Fate/Apocrypha – 22[Reunion and Farewell]

Breaking my usual routine today just to give an opinion on this episode but this episode made me feel compelled to get out my opinion. We have another action packed episode with three contestants out of the war and boy did they go out with a bang. Many will notice that the animation for this episode was very different from what we are accustomed to and from my information we have Hakuyu Go(A talented taiwanese webgen animator) with friends to thank for the amount of work that went into this one episode. Indeed out of the episodes of Apocrypha so far this may be the best animated one to date but alas this comes with a bit of a cost. The animation in this episode will certainly be a divisive topic and sadly I find myself on the side that dislikes it. Mainly that this emphasizes movement over art and as a result we have a episode with a large amount of movement but character go off model and look rough far too often. I have never been too fond of this animation style as I find the off model characters to be a major immersion breaker but in this case there is a second much more problematic aspect.

Let me put it this way, today I watched a epic fight between Siegfried and Karna. What happened in that fight? Well…um…Karna unleashed his noble phantasm…something happened…then rider came and unleashed a noble phantasm…explosions…um…huh? Dear reader, what do you remember of this fight? Cause I fully admit that upon watching this that I had to truly struggle just to comprehend just what was even happening. The soundtrack and passion of the scene certainly got through but eventually what happened on screen just became a big ball of chaos and explosions. The Atlanta fights fared better as the fight was on a lower scale than Siegfried vs Karna but I do wonder just where these giant voids of space appeared from in the hanging Gardens of Babylon. Sources claim that Semiramis can change the space instead the gardens which could have resulted in these large rooms but the anime really hasn’t gone into detail on all the capability the gardens give her.

But regardless the fights in this episode remind of something and I think this could be considered the anime version of shaky cam sequences. Indeed the fast cuts and general chaos is very much like a shaky cam fight sequence and I have never truly liked those. I am more a person who enjoys good fight choreography over flashy explosion fests so it is my opinion that I actually enjoyed the Achilles vs Chiron fight in the previous episode much more than the chaotic lightshow that was Siegfried vs Karna. I do admire the effort put into this episode but I fear it will have a hit or miss quality with people. I just hope that those that don’t like it don’t do that idiotic thing of screenshoting inbetween frames and using it as evidence for bad animation. Cause hey morons, that’s not how you critique animation.

A small correction to something I previously stated in my last posts about Achilles and Atalanta. I previously said that Achilles teacher told him stories about Atalanta but it was in fact his father, whom had taken part in Calydonian Boar Hunt and The Argonaut Expedition, both of which Atalanta participated. Thus he heard stories about her and had a childhood crush on her, it’s this piece of information that makes his efforts to stop Atalanta from destroying herself and the final farewell hit so much harder. I really do adore that final scene between the two of them and I also really like how much of Karna’s character came through in his final moments. Loyal to a fault that one and honorable to the end. They say Karna can match Gilgamesh in a fight and yet he is a polar opposite to him in regards to how he treats his masters. We near the finale of the series and it looks like Rulers greatest foe is…Shakespeare? Well I did say I wanted more Shakespeare.