Shirō Emiya

Infobox animanga character
name = Shirō Emiya
series = Fate/Stay Night


caption = Game screenshot of Shirō Emiya
first =
last =
creator =
voiced by = Noriaki Sugiyama (japanese)
Sam Riegel (english)
nickname =
alias =
age =
gender =
born =
nationality = Japanese
class =
occupation = High school student/spell user
title = Master of Saber
relatives = Taiga Fujimura (legal guardian), Kiritsugu Emiya (Adoptive father : deceased), Illyasviel von Einzbern (stepsister)
paux* name =
paux* =
divider =
aux1 name = Other Self
aux1 =
aux2 name = Abilities
aux2 = Auto-Healing, Reality Marble, Unlimited Blade Works, Reinforcement Spells, Tracing Spells

nihongo|Shirō Emiya|衛宮 士郎|Emiya Shirō is a character from the Japanese visual novel and anime series "Fate/stay night" by TYPE-MOON.

Shirō is the main character of the story, a serious and honest teenager as well as a hard worker who enjoys helping others. He is in his second year of High School, and his hobbies include fixing a variety of broken things, from VCRs to stoves, as well as cooking and cleaning. He has some slight proficiency with reinforcement sorcery, though his foster father Kiritsugu Emiya did not encourage him to improve it. Initially, he is confused about the Holy Grail War and irrationally attempts to shield others, even his own servant Saber, from danger.

The seiyū for Shirō is Noriaki Sugiyama, and his English voice is provided by Sam Riegel. [cite web| url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=5394| month=December | year=2006| title=fate/stay night (TV)| publisher=Anime News Network| accessdate=2006-12-01]

History

A decade ago, toward the end of the 4th Holy Grail War, Fuyuki City was consumed by a massive fire. The flames razed a large portion of the city and took countless lives, including those of Shirō's biological parents. Although he managed to survive the blaze, he was on the brink of death and would have willingly succumbed to his injuries had Emiya Kiritsugu not stumbled upon him. Kiritsugu, motivated by his compassion and the guilt caused by being unable to prevent the tragedy, healed the boy and accepted him as an adopted son.

Kiritsugu revealed himself to be a magus, and though initially unwilling, attempted to raise the boy as a successor to his sorcery; however, Shirō was unskilled and incapable of performing even the most rudimentary of sorcery. The only spell he had success in, "Reinforcement", was a difficult and impractical skill, of little use to any proper magi.

Furthermore, and perhaps inadvertently, Kiritsugu passed on his philosophy to Shirō. Kiritsugu was benevolent, and strived to protect the innocent from the world's many perils, even at the cost of his own humanity; however, he had come to realize 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, Shirō always admired his efforts at attempting to do so. Kiritsugu also viewed sorcery as inherently destructive, and though he disapproved of Shirō's desire to learn his craft, he advised applying sorcery in secret, where it could only benefit people and not attract confusion or suspicion.

Several years before the 5th Holy Grail War, Kiritsugu died suddenly, leaving Shirō frustrated, depressed, and alone. However Taiga Fujimura, Shirō's longtime neighbor and his English teacher, assumed Kiritsugu's role as guardian, and later on, Sakura Matō started daily visits to help him with housework.

Despite his poor aptitude for sorcery, Shirō makes use of his skills as an aid in repairing various machinery. In awe of his father's aspirations, Shirō hoped that by improving his one and only technique, he could achieve Kiritsugu's dream of being a "Hero of Justice".

Abilities

Although Shirō has significant potential in certain areas, he is unskilled in most traditional forms of sorcery. At the beginning of Fate/stay night, his only ability is "Reinforcement", the power to analyze the structural composition of objects, and with an understanding of their chemical and physical makeup, increase said object's effectiveness in its given purpose, such as increasing a blade's sharpness, a shield's durability, or his body and eyes. However, he lacks mastery for even this simple spell, and his various applications of it are limited.

Shirō's true talents lie in a more advanced form of "Reinforcement", known as "Projection" (aka. Gradation Air). The concept behind this Magecraft is rather simple, to transform mana into the material composition and design of an object that is being imagined by the magus. However, the world will recognize this item as a "phantasm" (something that does not belong to the natural world) and it will attempt to correct the inconsistence that is its existence by wiping it out. At this point the caster’s imagination plays an important role, as the better the magus can picture the object in his mind, the more stable the final result will be. The more perfect is the image of the object, the longer it will remain in the world. Still, regardless of how good the image is, it is impossible to create an everlasting object through Projection.

To most modern magi, Projection is an incomplete Magecraft that is useless for anything other than immediate activities. This is not only because the object created will eventually fade away, but also because if something can be created with Projection, it is easier and more practical to craft said object with the appropriate techniques and raw materials. Therefore, most magi only use Projection to create dispensable tools that will only be used once in a particular moment, such as a sacrificial item to be forsaken in a ritual.

Also, while is Projection is a more complex form of Reinforcement, the former is ultimately inferior and less efficient than the latter. Comparatively speaking, if a magus uses Projection to recreate a sword while spending 10 units of prana in the process, he will get a weapon with an overall strength of 3 or 4. Meanwhile, if he uses use that same prana to reinforce an existing blade, he will get a weapon with a power of 20 or 30. On a side note, Emiya Shirou has greater ease in performing Projection than Reinforcement.

If a magus needs to recreate a more lasting object with Projection, there are means to increase the stability of the final product, such as having technical knowledge of its construction or simply overlaying the desired shape on a material that has a similar composition. It is also possible to use Reinforcement to improve the capacities of the projected item.

Shiro's personal variation of Projection is referred as "Tracing" due the unique aria that he uses for its activation (Trace On). Shirou’s Tracing greatly differs from regular Projection in the fact that he does not reproduces only the shape and substance of an object, but also everything regarded to its creation and existence. Not only the body of an item, but also its soul.

Shirou mentally divides the process of Tracing into eight steps, which include:
#Identify idea behind creation
#Define basic structure
#Duplicate constructing material
#Imitate production techniques
#Share growing experiences
#Reenact accumulated yearsBecause of this “extra mile” from Shirou’s part, it is possible for him to produce incredibly stable ordinary items that can remain in the world for hours after he first creates them. Furthermore, whenever replicating mystical objects such as Noble Phantasms, he can produce such a faithful copy that even its magic powers and skills that its owners performed with it are available for him to use. The reason why he can surpass the usual limits of Projection Magecraft like that is both because Shirou himself has a special talent to grasp the internal structure of objects just by glancing at them and because of the properties of his Reality Marble, that records the history, composition and design of what he sees and then provides the necessary materials that he needs to reproduce it.

Strictly speaking, actual reproduction of the objects happens inside Shirou’s internal world and the Projection merely brings it into this world. In a sense, reproducing the object is like loading a bullet into a gun, while deploying it with Projection is like firing said gun. At higher level of proficiency, it is possible to reproduce multiple swords in advance and then deploy them later when they are in fact needed.

This method is not without its limitations though. For one thing it is even more dependent of the quality of Shirou’s image than regular Projection. If he does not go as far as reasoning the internal structure, the item will easily break apart upon physical impact. Furthermore, it is impossible for him to apply Reinforcement upon a replicated item if its image comes not from the archives of his Reality Marble.

Although his capacity to perceive and record the properties of an item upon glance is extraordinary, the amount of information to create a mental image that he can acquire from sight alone is still limited and, as a consequence, the quality of the replicas will be inferior when compared to the original (in the case of Noble Phantasms, that means that the rank of his traced copies is decreased by one rank). He also cannot replicate an object unless he has seen the original with his own eyes, even if he has the its blueprints to work with, which was the reason why he couldn’t recreate the Zelretch at first during the Heaven’s Feel scenario. Strangely enough he had no troubles Tracing it and Caliburn after “seeing” them through the memories of Lizleihi Justica von Einzbern and Saber respectively.

In "Fate" scenario, Shiro discovers his "Tracing" as a result of Archer's advice: "If you can't defeat it, then imagine what can." In "Unlimited Blade Works" scenario, Shiro becomes an expert at the skill after witnessing Archer's Reality Marble, "Unlimited Blade Works" (thus the name of the scenario, "Unlimited Blade Works"). In "Heaven's Feel" scenario, with knowledge "borrowed" from Archer's mind, Shirō is able to project a variant of Archer's Reality Marble, "Unlimited Blade Works". Shirō's "Reality Marble" provides him with a world where all the components needed to facilitate tracing exist, allowing the recreation of any object Shirō has ever seen. When Archer's left arm is transplanted onto Shirō's body in the form of an Artificial Phantasm, Shirō gains the ability to utilize Archer's magic circuits. However, this power comes with a high cost: At the moment of activation, Archer's circuits will overload Shirō's body and eventually lead to his death. Before this happens though, Shirō's power increases immensely, allowing him to defeat Black Berserker nine times with a single maneuver based on Berserker's own Noble Phantasm "Nine Lives". This maneuver was fittingly named "Nine Lives Blade Works" by Shirō. In another end, he is even able to defeat Black Saber by tracing 3 pairs of Kansho and Bakuya.

The following chant are the words to Shirō's "Reality Marble". They are somewhat different from Archer's chant.

"

I am the bone of my sword.
Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.
I have created over a thousand blades.
Unaware of loss.
Nor aware of gain.
Withstood pain to create many weapons.
Waiting for one's arrival.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life was "Unlimited Blade Works."

"

Role

Shirō 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 Fuyuki fire will never occur again. Over the course of the story, though Shirō's skill with sorcery develop rapidly, he still holds true to his selfless ideals, as unrealistic as they may at first appear.

Although he remains as the main hero in all of Fate/stay night scenarios, the directions he takes are slightly different in each. In Fate, he decides to make peace with his past, and the story ends with him being more idealistic than ever and falls in love with Saber. In Unlimited Blade Works, although he still pursues his ideal despite having to face its faults, he finds a small relief in his love with Rin. In Heaven's Feel, Shiro in the end abandons his ideal, exchanging it for the happiness of Sakura. In each scenario, he represents three different types and stages of a man's life: as a boy who dreams of an ideal, as a teen who wants to have both the ideal and the reality, and as an adult who accepts the impossibility of the ideal and compromises with reality.

References