Fate/Zero – 14

One of the best monster episodes you will ever see.

So who else has been counting the days for the 2nd half of one of the best series of 2011? The 1st half (not sure if it’s proper to call it a “season”) ended just as the action looked to be rising, so we’re going to dive right in to a climax this time, which means we’ll get to skip the show’s weakest point – the endless exposition – for now. At least, that’s what we should see if Ufotable plays this properly.

We left things at a turning point, which were punctuated with many groans from the fandom but clearly even from the original material’s point of view, there was no cool point at which the first have could have left off. Now, after three months’ countdown, I’m pretty sure we’ll be getting down and dirty with lots of action. Let’s get set go!

Weren’ we scheduled to see Fate/Zero continuation. What is this, Top Gun remake?!

Of course, Urobuchi would insert some realism in his fantasy. What would a government do if a giant sea monster suddenly moseys into their city? Try to kill it, of course. It’s just sad that the pilots made jokes about the end of their lives, which actually happens, grossly so. The battle stage is very brilliantly set with awesome animation, CGI and amazing foreground by ufotable. There is not even one scene that seemed out of place.

Forget Shark Week, we will soon have Ultimate Squid Week de geso!

So, Gligamesh awaits entertainment looking down from high above as usual in his private, golden-green hover-craft. Lancer accompanies Irisviel, while Rider and Saber do the actual heavy work of confronting the many squishy regenerative tentacles equipped with hundred thousand eyes; this is literally Kraken’s worst nightmare. Kirtisugu and Maiya zero on their target in silence, while Ryuunosuke jumps in joy with the amazing feat of Caster. But is that all, you say? Of course, not. We have an uninvited guest to the party to shake things up, the grainy and the ever angry one: Berserker.

Start Betting! Red Vs Green! Who will win this epic fight?

It’s okay bro, I know it’s not cool yo!

On his third appearance in this series, he literally steals the show right from under Gilgamesh’s nose. Of course, the king gets more than amused. The chase that ensues is epic and very awesomely so. The red versus green is brilliant with the right amount of dialogue and insults. The mad dog as Gilgamesh calls him gets more than carried away in his chase causing Kariya to suffer during his battle against Tokiomi. Who doesn’t have any regrets about packing off his daughter, Sakura, to the Matous because that’s how she inherited their magical ancestry compared to nothing from Tohsaka family because Rin was appointed as the rightful heir on her birth. Of course that enrages Kariya even more, making him call out his Blade Wing Worms against Tokiomi. Though, both masters and servants have literally just started.

Even in death, the light he saw was tinged with red.

Though, the most important highlight of this episode was the death of first master, Ryuunosuke and by Kiritsugu’s awesome sniping skills too. You should know by now that he’s very good at sleuthing and shares this feature with Kirei who has been purposefully sneaking up and even eavesdropping around Kariya. You can call this almost obsession or finally realizing his sadistic tendency of getting pleasure from others’ pain. For Kiritsugu, killing Ryuunosuke was the sure shot for killing Caster’s prana and get rewarded but bad luck for competing parties because he still holds his noble phantasm Prelati’s Spellbook and until the monster is destroyed with a single attack (Gilgamesh’s Sword of Rupture, Ea, has that ability but he won’t use it on such filth), Fuyuki city is literally at the verge of getting destroyed. This monster is not only for show but it eats too—anything on its path that is.

However, Kiritsugu seems to have a plan and it involves our highly neglected heroine Saber of this episode. Hopefully, Rider and Lancer can see some action too. Yes, you can go bite your nails for the coming Saturday because it’s going to be awesome.

Extra Zeroes

Don’t hate the squishy monster, Saber. It just wants your love. See? It’s trying to send you a message.

I would bet on Kariya because of his reasoning. 

Creepy stalker alert!

Gilgamesh, “You can lick my feet and I’ll try thinking about batting an eyelash. Maybe.”

Caster, “Human Chucky has a great menu deal going. Let me order some fresh–.”     Ryuu, “It’s okay, brah, I got dis… *dies*”

Wow, lots of good stuff here, showcasing the best of Fate/Zero, the crazy battle royale type fight scenes. Urobuchi Gen seems to have a thing for inserting Western-style action into his stories; we saw it with Mami’s Gun Kata (Equilibrium) in Magical Girl Madoka Magica, Assassin’s security dodging (Entrapment) in the early part of Fate/Zero, and now a dogfight with a Gandalfr Berserker-hijacked fighter plane taking on Gilgamesh’s flying… thing. Seriously, I never imagined a dogfight to be a major set piece in this series, but this is a series that has managed to exceed my expectations at almost every turn.

How fascinating Gilgamesh is proving to be! If you had at all forgotten about his pompousness in the months between the 2 halves, you were quickly reminded, as he openly talked back to and pretty much ordered around his master Tohsaka. Given what we know of Gilgamesh’s his fate by the end of this war, it’s looking more and more like Tohsaka’s end will be from betrayal by his own servant. Tohsaka didn’t gain any points with me with his conversation with Matou about his 2 daughters, though I suppose it served as further explanation of how the magicians of the Type-Moon universe operate. There’s this underlying idea that all magicians are trying to discover or learn about “the source,” knowing that they’ll fail, but they’ll get a little bit closer for their children to build on, so that they can repeat the cycle. We saw it with Aozaki Touko’s story in Kara no Kyoukai, Sion Eltnam Atlasia’s story in Melty Blood, and we saw the next step of this in Rin’s story in Fate/stay night. I don’t know, it’s just technobabble to me, and it doesn’t excuse what he did to Sakura in any way.

And yes, we got to see the death of Caster’s master, even if it looks like it didn’t do much for taking down Caster himself. What a deserving death that was; a simple sniper shot from afar, nothing glorious or fancy. Pathetic, really. I’m not much of one for passing judgment, but I enjoy it when these types of psychopathic murderers get their comeuppance without much fanfare, as the scum they are and not as the gods they believe themselves to be (e.g. Yagami Light). The speech at the end of the episode made it abundantly clear that we’re setting up for Lancer’s death so that Saber can kill Caster and his monster in one shot. Obviously his death was a foregone conclusion from the start of the series, but I’ve grown to like this guy for the chivalry he displayed when fighting with Saber on the Einzbern grounds, so if he can go down in support of taking down Caster, that would make me happy. Hopefully it’ll be in a blaze of glory, taking a piece of Caster with him.

I just hope the series can keep the action up for the remaining 11 episodes, because the exposition and the asides have been weak – I’m thinking talking heads and Little Rin’s Episode of Misadventures here. Given that Matou looks like he might be a goner soon, that could mean end of Berserker as well. So with Assassin already gone, Caster, Lancer, and Berserker looking to be gone soon, we’ve just got Rider and his master Waver to be dispatched before Archer and Saber duke it out to end the series. If the show can pace these events properly without too much slowing down in between, I think we’re in for one great ride.

Worth the wait? Hell yeah! What a return and with so much eyegasmic fanservice. Fights are the highlight of Fate/Zero and ufotable knows best where to spend their money. You should know that Berserker scenes cost more because of his grainy animation along with CGI input but this is the most we saw of him and he sure is action-hungry. More so against the shiny goldie as Broskander calls him (there was a dearth of him too), the hate for whom comes from his master’s underlying abhorrence towards Tokiomi. Both of them facing off was quite a show but I already feel bad for Kariya because he got the shorter end of the stick because of the continuous power up and crest worms literally eating him from the inside. He’s given more prana to Berserker than he intended (those scarlet missiles comes with a price of Kariya’s lifeblood); though, he’s suppose to remain uncontrollable because of the Berserker class and inexperience of Kariya.

Which reminds me, I want to smack Tokiomi so bad. Seriously dude, you should have opted for family planning if there was no use of another offspring in the Tohsaka-lineage rather than feeding your own daughter to filthy Matou worms (note her hair colour, which turned purple after getting fed to the worms). What kind of a father are you? Isn’t your duty to be the first protector of a child that is born with your genes? Shame on you, Ossan with a stupid french; no wonder you are an adequate magician than an extraordinary one. Of course, Rin would surpass you in the future but just knowing the real you is the one ideal father she idolized and not even realizing your weaknesses pisses me off. Though, this is nothing new for Nasuverse because almost every character has gaping holes of weaknesses and shortcoming.

Anyways, now that Gen is responsible for script and series composition, expect a lot of truthfulness to the novel, even little details like Captain Ougi and Kobayashi; though Ultraman reference was left out. Of course, there’s a bit more drama involving Ryuunosuke’s death and Caster’s realization as in the novel, it was shorter than this. Ryuunosuke simply hugged his own gut after being shot, lovingly caressing his own blood and saying, “I see…… I never realized, huh…… The darkest place is under the candlestick.” He had never thought that what he was seeking could be hidden somewhere so near himself… Like lvlln said, creeps should get short and sudden deaths rather than epic ones because they don’t deserve it. Besides that though, Ryuu was an interesting character and Ishida Akira did more than a job well done with the voice work into translating his creepiness (remember his recent Akise Aru in Mirai Nikki and even a moderate stint as Souji in Phi Brain). I should say, the complete voice cast is brilliant and A-class.

The opening of the series by Kalafina “to the beginning” has done justice to the series with the perfectly placed visuals, while “Sora wa Takaku Kaze wa Utau” by Luna Haruna has literally intertwined your heartstrings with Kiritsugu and Irisviel. There’s too much spoiler in both; however, I still won’t go into much prediction because of already finishing the novels. Things that are already apparent however are Kiritsugu’s stalking of masters to kill off servants (what Kayneth tried doing going after Kiritsugu previously); Gilgamesh is pretty much tired of Tokiomi; Kariya has crossed the danger point, only a miracle would save him; and Kiritsugu still has few aces up his sleeve.

Lastly, we live watched this episode during the recording of MetaVerse’s sixteenth episode so look forward to its release! I have one warning about Fate/Zero’s progress, it’s going to be unexpected and people you are writing off would actually surprise you. It’s also filled with lots of bitterness, death and sorrow; I say, make your hearts stronger my fellow followers of this series because it’s going to make you scream with joy and shed few sorrowful tears. Till next time, ja ne~

Preview:

Finally the conclusion of this drawn out fight that has gone on for months in our calendar. Let’s wait for beam-chan’s action; hopefully with more doses of Broskander and hair-flipping Lancer.