Ask John: Will Fate/stay night Become an Anime?

Question:
After having been introduced to the works of Type-Moon through the anime adaptation of their breakout title Tsukihime, I soon found myself a die-hard fan of their work as a whole, including their latest release, Fate/Stay-Night. Given the immense success of Tsukihime (and the apparently strong following of Fate itself), what would you say are the chances of a Fate/Stay-Night anime following in Tsukihime’s footsteps? Though I personally highly anticipate such a prospect, do you yourself think it would really even be worth it based on Shingetsutan Tsukihime’s mixed reviews?

Answer:
Actually, I’m rather surprised that a Fate/stay night anime adaptation hasn’t already been announced. (By the way, according to the game’s official Japanese homepage, the title is spelled with a capitol “F” and lower case “S” and “N” and no hyphen.) Fate/stay night was Studio Type-Moon’s debut release as a professional game development company, and it quickly became one of the best selling adult PC games ever released in Japan. The game was released on January 20, 2004, so it’s only been little more than a year since it was released. By comparison, the Tsukihime PC game was released in December 2000, and didn’t debut as an anime television series until October 2003. So it’s possible that Fate/stay night is still too recent for the details of an anime adaptation to have been worked out yet. It’s also possible that anime production studios are wary of trying to adapt such an epic story as an anime because of the difficulty that would be involved in condensing the game story into a cohesive and manageable anime production.

Notwithstanding the relatively small success of the Shingetsutan Tsukihime anime television series, I suspect that Fate/stay night is just too popular and well known not to eventually be adapted into an anime. If lesser known adult PC games like Green Green, Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito, Wind ~A Breath of Heart~, and Popotan have been successfully translated into anime productions, it would seem strange for the much more successful Fate/stay night not to be similarly adapted. I think it’s logical to presume that there would probably have been a rush to develop a Fate/stay night anime if the Tsukihime anime had been a massive hit. But I don’t think the fact that Shingetsutan Tsukihime was only mildly successful will have any dampening effect on a potential Fate/stay night anime. I do think that it’s only a matter of time before we hear word of an anime adaptation of Fate/stay night.