10 reasons Fate/stay night UBW sucks

1. Everything is overly convenient
What are the odds that out of everybody in the world that could have summoned a heroic spirit, 1 of them is Shirou, 3 of them are people Shirou knows from school, 1 of them is directly connected to Shirou's adoptive father, and 1 of them is directly connected to Rin; Shirou's love interest? How the hell is something like that even possible? Why does a "war" with such global implications take place entirely within a small region in Japan, much less within a single social circle? Every time Shirou is about to die because of his own stupidity, someone just so happens to arrive and save him seconds before his death. Shirou and Rin just so happen to arrive at Illya's castle as she is being murdered, even though Gilgamesh could have done that at literally any time. Etcetera etcetera. The entire plot is based on coincidences.

2. The main characters have 12 layers of plot armor
Consider how many times over Shirou would be dead already if he was a minor character. Rider can and should have instantly killed him when he rushed into the woods. Nope! Saved by Rin! If Hercules was half as strong as the show makes him out to be, he should have massacred Shirou. Nope! Saved by Archer! Gilgamesh wouldn't even have had to lift a goddamn finger to kill both Shirou and Rin, YET HE WALKS THE FUCK AWAY FOR NO REASON. They spared no expense in stressing how much more powerful Archer is than Shirou, but he wins because he never gives up! I don't care that Archer sort of let him win at the end; doing so made no sense. He ALREADY knew that Shirou never gave up, so what the actual fuck did he see that changed his mind? It's a total asspull. Don't even get me started on the "you get stronger very time our blades touch" bullshit. Shirou is the weakest master, has literally downs syndrome levels of intelligence, and yet he is going to live the longest.

3. Shirou is so fucking stupid that it shatters suspension of disbelief
How in the world is anyone supposed to take this show seriously when the protagonist adheres to a ideal system that even 5 year old children have grown out of? This is the equivalent a teenager who literally wants to become batman. No fucking shit you can't save everyone you moron! But his ideal system has nothing on his fundamental lack of human common sense. "Hey Caster! I'm over here! Kill me please!" I instinctually closed my laptop in disgust when Shirou witnessed Gilgamesh massacre Hercules without breaking a sweat AND THEN REVEALED BOTH HIMSELF AND RIN FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER. An action that by any stretch of the imagination should have gotten the two main characters killed. Rin was holding him down; covering his mouth in a desperate attempt to prevent Shirou from committing suicide by stupidity. Shirou Emiya is among the most immersion shattering characters in anime history.

4. None of the side characters have enough screen time to feel properly fleshed out
Anyone else notice how we are given no reason to give a damn about any of these characters until right before they die in a last-ditch effort to make us sad? This show spent no time whatsoever fleshing out the character of Illya, and yet as she is dying, after she has ALREADY been impaled by Gilgamesh, we are given her ENTIRE backstory. What the hell is the point of this? She is already as good as dead, and you have done nothing with her character. What purpose is there to revealing her backstory at all now? I'll tell you: shock factor and cheap emotional reaction. Lazy writing of the highest caliber. Caster is another example of a character whose backstory is crammed in right before her death so that it ends up being irrelevant. Even in characters who aren't dead yet, there is no characterization at all. There is no reason to care about them because we don't know who the hell they are.

5. It relies on shock factor and edginess to illicit a response
Who could forget the moment it is revealed that mana is harvested by liquifying children in Caster's backstory? LIQUIFYING. CHILDREN. That kind of edginess puts Elfen Lied and Akame Ga Kill to shame. Do I even need to bring up the unnecessarily cruel way that Gilgamesh murdered Illya? When this show feels the need to torture a little girl to tug at my heartstrings, I draw the line. There are many, many more examples of comparable bullshit throughout the entire show.

6. The morals and themes are the most ham-fisted and pretentious in anime history
The creator Nasu himself has admitted that he regrets how he beat the readers of his work over the head with his themes. Not that such a confirmation is necessary to see how pretentious this show is, that is. If the recent two consecutive episodes of nothing but spewing some of the worst pseudo-intellectual excuses for philosophy I've ever seen hasn't cemented how intelligent this show thinks it is when it isn't at all, nothing will. This is an adaptation of a goddamn eroge for Christ's sake. So deep.

7. Every fight is resolved with a last second save, a last second power-up, or a comparable asspull
I've pretty much already been over this in the other points, particularly the one about Shirou being an idiot. More examples include Kirei's command seal not working on Lancer for no fucking reason and literally everybody's desire to talk shit or spew philosophy for first graders instead of killing each other when they easily could be.

8. The romance is terrible
I can't help but cringe whenever the show tries to assert that Shirou and Rin have some sort of romantic connection. No they don't. All they do when they are together is talk about the plot or about how stupid Shirou's ideals are. This is NOT romance. They have no chemistry with each other, unless you count a small amount of the most archetypical tsundere interactions that exist "chemistry".

9. The rules of the Holy Grail War are BULLSHIT
Nobody follows them. I think every single one of them has been broken at some point, so what's even the point of having rules? There is NO reason for the show to pretend that this is some sort of organized competition. Hell, Caster's Noble Phantasm was literally called "Rule Breaker". Give me a goddamn break.

10. Gilgamesh
The very existence of Gilgamesh is perhaps the biggest plothole I've ever seen in any show. This guy is stupidly powerful. He killed Illya, her servants, and Hercules without lifting a finger. That raises the question: Why the fuck has he not just massacred everyone in the war by himself? He is clearly more than capable of doing so, and yet he spends his time dicking around, doing absolutely nothing, or letting Shirou and Rin live FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER because plot. Please Gilgamesh. End it. End this miserable show.