Shirou is a teenager who accidentally participates in the "Holy Grail War" alongside six other mages looking for the eponymous treasure, an all-powerful, wish-granting relic.

Shirou was the sole survivor of a fire in a city and was saved by a man named Kiritsugu Emiya who inspired him to become a hero and avoid killing people during fights.

While fighting alongside the servant Saber, Shirou develops his own magical skills and, depending on the player's choices; he forms relationships with the novel's other characters.

[1] Shirou was created with the idea of being a stubborn man with ideals that would change the way his role in the story based on the different routes, something the Type-Moon originally wanted to make with the protagonist of Tsukihime.

[3] By the end of the making of the visual novel, Nasu described Shirou as a joyless hero disinterested in the war, denying himself personal happiness in order to save as many people as possible.

[7] Nasu swapped their sexes due to his experience writing the novel Tsukihime and because Type-Moon believed a male protagonist would better fit the target demographic.

Their goal of creating "a protagonist without a face" to comply with the nature of bishōjo games in the initial release of Fate/stay night is another reason Takeuchi had trouble drawing Shirou, who only appeared in a handful of scenes.

[10] Nasu believes Shirou and Ryougi Shiki in The Garden of Sinners light novels are characters who face personal problems with narrow perspectives.

[11] Nevertheless, Nasu stated that Shirou was a weaker fighter in the Fate route, but the character's magical skills developed significantly in the Unlimited Blade Works storyline beyond the capability of an average person.

The CEO of Type-Moon believed that only Nasu himself could convey all the ideas he put into Shirou, help them reflect on the screen correctly and deepen the public perception of the hero.

[20] According to the scriptwriter, the main problem of adaptation was the transfer of the culminating battle between Shirou and Archer, which, due to the great emphasis on the inner thoughts of the heroes, could not be transmitted as clearly as in the source and, according to the creators, would be boring for the audience.

[20] The choice of the epilogue was delayed for three months, and as a result, Nasu decided to write a script for a separate series telling about the future of Shirou and Rin, who went to study in London.

[8] For the release of the first Heaven's Feel film, director Tomonori Sudou said he wanted to explore Shirou and Sakura Matou's past further because he believes their relationship is the most important part of the story.

[26] For the film Oath Under Snow, singer ChouCho made two songs that focused on the relationship between Shirou and Miyu, who are the center of the plot describing it as heartwarming due to the close bond the siblings have.

The vocals focus on the fire that destroyed Shirou's city while dealing with his acceptance of Kiritsugu's death as he decided to follow his dreams regardless of any regrets he took in his life.

[52][53] As the visual novel opens, Shirou lives in a Japanese household from the city of Fuyuki under the guidance of school teacher Taiga Fujimura, years after his father Kiritsugu died.

[46] While fighting a servant named Berserker, Shirou passes all of his energy to Saber to create a replica of Caliburn, the sword in the stone which chooses the rightful king of England which the pair wield together to kill their enemy.

[49] Shirou learns that Kiritsugu was Saber's previous master, and that Excalibur's scabbard, Avalon: The Everdistant Utopia (全て遠き理想郷, Subete Tōki Risōkyō), was hidden inside his body to protect him from enemies.

[62] In the Heaven's Feel route, Shirou realizes that his schoolmate Sakura Matou is a mage who unwillingly turns into a black shadow every night to kill townspeople.

[64] While fighting corrupted versions of Saber and Berserker created by Sakura's Shadow, Shirou absorbs the arm's power, beginning the process of his mind and body breaking down.

[132] According to EpicStream, Shirou and Archer's Unlimited Blade Works was referenced by the manga Jujutsu Kaisen in February 2024 where one fighter named Yuta Okkotsu used a similar spell to summon hundred of swords and used them in battle against Ryomen Sukuna.

[135] Gamsutra added that the player's in-game choices dramatically alter Shirou's character arcs and allow Nasu to convey a different aspect of his ideal.

[136] In his analysis of the magical system and details of the personalities of the characters, Makoto Kuroda sees in the idea of Shirou to become a “champion of justice” a direct analogy with the traditional view of the life of bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism, seeking to save other people at the cost of their own efforts and suffering.

[137] In Kuroda's view, Buddhist concepts are opposed to the elements of Christian ethics contained in the plot through the opposition of Shirou and Kirei Kotomine in the form of the main character's rejection of the interpretation of Angra Mainyu as a creature who accepted the sins of others in the name of salvation.

[139] Uno Tsunehiro from Kyoto University compared his traumatic background to survivors from the September 11 attacks while also showing different ways the Japanese society used to take care of their lives in such time.

[11] Rice Digital claimed the sexual scenes were given a deep theme, as Shirou was not aggressive towards his love interest in neither route and remains as a more mature character instead.

[145] Makoto Kuroda of Wayo Women's University describes Shirou's actions towards Saber as neglect of a person's primordial survival instincts and as encompassing "selfless philanthropism and a purely boundless sense of moralism".

[165] Two writers from The Fandom Post were divided on whether Shirou is as engaging in these films as in Unlimited Blade Works,[166][167] although his posttraumatic stress disorder was noted to explore a deeper part of his past.

[177][178] Otaku USA praised him in Today's Menu for the Emiya Family because the character's cooking is presented in a positive way despite his similarities with the archetypes of action series in the previous works.

[179][180] In another review, the writer enjoyed the way this original net animation (ONA) handled the relationship between Shirou and Kiritsugu, which is only briefly shown in other works from the franchise.