Shirou Emiya

Shirou Emiya
Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero character
First appearance

Fate/stay night
Created by

Nasu Kinoko
Voiced by

Japanese
Noriaki Sugiyama
English
Sam Riegel
Mona Marshall (young)
Profile
Gender Male
Relatives Kiritsugu Emiya
(father; deceased)
Illyasviel Von Einzbern
(sister)
Information
Servant

Saber
Abilities

Gradation Air, Projection Magic, Tracing and Reinforcement[1]

Shirou Emiya (衛宮 士郎 Emiya Shirō) is a fictional character from the Japanese visual novel and anime series Fate/stay night by Type-Moon and its prequel, Fate/Zero, by Type-Moon and nitroplus.

In Fate/stay night, he is the main protagonist and the master of Saber during the Fifth Holy Grail War. He is an honest and good-hearted teenager, who always enjoys helping others and aspires to become a "hero of justice". In the game two incarnations of him appear. The first is his original self from the present timeline, and the second is an alternative version of him from a possible future or Alternate Future dimension, called EMIYA, who becomes a counter Guardian and eventually servant of the Holy Grail War

History

Ten years before the start of Fate/stay night, Shirou was an ordinary boy living with his parents in Shinto. A great fire caused by the contents of the Holy Grail spilling out at the end of the Fourth Holy Grail War killed both his parents and left him mortally wounded within the blaze. He was rescued by Kiritsugu Emiya, who was dejected after indirectly causing the fire and, wishing to actually "save" someone for the first time in his life, rescued Shirou by embedding Avalon in his body. He then later asked the recovering Shirou if he would like to become his adopted son, fully disclosing his identity as a magus. Shirou agreed and eventually learned magic during the rest of his childhood. He was advised by Kiritsugu to apply it in secret, where it could only benefit people and not attract confusion or suspicion. The magic Shirou uses was very basic and incomplete, leading him down a dangerous path with little results. Furthermore, and perhaps inadvertently, Kiritsugu passed on to Shirou his philosophy of wishing to be a hero of justice capable of saving anyone.

Five years prior to the Fifth Holy Grail War, Kiritsugu suddenly died, leaving Shirou alone. He was subsequently watched over by Taiga Fujimura, Shirou's longtime neighbor and his English teacher, and his living expenses were managed by her grandfather. He later went to a middle school where he encountered Shinji Matou. Shirou also got closer to Shinji's adopted sister Sakura, as she started to visit his household frequently during a period while he was injured in order to help him cook and clean up the house. Even after he was healed, she continued to come as a member of his surrogate family.

Appearance

During the events of Fifth Holy Grail War, Shirou is a teenager with Auburn Red hair and Golden-brown coloured eyes.

He is often seen wearing his casual clothing, it consist of a blue and white long sleeve baseball jersey T-Shirt and a blue slim straight jean. During in school, he wears his Homurahara Academy uniform but underneath his jacket uniform, he wears the same long sleeve baseball jersey T-Shirt.

Personality

On the outside, Shirou possesses a kind and humble personality. However, deep inside, he is a deeply scarred and broken human after the loss of his entire family. His survivor's guilt is so severe that Ayako has stated that she has never seen Shirou smile, as he believes that he does not deserve to. He feels that, as the only survivor of the fire, it is unfair to the deceased to prioritize his own needs before those of others. He has a distorted sense of values where he only finds self-worth from helping people without any compensation, feeling that the very act "helping people" is its own reward. He believes it is highly unfair that some people survive and others don't. When it comes down to receiving an injury or even giving up his life to help someone, he will do it without a second thought. The people who see this side of him are often very worried and attempt to correct his behavior, though they are unable to change his opinions. Kiritsugu often talked about how he used strive to protect the innocent from the world's many perils, even at the cost of his own humanity, and how he was saddened by the reality that whenever he was able to spare one life, another person was fated to die. Although Kiritsugu was tormented by his inability to save everyone, Shirou always admired his efforts. Right before Kiritsugu's death, Shirou pledged to become a "hero of justice" in Kiritsugu's place and strive to protect everyone at the cost of his own life. Everything that he is thus far is the result of that very pledge. He has made it his dream to become a "hero of justice" who will save everyone regardless of what happens to his own life.

Shirou takes his ideals to the limit during the Fate scenario, where he constantly attempts to protect Saber from harm and keep her from fighting other Servants, despite the fact that she is many times more powerful than he is and that even his odds of mere survival are hopelessly low against those he personally fights. This is because he cannot stand the idea of someone else being harmed for his sake. He never gives up his ideals during the route and injures himself numerous times to uphold it. Last Episode reveals that the Shirō of this route succeeds in becoming a hero and after his death his soul ascends to Avalon, where he is reunited with his beloved for all of eternity.

In the Unlimited Blade Works route, Shirou, through constant arguing with Archer, begins to see the hypocrisy in his ideals. Though he refuses to give them up entirely, he works his way towards a middle ground where he will strive towards fulfilling ideals, despite knowing they are impossible to achieve.

In the Heaven's Feel route, he faces his largest dilemma, in which he is forced to choose between maintaining his ideals and protecting the life of Sakura, who he falls in love with. He eventually forsakes his ideals and strives only to protect Sakura, though he is presented with conflict a number of times because of this decision.

Shirou is extremely stubborn once he sets out to accomplish something, such as spending hours attempting to perform a high jump that is nearly impossible for him. This action, as watched by Sakura, is one of the initial factors that causes her to develop feelings for Shirou. He will stubbornly defend his own viewpoints, no matter how wrong they may seem to others, even to the point of causing them great mental anguish. Though he does his best to help others, if he feels that a person brought about their own ruin, he will simply watch instead of helping.

Creation and conception

In Kinoko Nasu's original Fate/stay night story, Saber and Shirou's genders were swapped. Ayaka Sajyou was the original main protagonist, until Takashi Takeuchi convinced to Nasu to change the setting but leave the essential theme unchanged.

Nasu describes his writing of Shirou as being based on novels written after the 90s, where the main character suffers from trying to come to terms with his problems in their own narrow perspectives.[2]

Role

In Fate/stay night, Shirou is first drawn into the Holy Grail War after he witnesses the Servants Lancer and Archer fighting at his school. Lancer chases Shirou around the school trying to kill him, adhering to a rule of the Holy Grail War which states bystanders must be killed. Lancer corners Shirou in one of the hallways and mortally wounds him with his Gáe Bolg. Rin Tohsaka, Shirou's classmate and Archer's master, feels guilty about involving Shirou and saves his life using her strongest jewel (a memento given to her by her father). Rin leaves before Shirou wakes up. Shirou, amazed he is still alive, returns to his home and is ambushed by Lancer. Shirou tries to defend himself using a magically reinforced poster, but Lancer easily disarms him. Lancer commends him for his efforts, mentioning he might be the seventh Master, and prepares to finish Shirou off. Before Lancer can kill him, Shirou summons Saber (albeit incompletely), who quickly drives Lancer away using her invisible sword. She then attacks Archer and Rin, who are outside the house, and badly wounds Archer. Saber starts to attack Rin, but Shirou, confused by the situation, stops Saber before she kills Rin. Upon learning about the Holy Grail War, he declares that he has no interest in the Holy Grail and instead despises its use. However, he is determined to win the Holy Grail War with Saber for he hopes his efforts will ensure that another disaster like the fire he survived will never happen again.

In the Fate route, the manga, and the first anime, he develops feelings for Saber and falls in love with her the moment he sees her; he rarely allows her to fight unless necessary and is set on convincing her that her life meant something. Shirou is unable to comprehend that he is in love with her at first, as he believes he is unworthy of loving or being loved. He is also confused by the fact that her presence is making him think selfishly for the first time in his life. Shirou accepts in this route that there will be evil people that he must kill to protect others. He eventually defeats Kirei Kotomine by stabbing him with the Azoth Sword, a gift Kirei gave to Rin years ago, and does the impossible by resisting Angra Mainyu's corruption, something no Servant besides Gilgamesh had ever accomplished. He then orders Saber to destroy the Holy Grail, causing her to fade away after she professes her love. The Shirou in this route embraces his ideals to the very end.

In the Unlimited Blade Works route, the first movie, and the second anime, he falls in love with Rin Tohsaka and, in the Good End, Saber as well. He slowly gains the skills and techniques of Archer, and the reason for this is revealed to be Archer being Shirou from a potential future timeline. Archer comes into direct conflict with Shirou as he believes Shirou's ideals are a sham. Because he is a future version of Shirou, he seeks to kill him to cause a contradiction and hopefully end his own existence as a Counter Guardian. Shirou then goes on to defeat Archer and Gilgamesh in single combat after mastering the use of Unlimited Blade Works. In the True End, he joins Rin as her assistant to study in the Mage's Association in London. In the Good End, he lives peacefully with Rin and Saber in a ménage à trois, the latter being sustained as one of Rin's two familiars, the other being Shirou himself. The Shirou in this route accepts that his ideals are borrowed, but continues to believe in them.

In the Heaven's Feel route and the second movie, he falls in love with Sakura Matou. He later loses his left arm and Archer's left arm is grafted in its place. He slowly begins to lose his memories and mind due to Archer's arm invading his body. He later helps Rider defeat Saber Alter, cleanses Sakura using a traced version of Rule Breaker, and then engages Kirei Kotomine in a climactic fistfight at the underground site of the Great Holy Grail. He comes out as the survivor, as Kirei's body gave out just as he was about to deal the final blow. In the Normal End, he loses his mind and, robotically acting upon his deeply ingrained desire to save others without regard for himself, traces Excalibur from his final remaining memory (that of Saber). He uses it to destroy the Great Holy Grail and kill Angra Mainyu, ending the Holy Grail Wars for good. He is then mentioned as appearing in the "afterlife" to reunite with the recently deceased Sakura. In the True End, the Great Holy Grail is closed by Illya, precluding his tracing Excalibur. Illya then uses her remaining powers to restore Shirou's soul and encase it in the form of a flower, which is retrieved at a later point in time by Rider. He then lives on peacefully with Sakura and Rider while inhabiting an artificial body made from Illya's remains and the three, along with Rin, go to watch cherry blossoms. The Shirou in this route completely abandons his ideals, choosing to save Sakura over saving innocents.

In the sequel to Fate/stay night, Fate/hollow ataraxia, Shirou is one of the three main protagonists and the narrator of the story. Within this installment, he experiences unexpected changes in personality and momentary lapses in memory, particularly related to his own skills. It is later revealed that this is because "Shirou" is actually Avenger, who is possessing Shirou or taking his form in the daytime to blend in, but forgets his identity due to Shirou's existence overwriting his own "non-existence". Once Shirou/Avenger discovers the truth, he becomes conflicted, as "Shirou" wants to end the loop while "Avenger" wants to keep living as Shirou. The real Shirou, who was away from Fuyuki City on a mission for the Mage's Association with his partner and (unwanted) admirer Luviagelita Edelfelt, appears in the epilogue, where Bazett and Caren abuse his kind nature so that they can stay at the Emiya residence.

Powers and abilities

Shirou is a magus trained by Kiritsugu Emiya. Differing from a formal magus, Shirou can instead be called a Spellcaster who does not follow the normal ways of magi. As he was adopted into the Emiya family, he has no way of inheriting Kiritsugu's Magic Crest, and lacks the innate talent produced through generations of magi striving to develop the best Magic Circuits. His training was informal and aside from sparse knowledge, his adoptive father Kiritsugu taught him nothing of magecraft. He has an Origin of "Sword" and Elemental Affinity of "Sword", which was due to having had Avalon inside him for many years. This leaves him unable to use magic of the five great elements with precision due to lacking any as an alignment, but it does allow for the manifestation of Unlimited Blade Works and the derivative skills in Reinforcement and Gradation Air or Projection Magecraft. Despite being trained more, he will never leave the level of a magus apprentice. He would be received as someone on par with Kiritsugu's evaluation as a "Magus Killer" with a rank of forty.[3] Shirou's basic training in Magecraft was extremely lacking, so he was left with the idea that he needs to create a new Magic Circuit with each use of Magecraft. He goes through extremely dangerous training, where he constantly faces the risk of death in order to develop a new Circuit. Though his body has twenty-seven natural Magic Circuits, they had been abandoned for his nerves, which he made into makeshift Magic Circuits due to his wrong method of training. Once his real Circuits are awakened, he goes through extreme pain and suffering as his nervous system gets used to the new intake of energy. His newly opened Magic Circuits can barely handle ten units of prana each.

He is an unorthodox magus who makes use of a very specialized version of Projection magecraft. Shirou is initially completely inept as a magus, only able to use Reinforcement and Projection Magecraft with a low level of success. Reinforcement allows him to analyze the structural composition of an object, and increase its effectiveness, such as making it more durable or its shape more practical, or return it to its original state. He can also use it to improve upon the physical capabilities of his own body, such as his eyesight, allowing him to see as far as four kilometers away. Shirou is also very skilled in Structural Grasp Magecraft, which allows him to understand the structure and design of objects as if he were viewing a blueprint. Projection, while a high level skill, is generally considered useless compared to Reinforcement due to the higher prana cost, and anything that Shirou initially projects is useless and hollow. Though the objects merely imitate the shape, there are only a few who can identify them as fakes in a first glance. Any practitioner that analyzes composition wouldn't be able to see through them, and even one that works through spiritual mediums would only notice a sense of in-congruence. Since only objects with history ever go into the Department of Spiritual Invocation of Clock Tower, there is a low probability of them being discovered. Shirou's structural analysis isn't a type of Mystic Eyes.[4]

Shirou is later capable of using Tracing, a higher-level version of Projection that completely copies everything regarding the creation and existence of the object. During the Fate scenario, he slowly learns of it on his own by training with Rin and following Archer's advice: "If you can't defeat it, then imagine what can", while in the Unlimited Blade Works scenario, he learns of it through extensive contact with Archer. He is only effectively able to reproduce swords, other weapons, and armor, but this specialty allows him to faithfully reproduce even legendary weapons. He is capable of reproducing any sword that he has seen, though Noble Phantasms are always one rank below their original strength and armor costs three times the amount of prana, and he is capable of employing its entire history, allowing him to wield any weapon with the same proficiency of its original owner. He has to see the weapons as how their form as final product actually are with his own eyes to reproduce them, as even the blueprint of Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg is not enough to reproduce it, but by seeing it and Caliburn through shared memories of Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern and Saber, he becomes able to fully trace them afterward. If the weapon is not made of materials that exist in the world, such as Ea, he cannot analyze or reproduce it, though he can tell its basic nature, prolonged exposure to weapons like Ea also damage his sanity, as his brain outright rejects the existence of weapons of its kind. He is also quite capable of creating his own original kinds of weapons, should he put his mind to it.

It is later identified that these abilities and Shirou's affinity with swords are concepts of Shirou's Reality Marble, Unlimited Blade Works. Rather than simply creating his projections in the real world, he actually reproduces them within the Reality Marble, as if he were loading a gun, and then projects them into the real world as if he were firing it. This allows him to prepare dozens of swords at a time for later use. Shirou is unable to properly deploy or maintain Unlimited Blade Works due to a shortage of prana, but with a proper contract with a magus with a suitable level of prana, such as Rin, he is capable of using it. If he were to learn about it normally, unlike the situation in Unlimited Blade Works where he learns of it firsthand from Archer, it would take ten years of training to set the foundations for the ability and another ten years to reach to the point of being able to use it.[5] While actually using Unlimited Blade Works, the cost for creating the weapons is greatly diminished and the speed at which they can be created is also increased, allowing him to easily overwhelm Gilgamesh and his Gate of Babylon.

Shirou has Avalon implanted within his body, which saved his life during the great fire. This gives him an extremely potent regenerative ability while Saber is summoned due to Excalibur, though it does seem to sustain him even without it as he was able to temporarily survive a fatal blow dealt by Lancer. This allows him to survive numerous fatal wounds though it works against him in bad endings where he is able to be tortured and mutilated without succumbing to his injuries for a long duration of time. Unlimited Blade Works also seems to protect Shirou by creating blades within his body to reinforce it. He is able to survive a blow to the chest from Rider's dagger, which is repelled as if it is hitting metal, a kick that would have gouged his stomach only knocks him away, and he manages to keep from having his entire body destroyed from an attack by Gilgamesh. The ability seems to go out of control during a bad ending where numerous swords sprout from his dying body, and while his body is fully breaking down in the Heaven's Feel scenario, they are constantly being created and protruding from his skin.

He practices basic sword fighting with Saber, though it amounts to little in actual offensive capabilities. While she teaches him, he cannot use her fighting style as a model. He cannot see exactly how she is attacking and their different physiques makes her impossible to copy.

Appearances in other media

Shirou has appeared in the anime and manga versions of Fate/stay night and the movie Unlimited Blade Works. Shirou[6] also appeared in the game Fate/unlimited codes, released on PS2 and PSP. A Shirou also appeared in Fate/tiger colosseum.[7] He, along with other characters from Tsukihime, Melty Blood, and the rest of the cast of Fate/stay night, appears in the 2011 anime Carnival Phantasm. In addition, Shirou briefly appeared in Fate/Zero, the prequel of Fate/stay night, in which he is shown being saved by Kiritsugu at the end of the series. He with other characters from Tsukihime, Melty Blood, and the rest of the cast of Fate/stay night, also appeared in the T-Moon Complex Doujinshi mangas and comics.

Reception

Gen Urobuchi believes Saber's relationship with Shirou doesn't seem like a realistic relationship between a male and a female, but a complicated relationship with a boy who became a girl. He further explains that it isn't a relationship fueled by instinct like the relationship between a man and a woman, but a romance of logic between two people who need each other from the heart. Urobuchi, asserted that Shirou's relationship with Rin Tohsaka was the more realistic relationship. Furthermore, he states the Fate route could have been told as a story through the ancient Greek views on love.[2] However, Nasu commented that Shirou and Saber's relationship can be more appropriately called lovers in regards to other types of relationships. Nasu also stressed that Rin's relationship with Shirou is more of a mentor and student relationship, and that even though she is one of Shirou potential Girlfriends, their relationship would not last.[2]

Mania Entertainment's Chris Beveridge, however, stated that he liked the development of Shirou across the series, particularly his team-ups with Saber.[8] He shared similar comments when talking about the romantic relationship between him and Saber.[9] Similarly, DVDTalk enjoyed this and claimed, "The Master/Servant relationship is an interesting one."[10]

IGN's Jeff Harris said that Shirou and Saber's growing relationship was Fate/stay night‍ '​s most interesting plot line and that the romantic tension there between the two is something to look forward to over the course of the rest of the game and animated series.[11]

References

  1. ↑ "The First Day". Fate/stay night. Series 1. Episode 1.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 TYPE-MOON Ace 7 - 10 year Anniversary interview: Nasu Kinoko X Takeuchi Takashi X Urobuchi Gen
  3. ↑ Encyclopedia/Magazines
  4. ↑ Encyclopedia/Magazines
  5. ↑ Encyclopedia/Magazines
  6. ↑ "Fate/Unlimited Codes - PlayStation Portable - IGN". Psp.ign.com. 2009-08-21. Retrieved 2013-02-08.
  7. ↑
  8. ↑ "Fate / Stay Night Vol. #5". Mania Entertainment. Retrieved October 8, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Fate / Stay Night Vol. #4". Mania Entertainment. Retrieved October 8, 2014.
  10. ↑ "Fate/Stay Night 3: Master & Servant". DVD Talk. Retrieved October 8, 2014.
  11. ↑ Harris, Jeff (September 6, 2007). "Fate/Stay Night: Volume 3 - Master and Servant". IGN. Retrieved April 6, 2015.

External links