Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Gangsta. – 04

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gangsta

I have said it before but these twilight characters rub me the wrong way. This group of superhuman individuals just sticks out like a sore thumb in a grounded setting such as this. They are a Shounen element in a otherwise Seinien show so when they come out and start leaping on rooftops this just becomes another show altogether. While Black Lagoon had its share of superhuman individuals such as Roberta, at least the show recognized that they were indeed completely ridiculous. Here we have a kid wall jumping about the place and the main characters just treat it as another day in the office. It really undermines the skill of our main swordsman when you know that there’s a whole group of people with his level of ability, all of whom got it from some experiment. That’s one of the reasons I would respect a hero like Batman more so than Captain America, one was forged with skill and the other got it handed to him. Woricks photographic memory also runs on the borderline of being supernatural. True a person can have a good memory but you just cannot collect and process information just by flipping through the pages of a book. The father figure to the handymen looks to to be a old Cop which is admittedly a bit of a cliché. The crook that happens to have a mentor/guardian in the police is something that’s seen a bit too often. That said he seems like a decent enough character being kind to them in his own way while not such a morally upstanding person to not take advantage of their skills.

Woricks past suffers from characters who I will for now refer to as forced drama devices. The maids talking trash perfectly within earshot of him and the teachers being obstinate to teaching a boy who has already been taught. I have never been fond of these kinds of characters, they are less people and more the prodding hands of the writer. It’s lazy and merely a means to get the characters and audience to feel what the writer wants them to without putting in the effort to make less one sided characters or situations to do the same. But it at least reveals how the two met though it doesn’t quite explain why he killed his parents. Thought Worick does seem to have some paranoia that maybe he was given a deaf bodyguard on purpose so that he’s more easily killed off. Alex looks to be haunted by her experience with her pimp as it does seem like she started in a similar manner with them as she has with the handymen. It would make sense if they took her in and slowly pushed her towards prostitution. Its nice to see her get some development though I wish there was a bit more to her. At the moment she’s acting as a plot device to introduce and develop other characters so it would be good to see her gain more personality. This new twilight kid isn’t the most interesting, he mostly just comes off as a one time villain. Acting cocky, decimating the minor background characters and soon to be taken out by our main protagonists.

Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There! – 03

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There

This episode introduces what looks to be the main trio of girls for the cast. A elf girl, a mage girl and a Goth lolita girl with a giant axe. The Goth lolita, otherwise know as the Apostle of a death god, Rory is so far the most interesting of the bunch. Though mainly because the elf girl was unconscious for the majority of the episode and the mage girl is a bit too bland. Rory is one man killing machine with a halberd who is most certainly the type that looks younger than her age. She looks to be having fun with the army as they are oblivious to her true destructive power, she’s rather mischievous in that manner. But there’s a flaw with this episode in how Rory helped to defeat the dragon. When a rocket was shot at the dragon they seen that it would miss and in the span of time it took for the rocket to reach the dragon, Rory jumped out of the back, landed on the roof and threw her halberd faster than a rocket to hit the ground and cause the dragon to stumble. All in about three seconds at most. No matter how incredible this girl may be, that seems downright unfeasible.

Thus the army managed to defeat and drive off the giant monster. When I thought that, I took a moment to ponder just when was the last time I seen that happen. As the army man said, the JSDF has a (Fictional) history of fighting giant monsters. They do not however have a history of winning against giant monsters. Any time the army is brought out to fight some supernatural threat they have always proved to be ineffective and often obliterated. In fiction armies are often brought in to show the depth of the threat by getting destroyed so that the heroes victory is all the more impressive. The most recent example of this I have seen happened to be in the Aquaman DC animated movie when the army are brought in only to be completely useless and are saved by the heroes. So even if they got a little help from Rory. It’s nice to see the army have a win for once. The dragon used a style of CGI which was rather different, were they tried to fuse hand drawn texture with a CGI animation model. Alright, it didn’t quite work as the dragon still looked awkward but well it’s nice to see some experimentation.

What I really liked about this episode was the situation the army was in. They have the resources to easily take down a dragon but due to the delicate nature of bringing excess force too much into enemy territory it leaves them in the position of guiding refugees away from their village. They could only help out in small ways and even with that a lot of people still died. The funeral scene was really well done and from the looks of things they not have a group of people to care for. The next episode looks to be seeing how they integrate with the armies base.

Gangsta. – 03

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gangsta

I really don’t understand Mangalobe’s thinking on this changes, for you see this episode was an adaption of the second chapter in the manga. I don’t see the reason why they felt that they needed to mix around the order of these episodes but I suppose it’s no harm done. To be honest I found this episode to be far more entertaining than the action episode of last week. This episode mainly acted as a character development episode for Worick, where we learn he was abducted by Nicholas after he killed his parents. There definitely feels like a lot missing from the point where Worick and Nicholas became friends but at least it shows just how much the city changed him. The underlying point being that this city is the kind of place that once you become used to it, you will find it difficult to leave. Alex is really playing the same role as Rock in Black Lagoon, being a relatively normal person thrown into a crime filled place. But she shares a strange connection with Worick seeing as both were forced into prostitution.

Their thoughts are quite different however as Alex greatly resents her occupation whereas Worick thinks nothing of it. But one really telling thing was just how angry he got when Nicholas was brought into the conversation. His client seems to desire a less professional relationship while Worick keeps his distance but when she suggested a threesome with Nicholas he got quite irritated with her. And when someone mocked him for being his friend Worick got downright murderous. There’s a disconnect here as with the opening scene it was shown that Nicholas threw him into this world after killing his parents so why is it that Worick regards him so well when by all accounts he has every reason to resent him?

Another part of this episode was Alex and Nicholas making deliveries of what looks to be drugs for these people known as Twilights. A decent way of introducing the main players of the town who will likely play a much bigger part in things to come. It really pointed out how abnormal this town was as Nicholas was having fairly normal conversations as people were getting shot dead in front of him. Seeing Nicholas interact with people in general was quite interesting, as deaf characters in anime are rare. Generally he tries to avoid talking as much as possible hence his character has a lot of body language in the animation. Alex seems at a loss on how to interact with him and it’s actually a flaw on the animators part to have her say in the episode that she was afraid of him yet here she doesn’t seem all that threatened by him. Though Nicholas doesn’t look to like her very much and a lot of his interaction looks like he’s just putting up with her for Woricks sake.Also on the matter of Nicholas it seems the dying girl at the brothel they were delivering drugs to has some connection to him. All and all we have lots of setup this episode and that’s good. Three episodes in and Gangsta is proving to be a solid show, more so than Jormungand the other Black Lagoon styled show. I really need to come up with some sort of term for these kinds of shows as I am sure the Black lagoon comparison is getting worn out.

Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There! – 02

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There

This episode was certainly stronger than the first as Itami’s otaku tendencies were cut down and the focus was more on the conflict. The fight itself was brilliantly portrayed as we saw it mainly from the side of the other world. In the beginning when they were marching towards the army they were assured of their victory seeing as they had the bigger numbers. Just seeing the generals fight over who would take the front line so they could claim glory without knowing just what they were up against was amusing indeed. Only the main general found something off about the campaign. Then to see all that self confidence disappear and despair set it. You could really see when they realized the fight was unwinnable when their goal changed from beating the enemy to just hitting them with one arrow.It’s seeing it from their side is what made the episode interesting as to the army this wasn’t anything special but to the other world’s forces it was something akin to hell. The best moment was the general using a bow to fire one arrow in futility while his forces were getting slaughtered by the hundreds, then just reaching out his arms and laughing madly. I actually started to pity them there.

It’s nice that the episode didn’t take sides either as the other world’s moves make sense from a medieval standpoint and it looks to be using the war to solidify his position. Where as the army is simply responding in kind and even on there side there are those seeking to monopolise the new world’s resources. This isn’t an James Cameron’s Avatar situation where one side is clearly good and the other clearly evil. The armies were just doing their jobs and it’s nice to see the army not particularly care that they killed a huge amount of people. In any other show there would be some hamfisted moral of respecting human life shoved down the viewers throats. In a Gundam anime the main character would brood on and on about how war is terrible and killing people is bad. It is true that the protagonist Itami was rather disgusted by the aftermath it seemed more to do with how technological inferior the enemy was rather than some righteous morality. We all know that war is terrible and shouldn’t happen and we should join our hands in peace and harmony and etc, etc, so on and so forth. But sometimes war is just inevitable so its nice to see it just portrayed as it is. Not a giant fireworks festival or a overly sentimental don’t kill message set to the world’s smallest violin. The army was attacked so they responded in kind, they gave the warnings and the enemy marched regardless. That’s just how war works.

Thus after a bloody battle the army sets out to gather intelligence. Though I question how they managed to communicate with the locals and even managed to get a book translating their language to Japanese in a relatively short amount of time. Itami’s otaku-isms are still pulled in as a joke but at least now it’s rarer and at times funny. There’s just something endearing about a army rolling out after a dark battle with the squad leader and another soldier talking about meeting catgirls and waifus. But the story at least knows when to get serious s the group find a village destroyed by a dragon. Some might find it hypocritical that these people lament the deaths of the villagers when they killed far more in the battle but there’s a difference between killing defenseless civilians and armed soldiers. Next time, there be elf girls and dragons.

Gangsta. – 02

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gangsta

As this show continues the Black Lagoon vibes only get stronger but this episode did present an issue. Namely the supernaturally strong dog tag soldiers which can jump ten feet into the air and pull out road signs. In a series that at least started fairly set in reality these elements are somewhat odd though at least still feasible. Anime has always had a rather lax grip on the laws of physics so this isn’t anything new. But when the little girl mentioned these people referred to twilight’s it was a cause for concern. Gangsta has things going for it because it’s a fairly gritty show set within a somewhat realistic setting but if it starts bringing super soldier experiments into the mix that illusion is lost. Another cause for concern is that Mangalobe has skipped ahead in the manga. It’s possible they might come back to it and really what they skipped wasn’t really important but this could be a problem in future episodes if they continue to do this. Mangalobe is fairly liberal with its adaptations and when they start adding their own quirks it’s usually not for the better but instead the worse. The World God only knows anime for instance is where they attempted to stretch two episode arcs into four episode arcs with little success. So the question is whether Mangalobe can stop themselves from changing the story too much.

The fight in this episode was well animated and managed to keep things interesting but something small just broke immersion somewhat. It’s a little thing but Gangsta, much like Black Lagoon, just seems off to be watched in Japanese. It’s no fault of the Japanese voice actors but when you have a American man mocking someone for being from the orient in fluent Japanese something is just wrong. Gangsta just seems like an anime better experienced in English as with the large amount of non Japanese people would likely be speaking English more than Japanese. Subtitle only watchers, sometimes it’s just the better in English. I know that’s hard to accept but its true and I don’t care how many times you try to justify it, Goku’s voice in Japanese is just wrong.(Off topic, I know. But seriously I can’t see Goku’s Japanese voice as anything but bad.) Though I am curious as to how they will handle Nicolas’s voice in English because I think it would be interesting to keep his voice in Japanese for the English dub. Seeing as he speaks very little, requires subtitles to be understood and is from Japan it would be an interesting way of showing his character. On a last note I find it quite amusing that the moral heart of the show happens to be a prostitute, I mean a member of one of the lowest rungs of society happens to be one of the few genuinely morally upstanding people on the show. Though that looks to be changing as she helps the handymen and much like the little girl in this episode she too might become accustomed to wrongdoing.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks Review – 85/100

by AidanAK47, posted in Anime Reviews, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks, Reviews by AidanAK47

For a long time now this adaption has been the dreams of many a Fate fan with many believing it would never come to pass, but now that it is here is it everything that we dreamed? Short answer to this is no, long answer is nearly. I feel this show will have many divided on what to think of it, some will claim it’s overhyped garbage, others will think it’s the greatest thing on the face of the planet and few such as myself will see it as good but short of what it could have been. Let me give two pointers on things which could help your enjoyment. One, do not walk into this expecting Fate/Zero 2, many did and naturally they were disappointed. Basically what you should expect here is not a mature thriller but rather a shounen action. This isn’t Fate/Zero and it isn’t trying to be. Second, marathon it. The pacing of this series is dead slow and it’s better experienced in binge sessions rather than sporadically. For those who have no idea on wherther to start from here or watch Fate/Zero first you can start from either and there is no real proper order to watch these shows.

The characters and their interactions are enjoyable though some characters basically disappear in it’s second half. Shirou and Rin make a enjoyable partnership thats a joy to watch and the charisma of Lancer and Archer makes it just impossible to dislike them. The plot has interesting themes though at times they can feel forced down your throat but overall the presentation of a selfless hero’s flaws is interesting. Your enjoyment of the series may depend on your knowledge of the source material as the anime does a poor job of conveying some things which can make certain parts of the story seem like deus ex machina or cheap developments. That aside there are also weaknesses in the original text that carry over to the anime such as excessive monologuing and exposition which becomes tedious in the second half of the series when the fights become much shorter due to either a waning budget or poor decision making.

Regardless of whether people love it or hate it, this anime has set a new standard in animation and art for anime to strive for. The fight scenes only are the kind of thing that action anime dream of. I mean just look at the screenshots for these reviews, this anime is beautifully drawn and beautifully animated. This kind of quality is unimaginable for anime years before and if studios each strive for it we could be seeing an upsurge of truly visually stunning anime. Perhaps then the best animated fights in action anime will not be in the opening of the series. Music for the series is excellent but sadly not quite as noticeable, while scenes are enhanced by it there are a bit too many points of silence in episodes. The pacing of the series is it’s biggest flaw, ranging from hot and cold periods before entering into a snail’s pace for it’s second half. The second half of the series is were the main problems come in as the amount of material left in the game was not enough for a full one cour season. Things begin to get dragged out as dialogues stretch on and less and less happens each episode but if you can get through it you will receive an excellent climax with a resolute satisfying ending.

Despite it having many flaws I do believe this is an anime that anime fans should make a must watch even if only for the visuals. The first half of the series truly is excellent and for all the problems of the second half there are still standout moments such as internal visualization of Shirou coming to terms with his answer to the battle of berserker and Gilgamesh. There is definitely things to love in this adaption and hopefully for new fans it can birth an interest in the series as a whole. Now there’s only the hope that maybe the blu-rays will add more action scenes to the second half and that the upcoming Heaven’s feel movie can be as great as it can be.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 25

by AidanAK47, posted in Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

And so it ends. Surprisingly the majority of this episode is anime original content as the true end of the visual novel is shown in a flashback. Overall I like it more than the original ending as I did wonder just what happened when Shirou went to the Clock tower with Rin. Fans will noticed the appearances of Luvia and Waver who show up briefly. I really love that Waver showed up to talk with Shirou about him turning down the offer but it would have been good if he mentioned his experience with the fourth holy grail war. One thing that annoys me is that part of the episode was dedicated to a fight between Luvia and Rin because now I know that part of the budget was put aside for this fight when it could have been better put to the Assassin fight or other fights that really needed it. While it is disappointing that we didn’t get to see Shirou and Rin kiss, it is great to see their love which looks to me that Rins wearing the pants in the relationship. The visit to Sabers potential grave was a nice touch as well, giving Shirou time to say goodbye. This episode was a very good conclusion, tied up the loose ends and gave us a peek into what lies ahead. Whether Shirou does become Archer or not is up to the viewer to decide though canon wise, officially he doesn’t. It was stated that Shirou’s chances of becoming Archer in any of the three routes is rather small. The route where Shirou does become Archer has been assumed to be in the Illya route which sadly never came to be. Take note that you can take that with a grain of salt as it seems this adaption is supposed to be it’s own thing so if you believe that Shirou does become Archer in the future then by all accounts you aren’t wrong.

I cannot say enough how glad I am that they didn’t decide to animate the good ending of the route. For you see this route has two endings, the true ending and the good ending. The true ending is pretty much what you saw in the flashback, Rin inviting Shirou to come to the clock tower with her after graduation and does what an ending should, tie up everything. The good ending on the other hand basically has Saber still remain in the world, Shirou still rather oblivious to Rins affections and Rin telling him that to keep Saber in the world there is going to have to be a lot of….shall we say…mana refueling? It’s stupid and only exists for the Saber fans to enjoy. I knew that the chances of it getting animated was unlikely but well there’s always a small doubt.

As the credits roll on the episode I took the time to lay back and question when was the last time I saw a genuine satisfying ending such as this to an anime series. It’s strange that with so many anime being made that a great conclusion is actually a rare thing. Too many series end with a life goes on or a to be continued for another season which may never come to be. In that regard this episode is something special, because it caps off the series. While it is certainly not the last time we will see Fate/Stay night again(After all, Heaven’s feel is coming.) at least for this incarnation of the heroes this is the end. It’s good that this series has a ending it deserves to wash away some of my discontent with some of the last episodes. But sadly let’s talk about that. Many people seem to be pointing the finger at Miura for the flaws of this second season and it is true that he shouldn’t have been given the director’s seat for this project. He was far too inexperienced with directing a series and his only real credit was what is universally agreed to be the worst Kara no Kyoukai movie. Honestly considering that this may be his first major project it’s a commendable effort but the fact of the matter is that in someone else’s hands this good series, could have been great. Other faults at hand was a lack of material for the second season causing the pacing to slow to crawl, new anime only material being mostly inconsequential, an underutilized great soundtrack, a significant reduction of action sequences and too much focus on redundant dialogue. Still with all my problems with the series aside, this is likely the best, and only, adaption of this route that we are going to get. All things considered this is very far from a failure and I feel as when time comes to rewatch the series with my expectations more grounded, I think I will regard it more highly.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 24

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

Now this is more like it. Well as they say, better late than never and this was at least the best moment to bring back the quality. All I ask is where this was three episodes ago which it could have made all the difference in the world. Admittedly this episode has made me a lot less bitter about this second season as at least now it has a great finale. At first my expectations were set to low as once again dialogue was giving more presence with Gilgamesh rehashing what Archer was saying to Shirou having a good but unnecessary monologue. But what followed has been everything I have been waiting for in this adaption. It’s true that Shirou was showing a level of power that was beyond a human and that by realistic standards he should have been shredded to bits. (There are some explanations for this like UBW being able to copy the abilities of the owners welder but it’s only feasible at best.) But I honestly don’t care as it was exhilarating, beautiful and exciting being the fight I was long promised but not delivered till now. I am sad that other fights up till now were not given this treatment and I hold a vain hope that maybe Ufotable will add more to them for the blu-ray discs. For a fan it’s a real treat as we have, not one, not two, not three but four new remixes of songs from the visual novel. (There may be others that I missed) Those being Last Strength, Sword of promised victory, New Dawn and Disillusions piano version with Emiya played again at the climax for absolute perfection. Disillusions piano version is as emotionally sombre as ever and I feel that Sword of promised victory was done better here than Yuki’s Fate/Zero version where the choirs drained some of the impact of the song. Nostalgia may be making a fool out of me in how I am getting so excited about these songs but more than anything this show was made for the fans and this is fanservice I can get behind.

Previously I stated that even though Archer used UBW twice that it doesn’t really explain his strange mana levels. This episode shows exactly why that is the case as Archer shows up for one last attack on both Gilgamesh and the grail. Whether it is  in the visual novel or the anime this moment has always been a pretty poor deus ex machina because the only explanation for Archer still being alive is independent action. He faked his death? Can’t be done, servants can sense other servants, except for Assassin who has presence concealment, so even if he tried to fake his death both Gilgamesh and Saber should have noticed he was still around. Independent action? This only allows the servant to stay in the world two days and that estimate is based on avoiding fighting and using the absolute minimum of mana, which Archer was clearly not doing. The best excuse for this that I have gotten was that while he was Castors servant, he stockpiled on mana but this has issues as well. There is also an argument that Archer was brought back as a counter guardian seeing as the world was in peril and while I like this explaination I am afraid it doesn’t work out either as if Archer was summoned as a counter guardian then he wouldn’t remember the events of this holy grail war.  All and all Archer coming back for the final fight should be impossible but while it is cheap, at least it gives Rin a moment to say a last goodbye to him and wrap up his arc. Whether Archer used UBW once or twice doesn’t matter as this moment is still not justified and this is one of the things that shows that the source material wasn’t perfect. Archers final smile at least showed that Shirou wasn’t the only one who gained something from all this, at least now he has regained some of the optimism that put him on this path in the first place despite what awaits him.

This final fight does make me recall the fact that I only started liking Gilgamesh once I read Fate/zero as it is true that he and Kirei are fairly one dimensional in this route and the Fate route. But this fight does show the genius of Gilgameshs character. Put frankly, Gilgamesh is unbeatable. He is such a powerful opponent that if he went all out he could win the Holy Grail war within a day or even less. In terms of ability he trumps everyone so it is just so perfectly suitable that his only weakness lies in his personality. Gilgamesh is so egotistical that to go all out against someone who he seems not worty is an insult of the highest caliber. Throughout this fight he was constantly handicapping himself what from the fact that he didn’t wear armour, his limited usage of Gate of Babylon and his reluctance to use Ea. One moment I adore is the point where Shirou is about to land the killing blow and Gilgamesh is preparing to draw Ea but before he grips the handle, he hesitates. It was that moment of hesitation that sealed his doom and what truly made this a win for Shirou. Archer may have stuck the killing blow but Shirou made him take him seriously as a fighter and as the king said so himself, the moment he does that would be the the moment he truly lost. The story is essentially complete now and all that remains is the epilogue but I wonder just what will they put in to fill a episode. At worse it will just be them going to school and time wasting and at best it could elaborate on just what awaits Rin and Shirou in the future. Well let’s just wrap it up and start the long excruciating wait for Heavens Feel.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 23

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

Sometimes it’s hard being a veteran anime fan and a huge Fate Franchise fan. I sit down to watch the latest episode of this series and I want to shut up the cynical critic in the back of my brain pointing out everything that is wrong with this episode. But as events I adored from the visual novel come up and feel lesser than what I recall, a question surfaces in my mind. I like this second half of Fate/stay night, but why don’t I love it? This is an adaption of my favourite route, from one of my very first and  favourite visual novels. I should love this. I should be gushing from the heavens about how amazing this is and that none shall reach the heights of its glorious magnificence. But I don’t love it, no matter how many times I try to shut out that critical voice, I can’t help but feel that this isn’t as good as it should be. I know that to others this anime is perfectly fine, great even. I could say that my memories of the visual novel are seen from rose tinted glasses but honestly my issue with this anime isn’t that it’s not a one to one recreation of the visual novel. I don’t want monologues or excess exposition, if I did then I would just read the visual novel again. I didn’t walk into this anime adaption thinking that I couldn’t wait till I saw Archer monologue about counter guardians. I walked into this because I wanted to see those exciting fights I read about in true Ufotable animated glory. For what is the point of a full animated recreation of all spoken exposition scenes in the visual novel? Something like that is no better than a audio book.

A number of times in this episode I noticed a character make a declaration of “The real fight starts here!” only to cut away to another fight where both combatants stop fighting and start talking. What is this, a Shounen battle anime? The real victim of this cut down of action scenes is Assassin. His fight in this route is his main glory to the series, his time in the limelight and the poor guy was taken down in less than two minutes. There was supposed to be a decent fight scene between the two where Saber bends Assassins sword with her blows which in turn creates a gap in Assassin’s Tsubame Gaeshi technique. Saber then exploits that gap to strike the finishing blow, but here Saber just dodges Tsubame Gashi and cuts him down, an anticlimactic end to what should have been a exciting fight. Assassins last words were done well at least, with him sitting down on the steps in his last moments. It’s unbelievable that I say this, but Studio Deen’s 2006 Fate/stay night did this scene better. I shouldn’t be saying that, but I pin the blame on Ufotable placing more emphasis on the dialogue than the conflicts themselves.

For the positives of this episode, what little fighting there was, was good. Gilgamesh pulling out Ea to hit the grail was more or less original content but it makes a good deal more sense than him using Ea on Shirou for no reason and Shirou surviving by means unspecified. The grail growing an arm was a bit weird but at least it shows its desire to use Gilgamesh as a substitute core. Still on the fence about why Gilgamesh would use Ea to destroy the very thing he intends to use to destroy the world but well it’s Gilgamesh. Chances are that he just got annoyed by it. Speaking of his intentions, I was rather surprised when Rin asked Gilgamesh what he intents for the grail when he made it abundantly clear when he encountered them in Illya’s castle. Gilgamesh essentially repeats himself and I wonder as to why we couldn’t cut out his speech from two episodes previous and add that runtime to Archer and Shirou fight. So ladies and gents, this is it. The next episode is the conclusion to the last fight of the series and will ultimately determine my feelings for the series as a whole. So I ask, nay I plea. Ufotable, I know you can give this fight justice, you have shown me before that you have the capability. All I ask is that you display the excellence shown at the berserker fight of the first season once more to give this show the finale it deserves. This is the last adaption this route is going to get and likely the best we can hope for, I just don’t want to walk away from it disappointed.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 22

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

A fairly uneventful episode this week.In some ways for me that’s good as it allows me to go into detail about the nature of the ever so popular CGI dolpins. But first let’s speak about what happened. Our three heroes had a strategy meeting discussing how to deal with Gilgamesh and the grail while all coming to the agreement that the grail should now be destroyed. Upon figuring out that Shirou is likely the best opponent for Gilgamesh, Rin then creates a link between her and Shirou so that he can make use of her reserves of mana. Saber comes to terms with the answer she gained from Shirou’s battle. And Shinji has turned into a berserker Eva unit. The strategy meeting was pretty much as expected. What I feel was the best part of the episode, though in truth it is a little tacked on to give Saber some closure to her arc, was Sabers conversation. It really was a conversation for the viewers than Shirou as even Saber knows he wouldn’t understand exactly what she is talking about. But seeing her walk around and talking with Shirou with a serene smile really showed that she had come to terms with her past. It was a pretty powerful scene when you think of just what she has been though and should benefit the events to come. The holy grails form has a small change from its visual novel counterpart. Now the mass of flesh has a large human like effigy on top of it that houses shinji who’s not looking his best. Overall I like the change though the Shinji shot was a little unnecessary. But I rather wish it kept the metal design it had before the mass of flesh emerged. I rather liked the look.

Now to the meat of the episode. For a long time now one of the greatest criticisms of Studio Deens Fate/stay night was the decision to replace a scene that was originally a sex scene with this magic circuit transplant that happened to show it using one of the worst examples of CGI in anime, a CGI dragon. The tradition was kept with the movie of this route, where they used terrible CGI dolphins to show Rin linking her mana with Shirou’s. These scenes are mocked to high heaven and when I see someone bashing them I can’t help but find it most amusing. It is to me a perfect example of just how blind a fanboy can be to the flaws of the work. So lets just get this straight, in this scene of the visual novel, Rin and Shirou have sex as it is the condition to set up this magic link. This is something that a lot of visual novels have in common, forced in sex scenes. For some odd reason there is some unwritten rule that visual novels must have sex scenes, even if it’s not suitable. Because of this visual novels tend to have contrived situations to push the characters towards sex near the end of a route. Here’s the important thing. Fate/stay Nights sex scenes are not known to be good. As a matter of fact, sex scenes in any Type Moon visual novel have an infamous reputation for being hilariously awful. There is some explanation saying that Nasu left the sex scenes to a different writer but regardless they have lines that would rival Fifty Shades of Grey in terrible writing. Type Moon even had a competition where they got fans to write the most purposefully terrible and funny sex scenes and featured some of the highlights in the fan-disc of Tsukihime. So I just find it amusing that there are people mocking Dolphins and Dragons of Deen when the Visual novel sports such standout sex dialogue as “It makes me feel so good that I want to vomit.” and “My grotesque meat stabs into her” Of course even taking out that it isn’t really logical for there to be a easy way to share mana and have Mages not be making use of it. Shouldn’t there be mage wives who are made to be mana batteries in this case? It makes more sense that this link would require such a huge sacrifice or else there is the question of why other mages don’t make use of the method.

Ufotables treatment of the scene is at least decent. I liked the inclusion of the scene with Shirou trying to do a high jump in the school yard. It is the scene that sparked both Sakura’s and Rin’s interest in Shirou. Makes sense that she wouldn’t want him to know about it. But Rin really did go into tsundere overdrive when for the majority of the series she was keeping it pretty under control. Admitly the heavily sex implied talk they had before the act was rather entertaining and fairly humorous. I do pity the English dub voice actor whose going to have to lip sync and pronounce all that mangled German. That will be a hard task to pull off. However, though they were only on screen of about a few seconds, those CGI fish/tadpoles/whatever looked terrible. Would have been best just to keep it to the CGI mana circuits lighting up and left it at that Ufotable. Next week is a decisive moment and where the series enters its climax. My final opinion on this will depend heavily on how these last episodes pan out but I am hoping they live up to expectation. They can’t rush it, that’s for sure as this is where the budget should really be going. I noticed in images for the next episode that looks like a part from near the end of the fight and it worries me. This is the big moment, do not mess this up.