Webcomic / Fate/type Redline

Putting the "Ace" in Koha-Ace.

Fate/type Redline is a 2019 web manga by Ryouji Hirano, running as part of the Fate series in Type-Moon's official online manga magazine Type-Moon Comic Ace (here). It's a Darker and Edgier retelling of the 'Imperial Capital Holy Grail Strange Story', a Holy Grail War that started out as a gag scenario from the Type-Moon Ace serial Koha-Ace, where Kohaku from Tsukihime and several other Nasuverse characters pretended to create their own Holy Grail War starring mostly Japanese (and one Chinese and one fictional concept from a Scottish mathematician) historical figures. Running under the name Fate/Koha-Ace (though collected under the name Koha-Ace GO), this self-spoofing story arc was popularized thanks to its Original Generation characters appearing in comedic side materials and drama CDs. With their notoriety skyrocketing due to their antics in Fate/Grand Order's "GUDAGUDA" mini-series, Type-Moon thus saw fit to re-imagine the Imperial Holy Grail War... only this time, much like a certain April Fools prank turned real, they're treating it like a proper Holy Grail War.

Kanata Akagi is an Ordinary High-School Student who originates from a magus clan. He's an all-around mediocre mage, only having the power to slow anything he touches with his hands, and he prefers to stay that way, not to mention that he had his grandmother, who'd been disabled at a young age, and proceeded to isolate herself and focus on her magecraft, as an example of his father's lesson on how magi can't find happiness. Like every other student, he's an avid light novel reader, and his most recent one told a story about a historical event in 1945, Shōwa Era Year 20, which ended with a huge explosion in Tokyo that killed more than 200,000 people.

One day, his father takes him to a mansion where his grandmother used to reside and research about magic. While looking around, Kanata accidentally uses magic around a certain hourglass. The hourglass rewinds time for Kanata, and when he wakes up, he's no longer in a mansion, but inside a train...

And suddenly, he meets a young girl, Tsukumo Fujimiya, being hounded by an armored Lancer. Tsukumo prepares her trump card: She will summon a Servant with the strongest class, Saber, and have that Servant fight off against the enemy. Kanata, driven by instinct, interrupts the ritual when Tsukumo is in danger, but in the process, he throws his light novel into the summoning circle, and the Saber is summoned... and it's Kanata who receives the Command Spells as the Master of Saber instead of Tsukumo, which infuriates her. And then Kanata discovers that he was transported to the time period of the light novel he was reading... Shōwa Era Year 20.

And to make things even worse, once Kanata has a good look at Tsukumo, he recognizes her - as his grandmother, as she was in her youth...

Since this is based on an existing Holy Grail War, even if it's a farcical one, the identity of the official Servants aren't that much of a secret to established Fate readers:

• Saber: Okita Souji, vice leader of The Shinsengumi, a genius swordswoman with unmatched swordsmanship, yet held back by her frail body.
• Archer: Oda Nobunaga, the first unifying warlord of Japan's Sengoku Period. Her short stature can't hide the fact that she is a demon-like, ruthless warlord that summons muskets out of thin air.
• Lancer: Li Shuwen, an old master of Bajiquan style, but also a spear master. His younger self previously appeared in the Moon Cell Holy Grail War as an Assassin; he's summoned here as a Lancer instead.
• Rider: Sakamoto Ryouma, the legendary mediator that paved the way to the Meiji Restoration. Accompanying him is a humanoid dragon spirit named similarly to his wife, Oryou.
• Caster: Maxwell's Demon. Formerly only a thought experiment by James Clerk Maxwell, the thoughts of the people distorted the experiment and gave it the form of a sunglasses-wearing scientist.
• Assassin: Okada Izo, one of the most famous hitokiri/manslayers during the Bakumatsu era, taking jobs assassinating several political figures.
• Berserker: Mori Nagayoshi, the brother of Nobunaga's famous page Mori Ranmaru, noted for his reckless, demon-like rage and disposition.

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This series contains examples of:

• Accidental Time Travel: Kanata didn't know the hourglass would send him back in time, he just unwittingly poured mana into it to stop it from falling.
• Adapted Out: The Nasuverse characters from Koha-Ace have been removed from the story, replaced by original characters.
• Adaptation Expansion: While the major story beats follow the original Fate/KOHA-ACE to a T, the series is able to stuff more content between the story beats thanks to each chapter having more pages.
  • Chapter 11.1 and 11.2 add a new scene where Rider and Oryou tries to form an alliance with Saber to take down Archer before their fight against Berserker.
• Alternate Timeline:
  • Kanata comes from a world where a massive explosion in Tokyo seventy-five years ago on May 8 killed two hundred thousand people. This event was never mentioned in previous Fate material. Once he gets taken back in time, more differences become apparent: The Grail War is taking place in Tokyo, with none of the three founding families involved, and the course of World War II is changed (at least in small ways) by the intervention of Servants.
    • Chapter 12 has Kanata explain to Saber that Tokyo was destroyed in a way that the land was gouged so much that the sea filled in to make a gulf. Continuing in Chapter 13, he also mentioned that the ocean in the area was also so polluted that the post-war restoration didn't even bother to clean up.
  • The glossary notes that type Redline is its own unique continuity without any connection to any other Fate series.
  • Chapter 11 reveals through Kanata's memory from in his original timeline, that even after 60 years, Japan is still in postwar restoration.
• Ascended Extra: The whole series. Koha-Ace was a Gag Series not meant to be taken seriously. Even in the scope of Fate/Grand Order, the GUDAGUDA series was self-contained, never interfering with Singularities, Epic of Remnant Pseudo-Singularities, or Lostbelts, with their only appearance being the final Singularity (because they were part of the 'Event Servants'). However, thanks to the overwhelming popularity of the main faces (Okita and Nobunaga), now the whole series gets raised into the same bar as every other Fate series out there.
• Assassin Outclassin': Happens twice in chapter 3. Major Magatsu sent some personnel to kill the Holy Church representative and Kanata, but the two groups were killed by Assassin and Saber respectively.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: The flashback scene of Nobunaga's summoning show that she was completely naked the entire time, complete with Full-Frontal Assault - however, even in her front full-body shots there are no visible genitals or nipples.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Major Magatsu plays the role of A Father to His Men, exalting their virtues and giving them small prizes to earn their loyalty. In reality, he holds most people in contempt, hoping to use the Grail to create a world catering to magecraft users.
• The Cameo: Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Nagao Kagetora appear on the splash page of chapter 2.
• Censor Box: In chapter 10, Tsukumo's speech bubble gets some when she uses Japanese curse words when chewing out the mediator from the Church when she learned she was given a replica Avalon.
• Capital Offensive: In chapter 3, a squadron of bombers and their escort fighters are en route to firebomb the Imperial Capital. Archer shoots them all down.
• Cast of Expies: Being replacements of other Nasuverse characters, the Canon Foreigner characters fit the mold:
  • As the Master of Okita and a member of a declining line of mages, Kanata is an expy of Kohaku.
  • Tsukumo, being a haughty magus woman connected to Okita's Master and seeking to summon a well-known Saber, stands in for Akiha.
  • Major Magatsu, being an ass of a Master who is part of the Imperial Armed Forces, stands in for Major Matou. Major Matou himself was an expy of Shinji, but since the Three Families aren't participating in the war in this version, he had to be changed.
  • Nobunaga's Master Kaname is a fair haired young woman under the Imperial Armed Forces' employ, making her a stand-in for (an alternate) Artoria. Her military cap and sailor suit are also directly lifted from that Artoria's garb. Her backstory also technically counts, as being a half-Japanese, she mirrors Artoria's own birth circumstances (i.e. being born from Uther Pendragon's Bed Trick with another man's wife).
  • Soldier is an artificial Servant that dies mid-monologue to Okita early on, paralleling Fate/stay night Cú Chulainn and his notoriously E-rank luck being used for the same.
• Changed My Jumper: Tsukumo constantly derides Kanata's modern day outfit as weird, but nobody else reacts to him. Tsukumo also says Saber's Shinsengumi uniform stands out and gives them money so they can buy her a contemporary kimono.
• Darker and Edgier: It's basically the gag story that would become the basis of GUDAGUDA taken dead seriously. Even in her debut, Nobunaga is much more terrifying than her fourth wall-breaking original self; imagine the multiple "more serious" Nobunagas seen in the 3rd GUDAGUDA, only this time add up Slasher Smile aplenty.
• Deconstructed Trope: While most of Fate's Everyman protagonists adjust from peacetime to fighting quite well, Kanata does not. He's completely unprepared for the horrors of war and spends the entire first fight crouched terrified against a wall, traumatized by the fighting, corpses, and threat to his life.
• Desperate Object Catch: Kanata does this in chapter 1 for the hourglass mystic code he found in his grandmother's estate which he accidentally dropped when he answered his smartphone. (Un)luckily enough he also uses his slowdown magecraft to slow its fall, activating its effect.
• Dramatic Irony: Kanata quickly figures out Tsukumo is his grandmother, but keeps it to himself. When Tsukumo is in danger and Kanata begs Saber to help him rescue her, Saber gets confused and asks herself why he would care about that rude girl.
  • Tsukumo is desperate to claim the Grail to stop the senseless cycle of war and violence that is currently plaguing Japan. She confesses this to Kanata, who comes from one such peaceful future.
• Easily-Overheard Conversation: In chapter 12, Kanata reveals to Saber important information about himself and the future with Rider overhearing.
• Eat the Summoner: In chapter 10, the mediator tells Tsukumo that in the previous Grail War that a Servant killed their summoner after they were summoned and contracted with a new Master.
• Evil Versus Evil: The Holy Grail War is primarily being fought between the Third Reich and Imperial Japan. The Imperials come off slightly better (even with the especially assholish Major Magatsu) since at least they're not literal Nazis, but it's still made clear that either group winning would be absolutely horrible for the world. Tsukumo was sent by the Church in the hopes of acting as a spoiler, and Kanata became a Spanner in the Works even for that plan.
• Fake Action Prologue: The first chapter starts with a glimpse of a Holy Grail War, with Okita and Nobunaga fighting and setting off an explosion... only for the camera to cut away to it being a light novel that Kanata fell asleep reading. Subverted in that it turns out to have been Real After All.
• Fake Weakness: Nobunaga fakes a window to reload between shots to bait Okita. It works, though Okita avoids the worst of it.
• False Flag Operation: Major Magatsu hires Assassin to kill a Japanese commander, then claims that the assassination was performed by the Japanese factions who want to surrender to the Allies, ensuring that they won't be surrendering any time soon.
• First-Episode Twist: Kanata, a 21st century Reiwa era-ish boy, gets mixed up in a Holy Grail War, except he's thrown into one that happened in the past of the 20th century Shōwa era.
• Flashback Within a Flashback: In chapter 6, Kanata flashes back to earlier that day with Tsukumo explaining to him how to use command seals with her flashing back to what the priest from the Holy Church told her.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Kanata starts completely freaking out after seeing people killed before his eyes. Tsukumo slaps him and says he has to man up and fight if he wants to survive.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: There wasn't any actual action, but... considering Oryou's method of healing is based on her magic saliva, and she applies it via Wound Licking... and Tsukumo had injuries EVERYWHERE... Well, Kanata and Ryoma end up as red as tomatoes while watching. It even gets Lampshaded in the most "Does This Remind You of Anything?" way possible.
  Tsukumo (after Oryou is done with her): I can never get married now...
• Hallucinations: As he's slipping away from his own time, Kanata briefly sees the image if his six-year old self with his grandmother at her desk.
• Historical Gender Flip: Okita and Nobunaga, in keeping with Koha-Ace and Fate/Grand Order.
• Home Field Advantage: The Japanese participants in this Holy Grail War have massive power boosts due to fighting on their own home turf, and unlike Sasaki Kojiro in Fate/stay night, they have free reign to flex that might all over the city.
• Honor Before Reason: How Japan's pro-war faction is portrayed. At best, they're so determined to honor the soldiers who've fallen thus far that they'd rather get millions more killed than admit defeat. At worst, they're violent fanatics so blinded by national honor they'd do anything it takes to win, no matter how horrible.
• Hypocritical Humor: In chapter 3, Tsukumo concludes for herself that Kanata is a country bumpkin due to his fascination with the Imperial Capital but her inner thoughts reveal that it is also her first time being there.
• Internal Homage: Okita greeting Kanata homages the "Are you my master?" scene with Saber and Shirou from Fate/stay night.
• Internal Reveal: Chapter 12.2 to 13.2 devote its time to allowing Kanata to come clean to Saber, admitting that he is from 75 years in the future and that Tsukumo is his grandmother. At the same time, it also double-punches as The Reveal in that the future he comes from is a Japan where Tokyo has been reduced to a crater and the country's only recently out of reconstruction.
• Kick the Dog: During the 2nd day of the Holy Grail War, the soldiers under the command of Major Magatsu in the Imperial Army's 4th Magcraft Division have no qualms with killing innocent civilians of their own country inside the restaurant Kanata and Saber were in as they try to kill the two.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Servant identities are more or less already known to the readers, since they were added to Fate/Grand Order with their identities revealed.
  • More specifically towards Koha-Ace: Okada Izo originally used Sakamoto Ryouma's name as an alias, before Ryouma actually showed up near the end. Here, both are shown as separate characters from the get-go, though Izo still uses Ryouma's name as an alias.
• Making a Splash: The traditional family magecraft of Tsukumo's family is based on water.
• Magic Feather: Tsukumo attempts to blackmail the Church into giving her and Kanata a degree of help holding Avalon over them, lavishing on its healing abilities. The surprised Church representative is astonished it works, admitting they wouldn't have given her the real thing and instead gave her a modern replica.
• Mathematician's Answer: When Tsukumo and Kanata ask Oryou if she's a servant, she said not to lump her with servants because "Oryou-san is Oryou-san". Cue visible confusion.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The key visual is a Hot-Blooded recreation of the tankoubon art◊ for Fate/Koha Ace.
  • When explaining the Servant classes to Kanata, Tsukumo draws in a style resembling Keikenchi's work for Koha-Ace.
• Neutral in Name Only: As usual the Church is trying to exploit the Holy Grail War for its own ends. Tsukumo Fujiyama was invited to take part in the Imperial Holy Grail War on the Church's behalf.
• Newspaper Dating: The day after he arrived in the Imperial Capital in Shōwa 20, Kanata finds the date on a newspaper stand reaffirming that he is 75 years in the past.
• Outside-Context Problem: Downplayed. While Kanata is from the future, he's not so much of a problem to other enemy Servants, being an ordinary boy and all. However, the smartphone he throws at Assassin to save Tsukumo buys time as since it's a device from the future, Assassin has no knowledge of it at all and hesitates due to being unsure what it is and why it's being thrown so slow (because of Katana's own power).
• Pragmatic Adaptation: While Fate/strange Fake needed only mild retooling to become a proper story, Redline has far greater changes in order to work due to the original being a gag story:
  • All the masters in the Koha-Ace story were characters from other Nasuverse works. Obviously this would never work for a serious narrative, so a completely new cast is invented to act in such a role leading to an entirely new story being created to fit them.
  • Okita and Nobunaga's characters were designed as parodies, and were thus Joke Characters with little to no resemblance to their historical counterparts. Redline subjects both of them to a massive Adaptation Personality Change to make them fit better with the rest of the cast.
  • In the original, Okada Izo spends most of the story pretending to be Sakamoto Ryouma, with the real Sakamoto only appearing near the end. This is dropped in favour of presenting the two as separate characters from the start, as fans are already generally aware of who they are and it allows Sakamoto to play a proper role in the story. Izou does still claim to be Sakamoto, but Tsukumo quickly figures out he's lying.
• Puny Earthlings: Highlighted better here than in any other entry in the Fate series, where Servants are summoned into actual wartime featuring human armies. If a Servant is given the chance to rampage, it doesn't matter how many soldiers there are or what they can throw at them; they're all going to die and there's nothing they can do about it.
• Real After All: Kanata dismissed his light novel as just a story. When he is sent to the past and sees people and events reflecting the light novel, he realizes it was talking about real events.
• Recessive Super Genes: Kanata, his younger sister, and his grandmother have magical powers, but his father doesn't.
• Restraining Bolt: An irritated Magatsu, realizing how dangerously independent Archer has become, orders Kaname to outright use all three Command Seals to force her to follow the Army's lead, and as an additional precaution, gives her a vial of poison, hoping that if it comes to that, the loss of her Master will weaken Archer enough to force her into submission.
• Ret-Gone: Kanata fears that this could happen to him if Tsukumo, the past single teen version of his grandma, dies. It's an accurate assessment as shown in chapter 4: when Tsukumo gets mortally wounded by Assassin, Kanata starts to vanish.
• Ripple Effect Indicator: In chapter 5, the text of the remaining pages of the light novel Kanata had starts to blur and change itself to reflect Tsukumo's likely death, rewriting the story from its original text.
  • In chapter 9, the text is degraded to be barely there.
• Sadistic Choice: Okada Izo captures Tsukumo and threatens to kill her unless Kanata uses his Command Spells to make Okita commit suicide. Tsukumo tries to tell them to forget about her, so Izo angrily stabs her. Kanata chooses to throw a time-slowed phone at Izo to distract him long enough to use a Command Spell to boost Okita, allowing her to move behind Izo to attack him before he can attack Tsukumo.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In chapter 12, Kanata states to Saber what he thinks is the reason his grandmother made the time traveling hourglass mystic code, to prevent the destruction of Tokyo.
• Scenery Censor: In Chapter 6.2, the hotel chandelier covers Kanata's missing left eye as he starts to disappear after Assassin injured his grandmother's past self.
• Show Within a Show: Kanata's light novel. It turns out to be Real After All.
• Significant Reference Date: There are some dates mentioned or implied that gives an idea for the timeline but still gives some wiggle room to be ambiguous.
  • In chapter 1 there are multiple instances that gives the readers approximate dates that they can deduce between the eras. In the present day, a news report that Kanata watched before going to school that it was May 8 and it was the 75th anniversary of a mysterious explosion over the Imperial Capital.
  • On the night of the 2nd day of the Holy Grail War, during the Imperial Cabinet Meeting one of Cabinet members mentions the lost of Okinawa and the sinking of the Yamato. He also mentioned the surrender of the Third Reich. This implies the date of that day to be sometime after those events.
  • Chapter 13 reveals that the month they are in is August and also notes that the Imperial Capital was supposed to have been destroyed since May 8 in the original timeline yet they are in an intact Imperial Capital.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: A member of the Church asked Tsukumo what she would wish for on the Holy Grail. When she said she would wish for a bright future, the man burst out laughing and called her naive.
• Slashed Throat: In chapter 8.1, Assassin slices a unnamed Japanese commander's throat from behind in the middle of the night.
• Spinning Clock Hands: Just as Kanata activates the Mystic Code, the hands of the grandfather clock behind him begin spinning wildly backwards.
• Surprise Incest: Kanata and Tsukumo were somewhat attracted to each other, then Kanata realized she was his grandmother.
• Take That Us: The bit about Tsukumo planning to summon Artoria via Avalon, and the subsequent hijacking of the ritual which gives us Okita, feels like a joking potshot at how often The King of Knights appears across Fate works.
• Talk to the Fist: During Okita's battle against the Gert Krieger, the latter tries to introduce himself to Okita, but she takes the opportunity to slice his throat out before he can finish his sentence.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Okita and Tsukumo don't like each other despite Kanata's insistence they cooperate. Okita thinks Tsukumo's bossy and demanding, Tsukumo thinks Okita is a weak and worthless Servant.
• Time Stands Still: Somewhat. Kanata's magecraft lets him slow down anything he touches with his hands.
• Time Travel:
  • The big question for those who know their Nasuverse lore is how Kanata got sent back in time in the first place. Up till now, only the Second of the True Magics - which covers the operation of parallel worlds, including travel between parallels and rewriting events - was thought to allow that kind of time travel. There are effects which can rival the True Magics, but they're pretty big deals in their own right. Even Chaldea's rayshifting, which is only able to project a living human's spirit through time, requires considerable infrastructure to pull off. How Kanata's grandmother created/discovered something capable of sending someone back in time is currently a mystery.
  • Kanata subsequently asks Tsukumo if the Grail could send him into the future. She shuts him down hard, pissed he'd want a "silly fantasy" like that as his wish. Of course, he hadn't told her that he's from the future, which is why she dismisses it as irrelevant.
• Timeline-Altering MacGuffin: Subverted. The light novel that Kanata inadvertently used as a catalyst to summon Saber seems to be a fictionalized version of the events of this Holy Grail War. Unfortunately, he hadn't gone too far in the book, and the summon and Archer's attack damaged it, leaving only the damaged first half. Further, the story describes a timeline where Tsukumo became the Master of Saber, and it's not immune to being rewritten by the effects of Kanata's presence in the War.
• Too Dumb to Live: After summoning Archer AKA Oda Nobunaga the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, her original Master tries to choke her while demanding her to obey his commands. The fact that Nobunaga simply chops his head off on the spot shouldn't be surprising at all.
• Trapped in the Past: The Nasuverse equivalent of this trope, at any rate. Kanata was from a relatively normal time and became trapped in the past by accidentally setting off a Mystic Code.
• Two-Faced: The unnamed Japanese Imperial Army who fights Saber and attempts to perform a suicide attack on her with a grenade survives, but half of the left side of his face is badly disfigured by the explosion.
• Villain Team-Up: The Imperial Japanese Army and German Third Reich are working together temporarily to fight the war against foreigners. Once the German Third Reich helps the Imperial Japanese Army win the war, they will go back to being enemies to fight in the Holy Grail War.
• Visit by Divorced Dad: One of the factors that began Kanata's adventure to the past is his divorced father bringing him to help liquidate the old family estate.
• War Is Hell: An emerging theme and concern inside the narrative, especially as they are in the middle of the biggest one.
  • Those leading the Japan armies know what war truly is like, and even worse, how difficult it is to end a war. While some want to fight on, it's only so the soldiers who already died aren't in vain. With others admitting the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Malayan Campaign were only victory flukes which made the war on them even worse.
  • Tsukumo bares this as her primary motivation to Kanata for seeking the Grail: to make sure that Japan survives the War and not be dragged down with the delusional Imperial brass seeking to continue with the fight. While we know the ending will not be in any way like what she might wish, the narrative is still up in the air as to how it will get there.
• Weird Historical War: The Holy Grail War takes place during World War II in Japan's Imperial Capital.
• What Year Is It?: Kanata asks this to Tsukumo when he arrives in the past. He learns that it's year 20 of the Shōwa era, or 1945 in the Gregorian Calendar.

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