Is Sakurai Hikaru a good author?

[Ubergeneral]

I hear the fandom bashing her nonstop. They seem to criticize her more than other authors. What is the deal? Are her works really that bad?

[Petrikow]

Are her works really that bad?

No.

But also yes.

[Ubergeneral]

that sounds like a meme answer but i'll bite. Why? What makes them disliked?

[Dullahan]

She makes money from writing, that has to be pretty good

[Leftovers]

There's no way Nasu would trust her to be part of his Fate writing team if she wasn't a good writer

[MaxAkito]

I hear the fandom bashing her nonstop. They seem to criticize her more than other authors. What is the deal? Are her works really that bad?

Like how BotW is a great game but an awful Zelda game, Hikaru Sakurai is an awful fate author but a great author.

[fumei]

I hear the fandom bashing her nonstop. They seem to criticize her more than other authors. What is the deal? Are her works really that bad?

Well, to begin with I feel like the question itself isn't that worthwhile. How do you define a good author? Someone's whose works sell? Then yes she is. Do people like her works? Yeah. Do some people dislike them? Yes. Are there more people who like than dislike her works? Most likely, yeah.

As for the critique she so frequently and vehemently receives from this fandom, an important thing to remember is that the vast majority of these people can't even read what it is she's writing, and can only perceive it through a filtered translation attempt, and subsequently end up only parroting what a few select JP readers have said. Because of this they end up only being able to really actually comment on things like general story structure, pacing, and at best characters, rather than the quality of the writing itself and the prose. On top of this I think it's become an inflamed subject, where people want to be able to blame her for being shit as well. I mean, just look at how much more nowadays you see stuff like "so who's the writer for this chapter" right after release (at least I'd say that wasn't as prevalent back in the day).

And yeah, I think Heian is one of the worst things I've ever read. I think Olympus at times was a real drag, and Fragments has weird pacing owing to its structure. But I think Scandinavia is in most ways decent overall, as was Tunguska, Camelot, etc. Honestly, being decent most of the time places her in the same bracket as pretty much most other TM writers.

I'd prefer her to stop writing random gag events though, that never works.

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Like how BotW is a great game but an awful Zelda game, Hikaru Sakurai is an awful fate author but a great author.

I've been saying this for YEARS.

[TomPen94]

Don't have much of an opinion on her myself but she was the one who wrote Olympus which contains my single favorite scene in FGO to date so I'd like to think she's not *that* bad.

[Kirishima]

Good concepts, annoying writing quirks and execution.

[fumei]

Don't have much of an opinion on her myself but she was the one who wrote Olympus which contains my single favorite scene in FGO to date so I'd like to think she's not *that* bad.

Depending on what that scene was she might not have even written it.

[Menwearpink]

I hear the fandom bashing her nonstop. They seem to criticize her more than other authors. What is the deal? Are her works really that bad?

Yes. But not a good FGO or certain type of Fate sidestory author.

She's a author with a unique writing style and very defined strengths and weaknesses... and she's being shoved into a box that support none of said strengths, and bring a focus to said weaknesses.
I'd say its akin to judging Nasu by his work on Last Encore or early FGO.

A predetermined prequel story, a side story that exists just for fun I guess attached to that, and Extella and FGO.

FGO and Gacha in general are both terrible mediums for writing, honestly.

Try some What a Beautiful.

[TomPen94]

Depending on what that scene was she might not have even written it.

Badass OP magus gets humbled by little kid.
Do we know who wrote that?

[Kirishima]

Crypter backstory should be by Nasu, at least conceptually. I think what happens after the Lostbelt King dies is all him, usually.

[fumei]

Badass OP magus gets humbled by little kid.
Do we know who wrote that?

Any Kirschtaria scene would've been Nasu, if that's what you're talking about. Otherwise I'm a bit lost.

Rule of thumb is that Nasu writes every before they set foot in the Lostbelt (Chaldea setup, transport aboard the Border), any similar epilogue stuff (I think he's said after you beat the Lostbelt king it's him again), and then in the actual chapter he'll write Crypters, Beasts (mostly, this one doesn't seem as clear cut), and characters that "span multiple chapters" to ensure consistency there.

[Takashi]

She seems good as an LN author rather than being a visual media author. Because I feel with LNs she gets more freedom in her writing at least in terms of her fate works

[SpoonyViking]

Last Encore is good.
Other than that, Fumei's observation seems pretty spot-on.

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[...] and then in the actual chapter he'll write Crypters [...]

Interesting! So all (most?) Crypter scenes are written by Nasu?

[pinetree]

Last Encore is Nasu though, Sakurai just adapted it for TV.

[AmADo VII]

Last Encore is Nasu though, Sakurai just adapted it for TV.

Kinoko was so bad at writing anime script Sakurai had to fix it.

[pinetree]

Absolutely, but I still wouldn't count it as an example of her writing ability.

[Dullahan]

She's more competent a writer than pretty much everyone on this forum - and yet FGO is still bad. Explain that, reddit