フェイト／ステイナイト Ep 05
Fate/stay night episode 05

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Shirou has Saber stay hidden to avoid dealing with her presence with Sakura and Fuji-nee. When he comes home, he’s surprised to learn that Saber has spent the day sleeping to recover her energy, something she plans to continue doing since Shirou can’t provide her much energy.

That evening at dinner, Shirou regrets having Sakura hidden and decides to introduce her to Sakura and Fuji-nee. Fujimura is not happy about this foreigner living with Shirou and doesn’t believe the old “distant relative” routine. When Saber says she’s Shirou’s protector, Fujimura decides to challenge that with a match in the dojo. Saber agrees to the challenge and with ease defeats Fujimura twice by taking her bamboo sword. So Fujimura and Sakura decide to spend the night with Saber to see if she’ll be OK and the next morning, they agree to Saber living with Shirou.

Before Shirou leaves for school, he’s warned by Saber to be careful and to summon her if needed, using one of the precious marks on his hand. When Shirou enters the school ground, he senses something bad but can’t identify it and goes on. Rin refuses to speak to him and she’s irritated, especially since she’d told Archer that she’d kill Shirou should he come without Saber. Shirou learns that Ayako and Shinji from the archery club are missing but he’s unable to learn more about their absence. After school, he encounters the irritated Rin, who informs him that she’s going to use her “Gando Shot” – a Scandinavian curse spell – on him. He ends up fleeing to a classroom but she prevents his escape out the window with a barrier. Shirou uses his ability to strengthen a desk as a shield for Rin’s eventual attack while outside, a mysterious person observes the activity and smiles.

Thoughts/Review:

The humor levels were much higher this time, which is a good thing. For starters, I liked how the writers played with the age-old “introduce the strange person living with me as a relative of some sort.” It was great how Fujimura refused to accept that excuse and challenged Saber to a bamboo sword match in the dojo. Not only was Fujimura’s going off funny, but Saber casually schooling Fujimura by taking her sword was a laugh. The “sword turns into a bouquet of flowers” gag was completely unexpected and having Saber take the second sword was funny to me. So good job here plus we have a logical way for Saber to be with Shirou.

Next on the humor front was the initial stages of the fight between Rin and Shirou. When Shirou leaped down a section of stairs, I thought nothing of it because in shounen anime titles, the hero or heroine can make amazing leaps and jumps with no sweat. So having Shirou experience that leg shock that we’ve likely all experienced at some point in our life after jumping from a greater height that we should was unexpected AND was a good laugh. Having the same thing happen to Rin was funny but hers was enhanced by the old, “if you jump like that, I can see under your skirt” gag. No ecchi but all funny. ^_^

Now to the serious – the writers had established last week that humans could be consumed as a source of energy for a Servant, something abhorrent to Saber. Rin and Archer coming upon a scene where people were unconscious in an office building and apparently used as food played upon that. Rin had been playing things in helping Shirou but she actually attacks Shirou, even if not to kill him but to put him out of the game. I can’t say that was unexpected seeing as how “there can be only one” as they say in Highlander. It will be interesting to see how their fight turns out since I can’t imagine Rin being taken out and Shirou is the hero of the series means he can’t be taken out.

So lots of good stuff here. The great thing about watching a series that has already made its run is that I can watch the episodes without waiting another week. ^_^