Awesome / Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]

While not on par with what went down in Fate/Zero ufotable still managed to give us some stunning visuals.

• Episode 0: Archer's first battle with Lancer: full with fluent animation and impeccable pace, this battle successfully emphasizes how powerful Servants are, and how awe-inspiring their fights can appear. Archer shows why he's one of the most dangerous Servants of the war by being able to fight in a way he's not supposed to be capable of while Lancer shows his dexterity with the spear and manages to keep Archer on the defensive for almost the entirety of the fight. Much later in the show, we find out Lancer was seriously holding back, and that Archer would never stand a chance against Lancer at his full power. At least, not without the use of Unlimited Blade Works.
• Episode 1: The show keeps up the action with Saber and Lancer's battle, topping off with Saber doing what can only be described as a combat pirouette while her dress billows all around her. And then we see just how mindbendingly insane Lancer's Noble Phantasm is as it reverses causality.
• Episode 3:
  • Berserker shows us why he's The Dreaded. From Archer's arrows to Saber's attacks, nothing fazes him. He just keeps coming back for more.
  • Saber's battle pragmatism in this episode, after realizing that Archer can't help. She leads Berserker to a cemetery, making it hard for him to move around. She is even able to kill him. Too bad he revived. In any case, it's pretty clear Saber learned how to fight the Berserker class effectively after her experience against the Berserker of the previous war.
  • The Illya vs Rin fight. Illya using her mother's magic is incredible and Rin's fast thinking lets her destroy two of Illya's familiars.
• The entirety of Episode 7 can be considered a 20-minute reel of awesome; from Saber's intense clash with Assassin, to Archer showing Caster exactly how he earned his class name, to a two-second snippet showing that Archer, too, can go toe-to-toe with a samurai Heroic Spirit.
• Episode 8: Shirou, Rin and Saber fight against the golems summoned by Caster when Blood Fort Andromeda is activated at the school. The two Masters show off their teamwork against the familiars despite the disadvantage of numbers against them. Then, there's Saber's epic arrival from Shirou's summon via Command Seal.
• Episode 10:
  • Rin reciting Archer's Unlimited Blade Works chant.
  • Kuzuki proceeds to prove himself as the exception amongst the Masters and takes on Saber, knocking her out temporarily, and proceeds to defeat without effort both Rin and Shirou by use of his experience as an assassin and reinforcing his body with Caster's spell; on the other side, Shirou shows his true magical skill and, by projecting Kanshou and Bakuya, is able to stand his ground against Kuzuki. It's significant enough that catches Rin and Caster by complete surprise.
• Episode 12:
  • Archer breaks into Caster's Bounded Field, fends off the sorceress, utterly wrecks her water golems, and blows open an escape route.
• Episode 13:
  • Despite the betrayal, Archer proves that he could have easily have overwhelmed someone as skilled as Kuzuki, when he seemingly "teleports" in front of the man and Rin; he was moving at lightning speed, but it seemed as though it happened in an instant.
  • Shirou coming to rescue Rin despite the overwhelming odds of facing Kuzuki, Caster and Archer.
• Episode 14:
  • Illya messing with Rin using the "burglar" alarm.
  • Gilgamesh completely decimating Illya's maids.
• Episode 15:
  • Gilgamesh vs Berserker!!!
  • Gilgamesh's "regular" attacks doing nothing to Berserker due to his divine protection. What does he do? Pull out "better" weapons that actually pierce through his skin! He then restrains him using his chains that can bind even the very gods.
  • Berserker, despite being attacked relentlessly, keeps getting back up to punish the golden intruder for daring to attack Illya. Even the chains binding him in place weren't enough to slow him down! It should be noted that Berserker was literal finger-lengths from Gilgamesh's face when he got skewered for the final time. In the visual novel he takes the blows and stays in place long enough to let Ilya pass peacefully. In this, he shatters chains designed to hold gods better than mortals, scares the shit out of Gilgamesh, and nearly drags him to hell with him. Hell of a way to go, Heracles...
    • Another thing that makes this scene awesome/heartwarming is that this scene like the 'Saber resisting Caster's Absolute Command to kills Shirou' Scene isn't just about the Servant's power, it is about their nature and backstory. Saber cared about Shirou and was able to use her Magic Resistance skill to resist the order to kill him, something she did only once before to resist the order to destroy the prize she was fighting for. This shows that at the end of the day Arturia wasn't the cold person her subjects thought she was. Similarly Berserker's bond with Illya wasn't just driven by Illya's desire for a father-figure. Heracles' legend involves the incident of him killing his children in a fit of induced madness. Illya was basically his chance to do right by a child that depended on him for once and not even the rules of Holy Grail War, Magic and the freaking Universe are gonna get in his way.
    • Also this series as a whole shows that unlike the previous war where most Servants were a terrible match for their Masters, but in this war, Servants either matched with the Masters that summoned them or those that they ended up with. i.e. Shirou/Arturia Rin/EMIYA, Sakura/Medusa, Illya/Heracles, Bazett/Cu, Bazett/Angra, Kuzuki/Medea/Sasaki, Kirei/Gilgamesh. All the matches in the spoiler either shared common natures/backstories or were ideal to help each other heal/evolve/accept themselves.

• Episode 17:
  • Lancer vs Archer part two, Gae Bolg vs Rho Aias - Spear of Sure Hit versus Shield of No Loss.
    • Something that needs to be stated is what Archer says after his defeat: That the Gae Bolg surpasses Gungnir. Within the Nasuverse, Older Is Better and Gungnir is a weapon of a god. This means that Cu Chulainn essentially broke some of the fundamental laws of the universe in-story. It's also worth noting that even an incomplete Rho Aias helped Rider's Bellerophon over come Excalibur in the Heaven's Feel Route. And the Gae Bolg was able to defeat the completed version. Badass.
  • Rin vs Caster. Who knew Rin was also good with hand to hand combat, too. Against other mages, though.
• Episode 18:
  • Archer's counterattack, where he finally uses Unlimited Blade Works.
• Episode 19:
  • In the beginning of the episode, we see Archer accepting the offer to be a Counter Guardian, and though the consequences are horrifying, the visuals are impressive to a point that this moment shows Archer/Shirou at the height of his idealism.
    • Even better, in Fate/EXTRA, Archer reminisces that the last time he managed to "save everyone" involved stopping a nuclear meltdown. The location where Archer/Shirou accepted the offer to become a Counter Guardian looks very much like the inside of a nuclear power plant.
  • At the end of the episode, Shirou gives a brief speech to Archer after Archer has finished Deconstructing his own ideals, absolutely rejecting Archer and the future the latter has described to the sound of the opening chords of EMIYA. Discarding the sword Archer threw to him and the future it embodies, and reminding Saber that it is a battle he has to fight on his own, he faces Archer with a calm resolution that sends tingles down the back. The most badass song in the Fate series reaches its peak as they strike and the episode ends.
  • Meanwhile, Lancer locates Rin and backhands Shinji nonchalantly. He also used runes beforehand in the location, making this an averted case of Informed Ability—there's a reason Lancer could qualify for the Caster class!
• Episode 20
  • We finally see the fight between Shirou and Archer. Shirou is holding up fairly well, but even if Archer is just about out of prana, he still keeps Shirou on the defensive and uses Unlimited Blade Works against him.
  • As flashless as it is, Lancer is able to save Rin from Kirei and Shinji, all while dying. He also uses his runes to make sure that Kirei dies for good.
  • Finally, after being deconstructed and defeated by Archer, Shirou reaches the answer he was searching for to fight on against Archer: the wish he had that kept him from dying in the hellfire was to find a way to extinguish the Hell he was in and to save others, even if he personally was powerless. He then manages to finally use Avalon to heal himself and catch up to Archer. All to the Awesome Music that is Aimer's Last Stardust.
• Episode 21
  • The epic conclusion of the Shirou vs Archer battle. Despite the former's Heroic Second Wind, Archer still outclasses him in strength and skill, and yet Shirou keeps getting back up to the point that even his opponent starts to freak out over his boundless tenacity. Archer attempts to end the fight once and for all with a hail of swords while trying to once again break down Shirou's ideal, only for Shirou to stand up AGAIN and deliver his own Heroism Motive Speech, reaffirming his desire to become a hero with such purpose that it causes the once cloudy skies of Unlimited Blade Works to turn blue! And then EMIYA kicks in.
  • A true and heavily understated aspect of this is just how powerful Shirou's Heroic Resolve is here: Archer's utterly destroyed his dream by hacking at him again and again with the irrefutable reality of it, that what he wants to attain will be perverted by the cruelty of the world and that a world devoid of suffering is something he'll never even glimpse, let alone help to create — and he's made Shirou firsthand go through his memories of exactly that. To pretend that this is anything less than objective truth would just be denial, and Shirou realizes this... However, he stands back up, and declares that even if this is true, even if he never accomplishes anything, even if his dream is just some impossible fantasy that can only end in suffering and death that he's just had a taste of, he's going to live for it anyway. The ability to live for an ideal without regrets when one knows it's absolutely impossible, a kind of strength that even Saber couldn't find.
  • Running low on mana and blood at this point, Shirou puts everything he's got into one last desperate charge towards his future self, sending ripples through the ground with every step and deflecting swords the size of cars. Once he's close enough Archer raises his blade to finish him off, only to realize that he cannot bring it down; Shirou's sheer determination has reminded him of the beauty of the dream he once abandoned.
• Episode 23:
  • Shirou succeeds in recreating Archer's ability to trace large numbers of swords at once, effectively projecting a pseudo-Gate of Babylon to counter the real deal. It works.◊
  • Then, when Rin removes Shinji from the Grail, it tries to grab Gilgamesh as a replacement. Gil promptly pulls out Ea. Unlike his use of it in the Studio DEEN adaptations, he goes through the same fanfare to retrieve it as he does in the Fate/Zero adaptation rather than just pulling it out of a random portal like it's any old weapon. Also unlike previous adaptations, we see that because Ea can only be wielded by one who is 'the supreme king', Shirou can't analyze it (and thus can't trace it), which is visually represented by his vision getting pixelated and static-filled when he looks at it. Gilgamesh then proceeds to destroy the Grail's attacking limb and damage most of the surrounding area with a casual pulse of its power, not even a charged Enuma Elish.
  • The conclusion of Saber vs. Assassin. Not only do we get an awesome Animation Bump as Assassin unleashes Tsubame Gaeshi, Saber identifies a tiny safe zone in the attack and manages to evade all three swords and deal a mortal blow to Assassin.◊
• Episode 24.
  • The much-anticipated ending of the Shirou vs. Gilgamesh fight. Shirou activates his own Unlimited Blade Works, and quickly asserts his newfound advantage over Gilgamesh by casually levitating a sword and knocking the Gate of Babylon out of the air with it. He then proceeds to fight Gilgamesh on even ground, countering each and every one of his numerous swords with blades of his own, in an intense and fast-paced fight.
  • Gilgamesh gets one as he actually recognizes Shirou's strength just before Shirou cuts into him with Kanshou, goes as far as to express disappointment that the battle ended on something as anti-climactic as Shirou running out of mana, but also tells Shirou that it was still his win and that even if he was about to die that he should take solace in that fact, which is evident of just how AWESOME the whole fight was!
    • The very fact that Shirou defeats GILGAMESH. Calling it a David vs. Goliath situation is an INCREDIBLE understatement.
    • There's also the fact that Shirou holds the rare honor of being the one to demolish Gilgamesh's ego, and it is glorious to behold; watching Gilgamesh slowly but surely fall apart at the seams as he's pushed into a corner is a sight to behold, reducing the insufferably arrogant demigod to a panicked mess. One of the crowing moments of all this is the look on Gilgamesh's face when he sees Shirou bearing down at him from the air; it is of complete and utter horror. That's right; Shirou Emiya just scared the everloving piss out the strongest servant in the Nasuverse.
    Shirou(to Gilgamesh): You're a one trick pony, just like me. (Or before that.)
    Shirou(to Gilgamesh): Let's do this, King of Heroes. Do you have enough weapons in stock?
  • These two lines:
    Shirou (to Gilgamesh, after being restrained by Enkidu) As if, I'll rip my own arm off it that what it takes!
    Archer (to Shirou) "Do so if you must, but first step to the right."