Fate/Apocrypha 11
フェイト/アポクリファ episode 11

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Ruler finds herself facing Red Archer, who declares she won’t attack Ruler. Instead, she fires an arrow into the mutated Red Berserker and flees, forcing Ruler to face this monstrous blob. Elsewhere, Red Lancer continues to keep pace with Black Lancer. Black Lancer thinks he has the advantage of Red Lancer and springs and attack that ultimately pierces Red Lancer with many spikes. However, Red Lancer overcomes Black Lancer’s Noble Phantasm, leaving Black Lancer to concede Red Lancer is a worthy opponent.

In the sky, Red Assassin and Red Caster observe the monstrous Red Berserker prepare his Noble Phantasm. Red Berserker starts to attack Ruler, but rather than do damage to her, he lets her go and blobs toward the nearby town. Meanwhile, Black Saber has survived against Red Saber, but Sieg can no longer support the Black Saber persona and returns to normal. Red Saber is going to finish him, but Red Berserker comes in, knocking her aside. She attacks him to no avail and triggers the start of his NP. Sisigou has Red Saber evacuate as Ruler arrives. Ruler is forced to use her NP to protect the town, Black Rider, and Sieg.

Red Lancer has the advantage on Black Lancer and looks to put on a finishing attack when he is summoned away. Black Lancer is angry by this, but then learns that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is over the Yggdmillennia castle, taking the Greater Holy Grail. Black Lancer, Black Caster, Black Archer, and some homunculi troops ascend to the Hanging Gardens and infiltrate the structure. They are soon met by the Servants of the Red Faction, sans Red Saber. Ruler leaves Black Lancer with Sieg to try to get answers from the Red Faction while she can. Darnic plans to force Black Lancer to use his hated NP since Black Lancer has lost his ground advantage.

Thoughts/Review

With Fate/Apocrypha 11, I’m starting to think that Shirou has brought a trap to the Black Faction, for which they could not resist.

Red Faction Plan

Based on the fights between Black Lancer and Red Lancer as well as Black Archer and Red Rider, it seems that Shirou’s plan was to keep the Black Faction engaged in combat while Red Assassin steered the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Black Faction HQ mostly unmolested. Yeah, Black Rider was sent against the Hanging Gardens, but aside from taking out an army of winged defenders, Black Rider was useless in stopping its advance.

The fact that Black Caster (who’s in the fight for the first time), Black Rider, Black Archer, and a bunch of homunculi troops were able to so easily infiltrate the Hanging Gardens suggests to me that the Red Faction wanted them in there. Indeed, once inside, Black Rider lost all of his advantage as he was no longer standing in his territory. And the Black Faction doesn’t have Black Berserker, Black Saber, Black Assassin, or Black Rider for their attack. Yet they have to go against Red Assassin, Red Rider, Red Archer, and Red Caster, to say nothing of Shirou, who was strangely missing in this episode.

Still, letting Black Lancer in the door may be a problem. The Darnic flashback clearly indicated Black Lancer would refuse to use his second NP, mainly because it had to do with Vlad III’s Dracula legend. Since Darnic is determined to force Black Lancer to use it, I can see Black Lancer going nuts and slaughtering everything in sight.

Ruler

For the first time in the anime, we see Ruler in some actual trouble. First was her encounter with Red Berserker. She tried to flee and failed, yet while in the monster’s grasp, she was unable to do anything. Had it not been for Red Berserker sensing Red Saber and shifting his focus to attack Red Saber, Ruler might have been crushed.

The second came from Red Berserker releasing his Crying Warmonger NP, which turned out to be another suicide attack. Having played Fate/Grand Order, I know Ruler’s NP allows her and those around her to become invulnerable. I like how it was portrayed here as it showed that it took a lot of effort for Ruler to redirect the energy of the attack to not only save a town, but to save Sieg and Black Rider.

I wonder if Ruler will make it to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon before Black Lancer does his things. (Of course, I’m assuming Black Lancer is going to go nuts, but I could be way off.)

Red Saber vs Fake Black Saber

The combat surprise (for lack of a better phrasing) is how Sieg used his Black Saber power to hold off the very powerful Red Saber and fight to a draw. Well, I say a draw because that is how the fight ended. However, Sieg would have been killed by Red Saber had Red Berserker’s attack not happened and Red Saber was forced to retreat. Red Saber had been turned into quite a more unlikable character with recent battles, so I will be interested to see what is done with her.

As to Sieg, the injuries put on him by Red Saber, combined with the power that Black Saber consumed, meant that Sieg was helpless. I’m assuming he will heal pretty quickly though. I still don’t care all that much for him as a character, but I do kinda want to see where his story goes.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

OK, time to wrap this review of Fate/Apocrypha 11 up so I can continue my push to try to catch up with the series and start one other.

• Why does Red Assassin have a spike in each hand? I noticed that and it is really distracting to me now.
• Although I haven’t cared for Red Lancer, Black Lancer annoys me more. So I was glad to see him handle his own in this episode.
• I’m glad Red Berserker is finally gone. Good riddance!
• Red Caster (Shakespeare) annoys the crap out of me as well. He’s another one who needs to bite the bullet.

In the end, Fate/Apocrypha 11 does some interesting things and keeps my attention well enough. However, I still can’t shake the feeling that there’s something missing in the series.