Admittedly, my familiarity with the Nasuverse
is limited. I watched the Fate/Zero
prequel when it aired a
few years ago, am currently watching Fate/Stay
Night: Unlimited Blade Works
(obviously), and snuck in Garden
of Sinners at some point
in between. I have not and do not intend to partake of the visual
novels or original anime series, which I'm sure damns me in the eyes
of many fans. Yet as I hear more and more people praising this show,
a show that's clearly succeeding in introducing many people to an
already successful franchise, I almost feel I need to explain myself.
To explore my own feelings and discover why this whole thing left me
so cold.
First of all, the major characters aren't compelling. Not beyond a
basic feeling of, “Gee, I hope the good guys get what they want and
the assholes get punished”. Shirou stays more or less the same
everyman with a heart of gold throughout the series' run, while
Saber, despite having her own fairly complex motivation, is too
passively honor-bound to do anything but whatever she's ordered to.
Rin, although the brainiest of the three and fairly complex herself,
feels like she's being injected with a syringe full of Generic
Tsundere between shots. I don't envy whoever had to add layers to
what was an interchangeable potential love interest in the VN, but
we're supposed to take this world completely seriously; why does she
feel like she came from an uninspired romantic comedy at times?
Unlike the Waver/Rider dynamic
from Fate/Zero,
there's no salvation in the secondary characters. At best you'll get
your annoying, nosy, hard-drinking older female teacher freeloading
at Shirou's place, contributing nothing to the plot. At worst you'll
get a scene where a genki girl we'll never see again threatens Shirou
with a vaulting pole until her stoic, emotionless friend (?) sits on
her and apologizes for her companion's rudeness. That's relateable,
right? Suffice it to say, if your character isn't the mouthpiece for
a specific worldview who monologues in 5,000 words what could be
stated in 50, you're doomed to be one hell of an insult to the
viewers' intelligence.
Speaking of worldviews, one of the
show's major themes contains a glaring flaw in my eyes. It pounds
into our heads over and over that Shirou's goal of helping everyone,
of becoming a hero of justice is unrealistic. The world is much too
complicated for that, and by extension all such wishes are naïve and
destructive, as shown by a malicious Grail and Shirou's “tragic”
transformation into Archer. I use quotes because anyone past puberty
should realize you can't solve all problems with a wish. There's a
big, fat difference between a boy wanting to save everyone and a man
letting greedy people manipulate him right to the gallows; it's a
little insulting that the show would even compare the two seriously.
Like Fate/Zero,
it almost seems like the show is intent on punishing any and all
idealism. Critics may call this a deconstruction, but I call it
cynical and quite sloppy.
My final complaint is that the
world of Fate,
while initially interesting, does not work. You'd think a world
exactly like ours but with magic would be both relateable and cool,
right? Well, that's right until you realize the implication: magic
affects nothing. There are people who shoot energy bullets and
summon skeleton warriors, yet neither laws, politics, or people's
everyday lives are affected. Hell, apparently five people have made
wishes on the all-powerful, reality-warping Grail, and yet history
remains unaltered (scratch that; if I'm reading a certain wiki right,
the Grail has never actually granted a wish because reasons)! When
magical battles hurt civilians or cause collateral damage (which is
rare; so much fighting occurs in isolated locations or abandoned
buildings), there's no appropriate response from the authorities
afterward. No investigation that turns up anything. No manhunt for
who's responsible, or preventive measures taken in case Cthulu is
summoned again. Magic doesn't exist for the purpose of doing cool
things, it exists so a few rich asshole families can maintain their
personal power. Magic exists so the self-insert, everyman
protagonist can discover a secret, “cool” world of mages hiding
in the shadows of our own.
Oh, and there's no rhyme or reason
to how the magic works. There are plenty of rules established, sure,
and explained to us in detail right when the fight was getting good.
But I kept having flashbacks to Nisemonogatari's
brief and humorous mentions of the Unlimited Rulebook: a book of
supposed rules that's really mostly exceptions. For example, at one
point Caster prepares to summon the Grail early because there's
actually a Lesser Grail, you see, that can be summoned early.
Servants are supposed to disappear immediately after their Masters
die, cutting off their source of Mana, but at least twice Servants
stick around for days due to special circumstances. Caster literally
has an ability called Rule Breaker. The list goes on.
And actually, I think that free-for-all attitude should have
permeated the entire show. Past heroes being summoned to the present
to duke it out? That right there is a fun premise. But so much
effort is being wasted on convincing the audience that this is
serious business, you guys. These issues are weighty and complex.
These characters are nuanced and tragic. This world is detailed and
functions realistically. This totally wasn't based on a porn game.
In truth, there's only so much gravitas you can wring out of this
source material before it becomes ridiculous to those who aren't
already passionate fans.
Fate/Stay
Night: Unlimited Blade Works
does plenty of things right, of course. The music's great and so is
the action, when it's not being interrupted. The references to
numerous heroic legends are a nice touch, can character designs have
always been exceptional. There are good reasons so many fans of this
exist, and I don't despise the fandom when acknowledging myself an
outlier on this. But I can't help but marvel at how this show is so
popular when it has so
many problems I can't
get over. The franchise will surely march on with or without my
approval, but my overall impression remains negative, for whatever
that's worth.
No comments:
Post a Comment