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Alright! After last weeks amazing episode of Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited blade works, what does this episode hold for us!? After my opinion of Rin was so completely changed in one episode, can the same be done for Shirou Emiya?

The short answer? No.

I won’t sell this episode short, it was still pretty amazing and the animation did not slack in the slightest. However, if your memories of the first anime are still pretty fresh, it doesn’t offer a lot of new material. The most it really offers is some additional scenes of Shirou’s childhood which still don’t endear me to him.

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You know what though, they did what they could with what they had. Shirou is a slow character to start out. They honestly did what they could to make him more interesting in the beginning. [and BOY is that hard, the kid is about as interesting as staring at a paper bag all day.]

Shirou isn't sure about my paper bag comment.
Shirou isn’t sure about my paper bag comment.

So what happens in this episode? A whole lot of nothing. We see the events of episode 0 but this time from Shirou’s point of view. Shirou fixes things, a lot of things, with magic. The small amount of it he knows. He helps everyone, he’s a goody two-shoes.
We see that Shirou lives ‘alone’, which is a loose term because his family friend/homeroom teacher bums there half the time and his best friend is basically his maid. Sakura, who we met in the last episode is the sister of resident D-bag Shinji and is the poster child for abused children.

“I tripped and fell” yeah, my ass. If that isn’t the standard abused child talk right there I’ll eat my hat.

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The episode gets interesting at a few points, first when Iiliya shows up and is like “You better summon your servant soon or you’re going to die.”, Wait, how did she know he was the final master? Is it because of -insert long string of spoiler tags here-

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The next part where Shirou grows some damn balls, walks up to Shinji and is like. “Do you beat your sister?”, the only reason he has to back off his a lack of evidence. Otherwise I’m pretty sure he would of beat the shit out of Shinji. [I’d love to see that.]

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Lastly, when the actual action starts happening. He confronts Shinji about the bruise on Sakura and as a result gets stuck with cleaning the archery dojo. Personally, I would of told Shinji to go fuck himself but this is why I’m not Shirou Emiya. He spends hours cleaning the dojo until he can see his reflection in the floor and then hears something strange going on outside.
NO, Shirou, don’t do it. You’re about to wander out to your impending doom/ protagonist beginning! He sees the fight between Archer and Lancer. [-mind starts to wander off into more spoiler things, shakes it off-] Lancer notices him and goes to kill him, because you know. There’s that whole ‘no witnesses’ policy.

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Shirou gets stuck like a pig, is dying, gets saved by Rin. We saw this last episode, what’s important is what happens after he gets home from his near death experience. He crawls into his house, still half dead. When Lancer drops on him from above, he changes the composition of a poster he has in the room into a metal stick and defends himself. They run into the storehouse, where Shirou…actually pulls out a pretty badass trick.

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He unfolds the poster and uses it as a shield. Clever, clever Shirou. He makes a dramatic speech, summons Saber. There are more fights, He accidently wastes a command seal by commanding the fight between Saber and Archer to stop and the episode ends with Shirou and Rin meeting outside of the house in the fight between Saber and Archer.

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Was this episode as interesting as episode 0? Not by a long shot. However, that doesn’t make this a bad episode in the least. It’s still a good episode, but it does nothing to change my opinion of Shirou. It’s just a much needed update and polishing to things we already knew. I’ll wait for next episode with baited breathe.

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Here’s a picture of Iiliya to pass the time.

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~Midnight

 


Since Midnight did such an amazing job covering it, I’ll keep things brief (as I can). I actually liked this episode more than her, but strangely, for the exact same reason. While her memories of the old anime made her feel there wasn’t that much new, my memories contrasting this series and the old one made me more invested. It was like seeing everything done better in this ep made me like it better. I will agree, its not as good as episode 0, but I didn’t find it boring at all.

As for Shirou, I didn’t have a problem with him, which made me glad. Shirou is both a difficult character to make interesting and a difficult one to not make insufferable. However, the episode subdued his more grating elements and overall, I actually liked him and his character dynamic. He’s the Luke Skywalker, the guy who wants to be a hero and do great things, but has no path or power to do so.Another strange character thing, how the other students are getting such focus. I find this very odd due to how very minor they will be to the grand scheme of things (OR WILL THEY?)

The animation was amazing, and I felt, even elevated the story a bit. I know it seems shallow to say that but i does help. The fluidity of Taiga’s animation and the way she moves makes her eccentric, energetic personality stand out even more. The opening was stunning and amazing.  The action remains perfect; fast-paced, but you can see everything.  Lastly, as a fan of Fate/Zero, seeing Kiritsugu in this, knowing everything he had went through that night..it just is so saaaaad!!! T_T Not a lot happened in this episode, and it was mostly setting up the status quo,but I still really really liked it.

~ Savage