YMMV / Fate/hollow ataraxia

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Did Kirei Kotomine truly abandon his daughter Caren out of a lack of interest in raising her or did he fear what he would do to her if had kept her? Given that he was still in denial over his sadistic urges at the time, there's a chance that he was subconsciously concerned for her safety around him without being aware of it himself.
• Awesome Music: The opening theme "hollow". The PS Vita remake's opening theme also counts, Hollow World, sung entirely in English by Aimer and the other opening's song Broken Night, also sung by her.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Caren trolling Shirou when he asks her to stop something ("Stop? Or what, you'll violently rape me? That's a bit out of character for you, isn't it, Shirou?"). Later on, Shirou — actually Angra Mainyu possessing/disguised as him — violently rapes Caren.
  • Shinji recalls that he had an uncle that abandoned the Matou household and was disinherited for it, but doesn't know what happened to him. Cue Fate/Zero, revealing that said uncle was Kariya.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Rider describes Perseus as "a successful Shinji". Come Fate/Prototype, where we meet Perseus, who turns out to be anything but. Either the Perseus that Rider knew is not the same as the Prototype Perseus or Rider was just bitter over getting slayed by Perseus. Even more so with Fate/Grand Order, where the description probably fits Jason more than Perseus.
• Ho Yay:
  • Issei and Shinji both have points where they are practically competing to see who is Shirou's best friend, at time actually fighting over him.
  • While Rin is romantically attracted to Shirou, when her date with him at the pool is interrupted by Rider, Rin admits she and Shirou both noticed the same part of Rider's body. Rin goes on to note how beautiful Rider is and how she feels inadequate in comparison.
  • While Caster avoids any of her Depraved Bisexual moments from the original visual novel, she still expresses a desire to see Saber try on various outfits, this time only being played for laughs.
• Jerkass Woobie: Angra Mainyu, unsurprisingly, is not a nice person. But given his backstory it's easy to see why.
• Moe: Caster of all people manages to reach this status, sometimes reaching Tsundere status.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Assault Einzbern and the Hanafuda game can get quite addictive.
• Tear Jerker:
  • During the opening, when a Brainwashed Shirou sees Saber again for the first time, he starts involuntarily crying with joy even though he can't remember why.
  • The ending. Angra Mainyu's final confrontation with Bazett, the reveal that he saved her life so she can return to the real world alive, their final parting and Angra Mainyu's Heroic Sacrifice to end the cycle of four days, calmly accepting that he must return to nothingness because taking on Shirou's form has made him also a "hero of justice".
  • Both the backstory of Princess Medea, the Witch of Betrayal (aka. Caster) and the recounting of one possible route of the Holy Grail War (not one of the potential canon ones from the game) where Gilgamesh attacks the temple, mortally wounds Kuzuki, and leaves Caster to grieve over his dying form.
  • That Caren is Kirei's daughter, abandoned by her father as a baby because he didn't/couldn't love her. Caren reciprocates the sentiment and only mourns her mother. What may twist in the knife further is that Caren seems to have inherited her trollish behavior from Kirei, which makes you think about how if things had been different...
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: You might expect that now the Holy Grail War is over (and almost all the characters are inexplicably still alive) they'd take the time to explore Archer's backstory, particularly what he went through to turn him from the idealistic Emiya Shirou to the cynical Archer, as well as how he's dealing with being back in his own past, seeing people he knew from his youth again. You might expect this. But apart from a single scene where Those Three Girls mention that Archer seems strangely familiar for some reason, you'd be completely wrong and Shirou and Archer just continue with their usual offhandedly antagonistic relationship. This is because, at the time, the Archer Spoiler™ was considered one of the truly great sacred cows of the franchise and every single effort was taken to conceal it for people who hadn't seen The Reveal in the original game. Yes, even the fandisc sequel still tries to hide it. Fate/EXTRA took similar steps to conceal it. Nowadays, with Fate/Grand Order casually spoiling it, it looks especially silly.

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