Fate/complete material II - Character material.

Two weeks ago, I received a package from beNippon, but because of my new job and Valkyria Chronicles 2, until now I didn't had time to do a review... anyways, the first one is Fate/complete material II - Character material., published by Enterbrain a couple of months ago.


Fate/complete material was supposed to be the ultimate information source for Fate/stay night universe, divided in 3 volumes: art & CG, character art & locations, and settings & encyclopedia.

The first volume, Art material. was released in 2008 and was a disappointment because was only a printed version of the gallery mode from the original game, without Réalta Nua, Zero nor Hollow Ataraxia.

The second volume is this, Character material. and is also exclusively focused in the main game and not the spin-off, but this time there are several unpublished rough sketches and some of the comments by Takeuchi and Nasu are new information.


The first part includes a brief summary of each character with a collection of several character cuts:

Medousa instead of Medusa, Altria instead of Arturia... I wonder why they don't hire someone who actually knows English to do the romanizations.

Each character also includes comments by both Takeuchi and Nasu, adding some insight to the character and for some of them there is actually new information. For example, Rider mark in the forehead is a snake.

The second part introduces every weapon with a short description:

Kanshou and Bakuya and the "over edge" mode.

The most interesting part for me is the rough sketches gallery. Some of those already appeared in Fate/side material:

Saber initial settings.

Rin initial settings. With the hair in front of the ears and that uniform, she's like Azaka.

More Rin.

Rider original setting was a short haired girl. The design was later re-used for Ayako.

Unused setting for Kotomine's wife, that looks like Caren Ortensia (is her mother, after all).

Unused event graphics.

Some of the unused event graphics were later included in Réalta Nua, like the duel between Saber and Assassin, while others are forever lost, like an H scene with the maids in the scrapped Illya route.