Imagine someone combining Pokémon with Tenchi Muyo. Now imagine the offspring wouldn't totally suck (no offense to those of you with tears welling in your eyes as you clutch your stuffed Pikachu). That's the basic premise behind Fate / Stay Night, a series that is a loose hybridization of a harem anime with one where characters use avatars to fight for them.

Enter Shirou Emiya, the lucky guy at the center of it all, whose life hasn't been quite so blessed. His entire family died in a horrible fire when he was very young, his adopted father also kicked the bucket under unusual circumstances, and now some weird guy in tights wielding a spear just stabbed him through the heart. Thankfully, his naïve sense of justice and heart of gold have won him a few female admirers willing to save his life; however, those same archaic values of his won't let him just sit back and let the ladies handle everything, as he is thrust into a covert war between mages controlling servants as they fight for nothing other than the Holy Grail. The fabled relic is promised to grant the winners any wish, so the competition means business.

While the setting may resemble some typical far-fetched anime, the characters are actually well developed (and no, this isn't a veiled reference to fan service...) and the plot is a good one, with a logical progression and some good twists. At the heart of the story are the relationships between Emiya and the female cast (including his own servant, Saber), and a few magi that may or may not be his enemies.

The magi themselves range from those who are descended from powerful families and having excellent training, to the children of washed-up has-beens with little remaining magical power of their own, to accidental masters like Emiya, who have no clue what's going on. As for the servants, they number seven in total, and are categorized into classes (think Dungeons & Dragons) and called things like "Archer" and "Caster." They are actually epic heroes with rich histories, who generally try to keep their identies secret, so as not to expose information that can be exploited by rival masters and servants.

Because not everyone's motives in winning the Holy Grail War are altruistic, Emiya resolves to win it himself. The problem is, to do that, he has to accomplish the near impossible task of killing the six other epic heroes, or adopt the more common tactic of killing the other six masters — a task unthinkable to him. As he is forced to evolve, Emiya learns that he can change without abandoning his core values, and in doing so, he earns more than just the preservation of his own life.

As the house fills with more and more women, love is predictably in the air. Along the way, Emiya develops feelings for Saber, and the reality of her fate at the conclusion of the war is the final conflict he must reconcile in his heart. The love story is a bittersweet one that adds intrigue to the latter stages of the show, while not overwhelming it.

In the end, most of the plot is nicely wrapped up as the audience is given answers to all the foreshadowing and flashbacks that were presented. The story is a good one that does not suffer many of the common pitfalls pervasive in anime. It is not likely to be the best thing you've ever seen, but it will also be far from the worst.