The stage is set, the actors are in place and the curtain is rising. So I can say this episode’s title was certainly apt. Unfortunately this week we have no bombastic fight scene to ogle and instead we get a heavy dose of info dumping. This is not the most exciting of episodes but the ending scene does promise to make up for the lack of action. Truly, UFOtable made a wise choice when deciding to make the first two episodes an hour long, as to get to this point in what could have been five weeks with regular twenty four minute episodes would have been a terrible slow start. Though I did think that the show was more suited to a hour long episode format but well that may be me moaning about my weekly fate/stay night being all the shorter. Well c’est la vie.
Servants, mana, the holy grail war…if you are familiar with any part of the canon then these things is something you already know about. Making this the least interesting episode for fate fans. We all know this episode needs to happen and we can thank UFOtable for getting it out of the way. Not to say there won’t be info dumping later in the series but at least it will not be quite as excessive. Let me summarize this episode, Shirou is taken inside his house to be told about the holy grail war. Then he is taken to the church where Kotomine Kirei tells him more about the holy grail war and Shirou makes the choice to fight. That is the episode in a nutshell. Like I said, not the most eventful of episodes.
One of the commenters in the previous episode review made a statement about Tohsaka Rin being a character that panders to the audience. On reading this I felt he was exaggerating a bit but upon seeing Rin berate herself for failing to summon Saber by vigorously scratching her hair, lying on the floor and then wiggling her butt in the air, I must be forced to admit that maybe this man has a point. This reaction was much more subdued in the source and I can’t see any reason for it to be this overdone other than to titillate the character fanbase. I for one would appreciate these kinds of reactions being less evident in the rest of the series. Shirou also didn’t come looking the best seeing as a lot of his lines in this episode was mainly him taking what has already been said and repeating it in the form of a question or simply asking questions. This became better as he was talking to Kirei but overall it doesn’t make his character seem all that smart when all other characters are lecturing him. And yes Kirei, definitely the highlight of the episode. Now having accepted his nature in the prequel anime he has now become a lot more, shall we say, cheerful? His antagonistic quips and small manipulations making a large infodump a lot more interesting. Things like trying to push Shirou into killing masters while omitting the information that he doesn’t need to, help get across the information better rather than simply laying it out straight. And while this may be personal preference speaking, I have always loved the tone of his voice. While his english voice actor has done a great job presenting the character, one thing I feel he could never match was the Japanese voice actors sound. A voice that is grandiose, yet hinted with malicious intent. Truly the voice of a man such as Kotomine Kirei.
The art of the series remains excellent and while the animation this week does not require much there is enough movement to show these are not motionless dolls and actually human beings talking. The environments are looking great with the fog and desolate atmosphere which should lend well to the next episode. Finally this helping ends with the formerly shown magical girl coming to attack our heroes so next episode will be quite the treat. That I promise.
