We near the finale and Apocrypha gears up to bring things to a close, even if that setup is essentially mentioning that the battle is coming to an end over and over again. it’s more than a little strange to see this episode start up and it is though the entire three episode arc of dealing with Jack the Ripper never even happened. I actually think you could skip over those episodes entirely and starting this episode nothing would really feel amiss. It feels rushed at just how this series is pushing towards a finale, with only Sisgou and Mordred proving to be the most natural on screen. This episode had a focus on Fiore giving up on her right to lead the house on the basis that she is simply not cut out for the life of a mage. She has plenty of magic talent as stated by Chiron but is too kind to take on the normally dark aspects of a mage lifestyle. Bit of a stretch as you don’t need to disregard life in order to be a mage and she certainly gave up rather fast seeing as her whole reason for entering the war was to allow her to walk and be a mage without giving up on one. I like the narrative arc of having Caules become the leader of the Yggdmillennia but I certainly feel like this development isn’t as smooth as they wanted it to be. Plus they really played down just how intense transferring a magic crest is. It normally requires surgery.
I have heard word that Fate/Apocrypha was an attempt by the writer Yuichiro Higashide to top Fate/Zero. It’s up for debate on how true this is as the wiki states that Kinoko Nasu planned and wrote a majority of the story elements for the characters and plot. That said there is a certain air around this series of wanting to emulate Zero, especially in the light novels. The Assassin of black duo are very reminiscent of the castor duo in Zero. Having the story focus on multiple master and servant pairs instead of basing it around one. A general dark tone and having a presist of the church be a main villain. Admittedly these are abstract vague comparisons and could very well be brushed off but I even felt that out of all the fate works that Apocrypha was the closest to being a Fate/Zero 2. That said it overexerted itself due to having a writer who really can’t match up to the scale of the narrative he wants to tell. Apocrypha has good ideas and good characters(Aside from you know who) and I would very much attribute those to Nasu as that has always been his forte. Gen was the master of exposition, pacing and focus, elements which Apocrypha is very much missing. Fate/Zero is a tight story with nary a unnessary moment. Apocrypha on the other hand has had several episodes which could be removed from the story entirely. Now this isn’t to say that Urobuchi Gen is a perfect write, believe me that he has his own writing issues, but I do want to point out just how much of a perfect match Gen and Nasu were. Higashide is not Gen and as such cannot take Nasu’s good ideas and make a good patchwork. So should Gen and Nasu just write all future Fate works from now on? Well that does sound interesting but other writers have proven they can work their own magic on it. Ryohyo Narita’s Fate/ Strange Fake has quite a number of fans after all.
I have become significantly less fond of astolfo as of late. Part of that might be because of him helping to ship Sieg and Joan in this episode but I admit that a large part of his character is just the gimmick of him being a trap. I liked him in the novel for being the comic relief much in the same way as Alexander did in Fate/Zero. But he’s just not provided anything besides trap jokes but perhaps much like Joan, his problem is in that he just has a cardboard plank to work off of. Again, so many of Apocrypha’s problems connect back to Sieg. It’s a pity that Mordred and Sisgou are not in the spotlight more as this episode was at least made more interesting by Mordred being to wonder just what makes a good king. Rather amusing that despite wanting to usurp the title from Arturia, that her idea of a good king is very much the same as hers. The every same idea that got so chastised by Alexander in Zero. Despite her professed hate, she still holds a high degree of respect and admiration for her father. Something that Sisgou sees easily…sigh…why is it that these two were shafted into the side character slot? I do believe this series was significantly better when we were under the impression that they were to be the main characters. So the last battle draws near and Apocrypha is looking to be a decent but sadly disappointing entry into the Fate animated universe. Pity we had so many Fate adaptations this year and a majority of them disappointed. Grand Order’s Ova was rather bad, though I must admit the Mobile app itself has me absolutely addicted.(Saving my quartz for you, my darling Scathach) Fate/Apocrypha disappointed. Fate/Prisma Illya’s movie, despite adapting the best part of the manga, has dropped the ball on animation quality.(Though the movie seems to be still pretty decent) Heaven’s Feel at least looks like it delivered for you goddamn lucky Americains. And I have no real expectations for the Fate/Extra adaption happening next season due to the source material being nothing special. The year of Fate has sadly not turned out well but maybe now Nasu can get off hs lazy ass and write something for a change.
Agree. The quality of a series really depends on how good/bad the MC is. I never really liked Astolpho that much but at least Sieg doesn’t blush seeing him all the time and Asolpho isn’t nearly as moe and naive as the traps in most other series (props to Gachaman Crowds and KurageHime for proper trap characters though).
Kinda disappointed in the Jack arc though. The proto chapter 00 alone was three times better than that arc here and I prefer Jack being the accumulated anger of aborted children over her just being somehow a collective wraith of children living in poverty or whatever the anime implied. This isn’t even related to prostitutes and wouldn’t explain the murders. But maybe I interpreted things wrong here.
Also fuck yeah Scathach man! Kinda sad I couldn’t get Okita (she’s a way better Saber than I thought) but at least I got the third 5* now with Attila and I have Gil, now please a good Lancer..~
I wouldn’t say a MC is the be all end all of a series but it certainly can effect a series. Even the MCs voice actor can do serous damage if Black Clover is anything to go by.
Argees. Jack just feels like a pointless footnote here considering that out of all the servents, she has a series of chapters covering just her introduction. Though Fate/strange Fake has a far more interesting idea for a Jack the Ripper where the servents more was an embodiment of the Jack the Ripper legend and is a being who can take the forms of various people.
I only used Summon tickets in GudaGuda cause I have no real interest in Okita. She seems like good quick support and I am in desperate need of a good Saber but it’s not enough to use my stash saved for Scathach. I have yet to get a 5* but I got a solid team. If you get Cu Chulainn then make him your main Lancer. I swear he is a godsend that has saved my ass so many times. If it wasn’t for Scathach I would grail him and make him part of my endgame team.
Okita is very good simply because she’s the first single target NP Saber. AKA Lancer boss killer. She’s also incredibly good at criticals because of her quick card set. But she’s insanely hard to get. She’s the Saber version of Scatlach. If you can get two of them together, Scatlach’s quick up skill will turn Okita into a real killer. Plus, Okita is one of the few characters illustrated by Takeshi Takeuchi himself. If you do miss her, the only other two characters in her class would be Nero Bride and Miyamoto Musashi. Or you can try for Berserker Kintoki. Don’t disparage her because of her gag 4koma origins. She’s very powerful.
Agree. Honestly regarding story Strange Fake is what interests me the most at the moment. I think it has the best ideas overall, just think of the in-dream master and the black death, Jack with the many appearances, fake assassin and so on. And we finally get Enkidu and another interpretation of Gil and Herc.
Overall I think Apocrypha is still enjoyable but has a lot of wasted potential, as you said. And the anime kinda made that worse.
And yeah I agree again. F/GO’s Cu is a real cockroach with his skills. Another one is Herc if you get his max. bond CE that revives him again and again. Really looking forward to Scat though, same as King Hassan (a competent Hassan, I can’t believe it) and others. Nobunaga is great too.
I hope at least some of them will get appearances in anime someday but considering that F/GO shits out money like nothing else before we will probably get new Fate stories for the next 100 years or so. I also hope this motivates Nasu to finally do the Tsukihime remake.
I think Mordred as MC was impossible from the start because of how popular Arturia is. This would be her debut appearance to a wider audience and Mordred is basically Arturia’s bane and main source of her trauma, along with Morgana. Arturia’s rabid fan club would be expected to vilify her instantly. She got most of the development she did probably to mitigate that.
Fan attention would instead be mostly fixed on Joan, since this would be her first wide audience appearance since her Fate Zero cameo.
I think Sieg is getting the usual bland japanese anime MC hate, much like Shirou himself. As usual, I have to argue that he’s made bland so more of the audience can project themselves on him more easily. It’s particular strong for Apocrypha since it’s based off the script for a planned Fate MMO. So you might consider Sieg an earlier version of FGO’s Gudao. Player Avatar version 0.5?
Jack, well. Again, I wonder how the novel version would have worked out. Interestingly, Jack’s Master was also a prostitute and yet Jack latched on to her like a mother figure and actually tried to win the war for her instead of doing to her what she did to most prostitutes in her time so I wish this had been clarified. 3 episodes weren’t enough to go there but I think they mainly wanted to wrap things up so everything fit the main scenario while leaving people with a positive impression of Jack so they’d be happy to spend money trying to get her when London comes out in FGO. (She’s one of the best Assassins in FGO. Anti-Rider, Anti-Female, Best Crit Star Generator. Calls the player “Oka-san” regardless of player gender. >.>; Shows up in a lot of scenes where kids are called for, along with Nursery Rhyme.)