As blood rains from Ryudo Temple, the final battle
begins. Shiro and Saber challenge
Gilgamesh and Assassin, unleashing the full might of their powers with Rin
risks it all to save a life and keep the Holy Grail from destroying
everything. Shiro, Rin and Saber have
sacrificed much since the War began and now its time to make sure those
sacrifices were not in vain. The past,
present and future collide as the Holy Grail War reaches its ultimate
conclusion. What awaits the
survivors? And for Shiro, knowing what
his future holds, is there still a path for him to walk with Rin by his
side?
What a journey it has been. Things started on an instant high note with
Fate/Zero, then dipped a bit but still remained sort of good at the beginning
of UBW and by the end…well let’s just go with I have mixed feelings on the
series finale of Unlimited Blade Works.
There were one or two moments that I really, really liked but overall,
the ending should have been way better.
Im running out of ways to berate and judge Shiro on all levels. In the end, he’s staying the same stubborn fool he’s been from day one. Only here, he’s unlocked the cheat code that turns him into a God capable of going toe to toe with the greatest bastard in all of Anime. Now don’t get me wrong, it was about freaking time Gilgamesh finally got to be the “mongrel” he was so fond of claiming other people were compared to him and the fight was an animation spectacle to behold. Still, I feel like this should have been Saber’s battle. Yeah she got a good fight in via one last brawl with Assassin (who by the way, was he standing guard at that temple the whole time?), but Saber and Gilgamesh had way more history than Shiro ever had with the golden haired jerk. I guess that’s one way that the Studio Deen series actually succeeds more than this one. However, it was worth all the illogicalness of it all just to see Archer slam an arrow right into Gilgamesh’s forehead and send him back to Hell…that will always be a true “F*** YEAH” moment for me in any Anime. Though where the hell Archer was hiding when I thought he was supposed to be dead is anyones guess. I don’t know, one last ex machina to save Shiro and for Rin to say goodbye to him I suppose. Actually Shiro never even got a proper goodbye with Saber, she just vanished and wished her friends well before she did. Is that really the kind of bow out you’d expect from the character who’s widely considered to be be the poster girl of the Fate/Stay Night franchise?
With the Grail War wrapped up we ended things with a two
year time jump epilogue. Thankfully,
things weren’t dragged out for 45minutes again.
However, was this kind of an epilogue really necessary? A change of scenery, a couple of new and
familiar faces (WAVER!!!) and Rin in a sexy MMA outfit didn’t help to convince
me that the series could have done without the last episode all together and
just merged Rin and Shiro’s cute classroom discussion into the previous episode
and just extended that a little bit. At
this point, everything spoken is pretty much the same thing we’ve heard Shiro
droll on about for a large amount of the series and at that point, id about had
it with him. The only saving grace there
is to Shiros character is that he has Rin to keep his life interesting and give
him a shot at not turning out like his future Archer self. Oh man, I cant believe I wasn’t going to talk
about how bad ass Rin was during the final battle. She braved a sea of curses and Fate/Stay’s
equivalent of the Tetsuo Blob from Akira to rescue the second biggest douchebag
of the series cause it was the right thing to do…maybe Shiro rubbed off on her
a little? (God I hope not). Still, Rin
had guts to take on the Holy Grail monstrosity herself. And man did the animators go out of their way
to make her look more radiant in the aftermath.
Take note gentlemen, if you can ever win the heart of a girl who will
deal with your head bashing flaws and still want to make your life better cause
she believes in and loves you…you’ll know what it’s like to have Rin Tohsaka as
the ultimate girlfriend.
So that was the end.
The war ends and Shiro and Rin go about their new lives together from
the end of high school and beyond.
Shinji will live and Sakura will watch over him. So Shinji gets off nigh scot free after all
the crap he pulled and Sakura…well Sakura never had anything of note to
contribute after all that tragic history detailed about her in Fate/Zero. Though I suppose that’s all to be told in a
future route for her. And Saber and
Archer both find their own endings and partings with their former Masters, both
on good notes. In theory, this seems
happy enough but I cant help but feel like there was still an underwhelming
feel to it all. Maybe they dragged out
wrapping up everyones stories too long, maybe not all stories were completed in
a satisfactory manner. Maybe I’m still
irked that Shiro’s hero fetish was the one and only thing that he ever talked
about right up until the last moments of the series, hell even Waver kind of
chided him for it. Maybe I should just
take a screenshot of Rin smiling while sitting on a desk because that’s the
last image I should see in any Fate/Stay Night entry…because Rin Tohsaka, not
Shiro Emiya, is the true hero of justice this show ever produced.
Well, with all said and about done, what are my final
thoughts on Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works? Compared to the previous two Fate entries ive
checked out, it’s definitely a little better than Fate/Stay Night but nowhere
near as legendary as Fate/Zero. And
actually, coming into this following Fate/Zero definitely hurt things a
bit. Sure Ufotable’s animation is second
to none when it comes to TV Anime and the action got better and better as the
show progressed, plus the ever amazing awesomeness that is Rin Tohsaka always
kept me engaged. But the show lacked a
fully compelling cast, had one of the most irritable to highly infuriating
leads ive ever had to watch screw up and the series never took advantage of all
the story Fate/Zero laid before it.
Characters like Kirei, Sakura and even Saber either took a back seat to
Shiro or were just totally forgotten by the story. Granted Sakura and Kirei both have more
substantial roles in other Fate/Stay entries but after seeing their stories
unfold in Fate/Zero, their time here was criminally unacceptable, especially
when it came to Kirei’s final demise.
Also, stellar animation and action couldn’t really help a very shaky
last quarter of the series which boiled down to Shiro spouting his BS way of
life philosophy in stereo because we were hearing it from TWO of him. The preachiness bogged things down after a
decent first three quarters of a show.
In the end, it’s hard to grade cause UBW can be really pretty to look at
but really hard to listen to cause it’ll either make you mad or just put you to
sleep.
My final score for Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works
is…a 7/10. Fate/Zero it is not but for
an entry into the Fate/Stay Night franchise, it’s a better gateway title than
the Studio Deen Fate/Stay Night series and that’s mostly thanks to the animation
and action. Just be prepared for the
headache inducing nuisance that is Shiro Emiya, or just be ready on that mute
button. Thanks for sticking with me
through this one. I’ll see ya in a
couple of weeks for the start of a new series.
Sayonara fair readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment