Trivia / Fate/stay night

• Adaptation First: The original visual novel wouldn't come out internationally until 2024, after various adaptations and spin-offs have already made their way outside Japan.
• Backported Development: The original H-Game release did not have any voice acting. The characters were first voiced in the Studio DEEN anime adaptation, and the Japanese voice actors were subsequently hired to voice the characters in the all-ages Realta Nua Updated Re Release. As a consequence, the visual novel's H-scenes remain unvoiced to this day.
• Porn Creator Going Mainstream: Needless to say, while the franchise's origins as a game with pornographic elements pop up occasionally in discussion, it's far more well-known these days for its plot and characters than for the sex scenes.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: The original visual novel and its various sequels, prequels and spin-offs have become this for the Nasuverse, raking in box-office breaking numbers (or the videogame equivalent), with plenty of adaptations over the years to the point its closest competition in Tsukihime has more or less been left in the dust. The ongoing success of just the most recent addition to the sub-franchise in Fate/Grand Order just emphasizes how popular Fate really is. It's even Lampshaded in Carnival Phantasm when Kohaku describes Saber as Nasu's Cash Cow.
• Creator Backlash: Played for Laughs. In a livestream commemorating the VN's 20th anniversary, after thanking his fans and collaborators, Nasu ended with a joke about how he could now relate to Archer's feelings and wanted to give his own younger self a piece of his mind (presumably for how busy the franchise's runaway success has kept him).
• Creator's Favorite:
  • Takashi Takeuchi, the co-creator and lead artist for Type-Moon, has proudly expressed himself as the largest Saber fan alive, even giving his own Author Avatar the Noble Phantasm of being able to summon an infinite amount of Saber clones.
  • According to Fate/side material, Sakura Matou is Type-Moon's favorite heroine despite her tragic backstory and small role in the Fate and Unlimited Blade Works routes.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: The visual novel was released in 2004, when Kinoko Nasu was in his early thirties. According to interviews with him and Takeuchi, he initially came up with it, in detail (albeit with some differences, as shown in Fate/Prototype), when he was in high school.
• Flip-Flop of God: While the characters' ages aren't stated in Fate/stay night itself, Nasu has said that Saber is physically one year younger than Shiro, with Fate/Grand Order and Garden of Avalon stating she became The Ageless when she was 15... which would make Shiro and Rin 16 during the event of the visual novel — meshing with them being second-year students at a Japanese high-school. However, Rin and Shiro are said to be 19 after the two-year timeskip at the end of the "Unlimited Blade Works" route, meaning they were 17 during the main story, which would make Saber 16. The inconsistent ages is more likely to avoid any potential issues due to being an H-Game originally, so in the original version they were older to avoid any potential issues, and in other versions that lack the H-Game elements, are made younger.
• God Never Said That: The final Tiger Dojo states that the player has reached the true end of the story. Unfortunately, some people have misconstrued that as to mean the final route, Heaven's Feel, is the canon ending, despite that all endings are canon in the Nasuverse. Not to mention that Realta Nua features an additional scenario unlocked after Heaven's Feel; Last Episode, which is an epilogue to the Fate route.
• He Also Did: hil, the composer of tracks like "Mighty Wind" and "Tiger Dojo", later revealed himself to be Satoshi Ishikawa, the sound person behind Digimon World 2, Digimon World 3, and Digimon World 4.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The Studio DEEN series until it was rescued from Geneon by Sentai Filmworks. They'd also dub the movie with Bang Zoom! Entertainment's assistance.
  • The only "current" version of the game is the Japan-exclusive Android port, which features "Fate" for free and the other routes as paid DLC. Secondhand copies of the Realta Nua PlayStation 2 port are relatively affordable, the Vita port can still be purchased new, but these are both outmoded pieces of hardware which may be difficult to procure on their own. Meanwhile, any version for the original platform, PC, is difficult to acquire legally. The original, self-published physical release can cost upwards of $200 for a used copy, and sometimes more than double that if it's the Fate/stay night + hollow ataraxia re-release. Realta Nua for PC is no longer sold on digital storefronts, meaning the only way to get it is through piracy. The upcoming Switch and Steam versions are set to make it easily available again sometime in 2024.
• Late Export for You: A remastered Realta Nua on Steam and Switch with English and Chinese languages was announced 20 years after the visual novel originally released in 2004.
• Milestone Celebration: The remaster of the PS Vita version of Realta Nua for Steam and the Nintendo Switch was announced in commemoration of the visual novel's 20th anniversary, alongside the fact that this would be the first time the visual novel would get an English and Chinese localization.
• Multi-Disc Work: The original 2004 doujin release of Fate/stay night was released on 3 CD-ROMs. Some later reprints packages the game into a single DVD.
• No Export for You: The original version of Fate/stay night as an R-18 eroge has never been indicated for release outside Japan.
• Orphaned Series: The English translation of the Fate/stay night manga only got up to 11 volumes officially released (out of 20) before Tokyopop shut down in 2011. English fan translations got up to Chapter 65 (out of 87) before all efforts abruptly ceased in 2013. The only fan translations that are complete are in Chinese and Spanish, and the Spanish one(s) are exceedingly difficult to find.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Kate Higgins was the only member of the original cast unable to reprise her role as Saber for the dub of the "Unlimited Blade Works" movie, leading to Michelle Ruff taking the role.
  • Needless to say, the Aniplex-dubbed anime shows, including the UBW TV series, feature a cast replacement for virtually everyone in English. Although notably, Illya remains Stephanie Sheh throughout all dubs, as does Mela Lee for Rin Tohsaka, Tony Oliver as Lancer and Julie Ann Taylor as Taiga.
    • Funny enough, some of the actors from UBW has voiced someone else from the original series (Lex Lang went from being Issei to Soichiro, Megan Hollingshead went from being Bedivere to Caster and David Vincent went from being Assassin to being Gilgamesh)
  • Masaki Terasoma replaced Kazuhiro Nakata as Kuzuki in the 2014 anime series due to the latter taking a hiatus from voice acting due to medical issues.
  • Bedivere has been impressively Darrined three times, with Mamiko Noto as the first for the original 2006 anime, being replaced by Shin-ichiro Miki for the PS2 version of Realta Nua (due to budget constraints), replaced again by Mitsuaki Madono for the PS Vita version of Realta Nua, and currently is Mamoru Miyano for the Garden of Avalon drama CD and Fate/Grand Order.
• Real-Place Background: Some locations in Fuyuki City are based on real-life places in Kobe and Fujisawa City.
  • Ryuudou Temple is modeled after the Yugyoji Temple in Fujisawa City.
  • The iconic Fuyuki Bridge and the building that was the inspiration for Rin's house can be found in Kobe.
  • Two buildings in the Akashi Castle complex were also used for inspiration: the Oda Nagayamon gate (which is where the outside shot of the Emiya residence is modeled after), and a dojo that served as the model for the archery dojo of Homurahara Academy.
• Referenced by...: The Weeknd's "Coming Down" samples Shirou and Saber's conversation before they kiss from Episode 21 of the 2006 adaptation.
• Refitted for Sequel: According to a 2012 interview, Rin chasing Shirou around at their school in Unlimited Blade Works was actually a reworking of a scene from the original unpublished version of Witch on the Holy Night where the protagonist Aoko was hunting down Soujuurou for similar reasons before being interrupted by a hostile interloper.
• Teasing Creator: Over whether or not the Fate route will receive an anime remake by Ufotable. According to attendees at the Type-Moon Museum, Ufotable has animated the Realta Nua epilogue, but it remains to be seen if they'll animate the rest of the route.
• What Could Have Been:
  • An artbook known as ''Character Material'' has revealed that the protagonist was originally a girl named Sajyou Ayaka and her Servant would have been a guy (named Saver in the artbook). Ayaka was eventually reworked, in parts, into both Shirou and Rin, but the original idea was animated into a short OVA titled Fate/Prototype.
  • In one of the Tiger Dojos, Illya mentions that it would be nice to see a Route in which Shinji cooperated with Shirou, or one Route when Caster became an ally. Taiga right away smacks Illya in the head and say "Don't talk about the rejected Routes!". Along with the information on the "Illya Route", which was cut and reworked into the "Heaven's Feel" route because Illya is the Token Mini-Moe, this means that there would be a lot of Routes, but thanks to "time and resources not being infinite" (another quote from Taiga) they were rejected. To be more specific, Fate/side material revealed that in the Caster Route, Caster would have reversed her age, turned into a loli, and become the protagonist's partner. Unlike Rider's route which was also scrapped, none of this was incorporated in the end product. Parts of the concept would eventually find their way into the third chapter of Fate/Grand Order, however, including a young "Lily" version of Medea.
  • Fate/Prototype shows us that Gilgamesh's original Noble Phantasm instead of Ea was Enki (which is another name for the same god), a bow/double sword combo that allowed him to summon the Surge of Utnapishtim, or as it's better known, The Great Flood. He also had a third passive Noble Phantasm that allowed him to survive any battle no matter what, which would clash with Berserker's Noble Phantasm, which was to not lose for eleven battles, concluding with Gilgamesh losing but surviving and Berserker winning but dying. He was also far more skilled in melee combat, easily trouncing Saber in a fight with only his Enki blades.
  • It's stated in the Tiger Dojos that Nasu had been toying with the idea of giving Illya her own route if Heaven's Feel was short enough, but it wasn't and the details of her route were largely folded into Heaven's Feel instead. It's also been mentioned that there was originally a Bad End in the Fate route where she raped Shirou, but that scene was obviously cut. And then in Fate/hollow ataraxia it's revealed that even Shinji was more likely to get his own route than her. Illya being bitter over her route getting cut is turned into a running gag in the franchise's meta material, such as Carnival Phantasm.
  • The Stray Servant who was one of the original heroine candidates for the visual novel and would eventually be reworked into Mash was first briefly mooted as a route heroine during initial production (though quickly scrapped as there was no way there'd be time for her). Described as an "abandoned puppy-type heroine", she was going to be a Servant from the Fourth Holy Grail War who killed her Master and survived until the Fifth, like Gilgamesh. As a Shielder, she was also going to be Saber's rival. With the DEEN anime, Nasu has claimed there to be two planned concepts to bring her back into the story.
    • In 2005, during initial planning, he had planned for her to replace Assassin as the gatekeeper to Ryuudou Temple. In this scenario, Saber would've had to overcome the mental block of fighting someone she knew in her past life, a gender-flipped Galahad.
    • In 2006, it was subsequently reworked to have a girl named Tachie who died in the Fuyuki Fire at the end of the Fourth War, but was revived by a necromancer for the Fifth and used as a vessel for Galahad as the necromancer's Servant. She would have held a grudge against Shirou because she felt like he abandoned her while she was calling for help in the fire, but would have ended up coming to terms with her death and his survival, and died again saving Shirou. Her master was also a man named Ernest Gravehill, and her outfit was later retooled for Scathach.
  • Nasu wanted the Heaven's Feel route to have a one on one duel between Saber and Rider where they debated about their ideals, but it was pressed for time.
  • Berserker originally had another Noble Phantasm that made his Master immortal as long as he was alive, meaning the other Masters couldn't kill Illya to get rid of him. This was scrapped as it was too much of a Story-Breaker Power and was somewhat of a stretch of his myth.
  • In the original concept art, Rider was going to be an Identical Stranger to Shirou's classmate Ayako Mitsuzuri. This was an echo of the original Rider from the Ayaka stage of development masquerading as a classmate at Ayaka's school; ultimately, the entire idea would be dropped in favor of making Rider a more mature woman than the teenage human cast.
  • Caster Medea originally had a Noble Phantasm called Argon Coin: The Golden Fleece, which is the Golden Fleece from her legend that lets her summon the dragon that guarded it, which would significantly up her threat level. In the finished product, Caster briefly mentions while she could summon the dragon, she has no control over it, so she won't bother trying because she would risk getting killed. Instead, Argon Coin would later show up in Fate/Grand Order as her self-heal skill.
  • There was a planned battle between Rider and Berserker. Rider would immediately realize Berserker's true identity due to them both being Greek heroes. Rider would ram him with Bellerophon, taking away two lives, before getting killed.
  • In early drafts, Illya's caretaker was a tuxedo-wearing German man instead of Sella and Leysritt.
  • Apparently, Aoi Yūki auditioned for Illya back when they began casting for the anime adaptation. She would not get to work in a Fate product until Fate/Extra CCC as Jinako.
• Word of Gay: Actually inverted for Issei. Readers often get the impression that he's gay for Shirou, but Nasu's gone on record denying this. However, that may only hold true for the original VN, since several adaptations/spinoffs have turned the Ho Yay up to undeniably deliberate levels.

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