January 30th, 2018 
AstroNerdBoy Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 01
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
A female Master has her legs cut off and is dying. A Saber-class Servant (Nero) attacks a Buddha repeatedly, but loses and dies, as does the Master. Elsewhere, a guy named Hakuno is in class in a fancy classroom, learning about Servants and such. After class, he joins his friend Shinji and Shinji’s girlfriend Misao. From one of the school walkways, they look into a courtyard, where a chess match is going on. The loser of the chess match is stabbed with a spear, so Hakuno goes down, wondering why he feels so much hate.
At the platform, he’s joined by a girl named Rin, who helps him take the guy to the infirmary, currently staffed by a girl named Sakura. They place the guy into the last open bed. Hakuno’s vision changes, but when asked by Rin, he denies there’s anything wrong. Sakura wants to bury someone who’s died, so Hakuno takes the body to Limbo, a building full of mystery and rumors as it holds an incinerator. He drops the body off a plank, where it disappears. He then has a vision of a city on fire.
A man joins him, explaining things and that his vision is actually a childhood memory. A god named Moon Cell created this artificial paradise for them all to reside in. The man encourages Hakuno to ask “Angelica Cage” in this place his questions, but the man disappears as an announcer declares all survivors and NPCs will be purged as all selectees have been chosen. Hakuno finds Shinji and the two flee, but then Shinji repeatedly stabs Hakuno, leaving him for dead.
Exterminators come into the place and begin slaughtering students. This and Hakuno’s hatred bring him back. Hakuno makes it back to Limbo, but a thing resembling Archer (EMIYA) attacks him and sends him down the abyss. He finds himself in what appears to be a ruined theater, with a sword in a small patch of grass and flowers. He wields the sword to defend himself, but is joined by Saber (Nero), who takes the sword from him and dispatches the Archer. She then asks Hakuno if he is her Master.
Thoughts/Review:
Just when I think the Fate muli-verse cannot get any stranger, along comes Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 01 to prove me wrong.
Some Fate/stay night Crew
I knew that this series would feature Nero-Saber as the main Servant and some new dude as the MC. What I didn’t know is that we’d see Rin, Sakura, and Shinji from Fate/stay night in this weird world. And all three seem to be similar to their other incarnations that I’ve seen. Rin is still a bit haughty, but helpful.
Sakura is still doing her “Senpai” thing. So I liked that, though the new character designs will take some time to get used to.
As to Shinji, he’s still the same arsehole he always has been. However, I almost laughed out loud when he is shown to have a girlfriend in Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 01. However, who knows what Misao’s true role will be, assuming she’s even alive.
Just Weird
As I mentioned, Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 01 is not only strange, but weird and confusing. From watching this episode twice, it appears that Hakuno may have been a survivor of some terrible catastrophe on Earth, so he is allowed to “live” as a simulation inside some computer called Moon Cell. Apparently he doesn’t have memories ’cause he had to have his vision of the fire and devastation explained to him.
Within this Moon Cell, there’s something called SE.RA.PH and Angelica’s Cage and who knows what all else. Apparently, Moon Cell saved anyone capable of becoming a Master. However, it seems to put them all through the same things over an over. It seems that Hakuno had already come and wondered things, but didn’t ask his questions in time.
That said, hopefully this confusing mess will become less so over time.
Saber-Nero
It was inΒ Fate/Grand Order that I was introduced to Saber-Nero. I liked the character in the chapter she’s introduced in (this was when I still bothered to go through the tedious, time consuming, mindless banter that passes for a story in the game), so I’m glad to see her in Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 01. I have not summoned this incarnation of Saber-Nero in the game, but I did manage to summon her bride form recently, which is pretty cool.
That aside, I’m looking forward to the latest “Saber face” in the franchise doing her thing. The confusing nature of the story makes me wonder what she was doing in the intro with that other Master in her failed attempt to beat that Buddha thing. Since this place they are at is on a lather-rinse-repeat cycle, I wonder how this affects Servants. I don’t think I’d be smiling if I were a Servant, forced to go through all this again unless Servant memories are wiped as well.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 01 is a bizarre, confusing entry into the latest Fate series in the franchise. Hopefully it gets better and hopefully, I can continue to episode-blog the series.
Update: I realized I didn’t see the stuff after the ED. Kirei returns! Still confusing as all get out.
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I havent commented on your blog in ages ^^
I have a few mix feelings towards the main character… but this anime is an adaptation of the Fate Extra game but seemingly its going to be completely rewritten.
[spoiler]The Female Master is actually Hakuno Kishimoto, the more popular version of Hakuno from Fate Extra, Extra CCC and Extella.
Personally, considering the personality profile and how Hakuno is more of a Master than Sieg and Shirou… i think the female version would have been better… infact her appearance and reaction gives off nostalgia towards the game version of Hakuno whilst Male Hakuno felt kinda out of character with his I hate the world comments.
Hakuno was more of a damsel in distress, a lost lamb dragged into the Grail War and is constantly protected by the Servant and supports them as a Master giving the servant a reason to fight and serve happily.
If the anime is anything similar to the original plot… then It is set in the distant future… implied to be some time during Emiya Shirou legacy making era… where humanity is in a age of conflict and he is still actually alive, travelling the middle east like we see in Archer’s flashback in UBW
As for the city Burning… it is implied to be either Fuyuki or if it follows the game the distant future… Hakuno was a comatose victim suffering a rare form of disease that affected memories and was cyrogenetically frozen.
Twice H. Pierceman the guy in the glasses and whitecoat was the only one who could save them but was killed in a terrorist attack and died.
He is reborn as a NPC and by miracle gained a self conscious. Hakuno is a contradictory existence but is also an NPC who gains consciousness.
However the anime has altered the character somewhat… we dont know if both Female and Male Hakuno are the same person… whether or not the Male is a respawn of the female one or if the female was the original human…
Pierceman in the game used his status as a NPC to go through the grail war countless time until he won with Tamamo no Mae the best caster waifu.
He restructured the Moon Cell Grail War and leaked its existence out luring people to come into the Moon Cell creating a Battle of the fittest
The opening of the anime is set on the preliminary, eliminating everyone and keeping only the strongest.
The tournament is set up with 128 participants over the course of 7 weeks.
Note the line up is bound to change! Even the structure of the war most likely alter from what we know from the game…
Week 1 – Vs Rider 128 remaining
Week 2 – Vs Archer 64 remaining
Week 3 – Vs Caster 32 Remaining
Week 4 – Vs Lancer or Berserker (Depending on who is saved) 16 Remaining
Week 5 – Vs Assassin 8 Remaining
Week 6 – Vs Berserker or Lancer (Depending on who you didnt save) 4 Remaining
Week 7 – Vs Saber 2 Remaining
Final Boss vs Saver
In the anime… it is noted that Hakuno Male is the 129th Master… in the Game Hakuno who is an NPC actually replaces someone who unfortunately died and Hakuno summons Either Nero, Tamamo or Emiya.
But yeah I just find female Hakuno would be more appealing to watch considering they are finding their own purpose (bit like Sieg) and i dunno I just hope we dont get some …. pull with the male Hakuno… like if Nero has to constantly save him and babysit him its going to be like Fate Stay Night routes Shirou and Saber… though I’m getting this vibe Hakuno going to jump in and save Saber…
Aside from that… the characters we see are alternate versions of the characters we know.
Shinji is a top notch hacker and gamer and is actually capable unlike his whimpy magicless counterpart in Fate
Rin is implied to be a relative of Rin Tohsaka and that Rin isnt actually her real name… her hair is actually Blonde in the real world but like Rin Tohsaka she is the same as her.
Sakura is actually relatively normal and is an NPC unrelated to Shinji. She doesnt go crazy unless it is the CCC route.
Emiya is the Moon Cell version and is named Nameless, he is the embodiment of the concept of Hero of Justice, Shirou contracts with Moon Cell instead of Alaya during the Nuclear Facility scene as seen in UBW. Since Nameless implies that he too was executed but his last heroic act was running several laps through a Nuclear Power Plant as it was melting down. Anime Version just has him as a Statue… possibly a previous summon of Hakuno… if the theory of death and reset applies.
Kotomine Kirei is a NPC, he was generated to mediate the Holy Grail War.
Moon Cell basically keeps a copy of the earth and records all its event which is why the Angelic Cage a.k.a Se.Ra.Ph has a record of all the heroes… and summons them from their archive and not the Throne of Heroes.
Extella plays more on the self defense mechanism where it summons servants to protect itself.[/spoiler]
Thanks for the great info! I had someone tell me that a couple of CEs in Fate/Grand Order are actually the MC(s) from Fate/EXTRA.
Correction, the name is actually Kishinami, not Kishimoto.
I played a little bit of Fate Extra so I wonder if this series will follow the plot of that at all… The Fate universe continues to churn out series all of a sudden but I don’t know if they’ll ever hit the height that UBW did. Nero is probably my favorite servant so it’s nice to see her get some more love. I suspect they’ll make her as… sultry and outgoing as they do in other games.
Zero and UBW was good because ufotable was faithful as well as having decent budget.
Apocrypha did really well but animation quality did drop a bit but it did really well.
Kaleid deviated a little bit so 3rei was no where near as impactful
Extra… hopefully it does good but i wish we had the female Hakuno over Male… it just felt better considering how much of a lost little lamb they were in the game.
On Apocrypha, there were a lot of things that made no sense to me. I don’t think A1 adapted most of the heart of the source material.
I wish I had the Light Novels to compare but difficult to find a copy of it translated… hoping they do officially release an english copy.
Most plot around Fate Apocrypha is vague but enough information out there to make heads and tales of the whole thing
But Fate Apocrypha being adapted by A1 was going to be bad since they skim over the finer details hence why Sword Art Online despite being one of the best Light Novels in Japan is mainly hated by western fans who dont quite get what the fuss is about.
But yeah I assume you are confused with Sieg final battle and some of the servants abilities as well as the Grails mechanics and wish granting?
True.
I didn’t know A1 did SAO. That explains a few things.
The wish granting made no sense to me. I don’t know how Shirou gets a wish granted when he hasn’t won the Greater Holy Grail War. I can understand how Red Caster could survive for a bit after Shirou left. And yeah, I don’t know how Sieg was able to get a bit of Fran-chan in him.
Yeah… because I read the novels of SAO I know a lot of material was cut out… so when they were announced to be doing Apocrypha I was a bit meh about it… battle was perfect but story telling was lacking.
to answer your question
The wish granting made no sense to me. I donβt know how Shirou gets a wish granted when he hasnβt won the Greater Holy Grail War. I can understand how Red Caster could survive for a bit after Shirou left. And yeah, I donβt know how Sieg was able to get a bit of Fran-chan in him.
Ok so… this is from as much information I have dug up and learnt without having a light novel (wish they had a official release) I’m pretty sure this is accurate or it is as accurate as I can get it… will add the spoiler tags in case
[spoiler]Frankenstein like his/her legend implies, was brought to life by a bolt of lightning, this later becomes her noble phantasm, Bridal Crest and Blasted Tree.
Prior to Sieg’s encounter with Mordred, he was basically a Homunculous destined to die in about 3 years time. He had first class magic circuits and a tank of mana but a weak body. Siegfried Heart basically allows Sieg to live and strengthens his body, allowing him to potentially live for 100 years or more.
However… that potential lifespan was cut short… Sieg was a numpty and got run through by Saber of Red. As he basically died, Frankenstein’s Noble Phantasm hit him and revived him with light embed with her will, which later grants him Galvanism, the Perpectual Motion Generator of Birdal Crest and Blasted Tree (both weakened)
At the same time he also merged with Siegfried and became a demi servant so to speak, his stats are perfectly replicated but he is a fake Heroic Spirit and cannot compete with the real Servant.
Balmung depletes his entire reserve of Mana he has in store and even taking form takes a massive toll on his body… like Heaven’s Feel, Siegfried Heart is eating away at Sieg’s body like Archer eating away at Shirou after the arm was grafted onto his body.
However thanks to Galvanism, Sieg can Instantly replenish his Mana to full allowing consecutive firing of Balmung as what is depleted is instantly replenish. This basically puts him at a far closer replica of the real Siegfried than the Servant version who was hindered due to being a Servant copy of the real deal.
Now onto the wish on the Greater Grail…
Shirou actually cheated… the war was only 3/4 of the way in and no victor was decided… Masters and Servants were still alive and Shirou basically used his own Noble Phantasm and Shakespeare’s Noble Phantasm to force his way in. He then activates the 3rd great magic Heaven’s Feel to materialise the souls of mankind.
Then we have the final round of fights to determine the victor.
Rider of Red eliminates Archer of Black
Saber of Black/Sieg takes our Lancer of Red
Rider of Red takes Archer of Red with him
Saber of Red mortally wounds Assassin of Red and then forfeits and retires
This leaves Rider of Black and his master Sieg and Assassin and Caster of Red and their master Shirou to fight it out for the rights and ownership of the Grail and become the winner of the Grail War.
Shirou despite being a relatively weak Servant with his Ruler abilities basically nullified had given up his Noble Phantasm to negate Ruler’s final attack. What Shirou didn’t expect was Sieg inheriting and fully utilising Galvanism to rotate his mana and I assume the experience from Siegfried to fight and compete on the level of a Servant
Arguably… Sieg is doing the same thing as Emiya Shirou… Shirou had connected with Rin to gain a pool of Mana and was practically a Pseudo servant when fighting Gilgamesh… Sieg did the same but without a Master providing him Mana… he just had a instant Mana refill ability and experienced picked up along the way and a weakened Noble Phantasm.
Shirou was basically defeated and was left for dead… so as the victor, Sieg was moved into the greater grail with Rider. Caster was essentially left without a master as Shirou dies.
Now the Wish itself… so the Grail doesn’t actually grant wishes… its true purpose is the usage of the third great magic the materialisation and manipulation of Souls… it can however use the mass mana reserve to realise a wish but not literally grant it… a method has to be available for it to grant it.
Shirou’s wish was already activated… the Third Great Magic – The Materialisation of Soul was his desired method use for the ‘Salvation of Mankind’ wish and it cannot be deactivated.
The Grail basically cannot grant Sieg’s wish because he lacked a method to cancel out the wish and the wish itself has nothing to do with the materialisation of souls. However the Grail did drop hints as to how he could get his wish granted.
Siegfried’s Heart is now consuming him, turning him into the evil dragon Fafnir. Sieg was essentially doomed to slowly transform into a dragon. The wish cannot be cancelled and once it is within range of anything that is human, it will rip out their souls so… Sieg altered his wish, to remove the grail to a place where no human exist.
His Method proposed upon the grail, was to fully transform into Fafnir and carry the grail to the reverse side of the world where no humans exist hence there is nothing for the Grail to target.
The Grail answers his wish as the true victor of the Holy Grail War and accelerates his transformation into Fafnir whilst retaining his sanity and allowed him to transport the grail off world.
[/spoiler]
Thanks for all the great Fate/Apocrypha info. π
Yeah, its funny how the Fate franchise is so hot for anime adaptations after all these years.
As to Nero-chan, well, I did like her a lot in FGO, so I hope she’s the same here.
I guess it just goes to show that one mediocre adaptation won’t ruin your franchise forever. You hear that, Ken?
Hahaha! That’s true.
Fate’s a odd series, never understood why they went through so much trouble with justifying their genderswaps when it could have been so much easier to just have the servant be altered form their original forms.
Well, since most of the people “playing” the original visual novel were men, having the man Arthur be the female Altria ended up being a massive win for TYPE-MOON since Saber-Altria is one of the most popular characters they did. Of course now, making these males actually be females covers a ton of the Servants in the Fate-multiverse, all so guys can have a “waifu.” ?
Legit it is prrtty much what you said. Part of the reason is to also balance the gender ratio… since most heroic figures were men in legends
Kinda of a low blow by showing FemHakuno just to be butchered and put MalHakuno as protagonist, considering shes far more popular than the usual “self insert” MalHakuno :/
Despite being very similar story wise some FemHakuno special interactions are pure gold, like when she trolls Emiya asking if she likes Rin and he falls off the chair or the Gil/FemHakuno dynamic that would make Rin that cry tears of happiness of getting Trollmiya instead the King of Trolls. FemHakuno is quite snarky sometimes to compensate
Is there a romance element between the MC and Saber-Nero? If so, I bet that’s the reason.
I believe there is. Nero isn’t picky about gender. In fact I think she prefers girls. I’m pretty sure she basically confesses to the MC at some point.
Nero swings both ways. On one occasion she mentions “I love both men and women. I love all humans without regard of their gender. This is another thing I wish to set straight. I do not consider gender when i devote myself to a person.”
The only one you could cast more doubts about her sexuality is Tamamo, and shes more charmed by a “pure soul” so you can say she doesnt pay much atention to the gender of her master but at his/her pure soul that gazes upon her. But since she calls her master Goshujin-sama and shes devoted to be the perfect housewife it makes more sense that her master is a male, thats why is reasonable that MalHakuno is her master on the manga.
Emiya route can go either a Rin/Archer-like dynamic with some romance sprinkled between, to a full on bromance in MalHakuno/Archer route
Maybe I can watch episode 2 tomorrow.
Nero doesn’t care about her gender considering the fact she wrestled a lion into submission whilst stark naked in a colosseum in front of everyone.
Nero treats the Master like a Master, her king and her emperor
She quite literally takes on the role of a servant who serves their lord.
Think of her as a more chrismatic and happy saber than Altria.
Tamamo basically wishes to be a good wife so she is waifu, with male she feels like those girls who come on hard… whilst female it feels more like a best girlfriend gag routine
Archer and Female Hakuno is more of a gag coupling
My experiences with Nero are limited to the chapter in FGO that she was featured in. (That was when I had time to go through the tedium of the story.) So I liked her there.
Just giving you a quick heads up that the Prisma Illya movie Oath Under the Snow blu-ray is out and is now subbed.
Kyaaaaaa! Must get that. *sob* I’m not complaining ’cause I’m glad to have the job I have, but I do sometimes miss being able to watch hours of anime a day.