Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Deluxe Booklet I

This is a booklet bundled with the soundtrack found in the Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Blu-ray Disc Box I, which was released on 2015/3/25.

Part A. Introduction: Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]

It was at the end of January 2004 when TYPE-MOON released Fate/stay night as a PC game.

TYPE-MOON had already achieved popularity as a game brand at the turn of the century thanks so its previous work, Lunar Legend Tsukihime. But CEO Takashi Takeuchi apparently felt that such popularity meant that they should ensure that players enjoy themselves even more when they play Fate/stay night, their next release. Wanting their users to enjoy themselves no matter what is a policy that TYPE-MOON prides itself on, so everyone gave their all to complete this new title. No compromises were made.

But be that as it may, it is undeniable that the Fate/stay night that they released created something that they could not have imagined. Simply from a sales standpoint, this game—combined with Fate/hollow ataraxia, the semi-sequel fan disk that was released afterwards—moved 400,000 units, earning it a place in PC game software history. And that momentum continued unabated. Many derivative works continue to be produced to this day, most noticeably made into a comic and being animated, including a theatrical release, as well as the prequel spinoff novel Fate/Zero being written by Gen Urobuchi of Nitroplus. Naturally, the fans have also given these titles their wildly enthusiastic support, and it is not unusual to hear it lauded as the best of any title that they have some into contact with, be it in terms of story or characters, or writing or artwork, or music or acting.

And so, what sort of story was Fate/stay night, which gripped the hearts of so many? First and foremost, it is a record of a stirring and grand battle that unfolds amid the backdrop of Fuyuki City. The notion of a world of illusion and magic secretly pervading the underbelly of a provincial city can be seen in Tsukihime, as well as scenario writer Kinoko Nasu's prototypical novel the Garden of sinners and game Witch on the Holy Night. Each entry in this body of work has hints of connections in terms of world-building, so perhaps similarities are to be expected.

But back to Fate/stay night. In this new story, seven mages pair up with seven Servants and attempt to slay the other teams in order to gain the Holy Grail, an item which can grant any wish. Each combatant fights on an equal footing with his own ulterior motives. Going beyond a mere contest of strength, it is a war with constant alliances and feuding, strategizing and reversals of fortune. And a system in which heroes from throughout human history are summoned by mages and made to fight at their side. These appealing sotry conceits gave people the sense that they were witnessing the rise of something entirely new.

First is the appearance of many appealing characters that take to this stage. It is now probably safe to say that most iconic is the heroine named Saber, who has gone down in TYPE-MOON history. Also, although the detailed construction of each and every character can be seen in previous works of Kinoko Nasu and TYPE-MOON, in this case, they have created a profound human drama as an ensemble piece whose scale goes beyond anything they had ever done.

It is said that this show contains a story that fairly exudes passion, like that of a boys' manga. The honest hard work and affection - as well as the repeated energetic battles - of Shirou Emiya, the protagonist who strives to be a "champion of justice" certainly deserve to be called a successful formula, so it can't help but draw you in.

However, it is safe to conclusively state that Fate/stay night was more than that. This story, in which each character is caught up in the war and is fighting out of his own personal beliefs would by necessity never be wrapped up in a simplistic "the good are rewarded and the wicked are punished" ending. It depicts the theme of complex human relationships that can't be captured in thrilling action pieces alone ultimately coming to a head over their individual notions of justice, giving the piece nuance and profundity, as well as a sense of foreboding.

It could be said that Kinoko Nasu's writing, with its mix of rousingness and theatricality and elegance, was what made everything work. In pop culture in general, works like this that are both action pieces following an established formula while at the same time being suffused with complex conflict were rare indeed prior to Fate/stay night. That is why this title marked a turning point and remains as fresh and vibrant as ever. The appeal of this tale of a battle royale has been inherited by all of its derivative titles, starting with the aforementioned spinoff, and to be blunt, it has given rise to many followers that have surpassed the original. In a manner of speaking, this title has gone beyond the dimensions of sales or popularity and has altered the course of all pop culture that would follow. Fate/stay night was that big a deal.

And so, the package that you now hold in your hands contains the animated adaption of Unlimited Blade Works, the Fate/stay night scenario that has Rin Tohsaka as its heroine. Inside, you will find its first season, which comprises the first half of the story, which aired from October through December of 2014.

ufotable oversaw the animation production. This studio made the Garden of sinners, a series of animated theatrical releases from 2007 to 2010, and was also involved in the animated TV series Fate/Zero in 2013. What's more, the very first animated adaption of Heaven's Feel, another Fate/stay night scenario, has been greenlit as a theatrical release. The director of this TV series is Takahiro Miura, who also directed an installment of the Garden of sinners and was storyboard artist and episode director for Fate/Zero. He also worked on the opening visuals when the original Fate/stay night was ported to PS Vita.

It was his deep understanding of TYPE-MOON material, as well as his own talents, that landed him the director job. Those who saw this show must have been taken aback when they were presented with such a massive amount of story over the course of episodes 00 and 01, which ran an hour each. And these wide-ranging battle scenes and minute depictions of everyday life are all presented in exquisite detail that could easily be mistaken for a theatrical release.

How long can they keep up this level of animation that boasted such high quality right from the outset? Staffers who worked on previous TYPE-MOON titles - beginning with Miura, and including Tomonori Sudo, Atushi Ikariya, and Hisayuki Tabata - are pulling out all the stops to try and reproduce the game's world as a high-quality visual title. Hideyuki Fukasawa, who scores every episode using film scoring, and music from guest composer Yuki Kajiura unfailingly support the material. It goes without saying that their love for the source material is palpable, but at the same time, one gets the impression that TYPE-MOON's policy of giving 110% to ensuring that the users enjoy their experience has been inherited unchanged by the anime staff.

Furthermore, incidents featuring the main characters weren't depicted in the game have been added throughout under the guidance of Kinoko Nasu while this anime adaption was being made. This was made possible by the fact that the Fate series is an elaborate ensemble piece, and that most of them can be said to be additional elements that could only happen in an animated medium, as opposed to a game that is told from the point of view of the protagonist. And even in the scenes that stick close to the source material, dialogue where characters are emotional yet evasive in that typically TYPE-MOON style has not been heavily simplified for the sake of adapting it to a visual medium, and are rather left almost entirely as they were in the original. This is apparently because a great deal of input regarding the characters' states of mind was provided by Kinoko Nasu himself.

It is probably safe to say that this in particular was of great significance in how Unlimited Blade Works was adapted. Also, this scenario smoothly blended together with the aforementioned Fate/stay night's epic battles and profound themes, and we can see the story ramping up as it progresses as young adults Shirou and Rin confront its grand drama. The first season contained in this volume climaxes with the relationship between Shirou and Saber reaching the conclusive turning point. In this construction, the show's sense of tension and scale ramp up as the episodes progress in a way that can only happen in a TV series.

And so, the staff of ufotable, who are familiar with the passion and foreboding of TYPE-MOON's material, etch Shirou's spirit, Saber's nobility, Rin's boldness, Archer's machismo, and Caster's sensuousness into each frame of the video. The more the audience watches, the less they will be able to look away. What is it creating as a visual work? Our eyes are transfixed on it, and we are not given time to ponder that question, as if we have been placed on a roller coaster. However, getting caught up in the material in that manner is part of the appeal that Fate/stay night has always had. TYPE-MOON is always trying to create material that will grab people's hearts and not let go. And this version possesses the same power that people experienced in the original.

Looking back, precisely 10 years have passed between the appearance of the original game and the airing of this animated TV series. In this constantly changing world, this work created a particular moment in time and has remained there. We are able to experience the unchanged passion that the title has held onto these past 10 years by way of this completely new animation. Contained herein is a Fate/stay night that is in its tenth year and is even now being handed down unchanged into the future. We are viewing it as a visual work in the present progressive tense. Right now.

Writer, Critic
SAYAWAKA - https://twitter.com/someru
Writers for Quick Japan, Eureka, etc.
Regular column in Asahi Shimbun, etc.
Author of Our Game History, Culture in the Twenty-tens, etc.

Part B. Interview: Kinoko Nasu (Original Story)          "I want to precisely convey the story's themes".

Scenario writer, novelist. Major works include the games Lunar Legend Tsukihime, Fate/stay night, Witch on the Holy Night and the novels the Garden of sinners, Decoration Disorder Disconnection, etc.

-- This animated TV series will be the first time that the Unlimited Blade Works portion of Fate/stay night, that is, the Rin Tohsaka route, has been adapted. What were your feelings when this production was greenlit?

Nasu: I admit that I did want them to do the Saber Route, but compared to when Fate/stay night was released as a PC game, it's now reasonably well known what kind of story it is. Especially among the TV shows watched by the majority of our users? That's why it hasn't been animated for TV before, and I think it was the right decision to use the Rin Route, with its many battle scenes, as the source material.

-- In other words, "Fate" titles are already out in the world in many different forms already, so you didn't think it was necessary to use the Saber Route that comprises the first story of the original?

Nasu: That's right. To put it another way, the Saber Route at this point, we ought to make some significant alterations. If we want to keep the plot as-is, the Rin Route is more suitable, and it will seem fresh. It's the most solid of all Fate/stay night, with combat and buildup, and unorthodox approaches. And on top of that, if we could present the themes of the Rin Route across two seasons as a single, long story, it would definitely be worth doing. It's suitable for a weekly format where the story would build up episode by episode, but I also want the audience to occasionally see it as "a long story that deals with a single theme". Mr. Miura, the director felt the same, so we decided to give it a shot even though the bar would be set pretty high.

-- True, when it becomes a show where themes that figure into the Fate/stay night title as a whole come to the forefront, especially in the first half. What was your approach to depicting that in the form of an animated TV series?

Nasu: Personally, I think that it's impossible to fully convey the quality of the game. That's not me giving up, but rather that I think that they're two entirely different things. So rather than it being a question of how to adapt the game, I thought we should start off by deciding what to cut out. We'd carve it down to its bare bones and then graft uniquely anime flesh onto its skeleton. That's the process that I wanted to help with. It was the director, Mr. Miura, who had the visions of what it was going to be like during the adaption process, so if he said, "I want more brachial muscles here," I would say, "Let's add more, then" and add away. I think I was pretty committed to that process.

-- You mention a "vision" that Mr. Miura had. Can you describe it?

Nasu: For starters, we didn't try to follow the game-y elements of the Fate/stay night story, such as the parts where you gradually deduce things like, "What are this Servant's abilities?" or "What sort of Heroic Spirit is he?" this time. Instead of that, I suppose he wanted to make it something that could be enjoyed on a visceral level by watching it, in which scenes where the Heroic Spirits battle or use their Noble Phantasms rely on the power of the visual medium for their excitement than the original story's concept's.

-- Yes, the depiction of the Noble Phantasms is a new visual interpretation of the source material.

Nasu: The one "Nasu-to-Miura" request I made was, "Please change the Noble Phantasms". We can't change the setup itself, but I wanted him to change the gimmicks into something more attuned to today. For example, Lancer's Gáe Bolg is the first Noble Phantasm the player sees in the original game, my policy was to stage it in a way that was completely unfamiliar to the player. But that was just a staging for viewing in the first-person perspective of a visual novel, and it's long since entered into everyone's shared awareness. It would no longer provide that "initial shock of entering the game world". That's why we couldn't visually depict them the same way we did back then.

Nasu: So if we're going to make Unlimited Blade Works an entirely different world, we would have to redo them as the very first example of our new expression. At least, what's what I wanted to say, but the director was already gung-ho about changing things before I ever said anything. (laughs) He completely grasped the difference between anime and games, the atmosphere of 10 years ago versus the atmosphere of today. I was on cloud nine. "This is a guy I can count on".

-- What do you think of Mr. Miura's Noble Phantasms and battle staging when you see them, Mr. Nasu?

Nasu: There's something inhuman about how he shows the theatrical action and gimmicks. I really think that, just from looking at the storyboards. In #03, for instance, or some of the episodes in the back half (2nd season), there were bloodcurdling parts that gave me chills. Like, "Who would make this?!" (laughs) But I digress. Whatever I say, the thing I most look forward to is seeing what the startling Noble Phantasm will be this time, but where the director's interpretation is most evident is the overall atmosphere and how the path he's taking to reach the destination. I think that the greatest challenge facing this anime adaption was how much it will reach the audience's hearts by placing the focus on character relationships, and by showing what kind of person the main character Shirou is through an objective POV that isn't first-person.

-- What do you think of this anime adaption's character designs, which have been refined somewhat from those of the original game?

Nasu: For the past ten years, I've been working next door to Takeuchi, watching the changes in his artwork and the changes in the designs. So this time was another case of everything clicking and me thinking, "Oh, this is how they're fixing it now. That makes sense". I thought that they were revising everything, but they were actually only making little pinpoint tweaks here and there... like, "Whoosh!" a fresh coat of paint. In the case of Rin's design in particular, I thought that they were going to completely revamp it, but I was told, "There's no reason to change Rin," and I went, "Oh, I guess not". When I checked later, sure enough, they hadn't.

-- That's true. Rin isn't very different at all.

Nasu: On the opposite end of things, in the case of Fuji-nee, Takeuchi agonized over whether or not to make revisions. Ultimately, he did, and she ended up as the realistic big-sister-type she is now. The lady in the original, with her bounding movements and strange tiger stripes, does have a special quality about her. There's something about her that makes you think, "In this story, this girl isn't the main character, but she's being kept safe as a unique person". That's the kind of character Fuji-nee was in the original. But dropping that and giving her a more realistic look is definitely better fit for this anime adaption.

-- What about Saber? This time out, she's depicted charmingly not only in battle, but also the slice-of-life scenes.

Nasu: As far as that goes, I asked the staff, "This version isn't the Saber Route, so we can't narrate her inner world. Since we can't narrate that, I want you to tell it through the power of the images. The thing is, if you draw her in such a way that she stands out as a special person when she's just standing there, that will make the Rin Route all the more powerful! To put it simply, make Saber beautiful!" Originally, the Rin Route is set after the Saber Route, so player already knows Saber's identity and circumstances at that point, meaning that you tackle the Rin Route after you understood Saber. But since we can't depict that in the anime, I wanted them to make her cute when she's just standing there. To set her up as the icon who is the face of the show. The Saber in the Rin Route is a mother in a certain sense, positioned sort of as Shirou and Rin's guardian. When it comes to subject mater and heroine appeal, Rin walks away with it all in this one. But I wanted Saber to be the strongest in terms of visual impact.

-- To change topics, what was your policy on how to depict Rin, this series' heroine?

Nasu: Rin was already fully fleshed out in the original, so there was no need to fiddler with her. She's an indomitable character who is active and self-reliant, and although she'll forcefully drag you along, internally, she's a mix of mage and young girl. No, somewhere between a young woman and a young girl. Draw her naturally, and she'll naturally gravitate towards being the heroine. But when you make an anime adaption, I think you heighten some things to make them easier to convey. In the original, Rin is more of an unsociable stand-offish type, but in this anime adaption, I think she's been made easier to understand.

-- I see. And what about Shirou, the main character?

Nasu: With anime, I think power balance that is shown objectively is ideal. This is just the image that the creator has in his head, but the ideal Shirou as a character study is a guy who doesn't crack one smile through the whole show. But in contrast, to get players to enjoy themselves during the long game, I had to pull off comedy bits as well. I personally couldn't think of what to do about that contradiction in this anime adaption. So even as I explained to the staff that Shirou was a character who didn't smile, I was resigned to the fact that it would be difficult in anime, which reflects more of general public. Anyway, when I saw the finished product, lines that perfectly captured what I wasn't able to put into words were integrated into this human being named Shirou. What they made was so ideal it made me flinch. (laughs)

-- Mitsuzuri's line in #04 where she says, "I mean you never crack a smile, Emiya" really nails it. That does a great job of explaining that Shirou's smiles never go beyond the surface.

Nasu: This is hard to explain, but the characters' state of mind, lightness, range of movement, all have different "reality lines" from title to title. For example, in Fate/EXTRA, if I had to describe it, it's like gravity is working diagonally to the direction of travel in it, so in that case, it's okay to go a little crazy. It makes the title as a whole... light and speedy, I guess you could say. It's okay to let what the creators are able to do go beyond what is real for us. On the other hand, in the case of Fate/stay night, gravity is realistic, pulling straight down. What a person can do conforms more or less to the real world. Like Shirou's interpersonal relationships being restricted to those that a student could have. So all the characters are weighed down. So while Shirou is the main character, he basically has principles of behavior that he adheres to, and limitations that crop up over the course of the story. That's tied into the "Shirou doesn't smile" thing.

-- Was it his personal history that created this precariously-balanced Shirou who never genuinely laughs?

I suppose so. Sort of like "Given his past..". or "No matter how lighthearted the scene is, he can't live lightheartedly". I think that's perfectly natural, though. I thought long and hard about how to show that in the anime and I asked the director to make sure that the "You never crack a smile, Emiya" line stood out. "Because in this episode, that's the key line". Because the director realized how important it was from the get-go, that scene worked perfectly. That incident, as well as others, make me think that maybe ufotable's "reality line" was a good fit for the "reality line" that Fate/stay night has. No, maybe they're conforming themselves to Fate/stay night's "reality line".

-- This is certainly true of the conversation with Mitsuzuri, but there are lots of crucial scenes where what seem like mundane conversations give us insight into the various characters.

Nasu: In that sense, this anime is pretty much nothing but meaningful scenes. It's like they gathered up just the scenes from the original that they needed, which makes every scene significant to the story. The fact that it's an opulent story, but you can't enjoy it casually as a result might be my only issue at this point. Like, "I made this so it demands the utmost concentration, but I want to watch it casually!" (laughs) The scene where Rin and Shirou are talking on the veranda is a prime example. The discussion is vital for what's to come, so I couldn't gloss over it. Even though users who want to move things along and see what's next would probably be happy with "Rin came over and they had fun together". Hell, I thought the same thing!

-- This anime adaption will come out precisely 10 years after the release of the original. What are your impressions as you get a fresh look at this scenario that you wrote so long ago?

Nasu: When I reread that old material, I thought, "Ah, I'm looking the users straight in the eye. Look at how frankly I'm laying out what I want to say through this story," and I got this weird feeling of, "So that's the sort of person Old Me was". It's embarrassing, but it's like I"m admitting defeat, that i'ts something that Current-day Me can't do. That said, shoving your main theme down the audience's throat is bad in terms of anime structure. After all, it's entertainment. It's transmission that's going out to hundreds of thousands of people with different dispositions and tastes, so I want to start by gradually tuning them in to my wavelength and getting them to enjoy this anime. So I think the ideal outcome would be that they'll stick with us on this slow burner, or "long single story," and the theme will ultimately get across. Game and anime are different in that respect, too.

-- Ah, so you want the theme to be clear after we've watched the whole thing.

Nasu: Exactly. Old Me would have fearlessly spelled out the theme. I thought, "Ah, this is definitely going to transfix the people tuned to this channel". But with this adaption, we're trying to take the original game's copious amounts of dialogue and revise them into a form that will convey the same meaning in the allotted length and can be depicted well visually. I think that's what they were careful about in this adaption. I can't remember what I was feeling as I was writing it 10 years ago, but I remember to this day what it was that I wanted to write. That's why I'm explaining to the anime staff, "In this scene, this line here is key, so trim down the rest and highlight this part". On the other hand, if we stuck to the literal meaning of the words, the story would become disjointed, so I would take a roller to it this time, and we would eventually get to the point where we could say, "The things we needed to say are still here in this form this time" within the confines of a single episode.

-- Oh, that explains why this anime adaption so faithfully recreates the atmosphere of the original game. And, conversely, one highlights of this anime is the addition of original scenes that supplement the content of the original game.

Nasu: I like to think that they've added lots of original scenes that are what Modern-day Kinoko Nasu would write. I got them to do what I wanted with the Rin vs. Illya scene in #03. That scene wasn't, "Kinoko has become a better writer in 10 years," but rather that Fate/stay night has upped its game in so many ways over the past 10 years that if we write on its level, we can add to it like this. I want to make it the latest and greatest Fate/stay night, one that incorporates those 10 years.

-- The 1st season is included in this Blu-ray box set, and you're about to tackle the 2nd season, in which the story becomes even more exciting, aren't you?

Nasu: The 1st season is only half of the story, but I'm thankful that they've already made it into the spectacular visual piece. However, the Rin Route ends with #12, and is really just the prologue. Now that we've gotten here, we can finally, earnestly, begin the actual story. In a word, everything to this point has been the opening skirmishes. They're basically the regional elimination rounds, so while they're entertaining, the real battle is just getting started. That kind of thing. But because we've laid the foundations so carefully here, we'll be able to really develop the second half. Our staff understands the value of patience, so I'm sure that they'll be able to enter the 2nd season's big match with their eyes set firmly on the destination.

-- How would you like the people who have bought this box set to watch it?

Nasu: Let me think... (laughs) A minute ago, I said that viewers needed strong powers of concentration, but if possible, I'd like them to loosen up and enjoy it casually. Because they'll be able to think, "Oh wow!" based on the visual impact alone. Also, since things that don't make sense at first become clear later on, if they ever think, "Is it just me, or is something weird about that?" I want them to hold on to that sense of strangeness and keep watching. I'm always wondering what the key to this title's success is, and I think it's the conclusions of the characters in the story stick in the memories of the audience. So the bar has definitely been set incredible high as we head into the 2nd season. But the production staff and I are using every trick we have at our disposal, so I believe that we'll be able to make something we'll be proud of, if only as a piece of entertainment media. There will be even more original scenes in the 2nd season, so please wait expectantly as you wonder what those scenes will be like.

Part C. Director x Producer Cross Talk: Takahiro Miura x Hikaru Kondo          A show that lay beyond a point they never thought they would reach

Takahiro Miura (DIRECTOR)
Animator, episode director. Singled with ufotable.
Director, the Garden of sinners - Chapter 6: Fairy Tale (Oblivion Recording).
Director, Fate/stay night [Réalta Nua] opening cinematic.

Hikaru Kondo (PRODUCER)
Producer. ufotable president & Representative Director.
2000: Founded animation production company ufotable.
2009: Funded ufotable Tokushima Studio.

-- Mr. Miura and Mr. Kondo, what sort of piece did you consider Fate/stay night to be?

Kondo: There was a lot of opposition from the staff, but I said flat-out that we would do it. Everybody came around when they learned what was going to happen. It turned into an all-out war at the end there.

Miura: The staff gave it all they had, so there was nothing more for me to say.

Kondo: I think it's the results of ufotable being at it for 10-odd years. Lots of staffers pull together to create a great product. Among them is Mr. Miura, and it's significant that those many staffers are members who have come up with Mr. Miura. That's why they can give it 110%.

-- So it's a show that Mr. Miura's career makes possible, then. Although I Believe that Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight!, which he was key animator on, might be the one that put him in the spotlight after he started working on ufotable titles.

Kondo: Yeah, Manabi Straight! was like a student film for Miura and his crew. (laughs) I put together a main staff with members like Miura who were about to turn 30. I thought, "They'll probably get married soon and so on, so their priorities will change. I probably wouldn't be able to put together a lineup like this again, one that can crash at the studio and throw themselves completely into the show". So I thought I Should make this as a commemorative piece for the guys.

Miura: We worked frantically. That was an incredible time. But you would do stuff like breathe down the key animator's neck for 10-plus hours. (laughs)

Kondo: I think the fact that those members such as Miura who cut their teeth together on shows like Dokkoida?! (2003, the first ufotable show that Mr. Miura worked on) and Manabi Straight! have stayed with the studio and has been a real asset for Fate/stay night.

-- This time out, what kind of product development did you engage in with Fate/stay night creators Nasu and Takeuchi?

Kondo: Scenario meetings for the previous show, Fate/Zero, were held with Mr. Urobuchi, the creator, but since Mr. Urobuchi was the lead, Mr. Nasu only came to the studio a handful of times. But when Mr. Nasu is the lead this time on Fate/stay night. Plus, he has a lot more experience under his belt now, so he knows what we can do. So, well, he loves to ask the impossible of us. (laughs) And he floats various ideas right from the scriptwriting stage. And even after the storyboards are done, he'll voice his opinions and tell us how he wants things done.

Miura: Mr. Nasu even sits in on the recording sessions, and he'll make various requests even there. Just the other day, Mr. Nasu motioned me over at the recording studio, saying, "There's something I'd like to discuss...".

Kondo: Right, right. He'll call out and wave you over.

Miura: So anyway, there's an additional scene I did storyboards for that wasn't written in the script. We did it as a surprise, but Mr. Nasu saw it and loved it and said he wanted me to do more. There's a bunch of cases like that.

Kondo: Miura can draw, so he can accurately reflect Mr. Nasu's instructions, so maybe it's out of realization or happiness. Also, there's a lot of cases where we trim things out rather than add them in. He'd cut lines, saying, "When the art is good, you don't need to spell it out".

Miura: Mr. Nasu's the brains behind Fate/stay night, so we go to him for assistance without any qualms. I think it's pretty rare for the creator of the source material to make himself so readily available for the studio.

Kondo: Mr. Nasu's coming to the studio is something that we look forward to. It's definitely reassuring.

-- So, with all that said, what sort of show did you want to make 2014's Unlimited Blade Works into?

Kondo: I worked with TYPE-MOON on the Garden of sinners, and while that definitely led to Fate/Zero, it was a piece that was beyond that. The two of us, along with Mr. Takeuchi and Mr. Nasu, as well as Aniplex producer Atshiro Iwakimi, tried to make something even better as a team. Maybe you call it a piece that we arrived at by building on those experiences. That said, at the time Mr. Miura was tapped to direct the opening cinematic for the 2012 game Fate/stay night [Réalta Nua], trying to make an anime version of Fate/stay night was the furthest thing from my mind.

Miura: When we were making the opening cinematic for Réalta, we were working concurrently on the Fate/Zero anime, so my only impressions is that we were busy.

Kondo: After finishing work on the storyboards and episode direction of Fate/Zero episode 19, you jumped straight into Réalta's opening cinematic, didn't you?

Miura: That's right. Even after work was done on Fate/Zero, I played the Fate/stay night game was a refresher.

Kondo: The fact is, the Fate/Zero studio was just getting to the good stuff, so I was wavering over whether or not to accept R?lta job. But then I was told by Mr. Takeuchi that they were holding a festival to celebrate TYPE-MOON's 10-year anniversary, so he wanted to play it there. We've been through thick and thin together, you know? So I bit the bullet, figuring that I had to do it.

Miura: There was going to be a festival, so the way things were scheduled, we couldn't wait for Fate/Zero to wrap up first.

Kondo: Right. And even though that was the situation we were facing, we were committed to making three versions (the Saber Route, Rin Route and Sakura Route). At first, the plan was for there to be just the one opening song, but midway through production, Sudo (Tomonori Sudio: character designs / chief animation director) suggested that maybe we should change the opening theme for the Sakura Route. Everybody got more and more enthusiastic about it, and we eventually went with three songs, one for each route. That was rough, wasn't it?

Miura: It was brutal.

Kondo: Still, I never imagined it to lead us to this (this Unlimited Blade Works anime). We premiered the Réalta opening cinematic at the TYPE-MOON FES. I mentioned earlier, which was held in the summer of 2012. When we did, it was met with enthusiastic cheers from the fans. It's not as if there hadn't been any talk of animating Fate/stay night prior to that. That said, though, I wanted to focus on Fate/Zero and didn't give it much thought. But that made me determined, so I broached the topic, saying, "If there's an audience for it, let's do it". Of course, we managed to take it in that direction thanks to Mr. Takeuchi, Mr. Nasu, Mr. Iwakami, and the fans on the consumer side. And given how things had played out, I thought that Mr. Miura should be the one to direct the anime version.

Miura: When they initially passed on it, rather than being happy, I was scared at first.

Kondo: Only the 1st season is finished at this point, but I think you've done a terrific job.

Miura: Well, even though it's called the 1st season (13 episodes in total), there are three 1-hour special episodes, so if you include the original editions, we're talking the equivalent of 16 episodes.

Kondo: Oh, I'm well aware of that. (laughs) Plus, since the opening and endings were created as part of the episodes, each 1-hour special is 3 minutes longer than normal episodes would be. There are three episodes like that, making for nearly half a season's worth of material. That's a heavy workload.

Miura: #00 and #01 were designed from the ground up as 1-hour specials, but we decided to make #12 a 1-hour special partway through the script writing process, remember? We decided to do it when we were talking about where to start #13, the first episode of season two.

Kondo: That's right. #00 and #01 start with Rin and Shirou acting at cross purposes, so we thought it would be good to have Rin and Shirou acting as cross purposes again in #12. I floated the idea of playing the insert song "This Illusion" in #12 and considering the overall groove and impact of the climax, there was no other choice but to make it a 1-hour special. Though I was told by Mr. Miura, "We can't handle it" with a grim look on his face.

Miura: I thought it was impossible. When I told the guys in the studio that #12 was going to be a 1-hour special, they looked like they were going to kill me.

Kondo: I kept saying that if we're going to do Fate/stay night's Unlimited Blade Works scenario, we need to draw Shirou cooly, and that's the show's success hinged on Shirou becoming a main character. Miura went so far to say that we had to make it his coming-of-age story.

Miura: For our part, we thought about making Unlimited Blade Works using one of the classic formulas, "the protagonist grows and matures and achieves catharsis". Speaking of which, from the early meeting stages, Mr. Nasu was telling us flat-out that Shirou was a character who doesn't grow or mature. Of course, that's Mr. Nasu's particular style of saying things, but, speaking for myself, that left a profound impression on me. To restate it in our terms, he was saying that Shirou is such an unwavering character that you think never grows or matures. That's proven to be a crucial stepping-off point as I draw the storyboards for this series. When we have meetings with Mr. Nasu like that, one or two pearls of wisdom that leave an impression sometimes come out of nowhere. Seeing how a creator's mind works up close was really stimulating.

Kondo: For us, our challenge is to come up with how to visually adapt it in a way that takes into account the creator's thinking. If we don't strike a balance and make things clear when needed, it won't make sense to the audience. It was tricky.

Miura: At the outset, Mr. Nasu told us, "I want you to never let Shirou smile". I sometimes thought that was flat-out impossible. But the thing is, Shirou is that sharply defined a person inside Mr. Nasu's head.

-- At the beginning, what sort of look were you thinking of this version of Fate/stay night?

Kondo: Well, since there was a stylistic flow from the Garden of sinners to Fate/Zero, it's basically a development from those.

Miura: I think it was a big win for us to get (Koji) Eto, who was an art director on the Garden of sinners and Fate/Zero to work with us again on this one. I think he's capable of using art as a weapon. In fact, he's been doing tightly-packed background artwork that's equal of - or even surpass - that of the Garden of sinners, and that was a theatrical release.

Kondo: We were told by Mr. Eto, "I'm going to make this my new challenge". In the Garden of sinners and Fate/Zero, his thing was to paint the backgrounds with higher level detail, but this time, he said he wanted them to look solid even with the details erased. And in addition to Mr. Eto, we also got Kazuo Ebisawa, who was an art director on the Garden of sinners, as well as art director on Tales of Zestiria to ply his trade as a first-class background artist. They're reliable, and it ended up being an extravagant setup. In addition to them, Mr. Eto and photography director (Yuichi) Terao meshed really well together. I guess he trusts Terao because he came up as a background man himself. That's the sort of interaction they have for us.

Miura: If the artwork is weak, you can't do layouts where the camera is being pulled back. But when the art is excellent, you can tackle it with master shots (shots that form the basis for a scene). Artwork's becoming indispensable in anime lately, don't you think?

Kondo: The backgrounds have to be good, or nothing works.

Miura: Right, you used background retakes yourself, didn't you?

Kondo: In the old days, yeah. Depending on the show, I would sometimes review all the shots. But I haven't been doing that lately. "With our (ufotable) staff, we have to go the extra mile" has been instilled in the staff.

-- Mr. Miura has been drawing lots of storyboards for this show. How was his work on the episode director team?

Kondo: Miura's storyboards are great on this. Those of Takashi Suhara, who was also active on Fate/Zero, as well as Toshiyuki Shirai's, were also great.

Miura: Yeah, Shirai's one of those all-around athletes who can do everything from animation to episode direction.

Kondo: At the studio for this show, there's an array of chairs of staffers that Miura turns to for assistance arranged around Miura's desk. I think it's becoming a very densely-packed space.

Miura: I gathered the rookie staffers around me.

Kondo: Shirai, Suhara, (Nozomu) Abe, the key animator...

Miura: I surround myself with those three.

Kondo: That's probably the most convenient setup when you're drawing storyboards and doing episode direction work. It lets you keep working while they go, "How's this?"

Miura: True. It's also a real life-saver, psychologically speaking.

Kondo: It depends on the episode director, but some can't draw storyboards unless they're outside the studio. They have to be in their own world or they can't draw. But Miura understands the importance of a director sitting in the studio.

Miura: Yeah, I drew all of the storyboards at my own desk except for the days I wasn't feeling well. I'm frequently hit with a barrage of questions from the staff, so not being in the studio would be a bad idea.

Kondo: I actually wanted to put Sudo next to Miura, but Sudo is a smoker. Sudo seemed so lonely, plugging away by himself in the smokers' lounge, so I moved Tabata, who was originally next to Miura, over next to Sudo even though Tabata doesn't smoke. I thought they worked really well together.

-- At the event before the premiere, you said that you wanted to personally check every shot of every episode, Mr. Miura. Did you?

Miura: I wasn't able to go through all of #09, but other than that one, I checked every single shot. Not everybody is the fast-working type, so this time out, I made full use of my time to finish it all... It was sort of like that. There's a limit to how fast you can physically work, after all. Frankly, I think whether or not the job moved forward was up to differences in concentration ability.

Kondo: The reason you delegated #09 was because the episode director was Akihiko Uda, so you decided it would be safe.

Miura: Yeah. I handed it off out of trust in him. Also, even though I did check all of the shots in the final episode, everything was done so well that I didn't do anything.

Kondo: Yeah, because those storyboards were by Takuro Takahashi or Suhara. I bet there weren't many issues or revisions to make.

-- I think that one unique trait of this Fate/stay night is the theatricality of the action scenes. How did you go about making the fight scenes?

Miura: Basically, we don't just use the script, we also include the descriptive text from the original game when we make the storyboards.

Kondo: You draw the storyboards with the assumption that the action shots will be done by studio key animators like Masayuki Kunihiro, Mitsuru Obunai, and Takeshi Kimura, right?

Miura: That's right. Action shots are tailored to the staffer who will oversee it.

Kondo: If you didn't do it that way, you'd never be able to draw battles like those. I think the action scene that Kunihiro did that stands out to me is the battle between Lancer and Archer in #00.

Miura: I think you're right. When the key animation is done by someone who's really skilled, you can practically hear the sounds. The key animation of action parts like that are drawn with such excellent tempo that it seemed like I could hear the "bam-bambam!" sounds coming from them just from looking at the individual keyframes.

Kondo: In episode 12, the part where Shirou loses his Command Seals and Saber charges at Caster was also done by Kunihiro, right?

Miura: The part in #09 where Saber is strangled by Souichirou Kuzuki was also done by Kunihiro. Saber's face was so beaten up, I thought she was the Anime Story Manager (Mr. Kunihiro was in charge of the character designs for the anime story manager in the short "Anime Short Manager X (Touhou Project)," which was released in 2010.)

Kondo: And Mr. Obunai sure proved his manliness in #12, don't you think?

Miura: He was lead on a huge number of shots.

Kondo: The battle in the church in #12 between Kirei and Caster is animated by Mr. Obunai. Sudo and Tabata had nothing but praise for it.

-- How far are you going about making the shots where Noble Phantasms like Gáe Bolg are activated?

Kondo: Work on the Gáe Bolg was time-consuming...

Miura: That's for sure. Even after the animation was done, I was constantly running over to Photography for discussions. ufotable's photography staff apply photographic filters after they've heard the sound effects. That's why the audio and visuals are inherently tightly synced.

Kondo: We also got a lot of suggestions from Photography. We get lots of ideas where they go, "I want to make it look like this".

Miura: That's a huge help. I'm the kind of guy whose catch phrase is, "Just make it look cool," you see.

-- Oh, so there are action scenes where the studio staff came to you with ideas.

Kondo: Rookies who did animation on the Garden of sinners went onto survive Fate/Zero, and are now battle-ready on Fate/stay night. To name a few, there are Susumu Takeuchi, Shoji Koyama, Takashi Umeda, Takuya Aoki... Those are the mainstays that are playing such a huge role this time out.

Miura: Yeah, people who thought, "No way am I gonna be able to do this" back when they took the company's animation test are now confidently serving as animation directors.

Kondo: At ufotable, the main staff instruct the rookie key animators. Even Miura here watches a few rookies.

Miura: That's true. Takeuchi, Ikumi Kawamura, Mikiuki Ishizuka... Ishizuka is so high-end that she flew off somewhere. (laughs)

Kondo: Takeuchi is in high demand in the office right now. In this series, he did the picnic scene in #12.

Miura: And the Turning Swallow Strike in #07. He's someone who can plug away at unglamorous work.

Kondo: His personality comes through, doesn't it? Kawamura did key animation on all the episodes, and Ishizuka played a big role as the animation director for #02, #06, #09, and #12.

Miura: The person who really worked hard at ufotable's Tokushima Studio was Masato Nagamori, who animated Taiga Fujimura. He's the person who's doing the character designs for Ohenro., and he's incredible good at drawing girls. He's devoted his life to it.

Kondo: Right, right. He himself is one of those soothing types, and is incredibly popular at the studio.

Miura: Whenever I hand off a tricky shot to a rookie, I picture the rookie's face as I draw. I think, "I bet he can do it". Because when you draw storyboards without thinking about who will be in charge, it causes the key frame cel count to skyrocket.

Kondo: You worry about the cel count? I don't pay attention to that at all.

Miura: I pay incredibly close attention to it! There's nothing more painful than storyboards that will never make it to the screen no matter how hard the animators try. When I'm drawing storyboards, I try to make them pretentious to make them as good as possible.

-- Mr. Miura, if there were any particular details you obsessed over this time, please tell us what they were.

Kondo: If I had to point out parts where Miura's individuality was on display... I guess it would have to be the Track Girl Trio (Kane Himuro, Kaede Makidera, and Yukika Saegusa). Personally, I thought that maybe they didn't need to show up quite so often, but Miura kept rolling them out more and more, and they ended up showing even in the ending credits. (laugh)

Miura: When I played the Fate/stay night sequel fan disk Fate/hollow ataraxia, my impression of the three girls definitely changed. When I think about it logically, having them in the show makes Rin look better.

Kondo: Uh... there's nothing logical about it! (laughs) You didn't have to use them that much! In the 2nd season, I've been sensing your obsessiveness with Sella and Leysritt, Miura. Hm, is it "obsessiveness" or "personal tastes"?

-- When Shirou is taken in by Kiritsugu Emiya in #01, and there is speculation that the scene where he is thinking with his arms crossed and one eye closed is a callback to the second in Fate/Zero episode 02 where Illya is talking to Kiritsugu with her arms cross and one eye closed. Are things like that something that you obsess over, Mr. Miura?

Miura: Ah, some people noticed that, huh? I'm constantly doing stuff like that.

Kondo: So that piece of speculation was right, then.

Miura: I suppose it is. Another one is the scene in #06 where Taiga is holding an orange. There's a scene in a different route where Taiga is eating an orange, so I used it as a prop that inherits that image.

Kondo: Oh, so that's what that was. As far as ufotable shows go, I think there are some people who have seen a common thread linking everything from the Garden of sinners onwards. It feels like oranges and coffee have been like ufotable' symbol ever since Futakoi Alternative.

Miura: Mr. Takuro, who was episode director on #06, said to me, "I've been doing oranges so often that I have a system now".

-- Are there any other items that you obsessed over, Mr. Miura?

Miura: I wonder if anyone has made any comments about the bed that Taiga sleeps in during #12... The bed that Taiga sleeps in at Rin's house is a double. And there are two pillows, too. That's the bed that Rin's father, Tokiomi Tohsaka, and her mother, Aoi, slept in.

Kondo: Hahahaha....

Miura: It doesn't seem like the audience caught onto it, but Fuyuki City, the setting for the Fate series, has locations they are clearly modeled after. As before, each episode's staff went location hunting and took reference photos, I suppose that's something I obsesed over.

-- There are many, many more topics of speculations where that earlier one came from. But in any case, thank you for your card work on the 1st season.

Miura: To be perfectly honest, it doesn't feel like it's over.

Kondo: That's because we still have the 2nd season to go.

Miura: After I submitted the storyboards for #12, each episode's director then worked hard to make them. I've been prepping for the 2nd season ever since.

Kondo: Did you ever feel left out? (laughs)

Miura: No, not at all, but I did think that maybe I should pitch in since everybody seemed to be having it so rough.

D. 1st Season Playback: Takahiro Miura (DIRECTOR) x Hikaru Kondo (PRODUCER)

Episode #00: Prologue          #00 began with fumbling around

Kondo: About how long did it take to do the storyboards for #00?

Miura: There wasn't any concept art at first. On the contary, there were times when we were basing the concepts off of the storyboards, so it definitely took some time.

Kondo: I think #00 is nicely done. Even as an entry point, combination tricks were used to smoothly dovetail it into #01. Speaking personally, I had a sense of accomplismhent even though it was only #00. And at that time, I also thought, "We'll be able to pull this off!" The Magic Circuit imagery in the ending credits was animated separately, but it fit in fine. I'm satisfied.

-

Episode #01: Winter Days, A Fateful Night          What is effectively the first episode, in which the Tokushima studio came into their own

Kondo: This time around, the Tokushima studio played a big role, not just in #01.

Miura: The Tokushima studio was my spiritual support all through the first season. They always stay on schedule, so when I ask Tokushima to do something, I check those sheets off as done.

Kondo: That's only for you, Miura! The production is just getting started at that point! Still, Tokushima's activity beginning with #01 was incredible. Especially Takayuki Mogi and Tetsuhito Sato, who rally the young key animators. Those two rallied the team as animation directors. I'm genuinely grateful to them.

Miura: Also, what they said to the Tokushima team was "#01 is effectively the first episode". They laid on the pressure, saying, "This is episode 1 for Shirou Emiya, so if we blow this, it's all over".

-

Episode #02: The Curtain Goes Up          Kirei appears. The 3rd episode, in which the workings of the world are explained

Miura: What I kept in mind throughout was that the story was beginning with the protagonist, SShirou, already being interested in the heroine. But Rin has absolutely no interest in Shirou.

Kondo: Right, Rin only showed concern for Shirou because of Sakura.

Miura: Rin tries to protect Shirou because he's Sakura's favorite.

Miura: #02 had to touch on Kirei walking around the church. As you all know, this was a callback to Zero, but we got worked up during the scenario meetings. Even Iwakami, the producer, got on board, saying. "We ought to do it".

Miura: I said. "Please explain this to Mr. Ei Aoki (the director of Zero)". (laughs)

Kondo: The church itself is rectangular in terms of structure, so you really wouldn't walk that much. But well, I guess it's a "History comes full circle" thing.

Miura: The career animation directors worked hard, too.

Kondo: They really started to shine after Ishizuka joined. Aotaku (Takuya Aoki) is a hard worker. I'm happy with what they accomplished.

-

Episode #03: The First Battle          A grand battle between Berserker and Saber

Miura: The storyboards were brutal.

Kondo: Did you get a big sense of accomplishment?

Miura: Yeah. I kept thinking that there shouldn't be too many shots, but there ended up being around 400.

Kondo: Illya didn't have many chances to play an active role in the original, but I think it's great that we were able to show Illya's overwhelming power by having her fight Rin.

Miura: During a plot meeting, scriptwriter Kazuharu Sato said, "Knowing Rin, wouldn't she have something up her sleeve?" The battle between Rin and Illya was wild. The concept of Illya creating familiars from her hair was Kinoko Nasu's idea.

Kondo: In terms of original elements and action, that incident was really tightly bound to the material.

-

Episode #04: Finding the Will to Fight          A turning point in the story

Kondo: #04 was relatively hard.

Miura: Stuff like meal scenes are tough.

Kondo: Also, Ayako Mitsuzuri was great. (laughs) And I guess it's the music that I remember. The music uses a method called film scoring, which tailors the music to the visuals. Around the time this episode was finished,  I dropped by Hideyuki Fukawa's house. We discussed the music of the finished episode and made adjustments to the pieces of music as we watched the visuals together.

Miura: Mr. Fukasawa's music is incredibly cool.

Kondo: It's a huge help to have him come in to the mixing sessions and make tweaks to the music.

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Episode #05 Dancing After School          Precise action, meticulously drawn

Miura: #05 was the episode where Toshiyuki Shirai was really active in. It was so polished that I had little to do. Nothing really stands out in my memory.

Kondo: That's always how it is. You remember more on the difficult episodes.

Miura: Shirai did the storyboards, so it ended up being a serious episode. If I'd have done the storyboards, I might have had Rin trip over a bucket or something while chasing Shirou and hitting her head and knocking herself out. (laughs)

Kondo: Rin looked so cool when she jumps from the stairs and fires Gandr shots. That's a shot where Shirai's personality comes through.

Miura: That episode had a relatively large amount of shots.

Kondo: Rider's chain was a nightmare.

Miura: Shoji Koyama came in as an assistant animator and helped us out.

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Episode #06: Mirage          Incidents where the episode director's individually makes an impact

Kondo: I've known Takuro Takashi for ages, so whenever I watch the works in progress, I'd think, "I bet that's Takuro!" and start grinning.

Miura: Actually, I didn't touch up the storyboards for this episode very much. You can really sense Takuro's touch in the flow of the conversations and the camera placement. When I direct Fate/stay night, I try to make it feel natural so that you don't sense the staging, but Takuro stages the staging, you know? He positions the camera where there will be the most symmetry, uses wide-angle lenses, that kind of thing.

Kondo: Animator Yasuhisa Kato has been with ufotable since Magical Sisters Yoyo and Nene, and he's done great things as an all-arounder.

Miura: He's a battle-hardened soldier, that one.

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Episode #07: The Reward for the Fight to the Death          The trial and error that went into Assassin's Turning Swallow Strike

Miura: At the start, I said to Takashi Suhara, "This will be the episode where Unlimited Blade Works' title turns up". It's the episode where Archer's famous "Let your ideals drag you down to your death" line appears.

Kondo: I love Suhara's fight scenes. The Assassin fight scene was terrific.

Miura: What he really wants to do is period drams. He made Assassin so courteous. (laughs) At the time, we agonized over the processing on the Turning Swallow Strike. It's a technique that launches three blows simultaneously, so it would be crazy if we did it exactly how it was in the original. A lot of trial and error went into it.

Kondo: I guess you could say that Part C was my contribution. I thought that it needed a Part C to wrap up the episode. The animation work was winding down, but I made the call and brought in Miura, Suhara and Production. Shots were added, too, right? That sense that everything is always in motion is what's most interesting about TV series work, I think.

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Episode #08: Winter Days, Where the Heart Is          Shirou's warped nature, the development of Rider's exit

Miura: #08 has a personal tweak in it. It's the episode where you learn that Shirou is clearly a warped character. Since there are elements showing that Rin is starting to realize this, I thought we should have her act politely. Actually, there was an idea in the plotting stages to have a Rider vs. Saber battle on the roof. But Mr. Iwakami, the producer, said that we should stick to the original.

Kondo: Right, he did.

Miura: Mr. Nasu said that maybe the scene where Rider is knocked out of the running might be a little over the top, but I thought we needed to do at least that much to leave an impression.

Kondo: As for the music at the end, I had Mr. Fukasawa write three different styles and talked it over with Miura and Mr. (Takuya) Nonaka at the mixing studio and decided which to go with there. What you hear is the result.

Miura: You went with the tried and true style.

Kondo: He also wrote one with more of a "bad aftertaste" vibe, but we rejected it. (laughs)

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Episode #09: The Distance Between Them          Issei walked away with the episode

Miura: Hiroshi Kamiya, the actor who plays Shinji Matou, is so good. His voice alone is enough to create a picture. I really thought he was amazing.

Kondo: There's a scene where Rin is talking to Shirou about adopted children, and I love how it makes you want to butt in and go, "How can you ask him that?"

Miura: Actually, I thought about having Sakura watching from the window as those two (Rin and Shirou) are sneaking around outside the Matou house. But the idea was nixed by Mr. Sudo, so I scrapped it.

Kondo: Well, I guess I can see why.

Miura: I was worried about how to handle Sakura's exit, so I wanted to give her a proper sendoff. I set it up meticulously, but in the end, Issei ran away with the episode. (laughs)

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Episode #10: The Fifth Contractor          Blondie walked away with the episode

Kondo: The Kuzuki battle was the biggest challenge in Unlimited Blade Works. I was personally finding it hard to swallow the plot twist of a human defeating a Heroic Spirit. As a result, we added the explanation that Caster was imbuing Kuzuki with the life force she had been siphoning from the residents of Fuyuki.

Miura: Originally, we were showing that as his fists being strengthened with mana, but Mr. Nasu requested that we have mana flowing through his entire body. A mana filer (effect) is applied to all of Kuzuki's movements. The staffers took to calling it "Time Alter". (laughs) My plan was to show Shirou as a hero in this episode, but, well...

Kondo: But a certain blond Servant walked away with the episode, didn't he?

Miura: As Mr. Nasu would write, "Shinji is as inconsequential as air to the blond Servant". He doesn't even bat an eye at Shinji's overly-familiar attitude.

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Episode #11: A Visitor Approaches Lightly        Incidents that set up the climax

Kondo:  #11 mundane in termsof story at first glance, but I thought it was a crucial episode.

Miura: Yes, to lead up to #12. It delved into the various characters and reiterated their positions. We had to lay the groundwork for the date, too. Rin things, "This guy is hopeless" about Shirou and wants to show him that there is plenty of fun to be had in life. Oh, and Taiga. Shirou never goes to visit Kiritsugu's grave. That was foreshadowing to let us send Taiga to the grave alone.

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Episode #12: The Final Decision          The 1st season finale, which provided a sense of accomplishment

Kondo: #12 gave me a sense of accomplishment, too.

Miura: It was all-hands-on-deck total war, with direction from both Shirai and Takahasi, as well as eight animation directors.

Kondo: Right, we even brought in (Haruo) Sotozaki, the Tales series director, and character designer (Akira) Matushima as secondary key animators. If I had to point out one issue, it would be the depiction of Assassin in Part D. The key animation included his internal organs in excruciating detail. I said, "This will never make it on air". I talked with Terao, our photography director, and had him think of some filters.

Miura: The organs were on a separate layer, so I thought we should simply remove it.

Kondo: He dropped the gems with their magic activated. The photography team did a killer job this time, too. I admired the way things like rain were shown.

Miura: That's right. We had various kinds of water this time. The one that had me banging my head against the deck the most was the dragon-tooth warriors.

Kondo: After the mix was done, I remember being psyched and thinking, "We can pull this off!" We just need to splice it in and finish up the artwork, I thought. But another tough battle was waiting after that.

Miura: It sure was a tough battle, huh?

Kondo: The staff has my gratitude.

-

Bonus          2nd Season Preview

Kondo: Happily, ufotable's production department has grown, too, and when I think about what's to come, it makes me want to hand off as much as possible to them. That's why I left the preview in the hands of Production Manager Ryo Kondo.  I told him, "Think up a preview that will make people want to watch the 2nd season".

Miura: He came to me for advice. He even handled the direction himself.

Kondo: He worked on it until the very last minute.

Miura: A preview that focused on that season and would be a parade of its major shots. Even the animation director became emotionally involved and there was no flow to the shots. Thank goodness they finished it in time.

Kondo: I think it ended up being a preview that made even me want to watch the 2nd season.

Miura: Mr. Nasu was referenced by the scene with Berserker in the preview. That drove home one more time how invested they were.

Kondo: I want people to get psyched about the 2nd season over stuff like that. The battle with Berserker in the original game isn't all that long, you know? I think we're gonna pull out all the stops on that one.

Miura: I plan to work just as hard on the 2nd season.

Part E. STAFF

Original Story: Kinoko Nasu / TYPE-MOON
Director: Takahiro Miura
Original Character Design: Takashi Takeuchi
Character Design: Tomonori Sudo, Hisayuki Tabata, Atushi Ikariya
Color Setting: Emi Chiba, Mika Matsuoka
Art Director: Koji Eto
Director of Photography: Yuichi Terao
Music: Hideyuki Fukasawa
3D Director: Kojiro Shishido
Animation Production: ufotable

Opening Theme Song: "ideal white" by Masahiro Ayano (Ariola Japan)
Ending Theme Song: "believe" by Kalafina (SME Records)
Insert Song: "THIS ILLUSION" by LiSA (Aniplex)

Part F. CAST (Japanese / English)
Shirou Emiya: Noriaki Sugiyama / Bryce Papenbrook
Rin Tohsaka: Kana Ueda / Mela Lee
Saber: Ayako Kawasumi / Kari Wahlgren
Archer: Junichi Suwabe / Kaiji Tang
Sakura Matou: Noriko Shitaya / Chirstina Vee
Illyasviel von Einzbern: Mai Kadowaki / Stephanie Sheh
Souichirou Kuzuki: Masaki Terasoma / Lex Lang
Lancer: Nobutoshi Kanna / Tony Oliver
Caster: Atsuko Tanaka / Megan Hollingshead
Assassin: Shinichiro Miki / Todd Haberkorn
Rider: Yu Asakawa / Melissa Fahn
Taiga Fujimura: Miki Ito / Julie Ann Taylor
Shinji Matou: Hiroshi Kamiya / Kyle McCarley
Issei Ryudoi: Mitsuaki Madono / Robbie Daymond
Kirei Kotomine: Jouji Nakata / Crispin Freeman
Kiritsugu Emiya: Rikiya Koyama / Matthew Mercer
Blond Servant: Tomokazu Seki / David Earnest
Shirou Emiya (Child): Junko Noda / Mona Marshall
Ayako Misuzuri: Fumie Mizusawa / Brina Palencia
Yukika Saegusa: Eri Nakao / Jessica diCicco
Kaede Makidera: Michiru Yuimoto / Erica Lindbeck
Kane Himuro: Rie Nakagawa / Dorothy Fahn

English Voice Director & ADR Script Writer: Tony Oliver