Fate/Zero – 08 Review

Episode 08 – Magus Killer

Kirei appears as tension is running high.

Although the pacing of the episode was done pretty well, the execution of the display of the fights was not something that I had loved too much.

Review

The Issues

With 3 different battles taking place simultaneously, the episode had segmented itself in order to cover each scene. Segmentation is fine with me and it is not the issue, the issue is the constant jumping back and forth between the 3 fights as I find it really hard to have to constantly switch between the different moods in each scene.

The atmosphere of the fight is constantly ruined with the scenes cutting back and forth to the other 2 fights the minute the battle gets to a good “cliffhanger” moment. This whole thing definitely frustrated me as it takes time for me to get back into the groove of the new battle shown on screen. As I had mentioned, the pacing was fine since we had managed to wrap up the battles in the forest with this episode, but the show suffers from the same problems as before with too much dialogue and little overall plot progression. Thankfully, the well created background soundtrack prevents the show from becoming dull and dry during those heavy dialogue moments.

When I had said little progression, I was referring to the progression of the War itself, Kirei essentially appeared and disappeared without doing too much and the whole episode had basically added up to being a character development episode. The only real development with regard to the war is that Kayneth may or may not be totally out of commission due to Kiri’s bullet and that Caster might no longer have his Noble Phantasm.

Another issue, along with the execution issues was the “realism” of some things. I don’t know much about guns, but honestly, how many bullets does the gun that Kiri and Maiya were using have?! Kiri and Maiya kept shooting non-stop and the bullets never seem to run out. Whilst at first, I had wondered about Kirei’s unlimited swords stashed within his body, the last scene with Kirei walking away had shown us that the swords were magical, so that explained that fact. But, the bullets on the other hand, seem to be real ammo not magical.

Once again, Maiya and Irisviel both believe that Kirei is the biggest threat to Kiri without actually having given us a solid reason. The only thing I can conclude from the situation is that his cold blooded nature plus his “mage killer” title is the reason behind their fears.

Then we have the flaws with the fight between Kirei and Irisviel. Although we were shown that Kirei could block bullets with his arms (god knows why), I am assuming that the power is limited to his arms. When Irisviel had gained the upper hand and had asked Maiya to essentially do something about Kirei, I was really disappointed that the two of them did the stupid thing by simply standing around frozen in their spot due to Kirei’s show of power by attempting to break out of the tree. Seriously, they just stood there. Doing nothing. And stared. It kinda reminds you of those melo-dramatic moments where people stand in front of an oncoming truck and just stare, too shock to move from their spot despite them having ample time to walk away unscathed. At the very least, they could have tried to shoot Kirei with the gun again, doing something is bound to be better than nothing.

The Characters

The growing bonds between the characters were definitely interesting to watch. We have Saber and Lancer sharing a similar knight code thus helping one another out with regards to their masters. I was wondering if Saber’s real reason for allowing Lancer to leave was so as to stop Kiri from completing his plan. We all know that Saber hates Kiri’s cowardly manner. Perhaps this was her way of forcing Kiri to stop being a coward and hopefully destroy his well-made plans at the same time. Interestingly enough, Saber had pretty much banked on Lancer’s code of honor to not kill Kiri when she had let Lancer go to his Master’s rescue without really showing any worry for Kiri’s safety. I could definitely feel the animosity in the air.

What I had liked was how Kiri had appeared somewhat selfless through allowing Irisvirl to have Saber’s Scabbard. Sure, it was Kiri’s meticulous mind at work calculating everything, but I had felt that this “generosity” had showed more of his human and emotional side as compared to the previous episode’s emotional breakdown.

Of course we also have that weird flashback of the woman who had provided Kiri with those magical bullets made from bone dust from his ribs. o_O! I wonder if that woman is Kiri’s master. That location did look like some weird underground drain, so that might be an odd place to be doing medical procedures. =P Perhaps that is what caused Kiri to have that damn blank look in his eyes. An infection of sorts. =P

Then we have Kirei. I love the way Kirei psychologically struggles with being a heartless person by denying the fact that Kiritsugu might have been not as cold blooded as he had thought. It is interesting how Kirei is constantly trying to make Kiri out to be as coldblooded and “ruthless” as he is. I wonder whether we will be given a glimpse into Kirei’s backstory as it would be interesting to see what the reason behind Kirei’s cold attitude is.

The Action

At the end, it is looking like every player in the game is a coward except for Rider, Saber, Irisviel. I mean, they even called Caster a coward. T^T I was really feeling heartbroken when Caster’s book had gotten slashed. Poor Caster. I am quite disturbed at myself since I had actually feel sympathetic for such a sadistic and evil character.

Since I should be talking about the action scenes in this section and not Caster, I must say that the best moment of the episode was the short lived fight between Kirei and Maiya. Boy is Kirei powerful. The dynamic way in which the battle was done was really entertaining to watch, especially when it didn’t go by in just a big mass of blurred colours, but was instead intricate enough for us to make out the different moves that are being done. Most action scenes in shows usually end up being a mesh of twirling and spinning characters and explosions, but it is rare to find fluid and well animated scenes that capture the movement of the characters.

Another good thing about the episode was the fact that we got to see more magical fights between Mages with Irisviel using her stringy animal creations and Kirei using his magical swords and magically enhanced physical strength.

Overall

There is a conclusion to the arc in the forest and now each team is dispersing to “rest up”. Hopefully the next episode would still continue on with Caster being chased with the rest of the cast (mainly Rider and Berserker) catching up to him. I am doubtful if we will see much of Berserker in this series since we have seen so little of him thus far, but I am hoping that next episode would be filled with more battles and does not revert back to being a dialogue/plot-building episode.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10 –  Each scene was still good despite the jittery manner of the transition between the different battles.

– ra is sleepy and feeling the laziness of a Sunday afternoon settling in.

Fate/Zero Question of the Week:

So you guys had picked who you would like as your Servant last week (and we got some pretty intersting answers, although I feel like Archer is lacking the love =P).
This week, my question is what would you do if you had won the Holy Grail War.
(And don’t give me any of the Miss Universe crap like “World Peace” or asking for a miracle of having more miracles. =P)

Going by my friend’s logic that everyone feels relief and “blissful” when they crap, I shall follow her wish of giving everyone constipation and having everyone crap at the same time so that the whole world would feel happy for that short moment. Isn’t this a nice and simple wish? I don’t think I am asking for too much… right? =P Killing people so that the whole world can feel happy for a second. I must say that I am pretty selfless. XD Just kidding. =P