Drawn into a battle he wants nothing to do with, Shiro
begins to accept his role in the Holy Grail War. However, he has more than just a number of
mages and servants that want him dead.
Shiro must contend with his overprotective nature for his own servant,
Saber. He must also learn how to work
together with the bossy Rin, who has agreed to be his ally for the time
being. As new players emerge, new
rivalries are formed and soon, those Shiro holds most dear may end up getting
caught in the crossfire.
Sometimes, it’s hard to discern what Fate Stay Night
wants to be as an Anime. It’s billed as
an action series. But then you’ve got a
ton of deep existential exposition…and a sudden dash of Harem? While the show did suffer from a bit of an
identity crisis this week, a lot of improvements were made as well. Even Shiro found himself becoming truly
likeable when he wasn’t being a douche. Don’t
worry, there’s still plenty to rant about when it comes to our uneven “main
protagonist”.
Since when did Shiro’s life become something of a Harem
Anime? With Saber and Rin moving into
his home and uprooting the peaceful nature of the household, even Taiga of all
people brings up the fact that Shiro’s home life is becoming a bit of a sitcom. Seeing Sakura and Taiga vie for control of
home from their new guests was like watching another show all together. Not that a little humor isn’t a bad thing to
break tension every once in a while. But
this kind of goes on longer than it needs to.
The upside is that it’s addressed very early on in this set and then set
aside for more serious matters. Still,
if a newcomer came into Fate Stay Night at those particular moments, I think
they’d be pretty disappointed.
The show still has plenty of balance issues when it comes
to telling it’s story. Many characters
love to hear the sound of their own voice as they spend half the episode
telling rather than showing. Naturally,
exposition is needed to enhance the tale but one or two episodes from this set
suffered from a lack of action. There
was plenty but, once more, it was few and far between explaining how magic
works or watching Shiro try to keep four beautiful women from tearing into each
other…or him. Speaking of, sigh,
sometimes it’s hard to imagine supporting Shiro as the center of this
series. He did make some good strides
this week. But you cant ignore that Shiro’s
still a tremendous pain in the ass. He’s
determined to handle the worlds problems all on his own and keep the women safe
and sound when, in truth, the women have done far more than he ever has since
the beginning of this series. It’s
almost like he’s compensating for something with his would be hero complex with
a serious death wish. Unfortunatley, as
good as the show might be without him, without Shiro, Saber cant be around
much. So we’re stuck with Mr. Would Be
Superman and his endless posturing.
BUT…as I said, Shiro did make some notable strides this
week. He had some solid scenes with both
Saber and Rin, furthering their partnership and friendship a bit. His school tour with Rin to remove sigils was
fun. I like how Shiro tried not to stare
at Rin’s butt a couple of times but also take in the hilarity of Rin, the only
person who can remove sigils, being forced to go into the Men’s room to take
one out. They are actually cute together
in a way. I loved how Shiro’s friend,
Issei, reacted so wildly to the possibility of Shiro and Rin dating, like it
was the end of the world. Rin may be a
bit on the haughty side but she’s cooler than most. You gotta admire her fire when she rebuffs
Shinji. This girl takes no crap from
anyone…and she freaking rocks for it.
There’s a reason Rin’s my favorite character on this series…besides her
good looks. While I hope the friendship
between her and Shiro stays intact, I’m hoping she comes out the true victor in
this Holy Grail War.
But it looks like the potential romance wont fall to
Shiro and Rin (not in this pathway at least) but rather Shiro and Saber. Yes, there was more arguing over Saber’s role
in battle (or in Shiro speak SABER SHOULDN’T FIGHT CAUSE SHE’S A GIRL). But once Shiro pulled his head out of his own
ego and decided to let Saber fight, so long as he partakes as well, things got
a little better. I will admit that I smiled
as Saber beat the ever loving crap out of Shiro in sword training…he’s had it
coming for so freaking long. Back to the
romance, it’s clear Shiro has a bit of a crush on Saber. The way she’s animated in the moonlight is a
clear highlight (Saber does look good ill admit). And it looks like Saber might be starting to
show a bit of a shyness of her own around her master. It’s a cute, if not flawed (mostly on Shiro’s
end) romance. And yes, it was cool to
see Shiro and Saber team up and split responsibilities taking on Shinji and
Rider. There may be hope for the
hopeless hero and the woman he doesn’t deserve yet.
Like I said, the action was a bit spread out this
week. What there was though wasn’t bad. The clear highlight was Saber’s duel by
moonlight with Assassin. I’m a sucker
for a bad ass samurai and Assassin definitely fits that bill. His swordplay and taunting of Saber was fun
to watch and listen to, I think he makes a perfect rival for the lovely Knight,
more so than Lancer or Archer (both of whom didn’t show up much this week). The fight between Assassin and Saber was one
of the best animated portions of the series yet. Even Saber’s showdown with Rider didn’t fully
live up to it. Though we did get to see
Saber with her unveild EXCALIBUR sword in action. Illya may have an unstoppable Berzerker in
her possession. But I wonder if Saber
really is the ultimate servant in this fight.
Her ultimate attack (her Noble Phantasm) was intense, something I doubt
most servants could survive if hit dead on.
And with Rider now out of the picture (and Shinji SOL as a result) it
looks like a battle with Berzerker is inevitable, so we might get to see
Excalibur take a stab at the rampaging monster.
While the pacing could use some work, I hope it will get
a bit better as we get into the second half of the series. One servant and master down, four to go (if
you don’t count Shiro and Saber and Rin and Archer since they’re teamed
up). And it looks like the focus will be
back to taking down Berzerker next week, that’s gotta be epic as all know how,
right? Guess we’ll find out. See ya next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment