Fate/hollow ataraxia

Fate/hollow ataraxia (フェイト/ホロウアタラクシア, Feito/horō atarakushia) is a Japanese visual novel game created by Type-Moon in 2005 which is the sequel to its earlier visual novel Fate/stay night. The word ataraxia in the title is a Greek term for tranquility, giving the title the combined meaning of "empty (or false) tranquility".

The game also was ported to PlayStation Vita, and it includes full-voice acting, among other enhancements. This version was released in Japan on November 27, 2014.^[2][3][4]

Plot

The plot of Fate/hollow ataraxia is based 6 months after the events of Fate/stay night. Like its preceding counterpart, the story is set in Fuyuki City. Bazett Fraga McRemitz, a member of the Mages' Association and a master in the Fifth Holy Grail War, wakes on the fourth day of the Fifth Holy Grail war with a new servant, Avenger, and no memory of what happened to her beforehand. She and Avenger set off to fight and win the Holy Grail War.

Meanwhile, Shirō Emiya lives a peaceful life with all of his friends from the Fifth Holy Grail War. After one of her experiments changes time and space, Rin Tohsaka leaves for the Mages' Association in England to fix things. The Servants sense a new danger while dark creatures appear soon afterward. Shirō, as a precaution, sets off to ensure nobody is in danger and instead finds himself frequently meeting a mysterious girl, Caren Ortensia.

Both Bazett and Shirō find themselves in time loop that lasts four days, beginning of the fourth day of the Fifth Holy Grail War. Each time they die or survive four days, they always awake on the first day of the loop, aware of what has happened to them since the first time loop began. Determined to end the loop, Bazett, Avenger, and Shirō fight to discover the truth behind what is causing the endless four days.

Characters

Bazett Fraga McRemitz (バゼット・フラガ・マクレミッツ, Bazetto Furaga Makuremittsu)

The first of the three protagonists. A mage sent from the Mage's Association to fight the 5th War of the Holy Grail, born in Ireland as a descendant of old mage family of an unusual bloodline. She originally summoned Lancer (her childhood hero and later love interest), but was betrayed by Kotomine and had her arm stolen. She was left for dead before she was discovered by Avenger, who created the time loop so that she could live. She, like Shirō, can directly fight and defeat Servants due to her family's combat-based magecraft and her ancestral Noble Phantasm: the sacred dagger Fragarach, which reverses time so that it always strikes first in response to her opponent's ultimate attack. She is mentioned very briefly in Fate/stay night. She is voiced by Hitomi Nabatame in Fate/tiger colosseum, Fate/unlimited codes, Carnival Phantasm, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (anime), and Fate/hollow ataraxia (PSVita).

Caren Ortensia (カレン・オルテンシア, Karen Orutenshia)

The main heroine of this game, Caren is a member of the Church and works as a priestess. She is kind and forgiving to the point that she believes her only purpose in life is to help others, even if she is hurt in the process. She never blames the person who has hurt her and blames the act on demons who caused the person to commit the sin. Whenever she is at fault, she apologizes to God rather than the person. Despite her kindness, she has a love for teasing and exploiting others' emotional vulnerability. Upon discovery of an individual's weak spot, she enjoys bringing it out to light in front of all to witness. While this antagonizes many characters and causes much outrage and humiliation, she remains calm. Also, in spite of being a priestess, she has deliberately chosen to wear a revealing costume with no skirt to both increase her mobility and to seduce men.

As a member of the Church, Caren assists in exorcisms. Her body itself possesses an unusual property: if there is a person nearby who has been possessed by a demon, she will experience the same pain as the possessed person. As a result, exorcists employ her to act as a radar of sorts to find demons. This ability is most evident whenever she comes in proximity to the Servant Avenger as her body sprouts grotesque spikes. As a result of this power, she is covered in bandages. She also experiences physical pain whenever people in proximity do evil things. In battle, she uses a red cloth of Magdala, which has the power to forcefully bind men. However, while the man is bound, no harmful physical attacks can be made against him or Magdala will be rendered useless. She is actually the daughter of Kotomine Kirei and hates him for abandoning her. She has a crush on Shirou due to her interactions with Avenger, even painting him with oil to resemble the latter.

She is voiced by Ami Koshimizu in Fate/tiger colosseum, the All Around Type-Moon Drama CD, Carnival Phantasm, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (anime) and Fate/hollow ataraxia (PSVita).

Avenger (アヴェンジャー, Avenger)

The 8th Servant, who was summoned in the 3rd war in lieu of a Berserker and another of the main protagonists. Avenger was a originally a normal boy in the ancient middle east who, in a cruel twist of fate, was labeled as being Angra Mainyu via a random lottery and was tortured until he died of old age so that he, as the embodiment of evil itself, could allow the other villagers to live free of sin and as a result became the first "Anti-Hero" to enter the Throne of Heroes. He was later summoned as Avenger in the Third Grail War by the Einzbern in an attempt to cheat, but was the first to die (as he is not the actual Angra Mainyu) and corrupted the Grail, as the belief of others made him into All The World's Evils even though the Grail recognized him as a human with a wish it needed to fulfill (his own rebirth as Angra Mainyu), his presence within the Grail is what allows for the summoning of some of history and mythology's greatest villains and monsters as "heroes". He was released when Shirou and Saber utterly annihilated the Grail at the end of the Fifth Grail War and came across a dying Bazett and responded to her wish to live by creating the time loop the characters are trapped in, but as he did not personally experience the Fifth Grail War, he was forced to recreate the Third Grail War using the Fifth's participants. He wields a pair of misshapen and brittle daggers in combat and his Noble Phantasm is "Verg Avesta" which reflects the pain caused by an opponent's attack back at them. He eventually decides to end the loop after realizing all the trouble he has caused and, with help from his new friends and allies, fights off the pieces of him that protect the Grail and ends the loop for good, but not before using Rin's copy of the Jeweled Sword of Zelretch to stabilize the timeline he helped create so that Shirō, Caren, and Bazett can live out whatever life they had made in this timeline. He is voiced by Takuma Terashima in Fate/tiger colosseum and Fate/hollow ataraxia (PSVita).

Shirō Emiya (衛宮 士郎, Emiya Shirō)

One of the three main protagonists and narrator of the story. Within this installment, Shirō experiences unexpected changes in personality and momentary lapses in memory, particularly related to his own skills. It is later revealed that this is because "Shirō" is connected to Avenger in some mysterious way, causing them to switch places when night falls, implying Avenger is either hiding in Shirō's body or is taking his form during the day, but forgets due to his "non-existence" being overwritten by the earth's laws. Once Shirō/Avenger discovers the truth, he becomes conflicted, as Shirō wants to end the loop while Avenger wants to keep living as Shirō, constantly repeating the cycle so that he can experience, by proxy, the life of a normal boy that he never had. Once Avenger finally ends the loop, Shirō is tricked into allowing Bazett and Caren stay at the Emiya household.

Saber (セイバー, Seibā)

Saber is portrayed as having become more willing to open up and try and embrace her gender, rather than rejecting it as she did before, and engages in traditionally feminine tasks such as baking and is willing to wear more overtly feminine clothes (i.e. a bikini or a blouse) if it means impressing Shirō, as the lack of combat during the daytime and co-habitation with Rider and Rin has made Saber extremely self-conscious over her lack of femininity. She has also gained a taste for Japanese sweets, venturing out into town on her own to purchase them with the allowance Taiga gives her. She remains fiercely loyal to Shirō/Avenger and several times puts her life on the line (and loses it) to protect him. As she gets more in touch with her gender, Saber also begins to reveal more about her real personality: she is loyal and brave, but is also painfully shy and gets extremely jealous when other girls express interest in her master, such as when Shirō/Avenger has dinner with Sakura. If the player follows her character arc far enough, Saber will eventually confide in Shirō/Avenger that, while she loves living in Japan with him and their friends, she is beginning to feel homesick and wishes to return to England someday if only to visit, hoping that Shirō will come with her. There are also hints that Saber is ultimately the canonical winner of Shirō's heart, as a sequence in which she and Rin raid Shirō's room implies that Shirō's hidden collection of pornography is made up entirely of blonde-haired girls. Saber Alter also exists within her, and comes out whenever Saber's stray strand hair is pulled off, though it regenerates with time; Saber Alter is portrayed as the opposite of Saber, as she is blunt, loud, no-nonsense, and enjoys cheap, greasy fast food such as hamburgers.

Rin Tōsaka (遠坂 凛, Tōsaka Rin)

In the first half of the game, Rin is in London. She returns in the second half with an apparently dramatic change in personality (specifically, a penchant for cosplaying as a miko or magical girls). However, she has also become an experienced mage, demonstrating this when she was the first to logically compose an explanation as to why time has been looping for four days and when she gives Shirō advice. In Fate/hollow ataraxia, she wields the Kaleidostick, another of Zeltretch's inventions which, when activated, transfers knowledge from an alternate version of its user into its current wielder, in addition to providing an ample source of Mana. However, the Kaleidostick dislikes its creator, and frequently manipulates its user into humiliating situations. Her tsundere personality is shown in greater detail here as seen in her interactions. She is shown to be very stingy, bossy and quite mischievous. She makes fun of Shirō several times. She has feelings for Shirō after watching him stubbornly attempting to do a high jump that he had no chance. Although she calls him an idiot, Rin admires Shirō for his tenacity and kind-heart. In Fate/hollow ataraxia, the Kaleidostick is responsible for transforming Rin into the magical girl Kaleido-Ruby. Rin is partially responsible for the current state of affairs in the universe of Fate/stay night. After 5th Holy Grail War was finished, she and Shirou's sister, Ilyasviel von Einzbern, were experimenting with creating a copy of the legendary Jeweled Sword of Zelretch and accidentally caused the Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel routes of the original visual novel to converge into a single timeline, which by the end of the visual novel is then stabilized by a second usage of the Jeweled Sword.

Rider (ライダー, Raidā)

Since the war, Rider has begun staying at the Emiya household, becoming the de facto adult and breadwinner of the home. She got a job at an antique store to bring some much needed income to the household and mocks Saber as being nothing more than a freeloader, though the two made up after Rider bought her some sweets. She has feelings for Shirō due to him being the first male in her life to treat her with care and respect and once had sex with him while he slept, using an illusion to disguise herself within his dreams and openly admitting that she was open to the idea of a polyamorous relationship between herself, Shirō, and Sakura. She, like Saber, is having trouble adjusting to the modern world and must have basic concepts such as apologizing explained to her at length.

Other characters

While playing less prominent roles, all Masters and Servants of the 5th Holy Grail War from Fate/stay night appear again, with the exception of Kirei Kotomine and True Assassin, as they were never destined to survive the 5th Holy Grail War (with Kotomine having been cursed with an artificial heart in the 4th Holy Grail War and Fake Assassin not being able to coexist with True assassin).

Media

Manga

There have also been many sets of manga anthologies bases on the series produced by different companies and drawn by a multitude of different artists. The first volume of the earliest anthology series was released by Ichijinsha with the title Fate/Hollow Ataraxia Anthology Comic, on January 7, 2006 under their DNA Media Comics imprint; the Fifteenth volume in the series was released on August 25, 2008.^[5] Two anthology series were then released by Kadokawa, the first was the entitle Fate/hollow Ataraxia ~ Comic la carte and was released on January 10, 2006.^[6] The second Fate/hollow ataraxia Comic a la carte ~Happy Life hen~ was released on May 24, 2006.^[7] Another two anthology series were then released by Enterbrain, Fate/hollow ataraxia Anthology Comic was released between on January 30, 2006 and May 25, 2007 in nine volumes under their Magi-Cu Comics imprint.^[8] A 4-koma series was later published by Enterbrain between on December 25, 2007 and December 25, 2008 in six volumes.^[9] In 2013, A Fate/hollow ataraxia manga was illustrated by Type-Moon and Medori and published by Kadokawa.

Music

A soundtrack to the game, entitled Fate/hollow ataraxia Original Sound Track was published by Geneon Entertainment on November 23, 2005.^[10] The single Hollow was released by Type-Moon on October 28, 2005.^[11]

Reception

Fate/hollow ataraxia became one of the top selling visual novels of 2005.,^[12] The PS Vita port sold 53,979 within the first week of release in Japan, ranking at fourth place amongst all Japanese software sales for that week's sales charts.^[13]

References

External links

• Type-Moons Official Japanese Homepage for Fate/hollow ataraxia
• Fate/hollow ataraxia at The Visual Novel Database