Fate/strange Fake Has to be the WILDEST Entry in the Fate Series

Article at a glance:

• Fate/strange Fake looks at every past Grail War—Extra’s Moon Cell shenanigans, Apocrypha’s team battles, even Heaven’s Feel’s lore dump—and says, ‘Hold my beer.’ The rules? Broken. The Servants? Unhinged. The Grail itself? Oh, it’s got opinions. Buckle up.
• Ryohgo Narita (the madman behind Durarara!! and Bleach’s best side story) takes Fate’s formula and cranks it to 11. Expect his trademarks: a sprawling cast, intersecting plotlines, and moments so absurd you’ll laugh before realizing how brilliant they are.
• Forget ‘standard classes’—Strange Fake’s roster includes a wraith cosplaying as a Heroic Spirit, a literal dog as a Master, and a certain legendary archer who’s pissed at the gods. And that’s just the tip of the insanity iceberg.

Over the 20 or so years the Fate series has been around, we have seen some very interesting variations on the Holy Grail War. Fate/Extra has a War in space, Fate/Apocrypha has a War where basically 2 armies compete against each other, Kalied Liner doesn’t have a War at all, lol, and what have you. But even then, I can confidently say that the Fate/strange Fake version is the CRAZIEST Holy Grail War I have seen so far. Yeah, guess who caught up with Strange Fake and had their mind blown?

So yeah, welcome back to another article. And today we are talking about how and why Fate/strange Fake is the CRAZIEST Holy Grail War we have seen so far. By the way, Strange Fake is written by Ryohogo Narita, who has written Durara and Bleach’s best side story, Can’t Fear Your Own World. So many of his signature writing cues are present here as well.

So strap in as we dive into the insanity of Fate/strange Fake. Of course, there will be major spoilers ahead. So if you are waiting for the anime to come out, don’t read any further. With that said, let’s get started.

Why Fate/strange Fake is the Craziest Holy Grail War?

Well, what Strage Fake does is it basically looks at Apocrypha and says “Hah, I can do it better and wilder” and proceeds to do just that. Strange Fake borrows a lot of different aspects from the previous entries in the Fate series. It takes the huge and complicated setting of Apocrypha, it takes the deep lore of Heaven’s Feel and it takes certain characters from Prototype and tosses them all in a blender. Thus, making it a great combination of awesome set pieces with surprisingly deep lore.

Another thing Strange Fake does well is how unconventional some of the Servants are. Since the Holy Grail War started as a fake war that was then forcefully transitioned into a true Holy Grail War, the rules are a bit shaky. This allows multiple servants of the same class to exist and even allows for abnormal classes like Avenger. Then you have even stranger Servants like Phantom of the Opera, who isn’t even a Servant or even a Heroic Spirit to begin with. He’s just a wraith messing around.

Because of how shaky the rules are, we see VERY different variations of the Servants we are already familiar with as well. Heracles was summoned as the true Archer instead of the Berseker variation we are familiar with. But his master decided to Blacken him with the Holy Grail mud, making him lose his Divinity and turning him into an Avenger class. He is technically Heracles “Alter” now but he refuses to be called as such. Or take Jack the Ripper as an example, usually, they are an Assassin class. This time, they don’t have a physical body and are a Berserker class.

It does not stop there…

If you thought that the Servants were the only weird thing about the Fate/strange Fake Holy Grail War, you’d be mistaken, I don’t call it the CRAZIEST Holy Grail War for nothing. We are only getting started. And ho boy, there are many things left to discuss. I could’ve made a half-hour-long video about just how weird the Servants are. But well, turns out, most Master or heck, even the Grail in this War are not normal.

In Heaven’s Feel, we learn that the Grail was corrupted by “All the World’s Evil”. So it is not the omnipotent wish-granting device people think it is. In FSN, the grail is also largely passive till the very end. Well, not here. The Fake Grail in Snowfield is almost sentient, in a way. It has certain desires and actively wishes for the war to continue and escalate. We see the Grail influence the decisions of others MULTIPLE times.

And continuing the trend, most of the Masters aren’t normal either. Sajyou Ayaka is not a mage, Enkidu’s Master is a literal dog, there’s a vampire, and of course, there’s a werewolf as well. The Holy Church isn’t directly involved in this war either…somehow. But they do send out someone to monitor the War.

Also, Ryohogo Narita’s way of writing a story without a fixed protagonist works really well here. Yeah, sure, Sajyou Ayaka is kind of the protagonist. But this is not her story and we switch PoVs quite often.

That is all for now

Strange Fake borrows the best parts of Apocrypha, Prototype and Heaven’s Feel, blending them into one weird but awesome mixture. Yes, there are a few issues I have with the writing. Like how the dialog can feel very exposition-heavy at times. But all in all, Fate/strange Fake really is the craziest Holy Grail War in the Fate series so far. But yeah, let me know what you guys think in the comments. Those were my random yappings about Fate/strange Fake and I will take my leave here. See ya!

Also, check out my thoughts on Raging Loop here!