About

Unlimited Blade Works refers to the noble phantasm of the character Archer and Shirou Emiya in the Type-Moon Fate series. Since its introduction in 2004, the ability became popular among fans, spawning parodies and a copypasta based on the noble phantasm’s incantation.

Origin

Unlimited Blade Works was first introduced in the 2004 visual novel game Fate/stay night. specifically in one of the game’s story routes under the same name as the noble phantasm. The noble phantasm is a reality marble that acts as a magical factory for creating replicas of various weapons including other noble phantasms. To summon the reality marble, Archer must use an incantation to facilitate the invocation. The incantation reads:

“I am the Bone of my Sword
Steel is my Body and Fire is my Blood.
I have created over a Thousand Blades,
Unknown to Death,
Nor known to Life.
Have withstood Pain to create many Weapons
Yet those Hands will never hold Anything.
So, as I Pray–
Unlimited Blade Works ”

Shirou Emiya has an alternate version of the incantation which he uses to summon the reality marble. The incantation is as follows:

“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 Weapons, Waiting for one’s Arrival
I have no Regrets. This is the only Path
My whole life was Unlimited Blade Works ”

Spread

Discussions regarding Unlimited Blade Works began as early as 2006 with posts appearing on a number of sites such as reddit, [1] Tumblr, [2] 4chan, [3] Gamefaqs, [4] TVTropes, [5] and Zetaboards. [6] On December 8th, 2008, Urban Dictionary user Arblast submitted an entry regarding the noble phantasm. [7]

On July 31st, 2013, Youtube user ExiaFr posted a video showcasing Archer using Unlimited Blade Works which was taken from the 2010 Movie adaptation of Fate/stay night (shown below, left). Within 2 years, the video gathered over 276.000 views. On May 10th, 2015, Youtube user TheSzadow posted a video comparing Archer’s Unlimited Blade Works ability between the 2006 and the 2014 anime adaptation of Fate/stay night (shown below, right). Within a year, the video gathered over 199.000 views.

Unlimited Essay Works refers to a notorious 4chan post that was submitted by a user known as “Mike”. The post shows an essay which was written in the same manner as the copypasta which resulted in the user getting a D+ and ultimately failing his semester.
The original thread was posted on 2nd August, 2006, on 4chan’s /a/ board. In the thread, the original poster delivered a promise he made in a previous topic to turn in his final exam in the form of the Unlimited Blade Works copypasta (shown below). [13]

The thread gained traction among users and was subsequently stickied by a mod. [11] The image of the essay gained popularity on a number of sites such as Funny Exams, [9] Dark Mirage, [8] and FunnyJunk. [14] The thread also spawned a number of edits that pokes fun at the event(shown below).

Various Examples