Fate/Extra: Last Encore Part 2 Episodes 4-7

Having defeated the first stage, Hakuno and Saber ascend to the next level.  Traveling with them is a new ally: the beautiful prodigy Rin Tohsaka.  The further Hakuno heads into battle, the more he begins to learn the true twistedness of this world and the effects of the Holy Grail War.  Some of these combatants have been fighting for centuries without end.  In the back of his mind, Hakuno can feel he might be one of these lost souls.  Though if he is to learn the truth, he must brave snipers, mind traps and servants who are deadlier than the last.  Saber vows to protect him but will her confidence and sword be enough?

As of right now, im of two minds with Fate/Extra.  On one side, this show bugs the hell out of me with all of its complexity, lack of clear cut motivations and directions and the worst lead character in this franchise yet.  On the other side, this show has got some rather deep stories to tell through some amazing artwork.  Both of these mindsets collided in this weeks string of episodes that saw Hakuno, Saber and Rin ascended through two more Stratums, each with their own revelations and tragic stories to tell…and theyre way more likeable ones than Haukno.

As the awesome Rani VIII revealed, the world of Seraph and the Holy Grail War that has been running within it has been running for over 1000 years and with its continuation, Seraph has continued to degrade.  Oh and humanity is near extinction back on Earth it seems.  That’s a lot to take in and further adds to the complexity of it all.  With a reveal like that, shouldn’t getting the hell right to the final boss be more imperative?  I mean, the fate of the world is at stake and all.  And yet, Fate/Extra’s cast just seems to accept everything and move on like it’s just another day at the office.  I still don’t get why Mooncel exists or why Seraph suddenly went all self destruct.  At this point, it really does feel like someone decided to give Fate/Stay Night a Sword Art Online style setting to play in and damn if nothing is established or explained as a whole.

Once again, though, where Hakuno fails to be compelling or the world building continues to falter, the characters remain Fate/Extra’s saving grace. Im actually glad these Stratums are not one episode and done kind of deals.  The tales of Dan Blackmore and young Alice were so tragic that one episode could never do them justice.  For Blackmore, it was the possibility that he’d been trapped in his Stratum for so long that he’d forgotten why he wanted to win the Holy Grail War and just kept fighting just to fight.  His mind and character felt warped from being stuck in the same place for over a full millennia…not the fate id wish for (no pun intended).  And then there was poor little Alice, who turned out to be the ghost of a long dead girl who just didn’t want to be forgotten.  Yeah she ended up literally slaughtering hundreds in gruesome fashion in the process (btw this series is bloody as hell).  But I always felt so sorry for the poor girl.  They say Seraph was supposed to be a utopia but stories like Alices only strengthen everyone belief that is has become a digital hell.  It was here also that we were treated to much of the artwork Studio Shaft is best known for.  The whimsical world of Alice’s Wonderland was dark, foreboding and busy in every single frame, just like the darker dimensions of Madoka Magica.  Fate/Extra has looked ok so far but it has never felt like it was taking full advantage of Shaft’s true animation powers until the Alice episodes.  The overall designs does wonders for illustrating Alice’s oh so sad fairy tale ending (remember the OG ones never end well themselves as Alice and Rin both point out) and helped make them some of the best episodes of Fate/Extra thus far.

I really cant stop singing the praises of Saber.  Even in the darkness of Wonderland, she never lost her cool, confidence or never ending optimism.  The differences between her and her blue clad predecessor continue to astound me.  Whereas Arturia was dead set on selfishly reworking her own past to right her wrongs, Fate/Extra Saber seems to have embraced her entire history, the good and the bad, with an unkillable smile.  She believes in chivalry and a fair fight but also doesn’t mind walking around Hakuno in very little clothing…just cause she can and she will always own that attitude.  It almost makes me hate Hakuno more cause he’s so stiff and internally brooding he really doesn’t feel deserving of such an energetic guardian who will even hold his hand through the darkness.

Surprisingly for me, Rin on the other hand is kind of a mixed bag.  I love that her voice actress from the old shows is back, I love her new look, and even when I don’t understand it all, she can still do exposition like nobodies business and make it sound so fascinating.  But her overall role is being just as shrouded as everything else in Fate/Extra.  Is she using Hakuno to get to the Angelica Cage and then win the Grail War herself?  Most puzzling is how the hell can she turn into Lancer?  This isn’t even explained like it is in Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya, where the servants are Card Captor Sakura style cards who magic can be accessed to give the user a Servants power.  What’s more, Hakuno and Saber both seemed stunned by this…and then just shrug it off or just plain ignore it.  I don’t know about you but this is one mystery id very much like answered, no matter how cool Rin looks in a Lancer outfit.

Fate/Extra had some good tales to tell and gave Studio Shaft a chance to remind the world why it’s one of the most beloved studios in all of Anime.  But Seraph still makes no sense.  Hakuno is basically walking into a wall and not caring while everyone else cares for him.  Overall, I feel so freaking lost and not in a good way.  Even when the show is at its best with Saber, the action or another tragic floor master, it makes me wonder if any actual thought went into making this show besides the visuals.  Yeah…something tells me this isn’t going to wrap up so nicely next week.  I’d say, brace for a rant, yeah a rant is most certainly coming.

FIF#69-Mobile Suit Gundam AGE

The years is AG (Advanced Generation) 115.  Fourteen years have passed since a mysterious force, dubbed the Unknown Enemy (UE) ravaged the space colonies, leaving hundreds dead.  Among the victims of that attack was the mother of a young prodigee named Flit Asuno.  Since then, Flit has dedicated his life to developing a weapon capable of battling the UE and protecting the colonies, a mobile suit he calls “Gundam”.  When the UE suddenly return to attack his home colony, Flit flies into action.  But his battle will only be the first of many and Flit will not be the only Asuno to see battle against the UE in a Gundam.  A war spanning nearly a century, with the name Asuno echoing throughout, begins.

Welcome back to GundamCember 2.  This was supposed to be the episode that kicked everything off but with the surprise preview of Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative, it was too big a surprise to pass up taking a look at that first.  So I felt bad and opted to do a first for FIF, two in the same day.  If you haven’t taken a look at my first thoughts on Gundam Narrative, feel free to take a look here: http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/fif68-mobile-suit-gundam-narrative.html  Meanwhile, let’s move onto the beginning of one of Gundam’s more ambitious projects, Mobile Suit Gundam AGE.

I say AGE is ambitious because the whole projects goal is to tell a story across three generations of pilots, all from the same family.  That’s an intriguing notion but also a risky one.  If you think about it, Gundam started off with a tale spanning three generations in the Universal Century with Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ before wrapping up in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack.  That’s around 150 episodes and 1 film worth of story.  Can AGE really accomplish the same in a third of that time (49 episodes)?

Im talking about the series as a whole, how does it start?  It starts well enough.  I seriously doubt the mysterious UE’s are actually aliens.  Given the mixed reception bringing extraterrestrials into Gundam received in Gundam 00: The Movie, I think Sunrise might be better off sticking to the human vs human conflict that made Gundam such a game changer in the Giant Robot Genre.  Still, the rest of the episode plays with all the usual Gundam introductory tropes from an ambitious youth to a colony attack to the titular Gundam taking out an enemy swiftly in its first sortie.  We’ve seen that done almost to death at this point, from Mobile Suit Gundam to Gundam Seed (and repeated immediately again in Seed Destiny).  Does anything help AGE stand out?  Well I like that Flit was the one behind the creation of this universes Gundam, basing its design on a family legend.  The painting of a Gundam in his house reminded me of the Turn A, sans the mustache.  The kid definitely has Amuro Rey beat in the Gundam development department since Amuro didn’t really build his own until 14 years after his first battle in the Mobile Suit.  One thing that Im not as sold on is the character design and artwork.  Everyone looks like they came from a video game rather than your typical Gundamverse.  And for the life of me, I couldn’t think of any video game title other than Mega Man while muling this over.  Upon further research I discovered that Level 5 Studios (the creators of the Professor Layton series) had a hand in this one.  Does a design approach like this really work with Gundam though?  Maybe it gets better or might grow on me, who know.

For a series set to tell a hundred years story in a standard Gundam series amount of time (average length of a Gundam show is about 50 episodes), Mobile Suit Gundam Age definitely has its work cut out for it.  That said, I don’t know if it had time to follow the usual Gundam premiere blueprint to get things going.  I wonder how much time we’re going to spend with Flit before moving to whatever Asuno comes next (I assume his son)?  I haven’t heard a lot of positive fan reaction to AGE all around but considering what its trying to do, it might be worth a full watch, or at the very least I should check out the first arc to see if I get a full story in 13-16 episodes, give or take.  Seeing as how it might be my lifes goal to watch all of Gundam, ill probably end up watching it anyway.  It couldn’t be worse than Seed Destiny or Build Fighters Try…could it?

FIF#68-Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative

UC 0097. A year has passed since the “Laplace Incident” which ended with the disappearance of two Gundams and a revelation of monumental proportions.  The world, however, remains the same with little change to come from the aftermath of that battle.  That is until a third Gundam Unicorn type, the Phenex appears and the hunt for its capture begins.  As two desperate forces search for this powerful Newtype machine, the lives of three people, who bore witness to the greatest clamity of the One Year War, will come together again with the fate of the Newtype myth now hanging in the balance.

Welcome dear readers to the start of a special set of First Impression Friday features, GundamCember 2.  Much like last December, im once again looking at the first episodes of four Gundam shows I haven’t covered here at the Gundam Anime Corner and offering up my initial thoughts.  To kick things off, im actually going to be looking at a nice surprise we got last week.  To coincide with it’s opening in Japan, GundamInfo, the official Gundam Youtube page, posted the first 23 minutes of the newest Gundam feature film, Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative.  Long enough for a first impression, right?

For the longest time after Gundam Unicorn ended, I wanted a sequel.  The game changing discovery of the contents of Laplace’s Box boggled the mind, and it was just one tiny inscription on the Universal Century Charter too.  Would this propel the Universal Century right into UC 0100?  What sort of ramnifications would this have on Earth and the continuing emergence of Newtypes?  Well, Gundam Narrative is hopefully here to answer those questions and more.  At the beginning though, I guess it makes sense but it’s also surprising nothing has come of the contents of Laplace’s Box.  Federation’s still playing power games in the name of peace.  Zeon’s still barely on life support but still causing trouble…its like nothing really changes ever.  But that was just the beginning.

The first 20min look at Gundam Narrative gives a lot to chew on and ponder.  Yes we get a couple of decent action sequences, one even involving the titular Narrative and the Gundam Phenex.  That was actually a relief that we got some exciting moments because you’d think most opening thirds of a movie would focus on backstory and exposition heavy dialogues.  And there are those but the most fascinating bit of the intro is the fact that the films three leads: Jona, Rita and Michele all had a shared vision of the colony drop on Sydney, Australia during the One Year War just before it happened.  And no one was making a big deal about this Newtype level situation because?  Or was it kept under wraps?  What ever the case, the event plays a big part beyond its general place in UC Gundam mythology.  It tore the core trio of characters apart in various ways and only now are they slowly coming together again in the worst way possible, as adversaries…mostly.  I can even sense a bit of a Macross like love triangle cause I think Michele has feelings for Jona, who has feelings for Rita, furthering her hatred to the “Miracle Child” (is that early slang for Newtype?).  Having these three at the front of things doesn’t mean we wont see any familiar faces.  As this is a Gundam Unicorn sequel, I suspect Banagher (and probably Ridhe God forbid) will pop up and Mineva Zabi appears briefly in the opening too, with the promise of Captain Zinnerman coming along for the ride too. 

Presentation wise, all of the stops have been pulled out.  I didn’t realize this is the first original Gundam film since Mobile Suit Gundam 00: The Movie AND it’s the first Gundam film in 27 years since Mobile Suit Gundam F91.  I guess we’ve gotten more compilation films than original Gundam features in big screens over 40 years…that’s weird.  Still, it means Narrative needed to make a statement in its production quality and WOW, it looks like Unicorn might not be the best looking Gundam out there anymore.  The fast paced action scene between the Narrative and the Phenex was great, lots of colors flashing, lots of moving parts and lots of explosions.  The mecha designs look great and the more detailed look at the colony drop is just as terrifying as you’d expect it to be.  If this movie looks good in just a 20 minute demo, imagine how the rest will play out.

I can wait to watch the rest of Gundam Narrative, and probably review it too cause why not?  It continues one of my favorite Universal Century tales but still has a very fascinating story to tell.  And it’s continuing the theme of looking back on the past before we get to a monumental date in the Universal Century (and begs the question, will anything exciting happen when the UC turns 100).  I want to know about the new characters, I want to know what Mineva and Banagher have been up to, I want to see the Phenex and maybe even the Unicorn back in action.  Hell, I guess I want a ticket to Japan just to see this movie now.  And you know a Gundam film has done right when it gets that kind of reaction out of me.

Since this was kind of a spur of the moment insert, you’ll get two GundamCember features today on First Impression Friday.  My initial reactions to Mobile Suit Gundam AGE should be up now, go check it out.

T5W#173-Top 5 Dragon Ball Z Movies

The last couple of years have been a great time to be a Dragon Ball fan.  In 2013 and 2015 we got two brand spanking new Dragon Ball Z movies.  Then later in 2015, we got an entire brand new series in Dragon Ball Super, wiping away the terrible aftertaste of Dragon Ball GT and establishing a new cannon in the process.  While Super did wrap earlier this year, we’re still getting fresh English Dubbed episodes incoming.  And then there’s the reason for this weeks Top 5, the fact that Dragon Ball Super will be getting a new movie next week AND it’s going to feature the true cannon introduction of Brolly, The Legendary Super Saiyan himself.  It’s time to freak out in a good way and thank our Shenrons for such a sweet amount of blessings.  Hence why this week im doing what I should have done the moment I finished my “Rock the Dragon” Easter Special (where I reviewed all 15 Dragon Ball Z Movies).  Today im taking a look at my Top 5 Dragon Ball Z Movies.  I feel like I should expand this to include the Dragon Ball movies too but maybe ill come back to that once ive actually reviewed those four flicks on my site.  For now though, im choosing five of the fifteen films from the series that, in one way or another, continues to shape entire generations of Anime fans: Dragon Ball Z

#5-Dead Zone

The very first Dragon Ball Z movie might not have Androids or Super Saiyans or planet shaking battles, but there’s still a fun charm to the early days of Z.  This movie basically sets the template for all Z movies to follow: short and sweet story, equally sweet action scenes, a big bad who wont go down the first time, and a huge exmachina ending.  While I know a lot of us would like to ignore the fact that we got a pointless follow up arc later in the Garlic Jr. Saga, Dead Zone is a perfect start point before the lure of Super Saiyan Gods takes over.

#4-The World’s Strongest

For the longest time, this was my absolute favorite of the original three DBZ Movies (including this, Dead Zone and Tree of Might).  The story feels like a distant aftertought compared to some of the best action sequences in the entire franchise.  And yeah, it does involve the Z-Fighters battling a Giant Robot (and somehow getting their asses kicked).  But we still get Master Roshi in the only major action he ever sees in Z (until Resurrection F and the old mans still got it), Goku taking on three cool bio warriors and an old school rematch with Piccolo.  The Worlds Strongest is an action Anime lovers dream come true and a movie I could watch endlessly.

#3-Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan

In all of the movies of Dragon Ball Z, none of them gave us a villain as incredibly memorable as Brolly.  He has a backstory (and a silly motive) but holy crap.  Broly is the first bad guy you see in a Z movie that makes you think that Goku and the others are in serious trouble.  This allows for all out war between Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Trunks and Piccolo against a one man army who will not quit and it is all freaking amazing.  It sucks that Broly’s follow up appearances in the Z movieverse could never recapture his terror and epicness.  But we’re getting another chance to see him battle Goku and Vegeta in Dragon Ball Super: The Movie-Broly.  Let’s face it, it’s the rematch we’ve always wanted since he first screamed Goku’s name in this movie.

#2-Resurrection F

DBZ’s first return to the big screen, Battle of Gods, was a mixed bag for me.  Resurrection F was the movie I hoped that one would be.  The return of Frieza was a gift I never thought I wanted but am glad I got anyway.  Anyone who grew up watching Dragon Ball Z the same time as I did knows how much that old rivalry between Goku and Frieza dominated our school lunch chats.  Not only did we get to see them square off once again, but Vegeta got in his proper throwdown with the intergalactic tyrant too.  Add in a great fight scene with a proper Z-Team that thankfully left out Goten and Trunks and you’ve got one of the best Z outings of all time.  And if Super is taking the place of Z in movie releases, this is a great movie to end the Z feature film legacy on.

#1-Fusion Reborn

In all of Dragon Ball, there is one universally beloved element: the rivaly/frenemyship between Goku and Vegeta.  Whether pummeling each other senseless or bickering like long lost brothers, these two are the thing that makes Dragon Ball Z Dragon Ball Z.  We’ve seen the two in action together tons of times before but Rebirth of Fusion takes it to the next level pitting them against a foe who they can only defeat by fusing into the most bad ass warrior in existence, Gogeta.  Plus everyone else gets plenty to do handling a break out of old favorites from Hell led by Frieza.  And for once, Goten and Trunks aren’t so annoying when the battle the one enemy they can actually not mess up defeating, Hitler himself.  This is simply put, Perfect Z.

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.