November 2014 Media Thread

ArisKatsaris

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

The new Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works TV adaptation by Ufotable is only 5 episodes in but so far it's an amazingly good adaption of the VN. (From what I hear, previous adaptations weren't too good). Important elements are preserved, long-windedness is reduced (although the show is willing to take its time and rarely feels rushed), and the new added scenes complement the existing ones nicely. There are also some nice callbacks to Fate/Zero that (naturally) weren't in the VN. The animation is incredible, perhaps the best I've seen in TV anime, and a step up from the already high level of Fate/Zero. Highly recommended if you have any interest in the Fate series.

For those who aren't aware, Fate/stay night (the visual novel) has been mentioned/recommended here before in Eliezer's Three Worlds Collide short story:

I suspect the aliens will consider this one of their great historical works of literature, like Hamlet or Fate/stay night -

Reading the visual novel can take some time, so anyone who isn't interested in that should really consider watching this TV adaption instead. Personally, I found Unlimited Blade Works to be the best part of Fate/stay night (closely followed by Heaven's Feel, which they've also promi... (read more)

2[anonymous]12y

You probably already know all of this, but for the sake of completeness, IMHO (Thar be spoliers below!): The original eroge novel had (as is the tradition) several endings and plotlines. The "Fate" plotline mostly dealt with Shirou/Saber; the "Unlimited Blade Works" (UBW) plotline resolves Shirou and Archer's relationship while focusing on Shirou/Rin (and to some extent Shirou/Rin/Saber); and "Heaven's Feel" focuses on Shirou/Ilya and explains Sakura's backstory. Then there's Realta Nua, an expansion of UBW that rewrites the ending into Shirou/Saber forever (literally). There's also a sequel called Fate/hollow ataraxia which supplies a lot of the backstory and the metaphysics of how the grail war actually works. As is the tradition will multi-ending visual novel adaptations, Fate/stay night (the original anime adaptation) tries to combine several elements of Fate with Heaven's Feel, and hints of the ending of Realta Nua. The animation is not great e.g., most fights are still-shot montages and even if it were, there are few high-powered attacks in the fifth grail war, other than perhaps Archer's version of UBW and Enuma Elish. For crying out loud, Enuma Elish is represented by flat red splotches. People were rather unhappy that UBW got shafted, and so Type-Moon produced an OVA (now-confusingly also called Unlimited Blade Works) that tries to do too much from UBW in too little time with practically no budget. The animation quality is crappier than Fate/stay night and the plot hangs together with duct tape and string cheese. Then ufotable came along, and Fate/zero was mindblowingly awesome.Some of this, IMO, is just because the heroes of the fourth grail war have attacks that are far greater in scope (Ionian Hetaroi, fully-powered Excalibur, Enuma Elish, For Someone's Glory and Prelati's Spellbook) than the fifth (shitty Excalibur, Archer's UBW, Enuma Elish, Gae Bolg?). That and they had a vastly larger production budget.