Fate you can be entirely unaware that Sakura is even a mage.
This is already complicated enough with anime adaptations, since you can't really expect someone to watch Deanstay Night, UBW, Heaven's Feel, and Fate/Zero in that order but what makes this even messier is the fact that UBW Abridged seems to assume you've already been through all three storylines.
This is fine enough with the Fate flashbacks and references to stuff in the Fate route as while it is somewhat presumptuous for Project Mouthwash to assume you already know the Fate Route going into UBW Abridged, in that case you can argue that all they're doing is forming the same assumption the visual novel did. This becomes harder to justify with the references to Heaven's Feel though, as both the visual novel and the UBW Anime refuse to comment on things that take place in Heaven's Feel despite Fate/Zero already spoiling some of it for some viewers. Granted, though, at least in Fate/Zero's case, you won't know what is a casual spoiler until you go through the specific routes in question, but UBW abridged kind of just forgoes the entire process and just casually reveals things in a way that'll make you wonder why it's even in the story.
This is the inverse problem of How to be an Adventurer compared to Danmachi. Where Yaroshien made the mistake of not explaining enough, Logan Laidlaw seems to have made the mistake of explaining too much. From Rider's heavy bias toward Sakura heavily suggesting their relationship, to Shinji just flat out revealing it to Kirei, to Rin revealing Shinji's treatment of Sakura as early as EPISODE 1 OF THIS SERIES, there are a lot of out of place Heaven's Feel spoilers in this series, which wouldn't be an objective flaw per se except for the fact that Heaven's Feel is a different timeline.
The Fate series operates on multiverse theory and in the visual novel all three routes are occurring concurrently in different timelines, which means that nothing that happens in one route is going to end up having any bearing on another, which means seeding things out that will inevitably have no pay off can only be called a flaw. This is fine enough when characters are bantering or recalling their histories, such as Kiritsugu recounting the plot of Fate/Zero, to Archer remembering events from Dean/Stay Night to Saber and Assassin making jokes that imply something else without directly stating it, especially in Archer's case since his memories actually do have a payoff in this series, even if that payoff hasn't occurred yet at the time I write this. But when characters are referencing things that for all intents and purposes the story has no real reason to reference, it suggests a mix-up of priorities on the part of the writers.
On the flip side, though, there are some things that I believe should have been revealed in the UBW Anime that were revealed in the abridged series. For instance, UBW Abridged reveals that Souichirou Kuzuki both killed and adopted the name Kazuki Yamashiro, as well as is from an organization of assassins. I believe I was already aware of these going into this series but after watching Unlimited Blade Works by Ufotable, neither of those things is referenced despite this route being the one where these are revealed. So despite not being on the praise section yet, I can say with absolute certainty that this is one of those areas where UBW Abridged is objectively better. It's just unfortunate that these things came at the cost of dialogue and information that really will end up having no bearing on the plot.
Differences
Onto the original content then. If the prior section was a bit shorter than the previous post, it's only because there's not a huge amount left to say because despite being an Unlimited Blade Works abridged and achieving all of the markers of an abridged series, this one has many more differences from its source material than I thought after counting it all up. Spoilers for the remainder of Unlimited Blade Works will follow.
First and foremost is Archer. Probably the biggest difference going from the main series to the abridged is his identity. Both are Shirou Emiya but which version of Shirou is entirely a different story. In the Visual Novel and the anime based on it, Archer is a version of Shirou that comes from a timeline that is similar to Fate but that did not include a romantic pairing and, other than that, also did not have Shirou Emiya summoned as that version's Archer. This one on the other hand is just the protagonist of the Fate route.
He's already fully aware of Lancer, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker's identities and the only servant he doesn't know the identity of, Rider, is also conveniently the only one who's identity is not revealed at some point during the Fate Route. In the case of Assassin it would've been revealed in Dean/Stay Night instead because he's not introduced prior to Unlimited Blade Works, but be that as it may he's already fully aware of the identity of every servant whose identity is revealed in the Fate route despite not having any real reason to. Of course Saber calls out Lancer's name but Caster, Berserker, and Assassin are all names that Saber did not know until someone else revealed them, something that as far as we're aware Archer didn't need.
In episode 4 he calls Caster by her real name, even to her shock, Archer calls Assassin by his name despite there being no interaction where he is likely to have had it revealed, Archer calls out one of Berserker's Noble Phantasms despite his true identity not being revealed to anyone prior in this specific storyline, and he suggests a romantic relationship between Shirou and Saber as if he had already gone through that himself before, bonus points for Saber implicitly picking up on that (I don't think she would've noticed his abs for any other reason, just saying). Not only that but he's even aware of not only the existence of Avalon but also its function, which confirms he knows Saber's identity right there.
He also has a strong dislike of Kirei, which to be fair is present in every version of Shirou, and he also makes no comment on anything from Heaven's Feel because he has no real reason to. He does make one joke about the moon as a high concept but given the Canadian Subtitles, I'm not sure if that's a jab at TYPE-Moon or an in-universe reference to the Moon Cell from the Extra games so I'll leave that alone for now.
Next up is Rin Tohsaka who is probably the second most changed, though this one could very easily just be due to humor. Rather than being prim and proper, quiet and reserved, willing to do what's necessary, and generally not knowing how to deal with Shirou, UBWA Rin is much more unhinged, has lots of outbursts, doesn't seem to have a good handle on people in general and her relationship with Shirou is less like she can't handle him and more like he can't handle her. Of course it applies in both directions in either case but Shirou is far more reserved than Rin, though he is still a different character. Rin does still have a moral compass but for the most part it seems like her inability to figure out Archer's lie is more due to her not stopping to think about it and less because Archer doesn't know himself.
One change going from the source material that isn't really covered in this abridged work is that a master and servant can share dreams. Depending on the route, Shirou can often have dreams either about his origin of sword, or dreams that Saber is having about her past. Similar things apply to Rin as well. She doesn't awaken her origin as far as I'm aware but in the anime she has dreams that pertain to Archer, which are often about his own origin, which makes the hints toward his identity a lot more vague and Rin only figures it out fully once she's captured by Archer and taken to the Einzbern Estate, where she fully comments that his personal poem for his reality marble is incredibly messed up.
On the one hand, I'm fairly confident Archer doesn't have amnesia in UBW Abridged but on the other it isn't suggested anywhere that Servants and Masters share dreams anyway, so if the series doesn't establish it I can't assume it's part of the continuity. However, Rin does put together a lot of the clues at the very last episode which I will get to but for now let's move on to other characters.
The remaining major element of the story is Shirou Emiya. I would bring up Saber but she loses relevance toward the end of this season and she's unlikely to get it back so let's just focus on Shirou. Shirou is still fundamentally a good person who can't live with himself if he's not helping others. He still has PTSD flashbacks and he still throws his life away at every opportunity. He has a pipe gimmick now which he will go on to abandon after his development with Projection Magic and it's unclear how consistent it is anyway, considering that he uses many non-pipe objects throughout the story prior to the projection magic, and while you may refer to the chair leg and the poster as pipe-like, the wooden sword he brings to fight Kuzuki is much more like the stick he struggles with in Episode 4 Ideal Archer.
Now truthfully, UBWA is a lot less subtle about Shirou's neuroses than the UBW anime but I'm not convinced this is a flaw. When I say subtle, I'm referring to nuance, like even if something is shoved in your face it can be subject to enough interpretation or discussion that there's more to be said than simply the words that were shoved in your face. Take the Legend of Zelda as an easy example. In the Legend of Zelda games it's implied that The Master Sword chooses its wielder and that that wielder must possess the spirit of the hero. The character that always possesses the spirit of the hero is Link therefore Link will be the wielder of the master sword. It's not super deep but it has multiple degrees of separation which make it easy enough to come to grips with but still leaves room for discussion on other possible wielders. Then in the CDI games, specifically the Wand of Gamelon, the condition is "Only Link can defeat evil." Considering that the Master Sword is the Sword of Evil's Bane, this heavily implies that Link is the only one that can wield the master sword but this is so blatant and lacking in nuance that it comes with the implication that the only condition for wielding the master sword is simply to be named Link.
UBW technically leaves it up to interpretation that Shirou does what he does because he can't live with himself if he doesn't but none of the anime with the exception of Dean/Stay Night to an extent go into detail about Shirou's difficulty with his self-worth, which leaves a lot of people with the impression that he does it because he's an idiot and not because he doesn't care if he throws his life away. This is poor communication on the part of UBW and while UBWA does remove the nuance, it at least communicates the idea far better, and exaggerated character traits are standard fare for abridged works anyway so I can't even really call that a criticism as much as it is just a general statement of fact.
What I can call a criticism though is continuity errors and setups with no payoffs. I've already discussed the Heaven's Feel reveals and how they're not going to have any bearing on the plot but I want to make it clear that this is less of an issue with character-specific traits such as Shinji calling attention to it due to his resentment of Sakura or Rin casually referencing her feelings toward Sakura for the sake of justifying her actions. The real problem is Rider.
In UBW, Rider does attempt to cause problems for Shirou by attacking him, however, later context from Heaven's Feel implies that she's only doing it because Shinji is in control for the moment and that she doesn't have a choice, despite desiring nothing more than Sakura's happiness. In UBWA, Rider does still have a fondness for Sakura but her attack of Shirou is made out to be far more a personal grudge than simply a matter of duty. Sakura is far more passive aggressive in UBWA but I was never convinced that she ever had it in for Shirou. Her suggestion that Shirou should've drop kicked Illya off the road suggests that to some extent she does care deeply for Shirou's safety, it's just a matter of her feeling super underappreciated by the man she loves for doing so much for him only for him to not notice her because he's too obsessed with his mission, which I find that many women will relate to. Many women find a man on a mission attractive because it means he has goals to aspire to, on some level making him a more desirable man. However, many often get frustrated that a man with such ambition often doesn't have time for her, making a conflict of priorities. Sakura being passive aggressive about how underappreciated she feels is not in-congruent with her love for him, quite the opposite, if she didn't love him, she wouldn't care so much whether he notices her or not. However, it seems like Rider didn't get the memo because she decides to rip out Shirou's eyes for no other reason than, in her own words, "[Shirou] had this coming." To be clear, this is an issue with Rider's character writing, not Sakura's.
There are also other areas where certain takes on the part of the voice acting are just flat out wrong. There aren't too many examples of this in the series on a general level so I won't harp for too long. However, when Japanese characters can't pronounce Japanese words correctly, like pronouncing Matou as "Matt-ou" or "Ma-TOU" I think that can be considered a continuity error, even in the case of characters like Rider who aren't technically Japanese but who are fluent in the language nonetheless because the Grail imparts that sort of information to Servants for the sake of flow and fairness. With Cu Chulainn being pronounced as "Ku Ku-lane" that's not how you pronounce the name but since it's mostly Japanese characters getting it wrong and the only other one that does coming hot off the heels of at least one other Japanese Grail War, I can understand it on principle, even if in context them getting it wrong should make it sound more like "Ku Ku-line" given the spelling, but that's beside the point, the point is Japanese characters getting foreign language words wrong is a bit more acceptable than Japanese characters getting Japanese words wrong.
There was I believe two instances of voice actors getting things wrong in the script as well, however, I couldn't find what I believed was the first after sifting through the episodes to find it again and what I believed was the second takes place in the first episode of Season 2, which I want to avoid talking about as much as possible to keep season 1 self-contained so I'll leave it alone for now.
Other characters have strange quirks as well, such as Cu Chulainn crafting poems despite coming from a society largely built on battle with a background that to my understanding is limited on that form of education, Kirei actively motivating characters to suit his needs in a more blatant way, and Gilgamesh being far less invested in this grail war nonsense so much as he just wants to relax and enjoy the comforts of the modern era which I believe is fair, but none of these things are big enough to warrant deeper discussion mainly because these characters, at the time of writing, have not had a huge amount of screen time. Gil and Cu are likely to get more as time passes, but Kirei is only likely to have one more episode on him given the route and footage they have to work with so I'm not convinced that this stuff is going to warrant deeper discussions later.
Out of Place Quirks
So like with Yaroshien, the last thing I'll talk about before I move on to the praise is out of place things that don't really fit neatly into a universal category. Unlike Yaro, though, I'm not quite as angry about these mainly because I understand why many of these quirks would be here contextually but they still are out of place and strange within the specific narrative that we're discussing. I'm not going to be discussing the Archer memes because those are clearly non-canon and just examples of Logan Laidlaw having some fun.
However, there are various Fate memes in this series that cannot be considered congruous with the continuity of the story being told. Not that memes by themselves are inherent flaws, just that more needs to be presented to justify them. In relation to this particular series as well as the larger Fate/Stay Night visual novel there are various memes that are incorporated into this series with mixed results. Many of these memes are word gags that spawned from a fan translation of Fate/Stay Night that some would call questionable in pros, I call it objectively bad but subjectively hilarious.
I've discussed some of these translation issues in my localization post but I can't honestly recommend that one to all viewers due to its content rating. So instead, I'll just reiterate the points that are relevant to this one.
3 notable lines of dialogue that spawn from Fate/Stay Night at least as far as the fan translation are concerned are "People die when they are killed," "The archer class really is made up of archers," and "Just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right." And while two of those three come from UBW, thankfully Logan Laidlaw has thus far made the correct decision to axe those particular memes due to how heavily they would stand out if utilized in any capacity.
However, one particular word joke that seems to have carried over is "BerserCar." Now if you're not familiar with Fate memes, in the visual novel, one of the servant classes that can be summoned for a grail war is the Berserker. However, all of the characters speak Japanese so when a character says Berserker it comes out sounding something like "Ba-Za-Ka," which to a novice translator could be read as "Bar-Zar-Kar" or any other variation of those syllables. So some TYPE Moon works make fun of this, particularly Carnival Phantasm where Illya's connection to Berserker combined with the pronunciation has him transform into a car called the BerserCar.
Illya despite never doing any such thing in the visual novel or the anime it's based on, initially introduces Berserker in UBWA as "BerserCar" which is not spelled that way in the episode title but it is clearly referencing that. The thing is, though, from a Fate meme perspective it's easy enough to see why Logan would see this as funny or at least harmless but from a continuity perspective Illya has no reason to pronounce Berserker this way especially since, Japanese or not, Illya is a native English Speaker. I may be wrong on that but at least in terms of canon Illya is fluent in English, Japanese, and German. Of the three, I'd say English is the most out of place due to the setting and family she comes from but not the point. The point is that Berserker really wouldn't be pronounced that way in context for any reason, especially given that Illya was attempting to intimidate her opponents even within the abridged work.
Another thing that's somewhat out of place is a comment by Archer in Episode 0 on Cu Culainn where he says "Something tells me this guy's trouble and never wins fights." This is an issue for two particular reasons. Firstly, from a Fate meme perspective, it's too early in the series for Archer to even know that. Yes, in most Fate media Cu is treated largely like a jobber, and yes Archer did experience the Fate route first hand but, the Fate route by itself is not enough for Cu to be considered a jobber especially since the only character he actually loses to in that arc is Gilgamesh, and whether or not this version of Archer has experienced any other Fate storyline is a bit up for debate. Obviously this won't count Fate/Grand Order, where Cu's caster version, the substantially weaker version of himself, defeats Archer effortlessly so that one doesn't even apply. Archer is unlikely to have experienced Hollow Ataraxia yet due to it coming later in the timeline, and while it is possible that Archer could be accounting for the Extra timeline, it's unclear whether that even counts.
Firstly, it's debatable if Archer even experienced the Extra Timeline since his statement "You think this is high concept? Let's talk about the moon," could mean almost anything in context. It could legitimately be a jab at the company TYPE-Moon. It could be a reference to Arcueid, a character from Tsukihime who not only exists in the same universe but is also heavily associated with the moon. It could be a reference to a revelation that the Holy Grail resides within the moon, thus referring to the Grail itself. It could also be a reference to the Moon Cell from the Extra games. It could even be a casual reference to the Counter Force. I don't know which it is personally but the fact that there's so much ambiguity means that it's impossible to say for certain without Logan's say-so, since I assume he's writing the scripts.
Even if we accept that it is a reference to the Extra Timeline though, how far does it account for? Keep in mind, the Extra Timeline is 4 total games, Extra, Extra CCC, Extella, and Extella LINK. Firstly, I'm unclear on Cu's involvement with all of them. Cu is the second to last official boss for Fate/Extra, and he's a playable character in Extella LINK, and while I haven't played Extella, all I heard about the new characters added to LINK didn't suggest that Cu was one of them, meaning he was likely in Extella as well. However, due to CCC having a lot of timeline shenanigans that have nothing to do directly with the plot of Fate/Extra, Cu may not even show up in that one. In fact, later research confirmed that is the case. I know nothing about CCC personally other than Gilgamesh was an additional playable servant, not helped by the fact that CCC is thus far the only game in that timeline to not have an official localization anywhere, making it difficult to play for anyone that cannot read Japanese effectively.
As far as the others are concerned though, in Fate/Extra Cu is the servant of that game's Rin Tohsaka, which I'll talk about more at a time that's more focused on it, but as far as she's concerned she makes it to the second to last stage in that game's Grail War only stalemating with Lu Bu, and stopping short of ever fighting Gawain, not that Cu is likely to win that fight anyway due to Gawain's Hacks. As far as that's concerned, that's a pretty good place for Cu to get to for being a jobber. He's a bit underpowered in the Extella Games but that's more a mechanical issue than a narrative one. His problem mechanically is that the Extella games are Musou Style Action Games, which means they're coated heavily with mobs and area management, and Cu's fighting style is built for one-on-one's in a game where one-on-one's are almost non-existent, thus putting him lower on the tier list than characters that, lore wise may not be superior but who, mechanically, are better at crowd control.
In reality, Cu's existence as a jobber hinges pretty much entirely on how he's used in the Fate/Stay Night storylines since he goes down fairly easily in all EXCEPT ironically enough Unlimited Blade Works. In the Fate Route, he's killed easily by Gilgamesh, who is the top tier servant in the whole series lore wise, so not exactly a bad character to job to, in Unlimited Blade Works he doesn't lose to anyone of any particular note, he simply commits suicide because Kirei uses a command seal to make him do so, and even then he survives after death momentarily despite the Gae Bolg's infliction of a curse that destroys the heart. In Heaven's Feel he dies early on but it's because of a team combination of True Assassin combined with the LITERAL SPIRIT OF THE HOLY GRAIL, which isn't even a fair fight and Cu did do really well all things considered.
Really the meme comes from the fact that Cu dies in every arc but even then, how true is that? Ignoring bad endings because there are just too many to research and no helpful enough wikis to search on, Cu near-fatally wounds Saber at the beginning of all three routes, he utterly humiliates Archer during Unlimited Blade Works, he has True Assassin on the ropes until the Shadow gets involved, and he's only ever killed either in unfair circumstances, or in one case BY HIS OWN HAND.
The other reason this is a weird thing for Archer to say in context is because later that same episode, Archer telepathically communicates to Rin that he's afraid to fight Cu, noting that he's "Basically Irish Hercules" and that he "Is going to murder me!" Given that Archer likely already knew who Cu was before they started fighting, that first comment is out of place in a situation where he expresses immense fear and hesitation before the fight even begins.
Then there's Rin making out of place comments about her butt, noting in one episode that she has "A bangin' booty" and while it does at least make more sense in character given that she has abnormal confidence in herself, it is worth noting that this line is based on a Heaven's Feel fan translated line where Shirou thinks to himself "Her anus is defenseless." Normally I'd comment more on that but that's a topic for the Heaven's Feel route because that one is far more mature than this one is so I'll leave it at that and let you speculate on what I could mean.
It isn't as much of an issue because other characters don't comment on it (yet) but it is a little bit disconcerting that so much of the writing in this series is predicated on memes. And I'm not stopping because I haven't justified the section yet.
Something else that I don't think is a Fate meme but is out of place regardless is Shirou's pipe obsession. It's strange because it's an incredibly weird gimmick for Shirou to have. His justification that everything probably has a pipe somewhere in it is easy enough to accept as a cover for why he has them, since he's just preventing non-mages from learning about magecraft, but this creates inconsistencies later. Sure chair-legs and a rolled up sheet-metal poster are included in the later more broadened scope of "Pipe-like objects" however, Shirou doesn't seem to have a problem with wooden swords despite having trouble with a stick prior. A wooden sword is no more a pipe than a stick is so the gimmick is just inconsistent. It also gets dropped upon Shirou acquiring projection magic but the reason it's an issue is because I don't fully understand the gimmick's presence.
If it's just a funny off the wall idea, then fair enough but if it was spawned by something I'm curious about the impetus for including it.
Then there's Saber's status as "Tiger mom." Not that such a thing is out of character but, when considering the Fate route, which this abridged series seems to be taking into account, there's nothing inherent about Unlimited Blade Works that would cause Shirou to be her son that wouldn't also apply to the Fate route, where they are an actual romantic pairing, something that Archer himself comments on. Keep in mind, this isn't a problem with the execution, this is an issue with the premise. Because unless a potential Fate Route abridged in the future has Shirou with a mommy-dom fetish and Saber is into that for whatever reason, it creates a weird disconnect where we're supposed to believe that Saber can simultaneously be attracted to Fate Shirou and see UBW Shirou as a surrogate son.
Finally, just because it's so strange I have to call attention to it the very final time we see Illya and Berserker before season 1 ends, Berserker is just digging holes. I'm not really sure why it's there or what to say about it but it is incredibly strange, some insight would be nice.
Compliments: Things the series does well
And now we're here. I'm going to be talking for a while on this because there's a large amount of good in this series. A huge amount of it is also subjective so forgive me if I speak too much from my own perspective.
Firstly are the references to Fate/Zero. I hadn't talked about it before mainly because Fate/Zero doesn't have a huge bearing on the plot of Fate/Stay Night in general but it's worth noting here because this is the sort of hindsight that Abridged Parodies largely benefit from. At the time Fate/Stay Night released, no other entry in the series existed. The original visual novel had a huge hentai element because it was the first in the series that Kinoko Nasu and Takashi Takeuchi had no reason to believe would be any more successful than Garden of Sinners or Tsukihime were before it, so it was clearly a marketing element but, besides that, Fate/Stay Night would be unable to fully reference Fate/Zero at the time it was written as while some elements of Fate/Zero would have to have been hashed out by then, such as the relationship between Kiritsugu and Kirei, Kiritsugu's general role in the grail war, as well as specific servant appearances, much of it would go unexplored until Gen Urobuchi wrote the Light Novel after the release of Hollow Ataraxia. Because of this the Fate/Stay Night routes couldn't reference too much about Fate/Zero due to its absence at the time.
This is something that Ufotable's UBW and Heaven's Feel adaptations could've benefit from but largely choose to ignore apart from some visual choices here and there. It's not exactly a bad thing for an adaptation to not reference a storyline that hadn't been written yet at the time of the source material's release. However, it is a nice inclusion that characters that survived the events of Fate/Zero actively reference it as part of their pasts.
Kiritsugu's story about marbles and angry Matthew are a good way for Kiritsugu to reference Fate/Zero in a way that suggests he remembers it while simultaneously censoring it for Shirou's ears AND withholding excessive spoilers for anyone who hadn't seen it, which means viewers who fit that bill would largely be in the same boat as Shirou for not fully understanding Kiritsugu's words. In addition Kirei's investment in Shirou as Kiritsugu's son makes a lot more sense when you understand just how deeply Kirei obsessed over Kiritsugu in the past. This is further enhanced by Kirei's involvement with Shinji when you consider his former involvement with Kariya. Saber having a massive grudge against Kiritsugu in the previous grail war and barely holding it back for Shirou early on makes for some nice character growth when she finally realizes that Shirou and Kiritsugu are not the same person, and while you do need more context to understand it, it's never out of character. Rin referencing her own and her father's involvement in the previous grail war are good because she was present to a minor extent, and even Gilgamesh, while used sparingly, does fall into this same mold with his references to Kirei's sadistic side which wouldn't be well known to anyone other than him.
This praise is a sort of "nice to have" sort of thing where its absence wouldn't have made the series worse per se but its presence definitely makes it a lot better continuity wise.
Then there are the references to the Fate/Route, which should be absent under normal circumstances but are present because Archer is the only character in this story that would have a reason to remember it. Later episodes may begin to include Gilgamesh in that group as well as the reveal of his particular type of Clairvoyance means he may very well remember all of the concurrent routes, even Heaven's Feel but since that hasn't happened either way let's focus on Archer.
Archer knowing the identities of characters he ran into in the Fate route, or at least Dean/Stay Night is a decent enough nod to this but so are some of his other behaviors. Firstly he's got a lot of weird tendencies in relation to Shirou that only make sense if you know his true identity, which part of me wants to call a spoiler but it may not be technically because Archer did basically announce it in Episode 4, so who knows?
Firstly, Archer has a weird interest in Shirou's love life despite wanting to kill him, from assuming that Shirou and Saber are in a relationship but also having some creepy comments toward Rin Tohsaka on a few occasions that make sense with this line of thinking. Of course him saying Rin has "a rockin' bod" doesn't make sense to Rin in the moment but Archer was clearly saying it in response to Rin's comment that Shirou has a rockin' bod, on top of him reiterating it later in that episode in a creepy, almost horny sounding intonation. He also expresses that Saber likely takes an interest in Shirou because of his "strong hands" which apart from just being weird out of context, isn't even true in this storyline as Saber says herself Shirou is like a son to her. This is especially funny when you consider that Saber in that same episode makes no less than two comments about Archer's "rippling abs" indicating that she has a certain attraction to Archer himself. Some noted it was just the shirt but I think it's just a matter of her attraction to him morphing her perception of him slightly, much like how guys can sometimes believe a woman is hotter than she is if she bonds him to her romantically.
Narratively, this is especially noteworthy to me because of a comment I made earlier that I didn't fully form. I said Fate/Stay Night has routes that are both multiple storylines and storylines relevant to romantic partners. To briefly summarize, Fate is the story where Saber is the romantic interest, Unlimited Blade Works is the one for Rin, and Heaven's Feel will be the one for Sakura. Given that this Archer is implied to be the protagonist of the Fate Route he would believe this version of Saber is interested in Shirou because he lived through the events where that was the case. Saber, of course, has no memory of such events but her attraction to Archer seems to be her picking up on this subconsciously to an extent. This has no payoff yet but it is a nice attention to detail.
In fact there are a lot of little details sprinkled throughout this series. For example Archer calls Kuzuki "Kazuki" or "Yamashiro" at times because that's how he knows the character. He knows that Kuzuki is Caster's master but I don't think that's a memory thing. I thought at first it might be but as I wrote this I realized it may just be critical thinking on Archer's part, considering that Medea never had her master revealed to Archer and that Caster is stationed at Ryudo Temple, the most likely candidates for her master would be Kuzuki or Issei. He may not have been fully certain which at the time of Episode 4, though Kuzuki is the far more logical choice but both are male so his specific word choice "Boytoy at the school" could apply to both even if there's less of a reason to assume it was Issei. Once Rin discovered that her master was a teacher, that gave Archer all the confirmation he needed. However, he still calls the character Kazuki because he didn't fully learn that Kazuki Yamashiro was an alias nor that Kuzuki was an assassin, so it fits his characterization.
On the subject of Kuzuki, his cadence and method of speaking doesn't make a huge amount of sense on a surface level but at the very least it's well communicated that he doesn't fully understand human interaction which is what you get when you have someone trained from birth to be an assassin dropped into what is essentially a teaching job. In general this idea is followed pretty logically and it ends up working out.
Also, despite complaining about Rider before, I want to say that Rider's attitude toward Shinji is, while not consistent with her writing in the visual novel, is appropriately disrespectful toward a master who on top of being a spoiled child who abused her real master, is even a worse mage than Shirou to boot, kind of putting her into a bad situation where she has to tolerate this asshole until she just gets killed by a notably more prepared servant. Naturally she would be unhappy about that and listening to her is appropriately cathartic if you ask me.
Shinji is also exactly as hateable as I wanted him to be, with him being such a bad person that he assumes that "hitting" Sakura is distinct from "smacking her a bunch until she bruised" which makes sense in character but only if you saw Heaven's Feel. However, while Heaven's Feel is required to make full sense of that comment, at least in context, the comment makes sense for the character since while everybody else would be unaware of his treatment of Sakura, he would not be, independent of the route in question. It also offers a degree of insight into Sakura's comments in Rider's Bounded Field.
I'm just going to quote her directly before I dissect what she said: "Oh good, nice that in my final moments you come to see me. Not when I'm perfectly healthy, that would just be outrageous. If you bring home another broken pipe we don't need I'm gonna crack you upside the head with it. The only broken thing that needs fixing around here is your inability to commit to a relationship on any level."
Shirou's reaction aside, this says a lot about Sakura's psyche in general during the Unlimited Blade Works route. Firstly, it's still in character for her to be this passive aggressive since, if she dies, all of the effort she put into warming herself up to Shirou would be wasted on top of all that unexpressed love being unable to reach him anymore. Secondly, this situation occurred because she gave Rider to Shinji so that she wouldn't have to participate. This is only revealed in Heaven's Feel but this should be a consistent element across every route since Rider is with Shinji in all of them. This would create a bit of bitterness over the situation not just for her abuser very nearly taking away everything she'd worked for but, in addition to that, it being her own fault for granting him the tool to do so in the first place. Considering that she probably did this thinking that Rider would be killed before anything could happen anyway, something that has a very real chance of being correct in other timelines, even this one, it probably hurts her to know that her lack of concern very nearly backfired in the worst way possible.
Finally, this line is the most honest Sakura is in this whole series. Considering that it's her final moments, as far as she knows anyway, this is her final chance to communicate to Shirou everything that's been on her mind. Given how damaged she is she would have trouble separating the positive emotions from the negative ones, but she nonetheless expresses frustration at Shirou's inability to commit far more than his refusal to acknowledge her existence, which says a lot, I think.
There's also Saber who is executed well in a lot of ways. Firstly, her relationship with other characters is handled very well. Shirou and Archer disregarded, Saber's reaction to characters is far more based on their own actions than on their perceptions of her. Saber warms up to Rin over the course of time but starts off very wary of her, she despises Caster, she has a respect for Berserker, her relationship with Assassin is almost flirtatious, and while I criticized her role as tiger mom, that was mainly due to its inconsistencies between different timelines but as far as the execution itself is concerned, Saber makes a great tiger mom to Shirou who, considering her former relationship to Irisviel and Kiritsugu, can almost be considered like a stepmom in a way, the stepmom that still loves you but divorced your father because she couldn't stand him but who ultimately tries to see him as her son rather than the offspring of a man she hates. It's a good role for the character and I think it's handled pretty well.
Caster Away: The beginning of the End
To be clear, when I call this the beginning of the end, all I really mean is that this is likely going to be the only remaining season since we're approaching the end of the Unlimited Blade Works route. Project Mouthwash could end up doing a Dean Stay Night or Heaven's Feel Abridged, which I take issue with both but for now I'm not necessarily saying it's a downfall, just approaching the end.
One more clarification, something like this did happen with the How to be an Adventurer vs Danmachi comparison where an episode of the following season releases to inspire this post but I didn't bring that one up because it was clearly an interquel episode, the kind of thing that bridged two seasons together rather than being the beginning of the following season by itself. This is the actual first episode of season 2 though so I feel it's necessary to talk about it, see if any of my issues are going to be addressed, and see if any predictions can be made from here.
Okay, first one right out of the gate, Rin calls Archer out on having amnesia by pointing out him calling out his noble phantasms but while she would have some ability to have heard him call out Caladbolg, it's worth noting that she calls attention to his battle with Caster when he actually called it out during the battle with Berserker. Now, Rin and Archer communicate telepathically so it's possible that Rin could've heard some of the dialogue from Archer, the problem is that what she's referencing never actually occurred. Sure Archer calls Caladbolg in the Caster fight and not the Berserker one in the main anime but this abridged work has to be more beholden to itself than to its source material and while referencing things from the main anime is fine, not if it contradicts what your own series does.
That said, that's about the only problem I have with this episode. Although the end of the previous season indicated that Archer was considering doing something with Rule Breaker, the episode seems to hint that the last straw isn't her wanting to spare Shirou necessarily but rather to reunite Shirou with Saber, indicating that Archer himself is never going to accomplish his own goals while under Rin's command spells.
In the main series he has Caster take his contract so he could be free of the first command seal which stated that he would obey everything Rin said. Of course, in context, if the command seal were really such a problem, Rin could simply have ordered him to get away from Caster and not let her use Rule Breaker on him, so while the motivation makes sense in theory, in application there are a few holes with it.
In the abridged parody though, the only command seal Archer is given in relation to Shirou is that he can't approach Shirou without asking a certain way, which firstly is hilariously racist from Rin's perspective, secondly prevents Archer from attacking Shirou in a way that's more concrete, thirdly is not put in place until after Archer had already attempted an attack on Shirou's life the episode before, and finally, wouldn't stop him from throwing Rin back and letting Caster stab him, since the two command seals had nothing to do with obedience in this continuity.
Kuzuki's history is mostly news to me but I assume it isn't to those who read the visual novel so instead I'll say Kuzuki's manner of speaking being clarified as him thinking that's how teachers talk does make sense in the mind of a man that knows nothing about normal social interaction.
Saber stating "Kill her and you can do whatever you want, just get me out of this [dress]" is a nice setup for the contract that will come later, and, yeah, that's about everything noteworthy about this episode. Truthfully not a lot to talk about because other than establishing Shirou and Rin's relationship, and Archer jumping ship, this episode is mostly a lore dump. Not that that's bad, just that there's not a lot to say about such a thing.
Conclusion
Logan Laidlaw, if you read this far, thank you for taking the time to do so and if you aren't quite sure what my advice is after all this, allow me to summarize: firstly, keep slightly better track of your own continuity just to avoid issues in the conveyance of that continuity, don't reference memes that don't have any supporting evidence within it or related works in the character's history, find more consistent ways to characterize your characters that won't contradict other potential works, and don't rely so much on unrelated stories to backup this one. Generally speaking, if it has no payoff AND contradicts character logic, just don't include it. Thank you and have a fine day.
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