February 23rd, 2018 
AstroNerdBoy Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 03
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Rin rescues Saber-Nero and Hakuno on her flying speed motorcycle. Hakuno wakes in a luxury apartment with Code Cast bandages on his stab wounds. Rin introduces herself, though Hakuno remembers her. Saber reveals herself in the chair by Hakuno’s bed. Rin explains she’s leading the resistance and gives potions to her guest to help them recover. As Rin explains the situation, Saber demands to know what caused this. Rin tells them it is the Chakravartin, who’s overwritten SE.RA.PH.
Their only way off the first floor is to battle Shinji, the only Master left with a Servant. As such, the next day, they plan their attack and carry it out. Rin keeps the three Berserker Servants occupied while Saber and Hakuno make their way inside. There, they find the halls of a school, where on the roof, Shinji waits for them. Nero challenges him, but he dismisses her, namely because he doesn’t want the Holy Grail War resumed. Hakuno challenges him, causing Shinji to remember how he hated killing others.
Shinji accepts while causing the city to be flooded. The waters reach Rin, who’s just defeated the three Berserkers. Shinji’s Servant, Rider-Drake, emerges on her Noble Phantasm ship and the battle is on. Rider’s NP attack causes Saber to fall into the water, where she attempts to use her Imperial Privilege to raise a sunken ship for her purposes, by her mana is low. Hakuno dives in and kisses her to restore it. Saber rises to challenge Rider, using her sunken ship to ram Rider’s ship.
Rider runs out of ammo for her flinters, allowing Saber to defeat her. Shinji has a moment with Rider, mourning her passage. Shinji makes excuses, so Hakuno cuts him off. However, Hakuno no longer holds resentment of Shinji. Shinji is also beginning to dissolve as is Rider. She remarks that in the end, Shinji didn’t hurt his friend. Shinji half-heatedly states that Hakuno is not his friend and then is no more. Rider asks Hakuno why he wants to ascend, but is gone before he can answer. With the city destroyed, Saber and Hakuno are taken to the next floor, Rin in hot pursuit on her bike.
Thoughts/Review:
Rider-Drake. How little we came to know you as you passed on in Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 03. Shame really, as I have her in Fate/Grand Order.
Rin: Dues Ex Machina
I’m not sure how close the Rin of Fate/EXTRA Last Encore is to her Fate/stay night version. (Or for that matter, the version of her in Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA.) In personality, she’s being used as an exposition spouter as she helps the main character out.
However, she seems to be the most powerful version of Rin I’ve ever seen. For starters, she defeated three Berserker class Servants by herself, which is no easy feat. Then, when the flood waters came in and swamped the city, it appeared that Rin would be dead. But then at the end, she shows up on her bike, unharmed. So that begs the question of what she is, exactly.
Also, I was totally wrong about Rider being her Servant. Bummer that.
Shinji: Trying to Do Right?
The Shinji in Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 03 may be the most sympathetic Shinji of all the versions I’ve come to know over the years. During the flashback when Shinji and Rider won the Holy Grail War for the first level, Shinji hated this system that had forced him to kill Hakuno and now this final Master. So I understand Shinji’s desire to turn the first floor into a paradise where Masters no longer had to battle each other, even though this meant that the humans here stopped doing anything.
This desire of Shinji’s makes Nero’s desire for battle come off as bloodthirsty. Yes, there’s a wish to be won by winning the Holy Grail War, but at what cost? And yes, the humans on the first floor stagnated into nothing, but still. Shinji may have gone about things wrong, but I like his idea.
Finally, Shinji chose to die and not abandon Rider rather than follow her suggestion to break their contract so he could live. That was a nice touch.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
As always, I’m massively behind (but I’m getting my work done for my two jobs, so that’s cool), so let me wrap up my review of Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 03.
- I guess it isn’t a Fate title without a mana transfer scene.
- I’m not sure I get how Rider-Drake, who used bloody flintlock pistols in rapid fire mode, can be “out of ammo.”
- As someone who has Rider-Drake as a Servant in Fate/Grand Order, I loved seeing the full affect of her Noble Phantasm when it attacked.
- If Shinji wasn’t responsible for Chakravartin, who is? Could it have something to do with the series introduction when we saw Saber-Nero fighting an unknown entity with her Master fatally injured?
- What awaits our merry trio on level 2?
In the end, Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 03 continues to be odd, but my attachment to the Fate franchise won’t let me go. So, let’s see what weirdness awaits.
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Man Rin is a complete twig in this series.
Haha. That’s SHAFT for ya.
So I discovered a bit of juicy information in regards to this series…
So Nasu planned it out to be like this “Through “Last Encore”, I tried to make it something that feels different depending on whether you know the premise.
For the people who will watch this anime as their first “EXTRA” experience, I want this to be the starting point where they become interested in the original game and the comics (5 volumes in total, on sale from Kadokawa!)
For the people familiar with the original game, I want them to go “What…?” at the differences.
So people can have fun playing EXTRA after watching the anime, and people can have fun watching the anime after playing the game.
I hope we made something that can be enjoyed both ways.”
—Kinoko Nasu
The what factor is definitely there… but it seems people aren’t too keen on the series direction… its gone too far off to one side for our liking… Not to mention the trashing of Female Hakuno who is arguably more popular… also the story seems to be based off the Fate Extella origin which is a alternative scenario from the established Extra/Extra CCC storyline…
The Extella/Zero is pretty much the same with Hakuno having Saber as his servant and there is another Hakuno an NPC copy that was created at the same time which is Hakuno female but she lacks a soul, her servant was Archer Nameless a.k.a Emiya but was imcoplete summoned and thus had a half destroyed body.
Fate Extella/Zero info here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/188034-fate-extella-the-umbral-star/74558479
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Now onto Francis Drake, yeah she is sorta reminiscent of her Fate Extra self, being a pirate who banters with Shinji and annoys him from time to time… but because she is the first servant whose backside you have to kick… she doesn’t really leave much of an impression… mainly because of Shinji’s hateful attitude stealing the spotlight… which is why I love the character development of Rider in FGO.
Now the death is kinda more touching in the anime as Shinji is showing some humanity (which shows how traumatically messed up Last Encore Grail war has become)… in the game… Shinji literally suffers like a sore loser and tries to escape/log out but Se.Ra.Ph blocks this and he gets deleted(killed) with Rider
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As for Rin… yeah… she might seem somewhat similar to Rin Tohsaka… but this ‘Rin’ isn’t actually the Rin we know and love.
[spoiler]She is actually a completely different Rin, a relative of Rin. I’m hoping they will show her real body self to help explain this in future.
But here are pictures of ‘Rin’ Tohsaka real life body and child Rin with… Rin… you know… the adult one… from Fate that we all know… but as a silloutte
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/2/25/YoungExtraRin.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120303212206
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/2/2c/Rinextra.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121118162851%5B/spoiler%5D
Rin’s Servant: Actually it will come as no surprise as there was a subtle hint in a previous series and it is a somewhat of a fan service and irony that Rin’s relative would summon this servant… But his class and identity is [spoiler]Lancer: Cu Chulainn[/spoiler]
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In terms of command spells, I noticed every Master besides Hakuno has only one command spell left.
Thanks for the info! Regarding Rin, is that why in FGO (Japan version) fan art, I see…
[spoiler] Ishtar with both black hair and blonde hair?[/spoiler]
So literally came across this the other day because I’m playing FGO myself now 🙂 loving the game, I went on a grind through the Kara no Kyoukai event and now speeding through the 4th Singularity… also loving the Fate Extra and CCC references… the game makes so many references to Extra and Extra CCC!!!
[spoiler]Tamamo and Anderson… Elizabeth and Nero… Rider and of course Alice… like Nero and Rider are the human version before becoming their Extra incarnate but Tamamo, Anderson and Alice so far are a direct pull from Extra and Extra CCC the master Tamamo refers to is infact Hakuno whilst Alice and Anderson are servants of other masters that you face…
Also Emiya… this is actually Nameless and not the Fate Stay Night Incarnation but the version that comes from Moon Cell hence why if you see him in a gang… it would be with Nero and Tamamo.[/spoiler]
Anyways I digress… In regards to Ishtar (Archer) and Ereshkigal (Lancer)… it seems one of the theories going around is that…
[spoiler]So one of the early theory is… Ishtar is a Pseudo Servant summon through the possession of Rin (Fate with Black Hair) whilst Ereshkigal is summoned through the possession of Rin (Extra with Blonde Hair)
But it seems that may not be the case… I’m not sure if it is officially confirmed but the seemingly official detail states that Ishtar has taken possession Rin’s body whilst Ereshkigal has taken possession of Rin’s soul and the blonde hair may be in reference to Fate Extra Rin, her relative… and also most likely drawing on the idea presented in Fate Extella with the whole idea of a divided Body, Mind and Soul… and also they going with the whole both goddess have one and the same origin which brings into question what happen to Rin’s mind… (Sounding very Kingdom Hearts now…)
It seems there is a story going on with Rin in the world of FGO where her Body and Soul have been either hijacked or separated and the poor girl basically has her Soul possessed by one goddess and her vacant body possessed by another goddess… maybe Rin can charge Ishtar rent so that she can pay off her debts XD…
Going off that… I wonder if there will be an event in future that dives into that idea… Save Tohsaka Rin… who has her Mind, Body and Soul hijacked by goddesses although… (haven’t got to Babylonia yet) it seems that Ereshkigal is in possession of the soul but resides in the body that is controlled by Ishtar… which make sense as to why the hair colour change… to differentiate the two and to of course pay reference to Extra Rin
[/spoiler]
I hate the grind in FGO because it is so bloody time consuming. The Kara no Kyoukai event did help me a ton in the rewards by allowing me to ascend Waver-kun to 4 and some other Servants as well. But I lost a ton of sleep to do so, and didn’t blog a bit.
Thanks for the info!
Personally the Rider fight was kinda meh with too much plot armor in Nero favor. Drake NP rank is A+ even if we consider that she was poor when she used which downgrades her NP damage, Nero would have either died or lose a limb/critically injured when tanking that shot, even a grazing blow should have done quite a bit of damage instead of simply knocking her down to the sea seemingly unharmed but oom
And the running out of ammo on the worst moment despite having EX rank luck and able to spam rapid fire on flintlock guns….
Hope this improve because between this and Extella, Nero is slowly becoming Kirito Fate’s version. At least her personality is far better but the constant Nero wank despite being a mid-high tier servant at best (Artoria, Altera, Heracles and Romulus trash her for example) is starting to be really annoying.
On Fate Extra game, Drake lost only because the MC actually sabotaged Drake funds gathering thus nerfing her NP (and usually is better to not let her use it anyways, still hurts like hell), got data on her indentity which allowed to create tactics against her and that Shinji jobbed a lot on his duty as a Master doing a half assed job and mostly leaving the fight to Drake alone instead of supporting her properly. Despite all of that preparations the MC was stilll lucky to manage to pull it off
Yeah, the Rider-Drake vs. Saber-Nero fight felt artificially done for Nero.
Thanks for the additional info!
The only redeeming thing about this series was pretty much praying the fights will be good plus… the main reason Hakuno and Nero/Emiya/Tamamo won the war was because they were the weakest of the weakest and they won by genuine Master Servant relationship and didn’t use their Noble Phantasm’s until much later on.
So a lot of it was due to tactical thinking and actually strategically learn information about their opponents and to strengthen the bond between Master and Servant which I guess does work better for Female Hakuno…
Nero/Emiya/Tamamo wish to protect and help their master and their trust in their servant form a bond strong enough to win…
But i’m glad they didn’t use female Hakuno in the sense that giving them Dead Face which I still find nothing interesting about it because it just full on 180 their personality and is like wtf so out of character… so if anime series fail… Male Hakuno can be hated.
So far, they seem to win only because the script demands it.