Well, i'm not an expert by any means in these matters but i doubt it's always a budget thing when it comes to 2 consecutive seasons. It could simply be just a strategical choice to build hype/ avoid to much competition.

 

I might buy that if UBW was being released in summer/winter, the two dead seasons, instead of fall/spring, the two busy seasons, or if it was being aired during the day instead of the night, otaku only shows like UBW air when normal people would usually be asleep. Because it's not, they probably only got enough to make a season, and it was only after the show aired that they got more to make the second season, and I'd bet that decision was made after seeing the sales figures for the first blu-ray.

 

I'll throw a hand up, I've watched F/Z but hadn't got around to the DEEN Stay Night and found Ufotable had released this so figured I'd try the new one out before the old.

I liked it, I'm 90% certain I know what's going on. Up until this episode when Caster started talking about a

Spoiler

Lesser Grail, that shit threw me for a loop, because the whole time I was under the pretense that there was one grail.

I enjoy Rin and Archer, the conversations between Archer and Emiya are great

Spoiler

It's kinda been drummed into your skull who Archer is now, which sucks, I would've preferred a more subtler build up, one which didn't throw me for a loop but I had a sneaking suspicion and one I found out I was like "Damnit I knew it!"

Kinda bummed I'm not getting more Illyasveil but I can live with it I guess.

Utterly stunned Gilgamesh hasn't killed Shinji yet, I expected that within the first 2 minutes of them being partnered.

The animation is absolutely fucking superb, the last I've watched that was as good was Shin Sekai Yori, the music is great and the battles are spectacular as well. So overall I like it, appreciate it for what it is, and after the second season ends I'll probably stroll through the Wikia so I can understand it better because it's a great show.

 

Uh no, 2 cour a season is pretty normal.....

 

But the split isn't. That hints at money issues.

 

No I'm pretty sure it's to get animation done, not money issues...

 

Split cours are prefectly normal, especially with something like UBW. It's mostly there to preserve animation quality since near movie quality animation like this series has takes a lot longer to make than what your standard seasonal anime has. Hell I'm sure for the this first half of the show they probably had around 3/4th's of the episodes already completed before the first episode even aired, which is highly unusual for anime. Most series can barely get the completed episodes to the broadcast networks hours before they air.

 

It's worth mentioning that anime typically isn't produced with summer production breaks like in the US. Instead, they make it week-by-week-by-week, and if a show stops airing, it is quite likely that it will never be picked back up again. Perhaps Japan is taking/trying out some American studio production tips?

 

What song is this? I looked up the FSN UBW ending which is Believe, but that's not it.

 

If I recall correctly it's the visual novel opening cinematic song.

A quick search on wiki confirms it. It's called "This Illusion".

 

Well that episode was very overdone and cringe for the most part. Really wish they would cut down some of the hyperbolic dialogue and gesticulating, makes it hard to take it even remotely seriously at times.

Still, we're getting to the good shit in the next season so I'm fairly excited even though the final episode underwhelmed me. Just a shame we need to wait until April.

I do wish however that the writing in the series was edited and developed that bit more. Bit more common sense and a bit less excess could up this show from enjoyable to great, in my opinion.

 

Could you give examples? Some of the translation is different compared to the VN but it's not that bad.

 

For one, the vast majority of Caster's dialogue in this episode was just so overdone. Along with the constant villainous laughter and aforementioned gesticulations.

Also the rom-com in this episode again featured jarringly exaggerated reactions (I.e. The "Ehhhhh!" and the incessant blushing and Rin's grating tsundere-ness). Really don't think this side of things is ufotable's forte at all.

 

I didn't think the source material was much better in that sense.

 

I agree. The VN is not exactly an exhibit of gorgeous writing. I actually think that this adaptation has generally done pretty well. Could do with more of Rin's dream sequences though to give the viewer that much more context, but you need to be selective and a lot of what they've cut out has been for the better IMO, the VN could do with some streamlining.

---------- Post automerged at 03:02 ---------- Previous post was at 02:42 ----------

EDIT: Speaking of the VN, someone linked me this (SPOILERS IN
LINK) - http://bestofnasu.tumblr.com

It's hilarious. Dat prose. Also very NSFW I suppose.

 

His sex scenes are pretty terrible I agree.

 

What...
/10char

 

The writing is pretty terrible. Don't you remember the scene where he describes someone back as akin to a Mollusc.

 

Well, I can't say I've consumed much Japanese literature, but I don't think the language is known for its detailed descriptions. What Japanese lit I have read has been in general, very spartan. Mollusc-skin is pretty bad, but I don't think Fate's writing is that offensive when compared against most other anime things -- especially a lot of LN adaptations of late. In some ways, it's serviceable with at least some interesting concepts.

I would agree that the source material was not handled as well as I'd like. But it's better than that joke of a movie we got previously.

If I were to identify the core issues... it would be that we didn't quite get into Shirou's head enough and although the entire first episode was devoted to Rin we didn't get much out of it. The fights in this were nice, but they didn't really out-do Deen in the interpersonal stuff.

Caster's dialogue is pretty spot on. She's not exactly a deep or invigorating character, she's just a malevolent thing meant to spark conflict and keep things tense until Gilgamesh starts actually doing shit.

What I wish they could do is just spend all their budget on fight scenes and fuck any build up between them, but I don't think that's economically feasible

 

It's not the writing but the translation. I'd bet it would be read differently if you were reading it in the native language. Remember that almost all of the VNs are fan-translated.