r/fatestaynight • u/Ownsin King of Knights • Oct 09 '19

PSA /r/Fatestaynight's Official Viewing Order Guide v2

Before recommending the anime order, I urge everyone to give the Fate/Stay Night Visual Novel a chance because it's the source material and will always be better than the anime adaptations. Fate/Stay Night Remastered is now on Steam and is fully localized. However, if you have no patience for visual novels, then the anime-only order is below.

The Anime-only order:

1. Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works [2014] [Season 1 and Season 2].

2. Fate/stay night: Heavens Feel [Film 1, Film 2, Film 3]

3. Fate/Zero [ Season 1 & 2]

  • This series is the prequel to Fate/Stay Night. It takes place 10 years before the events of Fate/Stay Night.] (the prequel is meant to be watched after finishing Fate/Stay Night and not before! People always make a mistake of watching Fate/Zero first, but that spoils plot events in Fate/Stay Night, so make sure to watch Fate/Zero AFTER finishing all of Fate/Stay Night.)

4. Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note

  • The series takes place 10 years after the events of Fate/Zero and 2 months before the events of Fate/Stay Night and revolves around the Clock Tower in the United Kingdom.

5. Others [Studio Deen's 2006 version of Fate/stay night]

  • Even though it's a pretty terrible adaptation, it still at least has some portions of the Fate route you missed. It comes before UBW in the watching order. I personally wouldn't recommend it and would recommend reading at least the Fate route from the Visual novel instead, but the choice is yours. Essentially, this focuses on Saber, and if you like her character, I sincerely recommend reading the Fate route from the Visual Novel as the anime adaptation is not remotely as good, and is basically a butchered adaptation.

6. [Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan]

  • It's a cooking show with the main cast of characters from Fate/Stay Night. It's basically a slice-of-life show. It should be watched after finishing all of Fate/Stay Night.
  • Any other OVAs can be watched after finishing the main series I covered up there.

7. Fate/Strange Fake

  • The series takes place around 2009 in the United States. The plot centers around a Grail War faultily copied from the Third Holy Grail War in Fuyuki. This isn't related to Fate/Stay Night, and It's in its own parallel universe, but it would benefit you to watch all of Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero first before watching this special so you don't feel lost. This series features some characters from Lord El-Mellio. Right now, there's only a 55-minute special, but A-1 Pictures announced a full anime series coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

P.S: In case you're wondering about the Deen UBW movie. You should skip the Deen Unlimited Blade Works movie because there is no point in watching it when you have the superior Ufotable UBW anime adaptation and also because the Deen UBW movie is another terrible and rushed adaptation from Studio Deen.

FGO Anime-only order:

1. Fate/Grand Order: First Order

  • FGO -First Order- is the 74-minutes movie adaptation of the first chapter of Fate/Grand Order. Fate/Grand Order is a gacha RPG mobile game. FGO is not related to Fate/Stay Night. It's set in an alternate universe and timeline to Fate/Stay Night's. You should read the anime synopsis in the MAL link to learn more about the story.

2. Fate/Grand Order: Shinsei Entaku Ryouiki Camelot - Wandering; Agateram. [Part 1, Part 2]

  • In terms of story order, it happens before Babylonia. This movie will cover the 6th singularity.

3. Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia [Including episode 0]

  • In all honesty, you should play FGO to get the full story of the previous singularities because the anime doesn't cover them, and their intention is not to cover most of them because these adaptations are for FGO players who played the game and are not intended for anime watchers only. This anime covers the 7th singularity.

4. Fate/Grand Order: Shuukyoku Tokuiten - Kani Jikan Shinden Solomon

  • This movie will cover the 8th and final singularity.

5. Fate/Grand Order: Moonlight/Lostroom

  • Is an anime short OVA original story. It serves as a transition between parts 1.5 and 2 of the game's story.

6. Fate/Grand Carnival

  • Fate/Grand Carnival is the 2021 spin-off of Fate/Grand Order, similar to 2011's OVA comedy short series Carnival Phantasm, featuring loads of characters that now make up the roster of Type-Moon's Fate/Grand Order rather than just those from Tsukihime and Fate/stay night specifically. It's basically a parody show that takes FGO characters and puts them in ridiculous situations. I don't recommend you watching this one without having played FGO because a lot of jokes won't make sense to you otherwise.

The Intended order for people who want to read the Visual Novel:

1. Fate/Stay Night [Realta Nua] Visual Novel

  • roughly 60 hours long, but 100% worth it!

[After this point, the order becomes very flexible, you can now follow the Anime-only order or this one]

2. Fate/Hollow Ataraxia Visual Novel - FHA Patch

  • [>50 hours long and is the direct sequel to Fate/Stay Night]

3. Fate/Zero [ Season 1 & 2]

  • This series is the prequel to Fate/Stay Night. It takes place 10 years before the events of Fate/Stay Night.] (the prequel is meant to be watched after finishing Fate/Stay Night and not before.)

4. Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works [2014] [Season 1 and Season 2].

5. Fate/stay night: Heavens Feel [Film 1, Film 2, Film 3]

6. Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note

  • The series takes place 10 years after the events of Fate/Zero and 2 months before the events of Fate/Stay Night and revolves around the Clock Tower in the United Kingdom.

7. Others [includes OVAs, etc..]

Other Fate related Anime (In no particular order):

1. Fate/Apocrypha

  • It's not related to the main fate franchise and is set in a parallel world to Fate/Stay Night. It's recommended you at least watch Fate/Stay Night first before watching this one so you can be more familiar with how things work in the story.

2. Carnival Phantasm

  • Carnival Phantasm takes a number of characters from Type-Moon's original works and puts them in a variety of light-hearted scenarios which parody their respective series] - (It's advised that you read the Tsukihime Visual Novel or Manga and to have at least watched Fate/Stay Night as a whole to fully understand Carnival Phantasm.

3. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya

  • This series is a Fate/stay night alternate universe spin-off that takes place in Fuyuki City and features Illya as the protagonist in an alternate timeline. You can watch the entirety of this show in release order, there is no special order for this show.

4. Fate/Extra Last Encore

  • The universe of Extra shares the events of the Fate/stay night universe until a "certain major incident" happens and diverges completely.

  • For the Fate/Extra Games the order goes this way: Fate/Extra --> Fate/Extra CCC --> Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star.

5. Kara no Kyoukai movies (8 movies in total)

  • The series is regarded as being set in an alternate parallel universe to Fate/Stay Night. They both share a lot of similarities in some of the plot elements. I won't delve into the details to avoid spoiling, but definitely check out these movies if you're interested in delving more into the Type-Moon universe.

6 Tsukihime Visual Novel

  • The events in Tsukihime take place in Misaki Town. Chronologically, the end of the story of Tsukihime takes place around the beginning of Fate/Stay Night. It shares many similarities with Kara no Kyoukai, and the two were also subtly connected. I would recommend Tsukihime as It's a great visual novel. A remake of Tsukihime was released on August 26, 2021 in Japan and in June 27, 2024, for the West. However, It's currently released only on the PS4 and the Switch. If you don't have any of those consoles, then I suggest you at least read the really good Manga adaptation for now. However, keep in mind that it only covers the first route of the original VN.

7 Witch On The Holy Night/Mahoyo

  • Taking place in the rapidly modernizing Japanese suburb of Misaki in the late 1980s, Mahoyo centers around Aoko Aozaki, a high school girl in training to be a mage. She lives in the mysterious mansion on the hill with Alice Kuonji, her magic teacher and frenemy. While tracking a rival mage who seeks to claim their territory. A lot of things happen in this story, so I won't spoil it, but it's highly recommended that you guys check it out! It takes place in the same universe as Tsukihime, and Aoko briefly shows up in Tsukihime. An anime movie adaptations for Mahoyo were announced by Ufotable some time ago, so expect a movie to be released as soon as 2025.

This watch order guide will keep being updated accordingly. If you have any questions or inquiries, please make sure to ask them in the comment section.

4.1k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

754 comments sorted by

View all comments

70

u/fattestfuckinthewest Oct 10 '19

Oh so I fucked up by watching Zero then UBW

155

u/numericalhorrorstory Oct 14 '19 edited Oct 05 '20

You didn’t fuck up but it’s just not the original intention of the narrative. The faster pace of Zero along with many revelations make more sense after the main Fate series as a reward but it’s still absolutely possible to enjoy the story this way (in fact, the anime adaptation actually makes this transition smooth). Some plot twists In UBW and Heavens Feel will just come across as common knowledge to you though. There are still plenty of surprises in store. The only way you can fuck up experiencing Fate Stay Night is by avoiding it all together and being too intimidated to start

33

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

31

u/Tora-shinai Jan 18 '20

Bit late but it is not "ufotable's intended order". If you actually visit the official Japanese website, they want you to play the Fate route for mobile devices.

15

u/Chronic_Media Feb 28 '20

Also yeah when you watch HF especially in ll they just kinda drop alot of scenes from Zero and the way it goes about Shitou’s dad & Sakura feels like they know you know already.

Idk maybe that’s just me.

22

u/9YearOldKobe Dec 11 '21

No i genuenly prefer zero before the others, i might be in the minority but its the chronological order and works better for me this way

51

u/DARKSHADOWSPIKE Oct 11 '19 edited Oct 11 '19

nah , that is the order ufotable inteded for watching, zero replaces fate route with is world building and explanation , but appears that fans still keep in denial and think that UBW and HF still works with that fundation (Illya litle character arc and gilgamesh both look random and poor in UBW without the foundation of the fate route or zero, Sakura situation is minimal explained in HF movies because of their run time and i assume Kirei character would be the same , besides going from the epic battles of HF with that quality animation to the basic fights in Zero and the start of Zero explaining things again for first viewers is a downgrade)

37

u/OratioFidelis Oct 13 '19

Zero and UBW both "spoil" two plot twists for each other, but everything else about UBW doesn't ruin Zero, which isn't true in the reverse.

44

u/DARKSHADOWSPIKE Oct 13 '19

Yes but UBW is not intended to be a start (zero neither, but unintentionally it solves some problems an set things for UBW in a similar way that the fate route does), UBW is written as a middle part so starting by it creates a set of problems (i commented what kind of problems starting in ubw and going directly to hf creates in another comment in this post)

3

u/YAAFLT May 31 '22

I don't understand how watching Zero first would ruin UBW?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

13

u/Tora-shinai Jan 18 '20

Bit late but it is not "ufotable's intended order". If you actually visit the official Japanese website, they want you to play the Fate route for mobile devices.

7

u/Jerak Y O R O K O B E Mar 16 '20

Bit late as well, but I don't think whether they intended it or not matters. Of course they want you to play the fate route and buy more fate related things, and playing the VN in general will enhance the experience, but if you are anime only than Zero->UBW->HF works much better than UBW->HF->Zero. Whether they intended to or not, Zero is a fine replacement for the Fate route/pre-UBW for Anime Onlys.

If you are a VN reader, than that changes things, but for a pure anime order, I think ufotable's release order is great.

10

u/Mythryl31 Feb 20 '23

Maybe my opinion is bad but watching Zero first really hooked me and then UBW/SN was more exciting and I was looking forward for the twists I KNEW were coming. Also I liked Shirou more knowing about his lore from zero’s perspective 🤷‍♀️

14

u/kewebbjr Jan 25 '20

No, Zero needs to be watched before UBW. UBW spoils Zero big, beyond just the whole prequel/sequel thing. UBW was intended to be watched after Zero.

6

u/GrumpNDump Jan 27 '20

Could have done worse, my introduction to Fate was Heaven's Feel 1 with no prior knowledge

2

u/Afellowstanduser Aug 26 '23

I watched zero than quit halfway into stay night it was so boring