Fate/strange Fake

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Fate Strange Fake might only be halfway through its grand narrative, but I can already safely say that this is by far one of, if not the most epic Fate entry so far.

As much as I adore the original Stay Night, one gripe I had with the narrative was how the Fifth Holy Grail War felt rather constrained. Maybe it's the fact that we're seeing events through the perspective of one observer, or that the Fifth Holy Grail War was broken to begin with, but the execution of the concept of a Battle Royale between famous legends across history wasn't as impactful as it could ... have been. The other Holy Grail War entries did seek to remedy this, like /Zero and /Apocrypha. That said, /Zero, while having a much more grander scale than Stay Night, still felt a bit limited in how awesome a Holy Grail War could be due to it having to tie back to Stay Night, and Apocrypha was quite the mess.

And thus, I was left rather disappointed. The Holy Grail War is easily one of the coolest premises in all of anime, and yet none of the Fate entries could truly satisfy my craving. Until I read Strange Fake.

Fate/Strange Fake essentially is what happens when you give a writer, who is clearly extremely passionate about not just Fate but all of the Nasuverse as whole, free reign in handling his version of a Holy Grail War. And the resulting product is fucking glorious.

The Servant and Master lineup is easily the best in the entire Fate-verse, not just because of how famous some of them are but also because of how crazy strong their abilities are. Everytime you're introduced to a new servant and master pair and think, "Bro that's really broken, they're gonna win this so easily", you get introduced to another that makes you retract that statement. In most Fate stories, one look at the lineups and you can tell who's gonna last till the final stages, but in Strange Fake, it has you constantly guessing. What's even better is that unlike Apocrypha, the masters are actually hella interesting too. Without giving too much away, they aren't your de facto mages or high school students.

The first few volumes do take a while to kick things off, but they're ironically my favorite bit of the story. Getting introduced to a new servant and master, being awed and floored by how interesting their abilities are, seeing their interactions with their respective masters, it feels like a showcase of every servant and master's skills and abilities, and it just creates so much hype. Once the plot kicks off, it's also well paced and with many different developments to ensure every lineup has their moment to shine. Every battle feels like a clash between two Titans, impactful and tense. It does get a bit hard to remember the staggering number of characters, each with their own motivations and abilities, but that just goes to show how great of a writer Narita is in making you at least bother about most of the cast.

Praise aside, I do have some, not really criticism, but just gripes in general.

While the characters do have their varying motives and abilities, due to the nature of such a complex story, it is pretty hard to get attached to anyone emotionally. Strange Fake in a sense feels like watching a sports tournament, and while you do cheer for the teams you're rooting for in sports, you don't actually have much of an emotional attachment to the players competing in it. They feel more like concepts than actual characters. The only characters that I genuinely adored reading was Saber and Gilgamesh. Also because of that, when the narrative does start giving characters more introspective moments, it honestly falls a bit flat at times. I do appreciate the effort regardless.

Also, if you go into Strange Fake expecting the depth of Stay Night or even Zero, you might be disappointed. But that is certainly not a criticism to Strange Fake, since it's obvious that Narita is more interested in capturing the spectacle of his Holy Grail War, and that's perfectly OK. Not every story needs to be deep and emotional.

Overall, I had one hell of a time with Strange Fake. I implore every Fate fan to give it a shot, or at least wait for the inevitable serialised adaptation, since this is shaping up to be one of the best Battle Royale stories told in this medium.

So, I'll keep it short first. What if Fate/Zero is actually great and was able to draw out it's full potential. That is basically what Fate/Strange Fake is.

Started as a Fanfic of Ryohgo Narita(Durarara, Baccano) in about 2008 and officially becoming one of the entries in the Fate series, Fate/Strange Fake is one of the best Fate spin-off we had and could be the best of them all depending on how Narita does it's end.

Shizuki Mori's art is good and I want to see more of it.
Just like what people say about Fate/Zero, it pretty much have almost no main character.
And just like his other ... works, there are about 20 characters here and still continues to be entertaining.
The actions are hype because the Servants themselves have unique abilities on their own making the fight amazing.
Narita giving homeage to the other Type-Moon works and using it some terms freely while making things consistent is one of the best thing here and something that Fate/Zero couldn't do.

And the fact that this is a work not supervised by Nasu makes it even more amazing.

Narita stated that this series is near it's climax. I can only look forward to it and see if it can be the best Fate spin-off and surpass Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt.

[No spoilers review]

While reading the first volume (the 2009 version) I found myself enjoying it, quite a lot.
The first time I read about this Strange Fake novel, it did not wake any interest in me, I mean, I did not find even the title very appealing at the moment, but I am glad that I did read it now because it is just a fantastic piece to read. I found myself wanting to read more, chapter after chapter, really interesting. I fell in love with it.

It’s to be noted that you should watch or read Fate/Zero or Heaven’s Feel before reading Strange Fake, not only ... to avoid spoilers but to understand better the concepts and catch all the references (there are references to Fate/Zero, FSN, and Fate/Apocrypha, among the ones I could catch)

I was hyped to read this because of Gilgamesh, I wanted to “see” him in action once again, and when he appeared it was awesome. I’m impatient to see how he develops in this Fake Holy Grail War.

There are moments of fun, suspense, drama, action, all of them mixed but at the same time very distinguishable throughout the chapters. A great amount of this war’s servants are really bizarre, and “strange”. They differ a lot from what we have previously seen in other wars. That itself is amazing, it gives this particular story a different feeling, a different setting, a different soul and that’s amazing. There were many moments when I thought to myself “hey, this novel is really living up to its ‘strange fake’ title… awesome”

To the current date, this became more than an April’s Fool joke, or a fake prologue to a “game” (I’m glad it did not become a game, I hate those stories in where YOU are the main character…that’s why I prefer LN, manga and anime over games/VN). In any case, the translation of the LN volumes is very slow (Currently 2 volumes are published, and I think not even the first volume is translated) and the manga seems to be translated further but not by that much compared to the novel.

Anyway, this was a GOOD read.

Story: 8
I enjoyed reading, I gave it complete attention, it entertained me, kept me wondering what was about to happen, and made me pass page after page. It looks like a dark story like Fate/Zero in terms of how dense the plot is, and those a great news!

Art: 8
Each art used was beautiful, I can't complain.

Character: 8
Both Servants and Masters seem to be very interesting. You have to read to understand, but I know they all have great stories, and hell, you will may even spot familiar faces.

Overall: 9
I enjoyed this so much, again, I'm glad this did not end as a joke, and by the time I'm writing this, it became a full real story being published in Light Novel format and Manga format. The problem is the translation jaja.