Shiro and Archer’s battle reaches its climax while
Gilgamesh and Saber meet again for the first time in ten years. An old enemy is slain while another begins
his own rise to power. The Holy Grail
War has left a definitive mark of death and destruction and Shiro and Rin know
that it is only going to get worse before it ends. The pair are down to their last options and
their last opponents. Is Shiro ready to
accept his fate and challenge the greatest adversary he’s ever faced? And having changed so much since the war
began, what does Rin desire from this contest, the Grail or Shiro?
Shiro Emiya. At
times I envy his bond with Rin and Saber and how he was able to get both of
them to fall for him in two separate timelines.
Most times im eagerly hoping that he considers a much needed change in
his career goals. All the time, I find
him one of the most frustrating and often times infuriating leads in any Anime
I have ever had to spend time with. And
never has this been more evident than having to spend episodes with TWO Shiro
Emiya’s arguing back and forth in an endless circle debate that went everywhere
and nowhere.
And thanks to that, Unlimited Blade Works suffered a
pretty big halt that killed a lot of the momentum that had been building
towards this point. Fate/Stay Night:
Unlimited Blade Works, for me, has always had an uphill battle ahead of
it. Not only did it have to follow up
the incredibly well done Fate/Zero (which continues to overshadow this series
in many ways) but I also had to look forward to dealing with Shiro again after
barely tolerating him in the Studio Deen Series I reviewed a couple winters
ago. Now it feels like, as the finish
line approaches, it’s rolling down that hill after taking a serious hit. And in some cases, while it’s mostly Shiro’s
fault, the blame for this isn’t squarely on his shoulders.
I know it’s hard to believe but Shiro hasn’t really
changed since the series began, shocking I know. By the end of this penultimate set of
episodes, Rin and Saber had both changed their overall goals for entering the
Grail War. This is especially big for
Saber, who spent most of this series and all of Fate/Zero with one goal in
mind: undo the damage to Britain she held herself responsible for. Rin, meanwhile, was all about just winning
the Grail for her family but now she’s determined to save the world and destroy
the Grail. Shiro has been all about
being the ultimate hero for justice.
Rin’s tried to talk him out of it.
Kirei’s mocked the heck out of him for it. And now Shiro’s future self is telling him,
that goal is going to be a very, very, VERY bad idea when it comes to his
emotional and physical wellbeing. But
does any of that ever stop Shiro Emiya from saying “yeah you’re saying things
but im just gonna ignore you and just do my thing cause im the hero this world
deserves?” Nope and that’s what made an
epic duel feel not so epic and even tedious as Shiro and Archer clashed in
Archer’s Unlimited Blade Works realm.
You cant escape the fact that Shiro is just endlessly arguing with
himself and will never EVER change his mind.
I feel worse for Rin who’s planning to make sure Shiro doesn’t end up
like Archer cause…well love is a funny thing and she’s got nothing better to
do, the poor girl.
While Shiro’s self analysis was going on, more
interesting things were happening that we spent little time on cause none of it
involved Shiro Emiya. Kirei and Shinji
both got what’s been coming to them both for a long time. For Shinji, it felt more satisfiying cause
his sliminess was getting more psychotic by the second, especially when he was
trying to feel up a captured Rin. It was
hilarious to see Lancer just prick him and Shinji ran away screaming but I also
felt no pity when Gilgamesh shoved Illya’s heart into Shinji’s body to begin
calling forth the Holy Grail…which started turning Shinji into whatever the
hell Tetsuo mutates into at the end of Akira (seems legit). Kirei, on the other hand, had a less than
epic ending than I expected for a guy built up as one of the ultimate evils of
this war over the course of two seasons. Not that I have a problem with Lancer taking
him out, I just hoped it was more…grand?
Between a simple stabbing and a bad ass duel with Kiritsugu in
Fate/Zero, I think you can see how one would trounce the other. Kirei deserved, well more, maybe death by
Rin’s hand?
As with many times in the past, the few times Unlimited
Blade Works decides to make solid ties back to Fate/Zero, it also fails to go
the distance with those callbacks. For
the first time in 10 years, Saber and Gilgamesh met on the battlefield and we
got the whole backstory for Gilgamesh still being around, along with his
endgame (destroying the world…feels about right for him and his ego at this
point). And while theyre going on about
how the last war ended and how an “unworthy mage” screwed everything up before
Saber was forced to destroy the Grail, not once does Saber bring up that it was
Shiro’s old man who was said mage and is the reason this war got accelerated so
soon after the previous one. Guess I
should just accept what I can get from trying to connect the two shows together
at this point, even though acknowledging more of Fate/Zero would have been a
saving grace for the weakest moments of Unlimited Blade Works so far.
This was the most frustrating set of episodes to watch
yet but they weren’t without their positives.
Like I said, Kirei dying (though im half and half on that) and Shinji
getting his comupance was good. Lancer
got to go out like a true hero, saving Rin before he perished. He really would have made a good partner for
Rin in retrospect and ill miss his snark.
If nothing else, he got a far more noble death that Fate/Zero’s poor
Lancer. As always, Rin provided much of
the saving grace for even the weakest of UBW’s moments. Being defiant against Shinji at his most unhinged,
daring to take on Gilgamesh to avenge Archer, how shy she got during her
transferring her magic crest to Shiro, whenever Rin was on screen, it always
made me smile. Plus we got to see the
moment when she first fell in love with Shiro.
I bet he’s still trying to do that pole jump on his off time in secret,
knowing him.
Well with Tetsuo Shinji now poised to bring about the end
of the world, that just leaves one more thing for Shiro, Rin and Saber to
do. But is Shiro really going to go toe
to toe with the OP Gilgamesh? And while
Rin is the ultimate bad ass, can even she destroy the greatest magical relic in
history? It’s all built to this. Let’s hope the finale can offer a lot of
recovery for this uneven set. Check back
Wednesday as I wrap up the summer of Fate/Stay Night with the series finale of
Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works.
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