Fate/Strange Fake: The Dark Little Red Riding Hood Story Behind Ayaka Sajyou
Many fans who follow Fate/strange Fake might not know this, but the Little Red Riding Hood story connected to protagonist Ayaka Sajyou didn’t come out of nowhere! It actually has its roots in an urban legend introduced in Fate/hollow ataraxia, another entry in the Fate franchise.
The author of Fate/strange Fake, Ryohgo Narita, brought this story back and expanded it, turning it into an important part of Strange Fake’s plot. And here’s an interesting detail: since Fate/hollow ataraxia has yet to receive an anime adaptation, many fans who only know Fate through its anime adaptations have probably never come across this story.
Let’s break down how this connection works and what changed between the two versions!
The Little Red Riding Hood Urban Legend in Fate/hollow ataraxia
In Fate/hollow ataraxia, the story appears as a horror urban legend from Fuyuki, originally introduced by Ayako Mitsuzuri. Known as “Little Red Riding Hood of the Semina Apartments,” it tells a pretty disturbing story.
In the story, the so-called “Mr. A” is a college student who lives in isolation. One night, his neighbor, a little girl who always wears a red hood, desperately knocks on his door after her parents die by suicide.
Frightened and afraid of getting involved, he decides to ignore the girl’s pleas for help. The result is tragic: she ends up dying in the apartment hallway, and her spirit begins haunting the place, eventually driving the college student insane.
It’s one of those horror stories that seems straightforward at first, but takes on a whole new meaning once you discover its connection to Fate/strange Fake.
How Fate/strange Fake Changed the Little Red Riding Hood Story
In Fate/strange Fake, Ryohgo Narita took the legend from hollow ataraxia and added revelations that significantly change how we understand what happened.
The story stops being just a creepy Fuyuki urban legend and develops a direct connection to Ayaka Sajyou’s identity and her involvement in the Holy Grail War.
1. The Mysterious “Mr. A” Was Actually a Woman
The first major difference is that the person known as “Mr. A” was actually a female college student.
In Fate/hollow ataraxia, the character is portrayed with a male voice because that’s how Ayako Mitsuzuri imagined the person while telling the legend. In other words, the version experienced by visual novel players didn’t necessarily reveal the true identity of the person involved.
That already changes how we interpret the story, but the second revelation is even more important!
2. She Opened the Door for Little Red Riding Hood
In the version of the legend told in Fate/hollow ataraxia, the person inside the apartment simply ignores the girl’s cries for help out of fear of getting involved.
In Fate/strange Fake, however, we discover that things were different: the student was under a hypnotic spell cast by the real Ayaka Sajyou, which led her to open the door and take Little Red Riding Hood in.
And here’s another important detail: the girl wasn’t an ordinary child, but a homunculus.
It’s precisely the fusion between the college student, known as Person A, and Little Red Riding Hood that gives rise to a physical and mental copy of Ayaka Sajyou.
This version of Ayaka eventually becomes involved in the Fate/strange Fake Holy Grail War, participating in the conflict as the Master of Richard I, the Saber.
For fans who follow the franchise exclusively through its anime adaptations, this connection is a great example of how different Fate entries can share elements and expand on stories that originally seemed like nothing more than minor background details.