I thought that was a really good episode. It's not how I originally pictured Kizuki from reading the VN, but I think it fits.

 

A little different but still good. Shirou's finally becoming a badass that he was meant to be.

 

I think the best part of this episode was how you could pinpoint the exact moment Gilgamesh decided to boatmurder Shinji.

No one lays hands on the king, son.

 

Not gonna lie, i was like "Finally!!" when i saw Shirou starting to step up and got excited.

At the same time, it felt a bit Fairy Tail-ish plot protection power up in a way. I mean yea, he's been training with his Trace magic since the beginning and been working on his swordsmanship with Saber..but come on.

Dude fucking instantly knocked out Rin. Saber couldn't do jack shit to the mother fucker. And Shirou, even if he did magically somehow master the ability to materialize replications of Archer's swords(cringe worthy due to convenient timing), he was easily parrying and damaging his hands while Saber couldn't do shit?

I don't buy the Saber being caught off guard excuse either. Dunno. Maybe thats just me though.

Edit: Totally wasn't expecting Gilgamesh to be the master Kirei was giving Shinji. I mean, honestly never crossed my mind because I didn't think Gilgamesh had the self control to lower himself to be near someone as annoying as Shinji. Whatever end he meets will definitely be legendary for daring to touch Gilgamesh.

 

It does actually make sense, but the answers to your concerns are spoilers, so I'll just say wait and see. Just know that Shirou places 0% concern on his own life and would willingly let himself be killed if it saved another person, even a random stranger. So when his motivation is 'I must survive or my friend/crush is going to be killed,' it brings out the inner badass in him.

As for Saber being surprised, that is only part of it. Kuzuki uses the Hebi (Snake) Style, which is deadly and unpredictable is hell. Block his strike, and it hooks around the block to attack. Expect an attack from the front, and it comes from the side. Expect an attack from the side, and it comes from below. Each and every strike is targeted to cripple and kill. On top of that, that purple effect on his limbs was Caster Reinforcing his body to the absolute limit. It allowed him, a normal human, to fight on the same level as Saber (which by the stats is 40x stronger and 30x more agile and endurable as a human).

It's less that Saber got knocked out just because she was surprised, and more that between her surprise (from which she did not have time to recover and set her guard), his fighting style and his Reinforced body, it is a miracle she didn't die (and depending on your choices in the VN, she does).

 

Still Kuzuki was a total badass taking on Saber like that.

 

There's a proper explaination but its kinda spoilery.

Spoiler

Kuzuki's fighting style is a technique that will fuck up the opponent in the first fight but it becomes useless once the enemy sees it in action an adjusts to it. Thats why its an assassination technique, meant to be used for instakill not for drawn out fights. It was pretty much stated in the VN that Saber would ruin his shit if they fought again.

 

Pretty slow episode, but one that I still enjoyed very much, especially the last 4 minutes.

 

I bet from an Anime only perspective with no background knowledge of the VN, this episode must be confusing a lot.

Well, they did remove a lot of the Rin/dream parts so it's understandable that it's confusing. Minor details... but somehow, they all add up.

 

But for people that have read the VN, it couldn't be any more perfect imo.

Slow episode, but good. I do enjoy the Fate/Stay night monologues.

 

Well you certainly called it. Archer apparently went through the same thing that Shirou is going through...so Archer was a magic user when he was alive then? Was under the impression that only Caster class used magic.

Though I guess if Shirou was hypothetically a hero, then he'd be a Saber class hero who uses (limited)magic too so i guess that makes sense.

Not sure how to feel about Archer easily healing Shirou up. Kinda shits all over the consequences of his instant power up moment against that professor. I would have liked to see him struggling for at least 1 more episode.

Also, is it just me or has Sakura like vanished from the anime. I watched Zero so I know what she had to go through when she was younger, i'm wondering if her grandfather (if he's still alive) or w/e is behind her not getting screentime to build suspense since Shinji was publicly taken out of the war. Speaking about that, why exactly is that asshole even the representative of the Matou family when it should have been Sakura anyway considering what she went through in case her "uncle" failed in which he did.

I mean, i'm assuming there's a route where that probably is indeed the case, but whats the explanation for that not being the case in this particular route? Is it just that what happened in Zero just plain didn't happen to her in this route or what?

 

Yeah, you love asking questions that spoil the rest of the series don't you?

I'll tell you this much, the third route of the VN has a focus on Sakura. Just like the fate route had a focus on Saber, and UBW a focus on Rin. Oh, and the theme is "the friction between the real and the ideal", which is basically nasuverse for dark as hell.

Basically, we certainly aren't done with Sakura yet.

 

If you want Sakura-centric and some Rider bounce boobs action, better wait for the Heaven's Feel Movies coming up.

This is Rin-tsun moment and Shirou-badassery time.

 

Well, that's it until April.

Rin and Saber at the beginning were cute.

Caster plays dirty. Shirou is still fucking retarded. Poor Saber ends up losing the most. I thought this battle was very well animated, just like the rest of them.

Great episode to end a great first season. Having double the usual length was really nice. I'm looking forward to the spring season.

 

What a lame ending for the season. The rom-com was barely scraping by (again, reinforces my belief that ufotable sucks at that genre), the action was lacking, the dialogue and especially the BGM was poorly done, and most of all, the studio expects everybody to have read the LN before watching the anime.

I'd be interested to hear from somebody who haven't read the LN how they thought of the 1st part as a whole.

 

Was so hyped when this started playing

 

IS THAT LISA I HEAR SINGING?

 

I can't remember, but did Fate/Zero have this split season thing going on?

 

Yes

/10char

 

Huh. It seems odd that, for the obviously high budget ufotable had, that they weren't able to get the funding for two straight seasons, for Zero and UBW.