20Fate/Apocrypha 20
フェイト/アポクリファ episode 20

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Gordes is put in charge at the castle as Fiore, Caules, Black Archer, Black Rider, Ruler, and Sieg leave for the airport. The airport is deserted due to them having reserved it, where the Black Faction runs through their final plans and says their farewells. Inside the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Shirou uses a Command Spell on Red Caster to prevent him from writing a tragedy about Shirou. Red Assassin provides stairs for Shirou to enter the Greater Grail. After Shirou disappears, Red Assassin challenges Red Caster on whether he wants Shirou to fail. Red Caster turns it back on Red Assassin, who concedes she wouldn’t mind seeing him fail, but she’d rather watch him succeed.

A series of large passenger jets fly to the Hanging Gardens, so Red Rider is dispatched to deal with them. Red Archer refuses her assigned role, but is given permission to go after Ruler. Red Rider seems to have the advantage of Black Archer, but he falls into Black Archer’s trap and loses his mount as a result. Meanwhile, Red Archer becomes insane with rage at her inability to land a blow on Ruler. Meanwhile, Shirou appears to be walking through hell and the souls of those who slew his family are there. He then arrives at Heaven’s Feel, where a women resembling an Einzbern homunculus, wearing the Dress of Heaven, asks Shirou if he wishes to activate the Third Magic. He confirms that he does.

Thoughts/Review

And so Fate/Apocrypha 20 marks the beginning of the end for the Fate/Apocrypha anime series. I kinda feel underwhelmed at the moment.

Black Archer vs. Red Rider

The boring fight between Black Archer and Red Rider, which had been interrupted for however many episodes, resumes here. Initially, I was a little surprised that Red Rider seemed to have the advantage of Black Archer, but that was merely to lure Red Rider into a trap to lose his mount and chariot…again. 🙄

Frankly, I hate to say it, but this supposed friction between the two Servants going back in time just doesn’t work for me and never has. I just never cared about it as it seems petty and futile.

Red Archer vs. Ruler

Sadly, Red Archer has gone bat-S crazy in her obsession with killing Ruler. It is a shame really ’cause I kinda liked Red Archer. I certainly like Ruler, so I was please to see how Ruler easily knocks down all attacks from Red Archer.

The problem here is that because Red Archer has gone insane, I don’t really care about the fight. Although Ruler has incredible defenses against attacks, I figure Archer might land a blow, but will eventually have to go.

Shirou

You know, I’m not really sure why so much time was needed for Shirou to do his thing, other than to allow the Black Faction to do their thing. But whatever the reason, I’m completely in the dark as to why Shirou needed to burn a Command Spell on Red Caster. As Shakespeare, does Red Caster have some power to curse Shirou? Otherwise, why tell him to not write a tragedy? Seemed weird and dumb to me.

Because I don’t really care about Shirou, I didn’t care about his journey through hell. I didn’t even care about him arriving at Heaven’s Feel until I saw what looked like Iri from Fate/Zero there, wearing the Dress of Heaven. It is kinda sad that the only thing that grabbed my attention was the fact that this *might* be Iri. I don’t know the lore that well, but this could be the form Iri was based off of. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

As usual, I’m way behind, so lets wrap up my review of Fate/Apocrypha 20.

• No Red Saber nor Sisigou in this episode. I would have thought they would have shown up at the airport. But they weren’t there, no were they mentioned as part of the plan. Weird.
• Gordes may be the most surprising character in Fate/Apocrypha. Seriously, I can’t help but want this gruff old fool to end up in a romantic relationship with the female homunculus Thule.
• Even though I don’t much care about Black Rider, and I care even less about Sieg, I did appreciate the episode showing that Black Rider was afraid.

In the end, Fate/Apocrypha 20 got the ball rolling for the end of the series. However, the episode left me feeling underwhelmed.