December 14th, 2014 
AstroNerdBoy Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works – 10 review
フェイト/ステイナイト [Unlimited Blade Works] – 10
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Rin has a dream whereby she learns how Archer became a Heroic Spirit. Before leaving for school, she’s scolded by Archer for her alliance with the weak Shirou. She rejects his suggestion of allying with Caster, then blames him for her recent change in attitude. At school, Rin overhears a conversation between Issei and Shirou in the Student Council room. She confronts Issei, who confirms that Kuzuki-sensei is staying at the temple and that he has a fiance who’s been living there for two weeks. Rin and Shirou meet, where Rin expresses her belief that Kuzuki-sensei is the other Master. Although reluctant, Shirou agrees to go with Rin to set up an ambush. Shirou briefs Saber, who agrees with the strategy.
After setting up at an abandoned gas station on the only road to the temple, Kuzuki-sensei shows up, walking home. Rin fires a weak Gandr at Kuzuki-sensei, which does knock him down but does him no damage. Caster shows up, so Shirou reveals himself, asking if Kuzuki-sensei knew of Caster’s actions in harming humans to gather mana. He did not, but says that he does not care. Rin attacks Caster while Saber attacks Kuzuki-sensei. Caster, having easily defended against Rin’s jewel attack, sends a massive attack on Saber. Saber, being highly magically resistant, is unharmed by this to Caster’s surprise. However, to everyone’s surprise, Kuzuki-sensei catches Saber’s invisible blade between his leg and arm.
Kuzuki counter-attacks, causing Saber to bleed in the back of her neck. His magically-enhanced fists take Saber by further surprise, landing blows that she doesn’t completely avoid. He gets Saber in a choke hold, but before he can crush her throat, one final attack causes him to fling her hard away from him. Caster goes to deal with the unconscious Saber while Rin attacks Kuzuki. However, he dodges her Gandr attacks and punches her into a railing, where she’s out. Shirou attacks with a reinforced bokken, but Kuzuki easily destroys it. Shirou also takes a hard punch and in desperation, realizing that if he fails, Rin and Saber die, uses his projection magic to create the swords Archer uses, which Rin sees as she comes to.
Kuzuki tries to stop him, but fails. Caster is distracted by this as Saber comes to, using the distraction to launch a blindside attack on Kuzuki. Caster is forced to race to his side to fly her Master to safety. In the air, Caster prepares to attack, but Kuzuki tells her to wait and to withdraw. She agrees and teleports them away. Saber comes to the injured Shirou’s side as Rin walks up, unhappy that they didn’t nail Kuzuki. However, she tells Saber she’s not giving up. She scolds Shirou for not telling her about his projection magic. He says that his step-father always said it was worthless, and this was the first time he created something solid. Meanwhile, at the Matou home, Shinji meets with his new Servant, the blonde guy.
Thoughts/Review:
As usual, ufotable knocks another one out of the park.
Now that it is officially revealed that Kuzuki-sensei is the fourth Master at the school, I gotta say that I loved Rin’s, Saber’s, and Shirou’s confrontation of Kuzuki-sensei much better in this adaptation than in the original. First, having their ambush in the mountain on the only road Kuzuki-sensei would travel makes more sense than trying to ambush him in the city, where he could travel multiple routes.
Second, the fight is much more impressive in this adaptation vs. the original. Granted, that’s to be expected, but I’m not just referring to the animation. Kuzuki-sensei’s throwing Saber like a rag doll and gut punching Rin so hard she slams into a rail and is knocked out makes him much more impressive as a fighting character.
Thirdly, Kuzuki-sensei also comes off more honorably in a weird sort of way, especially when he stops Caster from attacking again after she rescues him from Saber.
Watching this, I was reminded of why the pactio system was created in Negima. Although there is no card-artifact at play here, Caster and Kuzuki do play the role of powerful mage and defender. Caster uses her magic to buff Kuzuki up to the max so that he’s able to battle Saber. Thus he keeps Caster safe from melee attacks to allow her to do whatever she needs to do.
With Saber having taken a beating and defended against a magical attack from Caster, I was reminded of the fact that in the original anime, Saber’s mana reserves were an issue, leading to the replenishment scene. However, for this adaptation, Saber’s mana usage doesn’t seem to be an issue.
I think this episode is the first time that we’ve seen or heard about Shirou having projection magic. As such, it kinda comes off as a deus ex machina moment, which is unfortunate.
Rin seems to be putting things together regarding…
…Shirou and Archer being linked. After all, she’s had the dreams and she’s seen that Shirou is making Archer’s favorite weapons.
Finally, there’s Shinji.
Heh. There’s no doubt in my mind that Gilgamesh is manipulating Shinji, but to do what, I don’t know exactly.
Also, when Shinji put his hand on Gilgamesh, I thought Gilgamesh would get angry about being touched in such a manner. I guess whatever he has planned for Shinji is more important.
And man, the worm room. *shudder* Boy oh boy do I remember that from Fate/Zero.
In the end, another great episode where we learn how Kuzuki-sensei was able to kill Rider earlier by witnessing how easily he handled Saber.
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The reason why Kuzuki and Caster retreated imo is because they didnt manage to finish them off. Kuzuki style works only once will not work again on Saber which is Caster super counter. Kuzuki saw that it was pointless to keep up with the fight since they were mostly back at the start of the fight but this time Saber wont fall for his tricks and even with Tohsaka still out was too risky to keep the fight going
Although that is actually correct, it wasn’t mentioned in the anime at all. I’ll write a paragraph or two to elaborate, as soon as I got more time to write a wall of text. Soon, after I’m done with the (hopefully small) text wall for EP 9.
I wonder why it wasn’t mentioned.
In any case if their surprise counteratack didnt work, it would be far wise to retreat and wait for them on Ryudou temple which is Caster territory which gives her an advantage plus having Kojiro as helper. Kuzuki was quite rational keeping his cool while Caster got pissed and wanted to continue and suggested the best course of action for them
That’s a good point.
A death flag has been raised.
Well, this is a series full of those and perhaps this death scene will appear in next cour, but this scene is one of the scenes in UBW route that left the most impression on me in the VN.
Yeah, that’s true.
this adaptation is by far more enjoyable.
kuzuki has been given some justice because in the movie he was rather bland…
either way ufotable has revived the series with great success the original was so dull thag i dont remember much of it, nor did i really remember the true identity of the servants
whilst the ubw was better it was so heavily focus on shirou that the the other characters were over shadowed.
fate zero proved that it was possible to follow and develop multiple characters and in ubw tv anime they doing exactly that but up another level, showing all the servants and all masters and given them an equal footing showing one is not better than the other
Everyone is bland in the movie. As much as people love to bash DEEN (and I’m one of these people usually), you can’t expect them to develop so many characters in 100 minutes. The movie was fanservice for VN readers and one shouldn’t expect more of it. Besides, that statement with developing of multiple characters in UBW like it’s done in FZ is false. Equal footing my ass.
As of right now, ufotable almost strictly follows the source. Rider gets the short end of the stick, and unlike the ensemble cast in FZ, most scenes are told from Shirou’s or Rin’s POV.
Yeah but given that Shinji can’t provide any mana to Rider, she is naturally weaker than she normally is. Either way with the element of surprise she can take out any master which is the key to this war.
The parties are on equal footing. Note that Noble Phantasm reveal identity of the servants therefore you don’t normally use them… but in some sense the individual parties are balanced.
Team Saber – Shirou is weak (though he gets stronger through his specialism in Projection and Strengthening mastery) but he is backed by perhaps the most strongest Saber servant. Shirou whilst not as strong as ‘him’ will still have powers near the level of a Heroic Spirit and with Saber you will be facing essentially 2 servants.
Team Lancer – ??? Master stays hidden whilst Lancer does a hit and run tactic to gauge their strengths. Either way Lancers Gae Bolg is a pain to deal with due to its curse to hit the heart.
Team Archer – Rin is perhaps the most powerful magus of all the masters and can provide support. Archer has every quality to rival the power of Gilgamesh, however not being a true master he cannot beat a servant in close combat. The flaw of this party is that both are primarily a threat at long range hence why Shirou and Saber are the tanks whilst Archer and Rin are the long range damage dealers.
Team Rider – ??? has forfeited 2 command seals to Shinji to act as a proxy-master and since she doesn’t have the sufficient Mana, she is crippled in terms of maximum output of stats she would have received from her original master. Using Assassin like Tactics she can take out the masters but in direct combat she is at a disadvantage without her noble phantasm.
Team Berserker – Illya has the ability to rival if not surpass Rin in terms of magical abilites. Berserker is a threat due to the enhancement from mad enchantment and his God Hands ability, but its not over powered enough that you can’t defeat him and without his sanity he cannot think for himself without Illya.
Team Caster & Assassin – Kuzuki is an unconventional master and has the ability to rival servants. So long as its the fight, Kuzuki has the potential to take out the masters and servants whilst Caster provides magical long range support. Assassin is an extra insurance but his existence is anchored by the gate but his mana comes from Caster hence Caster is hindered on her supply of Mana. Also Assassin is not the true assassin.
Anyways Studio Deen is doing Log Horizon 2… as per usual their art style is rarely inconsistent. Like Shiroe has long hair one scene the next his hair is shorter. Colour and quality of the animation can be dull at times… information can be to much or to little and action isn’t as great as other anime studio’s.
Remember one thing Archer is just a soft counter to Gilgamesh akin to Lancelot. He can beat him as long as Gil is on full retard mode, the instant that Gil takes it a bit seriously Archer is screwed.
Team Saber has the one of the strongest Servants, but also remember that Saber is nerfed due to Shirou crappy circuits and Shirou despite being useful on certain situations hes not very powerful (unless we talk of his Heavens Feel version which was basically cheating)
Team Lancer: If he plays hit and run he can beat any servant aside Gil
Team Berserker: HAX team. Basically no team aside Gilgamesh is a match for them unless we use plot armor to make them win.
Team Caster: Despite being a VERY powerful mage, Caster got shafted on the enemies she has to face. Basically the weakest team, thats why they use tricks to compensate for their weakness
Team Rider: With Shinji as master her base stats went down akin to Saber, but her NP is still a potent card, shame she has the most useless master ever.
Team Archer: An above average Servant with the best mage in the 5th War. Rin maybe is not as powerful as Ilya mana wise but her experience and rsources are above her clearly. Archer also gets basically the best backup in the war mana wise, plus his skill as jack of all trades master of none makes him a strong opponent albeit a bit lacking when you need a concrete powerful skill.
That is true… but Deen did accurately portray the fact that UBW when deployed is faster than GoB and in terms of swordsmanship both are not a true master of weapon wielding so their skills range from amateurism to skillful and their true ability lies in a versatile range of usage and strategy and long range firing.
[spoiler title="Also contains 3rei spoiler info"] If Ea is taken into account then Archer/Shirou does not stand a chance as the anti-world Noble Phantasm can negate UBW. As for Lancelot(Berserker) he can turn anything thrown at him against Gilgamesh/Shirou (as seen in 3rei) only way to really beat him in a logical sense would be to overwhelm him by pushing him pass the limits or to outmatch him in skills alone.
Tbh UBW Shirou has the same potential as Archer and the 3rei incarnation in Miyu’s world. if time is given, Shirou can naturally reach the level of Archer and fight on par with Heroic Spirits. The problem during the war is that he has only just begun awakening his true potential. HF version is of course a self destructing hacks whilst Fate is by far his weakest version and UBW is his true potential fully awaken (just he needs time to adapt to his new found power).[/spoiler]
To be honest Saber and Archer together could in theory beat Berserker but the downside is revealing their trump cards hence why Gilgamesh is the better opponent to defeat him.
but either way I totally agree with you Geburah
To be honest Farray, I see your point regarding the movie but its just if they focusing on Shirou/Rin and Archer they could have done better. To me it just felt like they tried to narrow down the focus but still tried to cram a lot in and it didn’t feel ‘developed’ as such…. like everyone was still very vague. (But over all much better than FSN anime)
Also your looking at them just in terms of ability and stats… if you do then its never going be balance. A fight cannot be won on strength alone many factors can go into it and it can determine the outcome.
Ufotable has made the effort to show the strategic side to both UBW and Zero and when you consider planning and strategy to be the key to victory then it make sense that all teams are balance. If you are weak, you will do the smart thing and play to your advantage and strengths.
No matter how powerful Berserker and Gilgamesh are, they always have a weakness. Tokiyomi and Gilgamesh were the strongest team but in the end Tokiyomi despite being the perhaps most powerful mage in the 4th war still lost to a literal back stabbing.
Even Rider who had arguably one of the most powerful noble phantasms was defeated by Gilgamesh who fought seriously out of respect to him. Had Gil messed around then Rider has the potential to beat Gil.
Request Aki — I haven’t read 3rei, so use the spoiler tags to hide that kind of stuff in future. Thanks. ^_^
Personally even if Saber & Shirou managed to kill Berserker in Fate route I really doubt that Saber can kil Berserker 12 times without using an asspull like Caliburn.
On the Shirou power issue, remember that Emiya got buffed by the World due to their pact, yet even having Rin as a master his stats are not impressive at all. Shirou as a human at most could play win against a non serious servant on certain circunstances, but has no chance against a serious one.
About the UBW faster deploy than GoB, yeah its true, but remember that first has to deploy it and second the only reason why Shirou won was because Gil was under heavy PIS not using his armor or any other defensive item and pulling Ea at melee range like a tard. According to Nasu Gil would have won 99 of 100 fights against Shirou and thats with Gil on “lololol woman and children” mode, Archer is much more powerful but he will be much less underestimated than a mere human
Also GoB has EVERYTHING from armor to weapons, from food to planes, while UBW is much less diverse, so Gil could just play smart and counter each and every move no matter his oponent is
First, I was also referring to the multiple development of characters in FZ, like it’s done in UBW. Like… how can you even criticize DEEN for that, if one series picked an entirely different route and the other product was a movie. It also can’t even be compared to FZ because FSN and FZ worked differently. Art inconsistency is also present in UBW. Notably the faces, because ufotable’s art designers rotate every episode, and they are cutting corners, because of the fight animation, with still shots in almost every episode when someone’s having a longer conversation.
And regarding the balanced teams in UBW, that is also untrue. The point of the Holy Grail War is that it’s not balanced at all. It never was in FSN and it wasn’t in FZ, either. It’s hax abilities against hax abilities. Gilgamesh and Berserker are actually so unfair that they should end the Grail War in a day/week, if not for plot reasons.
Kuzuki doesn’t rival Servants, he caught Rider and Saber offguard once, and usually more than once shouldn’t be needed, but he cannot constantly compete head-on against Servants. The “fight” against Saber probably took less than 10-20 seconds. So long as it’s a surprise attack, an assassination, he can kill people quickly, that’s the point.
I won’t bother to comment on your complete listing, because I don’t see the point of this. The war still is not balanced, although it’s true that in theory almost any team can beat another team, if the conditions and circumstances are met. And that is a big if.
The whole point of the Holy Grail War is that it’s not balanced, in that when it was created, [spoiler=HF spoilers]the three founding families (Einzbern, Tohsaka, and Makiri (now known as Matou)) built advantages into the system for themselves. The whole point of the Grail War for the three families is to reach Akasha, and the three knight classes (Saber, Knight of the Sword; Archer, Knight of the Bow; and Lancer, Knight of the Spear) are the best bet for them to win, since they tend to be the most powerful.
The wish the Holy Grail grants is only there to lure 4 random mages into the battle so that the Servants they summon (almost always inferior to the three Knight classes) are sacrificed to power the Grail in order to reach Akasha.[/spoiler]
I know that, I read the novel, too. 😉
But hey, good to see you again once in a while.
That is the gist of it… but as of the 5th war… the structure has broken down so much you cant even compare it to the original purpose.
Even if the 3 Knight class are the most powerful, each of the other class has its own strengths and weaknesses to counter one another. So in all fairness… things aren’t as bad as they originally were. I mean Berseker in both the 4th and 5th war had a lot of potential with Lancelot (if Kariya wasn’t hindered by the worms) having the full potential to go toe to toe with Gilgamesh and turned every weapon he owned against him and the current Berserker being powerful enough to wipe the others out individually if you exclude Gilgamesh.
The focus of the war has changed so much that the masters are willing to kill one another to prevent the servants from obtaining a new master for example Caster bewitching Shirou to steal his command seals were but one way of achieving victory and if Archer had killed Shirou then Saber would be without a master and without Independent action she cannot last long without a master.
Assassin also focuses on Master Slaying than Servant Slaying but Kirei used them more for surveillance purposes hence why they never showed their true powers in the 4th war. To be honest it is at a stage where you can’t base things on class and stats alone the variables alone can change how things play out.
For example in the 4th war Rider vs Gilgamesh was a bad match up because Gilgamesh showed respect and went somewhat serious enough to unleash Ea on him which negated the use of Reality Marbles since an Anti-World class NP is designed to destroy ‘worlds’. Saber vs Berserker ended with Saber victory because Kariya’s death affected Berserker and created an Opening but given the shock Saber was in, Berserker could have won. Also if Kirei hadn’t sweet talked Kariya into joining his side, Gil vs Berserker would have been an all out one which could end either way. Saber vs Rider as a possible outcome would depend on who gives out first… does Saber destroy enough of his army to undo the Reality Marble or does she gives in first and gets overwhelmed.
@Farray
Yeah, I stepped away from the internet for a bit, but am now getting back into the swing of things. Bunch of gifs from this series floating around that I would love to post, when I get around to it.
I wonder how you work through these problems for the Heaven’s Feel route.
From what I interpret after having heard of that Q&A ufotable had, they want to do the route justice, so it’s possible that there will be more than only one movie (the movie medium allows them to get rid of several restrictions tv anime has, censoring Heaven’s Feel wouldn’t be cool). The wording they used is the same one they used for Kara no Kyoukai, which became a movie series, so fans hope this will be the same for HF.
I heard rumours that depending on how well UBW does they may consider the adaption of Hollow Ataraxia.
Also the same for Heavens Feel… depending on the Movie and UBW they may consider a full adaption into a TV anime.
I’d love to see Hollow Ataraxia adapted.
You heard wrong rumors. It was during a university lecture, where anime industry mechanics were explained: In theory, a sequel for a series should (as in must) be made if for instance a series like FSN sold 100k BD units, is what was said. Milking a succesful franchise basically. Doesn’t have to be hollow ataraxia, especially because it’s mostly a fandisc with lots of SoL scenes.
And that talk about HF and a TV series is, to put it mildly, false. Something like that was never said. I just talked about censorship in a tv series, which is why a movie format would be more suitable, and you bring up a tv series again…?
A movie series would be pretty cool.
Well, it does explore his character more, so that’s understandable. And there’s Rin…^_^
Of course that’s the problem with adapting a visual novel as an anime. With three major routes, each story is the same, yet different, and each one focuses on different characters. In combination, the three major routes give a complete picture.
Fate/Zero was written as a traditional novel, so it makes sense that it is written is this way.
Lol sorry abour the 3rei thing ^^;;
regarding the movie… i found it was to focus on Shirou whilst Ufotable decided to give each of the other party a little more attention so that they don’t feel over shadowed which I liked.
No problem. When in doubt, use spoiler tags. 🙂
Gifs incoming:
http://i.imgur.com/fcUvY6d.gif
Battle scenes:
http://i.imgur.com/TAf7jCY.gif
http://i.imgur.com/m0NGRty.gif
http://i.imgur.com/tKrp5IQ.gif
http://i.imgur.com/CnGS8bc.gif
http://i.imgur.com/5m3xyBx.gif
http://i.imgur.com/xnJMk2l.gif
http://i.imgur.com/Yhl1u1z.gif
Combination of above, showing Kuzuki wrecking house:
http://i.imgur.com/Iam1XlV.gif
Thanks! ^_^
Hm, large parts of the dream were cut again. It seems like ufotable doesn’t want to tell the viewer yet how exactly Archer became a Heroic Spirit (Rin calls his actions stupid).
Oh, and I really hoped I didn’t have to do this in almost every freaking episode, but I have to bash the translation again.
The English chant in the dream scene was not used, I mean, everyone who is not deaf must have heard that Rin spoke Japanese. What the hell, translators, did you think you were clever by using the English chant?!
For your information, there are two poems about Archer’s life, an English and a Japanese one. In the novel, the English one was written above the Japanese one with ruby text (http://i.imgur.com/ABs4grn.jpg), that is the text that Archer is supposed to say, while the Japanese one actually explains the meaning. Archer’s VA who speaks decent English used the English one in the voiced version, while the other VAs, who can’t speak English very well, used the Japanese one, but the ruby text was still there. I don’t think there is an issue there, since they make use of ruby text.
Obviously, that can’t work in an anime, there is no written text. If Rin speaks Japanese, the translators should correctly show the actual chant, and not pull a “translation” out of their ass. The chants are different, that’s why it can’t work. In every other official simulcast that was not English, the Japanese version was translated. Gosh, the actual meaning is entirely lost to the English audience.
This is what Rin actually said:
This body is made of swords.
Iron is his blood, and glass is his heart.
He has overcome countless battlefields undefeated.
Not once has he retreated.
Nor once has he been understood.
Always alone on the hill of swords, intoxicated with victory.
Thus, this life has no meaning.
This body, was surely, made out of swords.
More or less. Since Japanese is a very context-heavy language, you can replace the “he”s and “his”‘ with “my”s and “I”s, and it will still work for Archer saying it.
Now, about the fight:
There are several reasons why Saber lost:
1. Kuzuki is, as you already noted, buffed by magic. By Caster’s magic, as Kuzuki is not a magus. This of course shows again what a powerful magus Caster is, as I mentioned before, strengthening other people is the most difficult level of strengthening.
Heroic Spirits, and therefore Servants, are very powerful existences. Nasu notes that even if there are more powerful weapons in the modern days, like nuclear bombs I imagine, they cannot hurt spirits. A Servant in spirit form is immune to physical attacks, but can still physically interact with the world, the interaction can be more effective if they take physical form, but hitting a spiritual body with a sword or a baton, unless it is of magical nature, still feels like you’re hitting air.
Several text passages indicate that in order to hit a Servant, you need to be of similar spiritual rank (Rin said something like “We cannot hurt Servants, but Saber could, even with a paper knife”). Or you use magic. Caster gives Kuzuki the power to seriously hit Saber.
2. The most important reason why Kuzuki wins: The element of surprise. Saber took him lightly and that was a serious mistake. The technique Kuzuki uses is called Snake. Btw, Kuzuki’s technique and his design are based on a character from a very old novel Nasu wrote many years ago. ufotable portrayed it visually similar to how it was shown in that other Type-Moon work, but it’s far more difficult to show it the way it was actually described in the Visual Novel.
Snake is an unorthodox technique that works extremely well against anyone, even experienced fighters, because its attacks move in unexpected angles and curves. Kuzuki didn’t actually run around Saber and hit her in the back of her neck in the novel, he was standing in front of her. It’s his arms that are trained to bend that way. The neck choke/grab was also supposed to resemble a snake using its fangs (his fingers) to bite its prey and crush the neck.
The first attacks are baits he throws around, the next attacks however are aimed at blind spots to disable the opponent. It will also work against people who have good eyes or instincts to dodge the attacks – actually, Saber’s downfall are her instincts (which saved her against Assassin a few episodes ago), because Kuzuki’s attacks are too confusing. Her attempts to dodge lead her right into the “Snake”‘s paths and she gets “bitten”. Kuzuki isn’t truly faster than Saber, he just knows and sees how she will react to his attacks. With that knowledge, he keeps changing the trajectory of the punches and goes on hitting Saber’s blind spots.
Btw, Caster was also surprised by Kuzuki’s moves. She didn’t know her Master is that capable, her magic on him is just something she does.
I should mention that the whole fight (including the one with Kuzuki against Shirou and Rin) was far shorter in the novel, in real-time, that is. Kuzuki does give Rin a punch aimed at her lungs that stuns her for a second, but Shirou can hold him off for a few seconds. There is a choice given to help Saber or help Rin, and passing past Kuzuki to help Saber leads to this scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaGS-4mre5A
[spoiler]Yes, Kuzuki mercilessly punches Rin’s head off if Shirou doesn’t save her after she gets stunned, and then Shirou also quickly dies. All the Bad/Dead Ends show how narrowly Shirou escapes death every time. He doesn’t just have luck, he made clever decisions, which barely saved him and his team. It’s too bad that can’t be shown in the anime, since our protagonist obviously can’t die :-/
But hey, maybe as a BD bonus. ;D[/spoiler]
Since the moves are so unorthodox, any attempt to read and dodge them is foolish and only makes everything worse. That is not the case with Shirou, who doesn’t even attempt to dodge because he can’t preceive them. It’s because of him pulling out Kanshou and Bakuya that he can stop Kuzuki for a moment, but I’ll talk about that later.
The weakness of Snake is, that it’s an assassination technique, and not a martial art. Kuzuki does the same moves, because that is everything he trained for in his life. Once the opponent gets used to its odd style and sees how it works, the surprise factor is gone and Kuzuki’s win chance isn’t that high anymore. It works only once on experienced fighters, but that should usually not be an issue if the target dies in the first fight.
After Shirou holds Kuzuki off for a few seconds and Saber recovers, Caster asks her Master to take care of Saber again and Kuzuki tells her that Saber probably won’t fall a second time for it, so they are forced to retreat. I don’t know why ufotable changed that, there was a perfectly legitimate reason to retreat in the novel.
[spoiler]Side note, even against people like Bazett or Kirei, Kuzuki will defeat them, if he surprises them with Snake. However, he would probably lose the second fight against them, if they get used to him.[/spoiler]
I definitely would have appreciated it, if ufotable had shown more scenes about projection in the anime. However, there are actually still lots of hints about Shirou’s abilities, you just don’t notice them the first time, if you don’t know how Shirou’s projection actually works.
About Shirou’s projection:
[spoiler]Shirou’s projection works similar to his strengthening. Remember, Shirou is able to analyze the structure of objects and then reinforces the component materials with his mana. He actually explains how it works to Saber in episode 6 and in several other scenes his affinity to swords is shown. He even tells Rin in episode 8 that he tried other forms of magic before and he also tells Saber that his strengthening for some reason works well with swords and that is the same case for his unique projection.
I suspect this anime after all doesn’t work well as a standalone, otherwise Type-Moon woudn’t offer the Fate route for free on iOS and Android. That sounds to me like “We’re not gonna adapt Fate, there, read the route, it’s for free!” The only problem is, the game is still not released… -_- Anyway, the build-up for projection from Fate is missing, which led to his first true projection against Berserker. At this point, since Fate was required for UBW, the reader already knew Shirou can pull off projection.
Shirou actually explains in the common route (the first three days before the routes split), that whenever he fails to do strengthening, he will project some objects like pots and kettles. I would have appreciated it, if ufotable had shown it at least once, before they let Shirou do his real projection. Rin explains the differences between transformation, strengthening and projection in Fate (as far as I remember, that wasn’t in the DEEN anime), she also explains elemental affinities to Shirou and deduces that his must be “Sword”. In another scene she and Saber find Shirou’s hollow projections, which makes her extremely angry.
Projections aren’t supposed to stay in the world, that’s why it’s a useless magic. The cost for them is far higher than strengthening, which is why Kiritsugu told him to just use strengthening instead of projection, even if Shirou mastered that magic already. Something that isn’t supposed to exist needs mana to maintain in the world, otherwise the world (Gaia) will correct this irregularity and crush it. The same goes to Servants, that is why they need an anchor and mana to remain. The weird thing is, Shirou’s hollow projections remain in the world.
As I mentioned before, his affinity to swords is still there, but he was thinking a lot about Archer’s swords already, like he thought about Caliburn and Excalibur in Fate. For instance, when he fought Rider, he wished for better weapons and immediately saw Kanshou and Bakuya in his mind.
These are the steps for Shirou’s projection:
Judging the concept of creation,
hypothesizing the basic structure,
duplicating the composition material,
imitating the skill of its making,
sympathizing with the experience of its growth,
reproducing the accumulated years,
excelling every manufacturing process…
Shirou already copied Archer’s style, and Archer feels the most comfortable when he fights with his twin swords in close combat.
And btw, the lightning is intentional. Shirou’s circuits run the risk of overloading.
It looked like this in the novel (three pics):
http://imgur.com/lHQJbGg,khNMYN4,YXVTLAi [/spoiler]
Additional stuff:
[spoiler]1. Oh good, Ghoststalker posted most of the gifs already. ^_^
But still, the obligatory DEEN comparison.
DEEN: http://i.imgur.com/0LXtTi0.gif
ufotable: http://i.imgur.com/TAf7jCY.gif
DEEN: http://i.imgur.com/9uqKvNc.gif
ufotable: http://i.imgur.com/liuh5DA.gif
DEEN: https://i.imgflip.com/faetx.gif
ufotable: http://i.imgur.com/pMC7CFa.gif
This btw should be the last scene DEEN took from UBW, if I remember correctly. From now on, everything you see should be completely different.
2. Caster’s protection charm:
http://i.imgur.com/yWGsiLg.jpg
Caster possesses Item Creation (Rank A). It’s a joke from Carnival Phantasm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDYJY9uots4
3. Another joke about Issei:
http://i.imgur.com/BaSK6GG.jpg
4. Saber’s hill of swords and Archer’s hill of swords:
http://i.imgur.com/SgKdN8p.jpg
5. Full Shirou:
http://i.imgur.com/TakXfSm.jpg
6. Cthulhu Saber (that figurine really was made a few years ago):
http://i.imgur.com/iYtUsNy.jpg
7. Addtional gifs:
The hill of swords:
http://i.imgur.com/62fzudX.gif
Saber’s magic resistance:
http://i.imgur.com/pO2TD1F.gif
Kuzuki vs Saber:
http://i.imgur.com/sPoxZlu.gif
http://i.imgur.com/1e3CH2z.gif
Kuzuki wrecking Rin:
http://i.imgur.com/cjweIF9.gif
Shirou and Kuzuki:
http://i.imgur.com/VeRanCE.gif
Shinji and Goldie:
http://i.imgur.com/FJBAsZT.gif
8. What Shinji and Goldie were thinking:
http://i.imgur.com/1VCQRp5.png
http://i.imgur.com/7RSf4cU.png
And the appropriate gifs:
http://i.imgur.com/funwRpc.gif
http://i.imgur.com/U3MJZSD.gif [/spoiler]
A final note (oh my God, that was a wall of text again), in the first scene, the dream scene, a remix of both Archer’s and Rin’s themes was heard.
Or at least that is what I think if my ears didn’t mishear or I misremembered something…
Almost forgot, this is a pic someone made a few years ago:
http://i.imgur.com/67AOf8m.jpg
Sun glasses and suits. Classic.
*lol* Yes, he fits that role were he in The Matrix.
I think it is partially a case of the translator not knowing the franchise.
Thanks for that. ^_^
Also, thanks for all the info on Kuzuki. ^_^
Regarding Shirou’s projection, I seem to recall that in Deen’s adaptation, his weapons were crap. I don’t remember when Shirou’s projection magic first came up though.
Thanks for the gif comparisons. It is always neat to see how much more impressive ufotable’s version is vs. Deen’s.
I’ve got to watch Carnival Phantasm sometime after that video clip you shows. *lol*
Huh, can’t really say much about DEEN’s adaptation, since my memories are rather vague regarding this.
I do recall Shirou projecting Kanshou and Bakuya against Kuzuki in the DEEN anime, but… well, that was supposed to be UBW material, so there is nothing I really have to say about this.
[spoiler]Shirou’s only trace-projections in the VN, in Fate, were Caliburn and Avalon, which were anything but crap. The former killed Berserker seven times, the latter ultimately saved him from Gil when he and Saber were ambushed and again from Kirei’s Grail mud in the final battle. [/spoiler]
Shirou does say though, that his swords aren’t nearly as good as Archer’s. If the weapon breaks, it’s because Shirou can’t maintain the image in his head. That’s an important detail.
Haha, yeah, Carnival Phantasm is wonderful fanservice for the Tsukihime and FSN (and FHA) fans, adapted for TYPE-MOON’s 10th anniversary. ^_^
I seem to remember his weapons (or his projections) shattering in the Deen adaptation. It has been a while since I saw t though.
Well, it is on my list now though I’ve never seen Tsukihime.