Fate/Zero set the bar for animation in a TV series, and Unlimited Blade Works exceeded it!
I must say, watching Ufotable's adaptation is much more satisfying than reading the VN, because I get to see the most fantastic, epic, eye-gasmic battles that one can ever see in the anime world. I also get to see the characters' movements and interactions - which I can only imagine in my head when reading the VN. I also am extremely pleased to see that Ufotable's anime adaptation stays faithful to the original VN work!
Seeing on screen what I remember from the VN is truly a treat to behold. The backgrounds and characters are absolutely stunning. All the fight scenes are so beautifully choreographed and when the deciding blow occurs, you can almost feel what the loser is feeling. There is real weight to the fights due to how great the animation and artstyle are conveying the conflicts. This is a real stand-out feature for me.
Although all internal monologues are cut out, the anime - through its amazing animation - successfully conveys all the subtleties in the ways the characters interact and fight. [ For instance: the farewell scene between Archer and Rin was done perfectly in the anime: The scene is only 2-minute long, and no description of the characters' inner thoughts and feelings are given, but it successfully conveys all the emotional subtleties of this scene. Here's the scene in the VN for comparison. ]
There is no other company that I would entrust this franchise to. Ufotable + Fate = dream team. I am looking forward to Ufotable's adaption of Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel which are coming in 3 movies. I have high hope that they will adapt Fate/Hollow Ataraxia as well.
On the other hand:
The VN is the place to go for clarifications and to gain a better understanding of the characters, since a lot of dialogues and internal monologues are cut out of the anime.
One thing I disapprove of Ufotable is its censorship of sex scenes. When I first watched UBW, I just thought that the "magic circuit transfer" scene between Rin and Shirou was an awkward scene ("Rin just took off her sweater... what's she so upset about? It's not like she was naked or even just wearing a bra. She still had a shirt on!") - until I found out that it was supposed to be a sex scene. In the VN, this was not just mana transfer between these two; they wanted to actually have sex because they had feelings for each other. How the characters react to the initial request of "mana transfer" is also part of their characterizations. Why did they not make the sex scenes like that in Parasyte, for example, just briefly, and the audience will understand that it's a sex scene? I don't need to see the explicit details. I only need them to show that these characters (who have feelings for each other) had an intimate moment.
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