Fate/strange Fake

A new Holy Grail War is emerging in Snowfield, Nevada, where mages from around the world summon Servants, heroic spirits drawn from myth and history, to fight on their behalf. However, this war seems to differ from previous ones. The organization behind it appears to have used data from the Fuyuki Grail War for their ritual, resulting in strange happenings.

Unbeknownst to most participants, this budding conflict is actually a fake Grail War. There exists another set of seven true Servants who are summoned to fight in the genuine Holy Grail War. One of these Servants is a powerful Saber-class who saves the life of Ayaka Sajou, his apparent master, after being summoned.

With hidden agendas and unpredictable forces at play, the line between the fake and true Grail War becomes unclear, turning Snowfield into a dangerous battlefield.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gilgamesh Main

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Enkidu Main

Kobayashi, Yuu Japanese

Saber Main

Ono, Yuuki Japanese

Sajou, Ayaka Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Kotomine, Kirei Supporting

Nakata, Jouji Japanese

Velvet, Waver Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Gray Supporting

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Prelati, Francesca Supporting

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Escardos, Flatt Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Assassin Supporting

Lynn Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Kurosaki, Shizuka Producer

Nagamine, Rieko Producer

Fujita, Sachio Producer

Reviews

Mar 28, 2026

Sequence_0

Recommended

The art style fits perfectly, elevated by strong direction that makes major moments land. It was a long wait since the first one-hour special, but the quality of the art direction and overall direction makes it worth it. This season leans more on spectacle and intersecting factions than a fully resolved narrative, but as with any Holy Grail War, that chaotic setup is part of the appeal. It doesn’t fully wrap things up, but any Fate fan will definitely appreciate it and look forward to future seasons. Seeing Saber, Gilgamesh, and Iskandar together again (flashback) was easily the highlight of the last episode—an incredibly nostalgic ... moment that hits especially hard for long-time Fate enjoyers, reminding you why these characters are so iconic.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Mar 28, 2026

AlmightyLeek

Mixed Feelings

I'm just confused to be honest.

I guess this is my bad, I have only watched fate 0, stay night and unlimited blade works, so I'm probably missing a lot of context.

The anime does have a good production value, the VA, the animation et soundtrack are all A-Tier.

I have no idea what's happening though, so much info dumping with terms i've never heard before and I don't know if I'm missing important knowledge or if it's just the style of the anime to try and be "mysterious".

It's still very much watchable, despite its biggest flaw being a too bloated cast with some of the cringiest characters ... i've seen in anime (Jester or the Francisca-something twins are a pain to endure every time they have screen time) but some others are so greatly interesting it's not a big problem.

I just wish I understood more about why each character has this or that power and how it works

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 28, 2026

Supersonic_Pain

Not Recommended

Funny

tl;dr:
+ Good artstyle
+ Nice animation
+ Good music
~ Visually stimulating fights (even if it left me a little cold)
- Underbaked cast of characters, way too large
- Overreliance on previous Type-Moon works
- Feels like it's still building up the Holy Grail War for a lot of its runtime tbh

It's not the worst thing you can watch but the cast is way too large to give any character that much screentime or development and some just get absolutely NOTHING to work with. The fights are well-animated (as is the rest of the show), even if because of the lack of character development, it didn't do much for me. ... It's a well-produced show, I just didn't find the cast very grippable to latch onto and so once it finally DID get into full swing, it just left me kind of cold.
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When I watched Whispers of Dawn to prepare for Fate/strange Fake, I was fairly optimistic. It looked good and it took the time to do a prologue to set up the pieces for the Holy Grail War, presumably so we could go relatively far into the War itself in the main season.

...boy, was I naive there.

There are just way too many characters to care about any of them. Hell, care about them? I don't even remember some of their names. If you told me at gunpoint to name all the Masters in this Holy Grail War, I could give you a summary of who they are but their names? Pssh.

Even the ones who get a bit more shine feel a little underbaked.

As some who are a bit more familiar with me may know, I may or may not have a fondness for girls with glasses. Ayaka kinda sucks here?

They spend the entire season trying to convince her to Get In The Robot and it's just not a very charming way to depict your protagonist. Maybe it'd work if she had a stronger cast around her (after all, I'm not the biggest fan of Shirou but at least Stay Night had Rin, Archer, Sakura, Shinji, Illya, etc.) but as the nominal protagonist of the show, I did not feel engaged or like her personality because she was just a giant wet blanket.

Honestly, she doesn't even have Protagonist Energy despite being Saber's Master. Sigma steals the show, not for being an entertaining character, but he just kind of comes in with a lot more Main Protagonist Energy.

I think the most notable, defined Master otherwise, for me, was Jester. As the de facto "villain" of the War, he does have cool powers and a cool relationship with his Servant but it's also kind of pathetic and his existence leads to one of my bigger issues with the show.

It loves to lean into any aspect of Type-Moon lore it can.

I think you could probably watch it without consooming any other Type-Moon mediacontent and you'd probably be fine (obviously, I've seen F/SN and I know the general gist of F/Zero, Tsukihime, etc. so I can't really say from an unbiased perspective) but Jester's mere existence is a giant nod to Tsukihime, they have an elongated reference to Zero in one scene, multiple characters are ripped straight from other Fate anime, Gilgamesh is there... it's literally just the Gilgamesh

Like do I think you'll be LOST if this is your first Fate anime? Probably not. I also don't know if you'll care much if you aren't a giant Type-Moonhead. Like I like F/SN but I'm here for Strange Fake and idk, man, don't need to see Waver Velvet every episode to know I'm watching Fate.

Anyway, even with the prologue, a lot of these characters are just totally forgettable by the sheer fact that they only get so little time amongst the lot of them that if you're not one of the chosen ones like Ayaka, Sigma, Francesca, etc, you might as well not even exist.

I said I didn't like Durarara all that much (which, like, I didn't hate it either) but even Durarara had a few characters I would actively say I liked and was a fan of. I liked Anri. I liked Shizuo. I liked Izaya. F/SF? Unless you're counting pre-existing attachments, to be honest, that number is 0.

Once the War gets in full swing, it kind of feels like a flaccid party popper. I was waiting for a while for the War to feel like it was finally picking up and then it does eventually get there and it just... I mean, yup, they sure are fighting, huh.

Are the fights good, at least?

I guess so, yeah. They are well-animated, didn't really do much for me. I'm not sure if it's because I don't care about the characters, the choreography is lacking, or both, but it just was Nice Animation to me, it's very visually stimulating, in any case.

To be honest, despite Ufotable's best efforts, I liked F/SN more for the characters than the hype and aura fights so Fate having kind of underwhelming fights despite being very visually stimulating is kind of par for the course.

It's not the worst show you could watch, I don't even think it's in the bottom 5 this season (that I saw, let alone the shit that I don't watch), it's just kind of forgettable.

No character was, like, actively annoying. The artstyle is nice. The music is nice. It had a couple of intriguing characters that could potentially be better characters if they had more screentime and focus. The fights were at least visually stimulating and fine enough.

I just... there's not really much here, at least for me, to enjoy.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Question about the timeline FreudsMother - Mar 29	0 replies	by FreudsMother »» 16 minutes ago
	Poll: Fate/strange Fake Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Softhenic03 - Mar 28	81 replies	by Diegokauann »» 1 hour ago
	summer 2026 release of the 10th and final volume of the "fate/strange fake" light novel deg - Mar 28	8 replies	by BerriesSan »» 2 hours ago
	Poll: Fate/strange Fake Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) IzanaSolos - Mar 7	130 replies	by Neneaux »» 3 hours ago
	People who watched Strange Fake without prior Fate/Type Moon franchise knowledge have only themselves to blame Mavuika - Mar 28	14 replies	by ryzxgum »» 4 hours ago