How to Watch the Fate Series??

What started as a series of visual novels has over time developed into a super successful franchise of various manga, anime, movies, and games. Everyone who is a bit into anime knows about the franchise and it is really hard not to, considering that every new season brings another work from Type-Moon's Fate Universe. 

The whole Fate franchise is set in a fantasy universe where magic exists and mages are the main characters. In such a world exists an omnipotent, wish-granting device, known as the Holy Grail that materializes itself approximately every sixty years (according to the main Fate storyline). In order to obtain the Holy Grail and have one of his/her wishes granted, the grail chooses seven mages to fight for its possession in a battle royale known as the Holy Grail War. In order to fight, each mage summons a servant, a heroic spirit from the past who has achieved great deeds in his/her life and become an object of worship after his or her death. The servants are summoned in seven different classes: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin and Berserker. 

That would be the most simple explanation of the Fate universe I could give and now it is time to actually focus on the actual purpose of the post. 

If there are so many anime and other works in the Fate universe, in what order should one watch them? Many would recommend watching it in the order of release, but from my experience, I would recommend you to watch it in a chronological order which would be as follows: 

Released in 2011, Fate/ Zero is the second anime project of the Fate franchise, the first being Fate/ Stay Night in 2006. Even though Stay Night was released 5 years before, chronologically speaking, the events in Fate/ Zero take place 10 years before the happenings of Fate/ Stay Night. I recommend you watching Fate/ Zero first because it is just the best way to be introduced into the whole Fate universe. And not only does Fate/ Stay Night chronologically come after Fate/ Zero, but there are a couple of things and little details that happen in Fate/ Zero that directly affect the events in Stay Night, many of which you probably would not understand if you watched Stay Night first. 

After watching Fate/ Zero next up are of course the three Stay Night roots. The first root, Fate/ Stay Night, has two alternative roots: Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel. Many in the community discuss whether it is enough to watch only one root, but I think that you should watch all of them. Each root has its own quality and each gives answers to things that were left out in the other two. Only by watching all three you will have a complete picture of the characters, the happenings, the grail and just the whole universe in general. 

After an amazing Fate/Zero, ufotable came stronger than ever and created Fate/ Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. An animation masterpiece that has surpassed every other animation that had been made before. It is the first time I actually fell in love with an anime animation and ufotable has been my favorite anime studio ever since. 

The last root of Stay Night is called Heaven's Feel and it will be released in form of three movies. The first one, I. Presage Flower was released last year and it was just brilliant. The animation was as expected, breathtaking, especially in the action sequences. Unlimited Blade Works was stunning, but Heaven's Feel brought anime animation to a whole new level. Now, I just can't wait to see the second part II. Lost Butterfly.

Three roots, three stories. The stories do differ in many things but I always had the feeling as if I am watching one and the same story just from three different perspectives. It's been said that the reason for making three roots of Stay Night was that the producers couldn't decide on who will be the best girl. So, they decided to make three roots and have Saber be the best girl in Stay Nigh, Rin in Unlimited Balde Works and Sakura in Haven's Feel (just kidding, that is not the actual reason but we fans like to believe that).

Fate/ Zero and the three roots of Fate/ Stay Night are the main storyline of the Fate franchise. All the other anime, manga and games are alternative storylines from parallel worlds some of which are worth watching and some, are rather not. Let's see what else is there.

I was really hyped about the release of this one. Fate/ Apocrypha takes place in a parallel world of Stay Night (Fate/ Stay Night is usually taken as a reference) in Romania where not seven,  but fourteen servants, divided into two fractions, fight over the possession of the Greater Grail that was removed years ago from Fuyuki. Upon the start of the Great Holy Grail War, the Greater Grail summons a Ruler servant to act as a mediator of the war. I loved Fate/ Apocrypha because there were so many interesting Heroic Spirits like Atalante, Frankenstein's Monster, Achilles, Mordred,  etc. but I was really disappointed by A-1 Picture's poor animation.

The movie Fate/ Grand Order: First Order was, in my opinion, only made as a means of promoting the Fate/ Grand Order Game. I have already done a detailed post where I talk about the smartphone game and the whole gameplay in general. You can read that by following THIS LINK. One year after, I am still playing and loving the game. You can watch the movie, or not. Better not, but you HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME! It is just amazing. And if you are playing, my account name is Scarlet and my ID is 481.842.845. See you in the game!

The Fate universe being as diverse as it is, also has some Magical Girl action. Fate/ Kaleid Liner Prisma ☆ Illya is another alternate timeline of Fate/ Stay Night with Illyasviel von Einzbern being our main character. She used to be an ordinary schoolgirl until the magical Kaleidostick Ruby chose her as his new master and turned her into a magical girl. I still haven't seen the anime beacuse the animation looks kinda strange. Not bad, just strange. But I am reading the manga and I have to admit that I really like it. Just as Illya, I have grown up watching magical girls on TV so there definitely is a pinch of nostalgic feelings while reading it.

This post turned out to be longer than I expected. The Fate Universe is a huge one, and I seriously can't even count all the anime and movies that have been released up until now. Not to mention the ones that are in the making. This post mentions, in my opinion, the most important and most popular Fate anime and movies that have come out. You can find a complete list of all anime, movies, and games of the Fate Series under THIS LINK.

To conclude, the Fate Universe has grown to become one of the most popular anime franchises that exist. Truth is, not every series is a masterpiece and unfortunately not every series is an ufotable production, but I do get excited every time a see a new Fate project in the making. Right now, I am really looking forward to the TV anime Fate/ Grad Order-The Absolute Demon Battlefront Babylonia (CloverWorks, set to air in 2019) and of course the movies Heaven's Feel: II. Lost Butterfly (ufotable, set to air in 2019) and Fate/ Grand Order: The Sacred Round Table Realm Camelot (Production I.G, to be announced).

Let me know in the comments below whether you are a huge Fate fan as I am or not? What is your favorite Fate Series and are you playing Grand Order?

Thanks for stopping by,

Your Anime Girl <3