Fate/Apocrypha – 17[Traumerei]

You know what? I think I have been been wrong about Joan in how I pair her and Sieg as the things dragging down this series. Joan isn’t all that bad, in fact she could be an interesting character if she just had someone who could get her out of her comfort zone. Yes, the problem isn’t Joan but rather Sieg is all to blame for this. He’s a shameless self insert character whose personal existential crisis is stereotypical and his general personality is just a void without emotion or any real character. He’s a Kirito or take your pick of any of the bargain bin light novel protagonists. Nothing quite exemplifies this more than this episode where “Insert your face here” goes out on a date which this series primary waifu bait. They try to excuse it as an attempt to draw out Jack the Ripper but the plan itself is rather flawed seeing as Jack really should know that Joan is a Ruler class and she also knows something is up with Sieg.

Anyway this date was a painful experience and truly out of line from what i expect from this franchise. True, the first series also features a date between Shirou and Saber but god dammit at least Shirou had character to work with. This episode was about Joan attempting to interact with a piece of wood! I swear I can see how much she seems to struggle with her role here as she attempts to get Sieg to say anything remotely interesting. As they montaged though the event of their “date” it was as though Sieg was some random background character in the images rather than the main protagonist. However I am thankful to A-1 for cutting out a part of the date that involved Sieg asking Joan about whether servants can get pregnant. That was certainly a conversation that I really don’t need to hear. Sadly A-1 also cut out a large part of the Jack fight which would have been really interesting to see and this seems to be a common thing with A-1. Ruining the characterisation and fights that were in the source material. The Apocrypha source material did start out really strong and while I have heard that the source does end up wasted potential, I feel it deserved better than this adaption. But well, C’est la vie.

THere is a nice parallel between Joan and Shirou here as both were killed but have different ways of looking at it. Shirou hated the people that killed him but tossed aside that hatred for the greater good. While Joan couldn’t even bring herself to hate those that killed her. Joan is a saint in every sense of the word and thus she is more deserving of the role to bring salvation to mankind. Can someone like Shirou, who harbors hatred in his heart and resorts to any means necessary to achieve his goals, truly bring humanity’s salvation? Honestly no, because he’s the villain and something’s got to be wrong with his plan. Otherwise we have the Shakugan No Shana final problem where the villains have a plan that’s great for everyone and the heroes only fight them because they are the villains. I remember feeling very confused that the show wanted me to cheer Shana on when by all accounts she was completely in the wrong.

So to clarify, the attack that Jack used on Joan was supposed to be an instant kill technique and was nullified by Joan’s attributes as a ruler. What was supposed to happen was Jack using children wielding knives to attack Joan so she could get away. This was important for two reasons, the idea of Jack giving knives to children and getting them to attack Joan is wonderfully dark. And this was the real reason that Atalanta joined in the fight as seeing Jack take advantage of children really pissed her off. We were also supposed to get Atalanta’s backstory which was to explain just why she has such a soft spot for children. The Apocrypha anime really is shafting a lot of the character development just to move the story forward and I think it would have been a better idea to remove Sieg’s presence entirely and use any screen time he took up to flesh out the cast. Jack and her Master also lost a lot of characterisation as there was a whole series of chapters detailing how Jack was summoned and how she killed her master and decided to be a servant to the hooker that was intended to be a human sacrifice. It’s a pity as I really do love the whole demented Mother/Daughter relationship that these two have. Seeing her master sacrifice herself to save Jack could have been a very good moment, in fact it was executed rather well. But it just didn’t have the screentime to justify it. We got the payoff with none of the buildup and so it just falls hollow.