December 8th, 2011 
AstroNerdBoy フェイト/ゼロ
Fate/Zero – 10
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
In the days before the Holy Grail War, Tohsaka teaches his daughter Rin form magic. At school, she befriends a shy and somewhat timid girl named Kotone after defending her from some bullies. Sometime after Rin and her mother are moved to a safer location due to the start of the war, Kotone disappears and since the news is full of reports of children disappearing and dying, Rin decides to go look for Kotone on her own, using the mana compass her father had given her to know what magical artifacts were beyond her current skill level.
In the darkened Fuyuki City, Rin’s compass senses magic all over, but she notices a guy with a magic bracelet taking an enthralled child. Rin loses him in the back alleys, but then discovers the guy again, this time with two more kids. Gathering her courage, she uses the compass to tail them, eventually arriving at a basement bar that seems abandoned. The body of Kotone is just inside and she knows they’ve done something to her. The guy, Ryuunosuke, arrives with more kids and tells Rin they are about to have a party. It is then that Rin sees more enthralled children at various tables in the bar, as if dead.
Rin avoids being captured and get up on the bar. When Ryuunosuke comes for her, she grabs his bracelet. Initially, it is more powerful than her and Ryuunosuke thinks he has another victim, but Rin recalls her father’s lessons and overloads the bracelet with magic, destroying it. That breaks the enthrallment spell on the children, so Rin has them all, including Kotone, flee. She does not go with them and is about to return home when her compass reveals magic well beyond her power. One of Caster’s creations drops down to attack, but Rin is saved by a worm attack from Kariya, though Rin never knows who saved her.
Rin’s mother Aoi comes to the park and finds Rin sleeping on a bench. Kariya reveals himself, showing what being a participant in the Holy Grail War has done to him. However, he tells Aoi that he is fighting for Sakura and if he wins the war, Sakura will be returned to Aoi, thus Sakura and Rin can be sisters again. With that, he turns and leaves. Rin wakes up in her mother’s arms and starts crying and apologizing. Aoi thinks of Kariya and wonders if he will not only have to kill her husband, but sacrifice himself to in order to free Sakura. Meanwhile, because Kariya saved Rin, Kirei doesn’t allow Assassin to do anything to him even though the opportunity was there.
Thoughts/Review:
The moment Kotone was introduced and such a strong effort was made to have the audience connect to her by making her a somewhat timid, shy person whom Rin befriended, I just felt sick because she clearly had a death flag on her. Thankfully, I was wrong. That would have been too much to have butchered Kotone.
Anyway, it was a bit surprising to have a side story featuring Rin, but since I like Rin from Fate/stay night, I liked seeing this little adventure of hers.
While I complained about Tohsaka being an elitist, mage snob (to say nothing of playing dirty pool), this episode reminded the audience that he does seem to love and care for Rin. Why he didn’t feel the same for Sakura is more of a mystery, but there you have it. He’s still a bastard, but I can’t help but think he’d be proud of Rin being able to defend herself even if he might not be happy that she went off on her own like that.
The story also provided an opportunity to bring Kariya back into the story. He really has been lurking in the shadows, probably waiting for some of the other Servants to go down before taking on the survivors since he can’t afford to battle and defeat every Servant.
So, while not really advancing plot (other than to show Caster’s and Ryuunosuke’s new hideout), I did like this Rin adventure episode.
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It may or may not please you that in the (much shorter) novel version of this, Kotone isn’t heard from again =(
The anime rendition at least throws Rin a bone before pushing her into the deep end to be saved by Kariya
Honestly, to me (and to other people who played the VN and read the original novel, judging by the reactions of the forums) this was the worst episode so far. It was mostly a filler, meant purely as fanservice and blatantly didn’t fit the atmosphere of the anime. The novel, instead of showing the adventures of mahou shoujo loli rescuing her friend, we are shown just how this Heaven’s Feel differs from the one we’ve seen in the first anime, and how unfit “women and children” are to survive in it. Rin comes to Fuyuki searching for her friend and gets pointed by the compass to some dark alleway. She can’t see what’s there, but her gut feeling and the narration tell us it’s probably a pile of corpses in varying degrees of mutilation, and Kotone’s probably among them. She hears some noise from where the compass was pointing(Caster’s monster), then buzzing sound from the other direction (Kariya’s bugs), and, when the insects make short work of the monstrosity, faints out of fear, managing to only get a glimpse of Kariya’s face.
That’s not to say that the episode was horrible to me, just that it didn’t really seem fitting with the whole of the show. The problem here was that if they went with the original material they wouldn’t get enough to fill an entire episode, and next two parts of the novel have no good points to break the flow.
Anyways, with the next episode we’ll be finishing the second volume of the light novel- “The Mad Feast of Kings”, and the first cour of the anime. To everyone not prepared for what’s coming, I hope you all enjoyed the rare metaphorical ray of sunshine this episode gave us, as the next time you see light, it’ll be coming from the raging flames.
2011.12.07’s Imagine Nation featured Fate/Zero anime.
If you don’t know, Imagine Nation is a show that reviews a manga or anime title and also interviews with someone from the anime industry. I haven’t seen many episodes of the show (just for Moonlight Mile and Mardock Scramble).
Anyway, I read somewhere that the anime version differs from that in the novel, although I don’t reall know how. If anyone knows more, please share!
ufotable expanded the whole part of Act 8. It was probably necessary because there would have been time issues if they just followed the novel and Rin’s “adventure” was only about 5 pages long.
Novel readers never knew what happened to Kotone. Basically, Rin wasn’t able to save anyone(and I understood it so far that Kotone was really dead or at least Rin thought that) and got unconscious after witnessing the tentacle monster and Kariya with his bugs who saved her. Her being incapable to do anything probably hardened her and made her realize how dangerous the Holy Grail War or in general the life of a magus really is. That’s why she acts the way she acts in FSN.
And actually, that was the only reason Rin showed up. So that Kariya and Aoi can meet. And so Kirei can find Kariya and follow him through the Assassins now(as he’s interested in the motives of the other Masters). A bit disappointed to see not much of Kirei – there was more focus on him in that scene after Kariya leaves. I hope, ufotable didn’t use too much budget in this episode because the animation was on KnK level this time imo.
About Tokiomi… yeah, he is a mystery at this point. I’ll leave it at that until all the needed details are revealed(that means until next year). Let’s just say, he acts like a true magus, something Rin will never become.
Caster and Uryu’s hideout hasn’t changed iirc. The audience can’t know when exactly Rin’s adventure happened. As far as I know, this episode chronologically happened before Rider destroyed Caster’s “atelier”.
Anyway, epic episode incoming. The Kings’ banquett is probably the last highlight of this cours. Hope, they don’t use too much cg and have some budget left…
Well, Tokiomi actually does care for Sakura. It’s implied that he underestimated, or didn’t truly understand, what becoming the heir to the Matou family would mean for her.
And as others have said, Kotone didn’t have such a happy ending in the novels.
Well, it looks like the feast is coming up, and then we will be seeing Servants dropping like flies.
It may or may not please you that in the (much shorter) novel version of this, Kotone isn’t heard from again =(
Which is more realistic, but sucks just the same.
Honestly, to me (and to other people who played the VN and read the original novel, judging by the reactions of the forums) this was the worst episode so far.
I can understand and appreciate that.
2011.12.07’s Imagine Nation featured Fate/Zero anime.
Is that an American show or from somewhere else? Just curious. (I haven’t had cable/satellite for three years now).
About Tokiomi… yeah, he is a mystery at this point. I’ll leave it at that until all the needed details are revealed(that means until next year). Let’s just say, he acts like a true magus, something Rin will never become.
Something to look forward to. ^_^
Caster and Uryu’s hideout hasn’t changed iirc. The audience can’t know when exactly Rin’s adventure happened. As far as I know, this episode chronologically happened before Rider destroyed Caster’s “atelier”.
Ah. Interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed that.
Well, Tokiomi actually does care for Sakura. It’s implied that he underestimated, or didn’t truly understand, what becoming the heir to the Matou family would mean for her.
Interesting. I wonder if he will come to understand/realize this in the anime adaptation.
Imagine-nation is a show by NHK. Their main feature this week’s tuesday/wednesday was FateZero. It was similar to the Kara no Kyoukai one a few years ago.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/tv/imagine/archive201112020800.html
You didn’t need a tv to watch it, a stream was fine.
http://www.ustream.tv/nhkworld
I think Imagine Nation is Japanese show (or at least Made in Japan (not China!!!)), but is made for English-speaking audience. I have no idea which TV channel shows it, but you can find rips in the Net. Just I don’t know where exactly (I download it from a Bulgarian torrent tracker and I don’t know if it’s visible from outside or whether you can download without registering).
Anyway, just Google it and you should find it somewhere.
P.S. And don’t expect the quality to be good – the recordings are very far from perfect, even for the low quality it should have (for instance, some occasional problems with the sound or/and video). But it’s still watchable.
To add something: I don’t actually know when exactly Rin’s adventure happened(I sorta do know as there is a timer at the end of every episode). Her episode happening before Rider destroyed Caster’s atelier was my assumption, as Rin having met Uryu totally confused me.
Her part also happens after Rider’s one one episode before in the novel, so now that I think about it, Uryu probably hasn’t just returned home yet. However, that doesn’t change the fact that Uryu and Caster haven’t got a new hideout yet.
Oh, yeah, we can compare the clocks! I totally forgot about them. Does anyone have the episodes on his/her HDD or we have to download them again?
Anyway, it’s still possible that this episode happened after the previous one. First because the bar is a new hideout and second I don’t think that in this case chronology plays an important role. This episode might’ve happened pretty much anytime.
Also, about “Imagine Nation”: are there any recordings in the website? The rips I downloaded from torrents are in pretty bad shape.
Hey, ANB. Guess what? Fate/Zero is getting the same treatment as Kara no Kyoukai for its home video release. You can get the first 13 episodes on Blu-ray from Aniplex USA for the low, low price of… $370. *headdesk* I guess us fans who’re on a budget are just SOL again, huh? What is it with these super-expensive imports of Nasuverse anime?
Imagine-nation is a show by NHK.
Thanks for the information. ^_^
I think Imagine Nation is Japanese show (or at least Made in Japan (not China!!!)), but is made for English-speaking audience.
Coolio. I need to remember to check it out.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that Uryu and Caster haven’t got a new hideout yet.
Thanks for letting me know. ^_^
Hey, ANB. Guess what? Fate/Zero is getting the same treatment as Kara no Kyoukai for its home video release. You can get the first 13 episodes on Blu-ray from Aniplex USA for the low, low price of… $370. *headdesk* I guess us fans who’re on a budget are just SOL again, huh? What is it with these super-expensive imports of Nasuverse anime?
Japan’s whole anime market is based on the otaku collector mentality. It seems that Aniplex USA thinks American fans will do the same, no matter how much they charge.