Fate/Prototype: Sougin no Fragments

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

This will be quite long as I here aim to explain the Prototype branch of the Fate franchise properly. I don't believe most need a direct story analysis with how much of a niche this is. Right now people need to know the basics of what to expect and how it can be enjoyed. The only other review here is overly cynical, has spoilers right off the bat, and doesn't explain anything properly. I will humbly try to balance it out.

"Sougin no Fragments" is a prequel light novel series to Fate/Prototype OVA and all of Fate/Prototype which was scattered on a few related things to ... it such as: Character material, Prototype material, and Fate/Prototype Animation Material databooks along with Tribute Phantasm artbook/manga anthology. All of which is somewhat based on the initial ideas for "Fate" that Nasu Kinoko had when he was in high school, way before he wrote Fate/stay night or Tsukihime (maybe even before he had ideas for his original Mahoyo novel). After the Prototype OVA came out, a decently well-known female writer from the VN industry Hikaru Sakurai was inspired by it and ultimately ended up pitching her ideas for a Prototype prequel novel to Type-Moon through her connections to Yuichiro Higashide and Ryou Morise and it was accepted. Nasu doesn't intend on writing the "original" Prototype story himself but he was comfortable with other authors working on its setting, so maybe we can hope for an anime of this novel or a properly done interpretation/re-imagining/adaptation of the original Prototype story done by Sakurai somewhere in a distant future (I wish I could tell which one of those two is most unlikely to happen, but nope).

All you need to know of the setting of Fate/Prototype as a whole is that it's set in Tokyo of the 1990s and that in this part of Fate multiverse we have the first Holy Grail War in 1991 as well as the second Holy Grail War in 1999. No other story details should be necessary as just exploring the overall Type-Moon lore should be enough of a motivation to get into for a Fate fan.

Should people even consider reading this without watching Prototype OVA and/or reading Prototype material databooks?
The 12 minute short with fragmented and a bit of a confusing story you'd probably feel bad about watching afterward since you'd expect to be 'spoiled' less goes first on the release timeline (2010). I myself was a bit upset after watching it before reading this and have made effort not to pay too much attention while watching it to my memory and not even look at or listen to the after-credits scene. It was the right call as far as I'm concerned, and while I started reading the Fragments a while later (taking some time off before starting the novel after OVA helped big time), I've realized that it was better to have watched it exactly like I did than not to watch at all. So let me state properly that I believe watching the OVA first before reading this prequel is essential. Just as essential as giving it a rewatch after finishing the novel and the fragments of the "original" Prototype script with the explanations from the most essential Proto databook. Now let's talk databooks, this is where it could get controversial. I myself didn't want to get into those databooks even while knowing about the fragmented synopsis-like bits of Fate/Prototype scrip from Prototype material and that it was big enough for ~30 to ~60 pages (but with just 20 scenes tops) because I've had prior experience of not doing the same databook thing earlier and being glad for it by the end. A few examples would include me: reading Fate/side material that "spoils" bits of Fate/Zero after already finishing the entirely of the F/Z novel despite FSN databook coming out earlier (on the same day as FSN itself) and being happy to get those story elements introduced to me in a proper story that came a bit later, and the same goes with me not reading the earliest Tsukihime databook that reveals things from Kagetsu Tohya before it came out and only doing it after already finishing many more Tsukihime things that could go as far as after finishing the remake and being even more surprised afterwards by some of the info. Databooks are amazing in nature and I don't have a problem with certain under-explained things being there specifically instead of the story itself if the story without that entertains me enough, but I expect most people would agree it is better to experience these things in a story and not databooks that are equivalent to wiki articles. It doesn't mean reading databooks and expecting certain "spoiled" things to be cleverly used later is a bad idea altogether (and in fact, it is good in certain cases even for some Type-Moon titles, like for example: knowing all about Tsukihime 2 sections from PlusPeriod and Character material databooks before going into the Tsukihime remake being clearly better for a fan of original Tsukihime, or reading Fate/EXTRA material databook after finishing CCC and before going into the Foxtail manga) but I decided not to give it a go in this case and it worked out great as far as I'm concerned. Therefore, you can expect me to be biased towards that and to recommend others to do the same here. However, the Prototype material case is a bit more nuanced and it is sort of halfway from the general info and a fragmented narrative that was portrayed from the perspective of "if it got made into an anime." It felt quite nice to finally read after finishing Fragments since all of the backgrounds from it made for the underdeveloped scenes in Proto Material to hit better (and yet some info and scenes clearly needed build-up from an actual Prototype story apart from Fragments to be working better/as intended), but I can't speak of how the opposite would feel here. I believe you can go either way first and be entertained in unique ways by both reading orders in theory and yet I still lean towards reading Fragments first being the best-feeling order (which is an interesting thing to come out of a person who hates "Fate/Zero first" order in the mainline Fate series with a burning passion, so I'd really like to see how my opinion changes if there is ever a proper Fate/Prototype novel). The only constant to both reading orders is that you watch OVA some time beforehand.

Should you read the spoilery Servant/Master info (with names, stats, and more) along with seeing character illustrations on the opening volume pages or not?
Character illustrations from the cover page itself and in the middle of the story are fine. But I was personally skipping everything from the starting illustrations/profiles outright until finishing 4 volumes and will recommend you to do the same (or at least just the text). Sometimes I like going into stuff blind and I know introducing the characters right from the starting illustrations can be a double-edged sword for some light novels. The only exception of me being cool with the opening pages here would be on the last volume since there are no more character profiles to avoid at that point. If you're insisting on reading those all anyway, so be it. But I personally think it can kill mystery to some scenes. Also, make sure not to read volume afterwords (even in vol 1) until you've finished the novel or the Prototype material databook fully as those afterwords do have spoilers to what happens after Fragments and expect you to know all the spoilers from that databook beforehand.

Next will be a bit about the nature of this novel and my impressions of it if you would like to read them.
There won't be any direct spoilers in the review, but some surprise will certainly be lost if you didn't read the novel yet.
I would personally suggest not reading this next section and go straight for the next one about the translation and so on.
It is by far the weirdest Fate spin-off yet with the strangest storytelling (except FHA if counted) and maybe the writing style of any Fate spin-off, and I crave to see it get animated just to know how it would look and feel like. The story is done out of order, it's fragmented just like the OVA and the Prototype material were. It is the closest to and not quite like Kara no Kyoukai (or DDD) either at the same time if that makes any sense. But even aside from that, it's weird from the ground up just because this is basically Fate/Zero for the Fate/stay night that we didn't get to experience properly and one that essentially doesn't exist. It's the only time you can legitimately not be in the wrong when you start with Fate/Zero, isn't that super weird? I semi-jest, but this experience really does well to make me almost tolerate cases when people who started with F/Z before FSN (more so the ones who started with the F/Z novel and not anime specifically for some reason). Moving on, there's a CD Drama adaptation of Fragments and you'll probably have to listen to it afterwards (I recommend it after finishing both the Fragments novel and the Prototype material book) because it provides more to the story like was the case with sound drama adaptations of other Fate titles. In Proto Fragments' case, however, it doesn't just have to do with the story structure that can sometimes lead to extra content (main selling points of Fate/Extra and Garden of Avalon CD dramas) or the addition of voices to the novel scenes without an anime adaptation yet and/or even after it happened (main selling points of all Fate related sound drama adaptations but mainly Fate/Zero now as it changes the story the least out of all IIRC), but also the fact that each volume of it came with an extra 2 side stories distributed in bonus booklets and with this adaptation having a different experience you either have to read them in the proper way it released (after researching this "proper way" in the first place) in-between listening the CD volumes or having those be read separately after finishing the novel and making a sort of weird amalgamation of both the novel experience and the CD drama experience at once instead of separating the two by release dates (and it's a fine enough idea if you're not in the mood for basically re-reading the novel right after finishing it or even after seeing all of related Prototype material that exists out there for the time being). What I'm sneakily trying to get at with all of this at play, it gets kind of hard or perhaps even a bit meaningless to judge the entire Fate/Prototype series by just reading this Fragments novel (although that pretty much goes for nearly all of Type-Moon that constantly keeps expanding and building upon the experience outside just one thing). To judge even just this novel properly in relation to the Fate/Prototype story (like I really want to) would require much more context, mostly due to the Fragments' ending and it being an obvious set-up story for the main dish we cannot have yet (if ever). This story is simply incomplete without a proper Prototype novel/manga/anime/VN otome game/something and just having to feed on the databook spoilers that would maybe be implemented into a proper story somewhere in the future (to make having to read databooks this early finally obsolete) just isn't enough and having to do that doesn't sit well with me either. I doubt most Type-Moon fanatics who finish this novel simply won't read databooks right after and are willing to wait for proper adaptation to experience Prototype in a story as it once meant to be and not through databooks or vague parts of some scenes we are shown. It is unfortunate, but if that adaptation ever does happen, I suppose getting into Fate/Prototype would be the best ever with a new and potentially best-feeling order to it (depending on the quality of the adaptation, of course). So enough with the negativity, let us be hopeful. Fragments' was a decent novel and just an interesting piece of Nasuverse lore as far as I'm concerned. My mind as a Type-Moon enjoyer was stimulated enough by each volume and that tells me it's worth reading and can be enjoyed under the right conditions, even despite that weird prose the author was using (which is definitely feeling worse to me in the translation and which makes it even harder to judge the novel for anyone not reading in Japanese).

About the translation (Fragments/Labyrinth)
I do have more than a few issues with the current one besides the usual typos, or not updating a few instances of lore terms for consistency with FGO localization, or putting extra lines at the start that weren't in the original volume, or just some lines I'd translate in a different way myself, my biggest complaint is not preserving the dialogue formatting that did not have a name attached to every instance of it in the original text. It may be added as a preference or for the same feeling of the Prototype material for the people who've read it, but it feels like a dick move to me nonetheless. There's no good reason to add that in as far as I'm concerned. Let the reader think about who is speaking by intuition like it was meant to, let it stay part of the reading experience. This even straight-up spoiled things a few times with the biggest example being in the first volume (although that one is naturally meant for the people who've read all of Prototype databooks and probably for the same effect that having illustrations accomplished originally) and even if I started Prototype with the databook, I'd be upset (and I'm not quite sure when will that spoiler can be viewed safely from the "Fragments' first" perspective but probably after reaching volume 5 along with all past opening pages). I can also complain about the way the first translation pdf of volume 1 was set up with having "Fragments" side stories from the CD Drama adaptation mixed in without briefly explaining it wasn't part of the novel to anyone who may not do enough research for whatever reason (probably just people wishing not to get spoiled along the way) in the pdf itself in a single extra line right before it. Naturally, I do realize it was someone else doing the pdfs and it was probably done with preservation of text in mind, too... but it just feels like a mess of an experience to me. Although, the JP volume 1 wasn't without its flaws either with including a random one-shot manga from Type-Moon Ace Vol.9 that wasn't suited for reading at the end of that volume or even after finishing the novel with or without Proto databooks and the reason why I'm saying that it's no good regardless of databooks is it changes the tone and therefore pacing of the story too much along with not being released in that volume originally, meaning it should've ideally been read by the databook people by that point anyway (it was just a bonus and thankfully it hadn't happened again in the other volumes). But let's get back on track and finish my thought process. All of the work the community and the translator lady have done deserve massive respect, of course, don't get me wrong. The fact that people were willing to try making a few pdf at all is amazing and the translation is nowhere near the fanfiction tier of Kara no Kyoukai translation by Cokesacto if there's any confusion about it ever coming across that way or implying it's terrible or something. I just think Fragments and Labyrinth really need their translations polished (ideally removing that weird formatting and having decent pdfs along the way with no illustration placement issues like what can be encountered once in a while in the current ones) and it's all good and way easier to get into than now. Perhaps we can hope for that after the last of the remaining translation gets done in the near future.

What do we do with Fate/Labyrinth?
It is a 'side story' happening between volumes 4 and 5, it also coincides with the dates of both serializations IIRC (not the volume releases), and fact-checking this is a bit too hard to make sure exactly. But does it make it necessary to be read in-between those or is it fine or even better to read after volume 5? Does it even have enough of a connection to even care for it so soon? Well, I've decided to roll a dice on that one and put it off until after volume 5. Knowing right off the cover art of the later released full volume that it somehow ties itself with not only Fate/stay night but also Fate/Extra (and one would assume maybe even more, especially so if you've seen the opening pages describing Labyrinth characters that btw clearly spoils the story and should be avoided just as much as the character section on MAL). With this, you'd expect the pacing to get even weirder than it already was. And after finishing Labyrinth, I concluded that my decision was correct. In the beginning, it was hard to definitively say as I've miraculously experienced everything from every title it connects to properly, but that is only because I made a pause in between reading the Fragments novel after vol 3 (which made me lose a bit of important context that I had to remember later) and by the time I came back to it I've already read everything (to a certain point) that was coincidentally required for Labyrinth. Normally, it would not be a good idea to make such pauses and if I somehow decided not to make one for myself on a complete whim and read Labyrinth down the line so early as before getting into EM Case Files (at least 3 volumes of it), Mahou Tsukai no Hako or without ever reading Fate/strange Fake 2008 with Apocrypha before starting Fragments novel (let alone Labyrinth), I'd be upset with myself for not doing so in the end. So I'm absolutely sure reading Labyrinth in-between volumes 4-5 is a bad idea. Both for the pacing of Fragments and for the Labyrinth story itself. That weird reading order is only somewhat viable if you're emulating the release timeline of Type-Moon things near-perfectly like a madman or doing whatever the hell I did. But if databooks are in the equation, then I'd rather you read Labyrinth after those or maybe even after the CD drama if you want (it's totally fine). Just make sure to be sufficiently read on those Type-Moon titles mentioned as it is not quite just Fate/Prototype side-story but more like a side story to them all on the surface (leaning heavily on being a side-story to a few titles in particular) while still distinctively being its own thing.

Here I'll be adding a bit more context to my reading experience with Fragments and Labyrinth. It's really only for those who don't get what my process were and care for some reason. Feel free not to read this section if you don't care for it.
Before starting or finishing Fragments novel: I've already done almost all of Tsukihime franchise and got into most of Mahou Tsukai no Hako weirdness (explaining would take too long), experienced Extraverse up until after the first EXTELLA (first EXTRA & CCC were done way before, but EXTELLA was played during my Fragment reading pause, and miraculously after finishing it the context to a few lines in later volumes of Fragments was more understandable) and before going into Fate/EXTRA: Last Encore (because Sakurai was also co-writing that controversial anime along with Nasu, so I had to properly finish Prototype Fragments before it on principle), EM Case Files volume 1-3 was read on the Fragment reading pause (I guess it turned out a bit like it was in the release order) and FSF 2008 with Apocrypha (in that order) were read before everything mentioned in this whole section.

Extra section for smoother Fate/Labyrinth experience (sorry for using so much space on it but I'm not doing a separate review for that one)
Not reading Kara no Kyoukai and Tsukihime before playing Fate/EXTRA is as much of a mistake as watching Fate anime by ufotable too early (a big one). If you want the fullest experience out of the EM Case Files through vol 1-3 besides the obvious stuff like having to read Fate/Zero and FSF 2008 with Apocrypha, go as far as finishing all 4 main Type-Moon titles including Mahoyo. Mahou Tsukai no Hako was a multimedia project and is the hardest to explore because most of it is audio content that's not translated. The most enjoyable content of which, in my opinion, is the simple humor-filled slice-o-life stuff like the early CD dramas or Hibichika Time instead of generic Marmelade stuff they tried later on and didn't even finish. How much it's connected to Labyrinth is the main question, but you'd have to find out for yourself.

The topic of Fate/Prototype relating to Fate/strange Fake novel series (and not the 2008 version, which doesn't have any of the same kind of relations to FSF as in Fate/Labyrinth and Prototype material), I won't be discussing it here in detail. All you have to know is that you should either fully experience Prototype franchise branch (including databooks and Labyrinth) before jumping into FSF 2015 full force or (as insufficient as it might be) at the very minimum you should watch Prototype OVA beforehand.

And if I shall say anything of FGO in relation to the Protoverse, it is only that people should read Proto novels before getting into FGO. Meeting characters for the first time in FGO when some didn't originally come from there, and when some can be met in a more properly structured story instead of a Gacha/VN/JRPG-thing where there's too many characters to properly split time between all of them to give something resembling a proper development from the ground up, should naturally be off the table. Not that I'm particularly dissing FGO as I like the thing, but it just screams "bad idea" to me and it also should be obvious for everyone else. There are actual FGO characters and there are characters from specific series, this is painfully obvious without ever playing the game. This means some characters are just not meant to be met in FGO for the first time and spoilers will be a thing for everything that came before it when it comes to that game. Try not to be stupid, alright? Although if it's too late for you already, at least if you weren't focusing on the Proto characters too much it's probably still gonna be worth reading this novel if you somehow got to be really hardcore about Fate series for some reason from just FGO. If you get bored easily, though, or have a wrong mood for it, maybe it won't be worth it.

Good luck finding out if my takes are in any way correct or if some other people dissing Sakurai were in the right.
While there is stuff to diss Sakurai for, overall the content wasn't too bad for me. Maybe I'm being too much of an optimist, but who knows. At the very least I expect the truth to be somewhere in the middle, and not with the naysayers.

December 20, 2023 edits:

ProtoformX from BeastLair started doing updated versions of translated LN pdfs/epubs this August, and from what I could tell by skimming through it he at least removed some of the annoying name indicator stuff during dialogue. At the very least a glaring spoiler I malded over the first time is now gone, so that's great. I hope we could see vol 2 and 3 pdfs/epubs from ProtoformX in 2024. However, there's still no movement in the vol 4-5 retranslation effort to fix some of the issues I had with PhoenixRising translation, and because of that, any moves to make pdfs/epubs for those volumes won't be a thing until PhoenisRising returns.

On another new topic:
Because the manga adaptation of Fragments is now a thing since this July, everything about this Prototype series and its connection with FGO gets even more complicated to explain and navigate through. If Fragments anime is ever announced, prepare for it to get even more complicated! But it should be fun to figure out (pls let it happen someday mushroom man).

[Spoiler Warning]

Which is the worst TM work?

hard to say, some might say FA, others might say FP fragment. Personally, after looking over the romance and horrible horrible writing of both, I conclude, that FA is slightly worse than FP fragment.

FP fragment, is the reboot of FP timeline, written by Sakurai, Nasu's right hand women. Having a female write a female protagonist seem like a good idea, but Sakurai have one serious problem.

Mainly her mary-sue tendencies and her terrible grammar skills, oh god.

I am not a man who is picky about grammar and writing skills, but when the audience is having trouble understanding what you are ... writing, you need to consider looking over on what you are doing with your life. Sakurai loves putting internal monologues that completely break tempo and immersion, while describing things through internal monologue, which can get really grating.

Paired with how insufferable her Mary-sue tendencies get with Manaka and gross under use of certain characters, we have a recipe for a very terrible work.

However there are upsides to Sakurai in comparison to Higashide. One, Ozymandios and Arash are some of the most cool character she have designed and parts about them are actually good. Second, besides arthur's questionable white knight brain deadness and Manaka's Mary-sueness aside, there is actually few "special" thinking process in comparison to Higashide's FA, the plot is actually more solid than Higashide's FA, Manaka curbstomp the competition, horribly maims the contestants, arthur see she is evil, backstab next to grail, simple and effective.

Overall, while fragment is a pretty terrible work, there are a few spots of shine buried below the turd, dig at your own danger.