Monday, December 3, 2018

Fate/Extra: Last Encore Part 1 Episodes 1-3



Hakuno Kishinami awakens in a digital world with no memory of how he got there or who he was before.  Immedietly, he is thrust into a new incarnation of one of the oldest magical conflicts in history: The Holy Grail War.  It is a war between hundreds of wizards, each armed with their own skills and their own Servant, a great warrior from history.  Paired with the energetic and confident Saber, Hakuno must discover the truth about this strange world and discover the truth behind his own identity.  Only by winning the Holy Grail can Hakuno find all of his answers.

Fate/Stay Night.    All three of the games main route now have Anime adaptations (Fate, Unlimited Blade Works and the ongoing Heaven’s Feel).  So what more is there to do when the main story is covered?  Spin offs of course.  After all, if you can think of some way to spin it, you can make a game or an Anime out of it.  Of the many that are out there, ive seen three: Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya, Fate/Apocrypha and now this one Fate/Extra: Last Encore.  Of those three, Fate/Extra: Last Encore might be the one that gives me the biggest headache.  Which could be a shame because it looks like it has a lot going for it the more I got into this opening set.

The first thing that comes to mind when trying to sit through the first half of the first episode of Fate/Extra is how utterly confusing it is.  In a nutshell, this could all be summed up as Fate/Stay Night meets Sword Art Online: the Holy Grail War on a digital battlefield.  Ok, that’s fine but the first episode seems determined to add layer after layer after freaking layer of heavy handed exposition that there are times I think it totally just forgot to map everything out for people who wouldn’t be able to keep up and just focused on sounding profound and intelligent.  There is little explained about why there’s a digital hub of human minds located on the moon, why the Holy Grail War is continuing here and how long this has all been going on.  Even inside the actual world, it’s hard to tell who has been here longer than others.  Hakuno seems mostly numb to everything going on around him (which is one of his many, many issues but we’ll get there).  While Rin seems calm and in full grasp of the situation.  Cosistensy and proper world introduction, this premiere set of episodes does not have, not a lot of anyway.  The other two Fate spin offs I mentioned: Apocrypha and Prisma Illya both have simpler set ups.  Prisma Illya is Fate/Stay Night meets Cardcaptor Sakura.  Apocrypha is the Holy Grail War on a doubled scale…with a crap ton of major players I couldn’t bond with or keep track of, hence why I never kept up with it.  But still, theyre both way, way easier to jump into than Fate/Extra’s debut episode.

The world building and exposition isn’t the only thing holding back Fate/Extra right away.  The rest of that mostly goes to the boring as all get out Hakuno.  He claims to be angry for no reason but he acts like a block of wood with nary an emotion or vocal line above the tone of a Kevin Costner performance.  Hell at this point I think id take the whining of Shiro Emiya over this guy, at least the kid had some emotion coming out of his mouth along with his nonsense.  Not to mention theyre going the Jason Bourne amnesiac route and God only knows what we’re going to learn.  Given how much blood and senseless death got flashed across the screen in the first couple of episodes alone, how much of it is on Hakuno’s hands?  Hakuno does have that Bleach Hollow Form bit going for him, what I think Rin called Death Face?  At this point though, much like Shiro, im not into this series for him.

Thankfully, where Hakuno is just…well there to be the main character with no personality, we have Saber.  And wow this most certainly is not normal Saber.  The Saber I know is clad in blue, can kick ass but does have a bit of a stick up herself and no sense of humor.  Fate/Extra Saber is the exact opposite: clad in a red outfit with a revealing front (shows way more leg than normal saber), can kick ass and is super cheerful about it, and she’s also got a sense of humor and is into girls.  Not gonna like, I like this Saber a helluva lot more.  She’s way overconfident but not irritating about it.  She gives off a welcoming vibe, one that makes you know you can conquer anything that comes your way so long as she’s by your side.  This Saber flirts with Hakuno and danger equally and she is a ton of fun to watch on screen.  It makes me wonder, once again, why the hell they don’t just make a Fate series where Saber and Rin are partnered up and run the story themselves.  Ah yes, Rin is back too.  But she isn’t the only familiar face in Fate/Extra.  Shinji, Sakura and a shadow of Archer all appear across this opening set.  Rin, Shinji and Sakura themselves are also once again played by their voice actors from the Unlimited Blade Works English Dub (Mela Lee, Kyle McCarley and Cristine Vee respectively), so it helps to have that bit of familiarity in an otherwise totally different world from that series.

Where Hakuno fails to be engaging, Rin and Shinji both offer some interesting insights into this digital overworld the Holy Grail War takes place in.  Rin clearly has her own agenda working with Hakuno and I cant really tell how much of her “resistance movement” story is true or false.  She can hack the Serpah system like she’s hacking the matrix…which sort of begs the question if we’re seeing magic portrayed through digital imagery or if its truly legit spell work (if its anything like SAO, it’s probably the former).  Still, any way to see more Rin is always ok in my book, even if her more leathery outfit is a bit…odd.  As for Shinji, he still has the same kind of sleaze we’ve come to know him for but there’s a little bit more going on too.  He behaves arrogantly but regrets many of the things he’s done while ruling over the First Stratum.  He doesn’t want to die but he doesn’t want to kill anyone either.  He seals off his stratum and convinces others not to press on further into the war as a way of a peaceful solution.  It makes me wonder just who else is out there who has been in this fight for a long time and what kind of toll it’s taken on them.  And…it also bugs me cause I thought Hakuno and Shinji were added into the war at the same time.  But Shinji has been the Mayor of the Stratum for what seems like a long time so why…you know what, no, Im going to hurt my head trying to think about it. 

One of the immediate things I caught about Fate/Extra was its look.  It seemed more…art-housey than any other entry so far and more abstract than Fate/Zero’s straight up gorgeous presentation.  Well that is because we can add Studio Shaft to a long list of Fate/Stay Night animators including Ufotable, Studio Deen and A-1 Pictures.  For those who may not be aware, Shafts most notable projects are Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the Monogatari series.  Both are known for their arthouse style and having pretty much a whole separate story going on in the background.  Every piece of picture is moving and is begging to be paused and examined.  Granted Fate/Extra isn’t quite at the level of those two project BUT it does help it stand out from other Fate entries on that pedigree alone.  It also means we can expect some seriously trippy visuals going forward…I don’t know if that will add or quell my confusion…probably both.

Fate/Extra got off to a shaky start thanks to a bizzare and not adequately explained world and a very boring lead character.  However, a brand new awesome Saber and the return of some old friends from other Fate entries, gorgeous animation and some pretty stellar action scenes can make up for a lot of the intros shortcomings.  But can Fate/Extra skate by on those alone?  Pretty pictures can only get you so far when I don’t understand the world theyre trying to show me.  Maybe things will get clearer but at only ten episodes long…Fate/Extra has got a lot of work ahead of it.

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