Anime in Focus: Fate Stay Night Episode 4

 <-Today's enemy is the great Demon... Hercules!

 Previous Episode

Alright, onto the last episode of Fate/Stay Night that was shown at an anime club meeting, meaning the rest I’m gonna have to go watch on my own. This is not an issue, since the series has been quite fun, despite being a bit slow moving.

Anyhoo, this episode starts with Shiro, Rin, and Saber running into a scary little gril named Illya. Illya is accompanied by her servant, a big macho guy of about 8 feet tall. This guy is apparently the great demon…. Hercules? Wait…. WHAT!?!

Anyway, Hercules is going by the name Berserker these days, and seems to have retained his love for hitting things with a club. Unfortunately, Saber is still using an invisible sword as a weapon, which isn’t very effective when compared to Berserker’s bigass club. While showing off some nice athletics, Saber gets her ass handed to her in after taking about one hit. While Berserker is about to perform the fatality on Saber, steps in and attempts to soak the blow for her. Unfortunately, Shiro has much less endurance than Saber, and gets thrown around like a ragdoll.

This fight disappointing ends with Illya and Berserker getting bored and walking off. This was really a disappointing out, since it would make more sense for Illya commanding Berserker to off Saber and possibly Shiro, just to get them out of the holy grail war. Alas, Shiro and Saber’s plot armor managed to save the day. Unfortunately, Shiro wakes up in a body cast, since he kinda took a hit from Greece’s biggest badass.

Shiro wakes up to get a lecture from Rin about being a moron and protecting Saber. Apparantly, it would be possible to bring her back from the dead, it would not be as easy to bring him back, since servants are apparently immortal. Since if a master dies, the servant dies anyway, it’s obviously not advantageous for Shiro to die protecting Saber.

More interestingly, we learn that servants can eat people’s souls to gain more power. Saber says she’s sworn not to do it, but you just KNOW this will come up later.

Interesting episode, but an awful lot of talking. I hope this just leads to more violence in later episodes.

Coming Soon: next ep

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Anime in Focus: Fate Stay Night Episode 3

 <-Saber proves the time honored fact that chicks in platemail are sexy

PREVIOUS EPISODE

After Shiro almost got killed last time, we get to see how he’s doing. He’s know in the room with this incredibly attractive blonde girl named Saber, who is apparently going to serve as his well… servant in the upcoming holy grail wars. After explaining some legal jargon to him, she then engages in combat with Lancer wielding an invisible sword. Apparently these things don’t come with stuff already equipped.

Saber unsurprisingly manages to ward off Lancer, but Lancer gets off a critical shot on her using his signature move, Gae Bolg. Looks like this is going to be one of those animes where they reference various mythologies lightly, but not put too much thought into it. Just tell the researcher inside of you to put a sock in it, and then keep watching.

Well, after nearly getting killed by lancer, Saber then goes on to fight Archer for some reason. Shiro manages to negotiate terms for peace between all the combating parties however, leaving him, Rin, and Saber to discuss terms. Rin, realizing that Shiro knows next to nothing about this whole Holy Grail war business, takes him to see her father, an ancient wizard.

Rin’s father manages to explain a bit more about the Holy Grail war, so the audience and Shiro get a better idea on what’s going on. Apparantly the big war is a big fight between servants and masters, in order to obtain the holy grail, which grants one wish to whoever grabs it, as long as they are worthy. Shiro decides to go for it, in order to prevent the grail from falling into the wrong hands.

Meanwhile, we learn about the realationship that servants and masters have. A servant cannot be killed, while a master is much weaker than a servant. However, if a master is killed, the servant gets banished from the material plane. Hence, they have a general need for each other. After a long exposition, Rin, Saber, and Shiro run into that little girl again, this time accompanied by a 10 foot tall guy with a club

NEXT EPISODE

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Anime in Focus: Fate Stay Night Episode 2

<-Today's person who wants to stab you to death is... LANCER


Previous episode

Alright, I watched this about a week ago, but I got distracted by making the weekend into

THE WEEKEND OF HARUHI

And forgot to finish writing up in focus sections for Fate Stay Night.

This episode starts with another bit of exposition about the Holy Grail war, and then shows a bit of the relationship between the wizard Rin, and her Servant Archer. Archer doesn’t remember much about his previous life, such as his name, but he does remember how to fight. And that’s all that matters apparently.

We then cut in to find out that Shiro has a huge mysterious gash for some reason. Meanwhile, Rin and Archer are busy spying on the school to find other servants and masters. Apparantly one’s around somewhere.

Meanwhile at the Ranch, Shiro gets duped into cleaning lockers by an annoying guy in the sports team. This causes Shiro to be school later than he should be, which fortunately turns out fine….

… because he’s the main character. If it was you, you’d get stabbed and die. Outside of the school, Rin and Archer run into another servant wielding a lance. Lancer and Archer duke it out (for some reason, Archer uses a pair of shortswords as his main weapon) and wind up being seen by Shiro. Apparantly some clause in the Holy Grail war’s terms means that Shiro has to be executed for witnessing this fight, so Lancer stabs him in the heart.

Fortunately for Shiro, Rin finds him and happens to know raise dead, and happens to be carrying a diamond worth 10000 gp. This allows her to cast resurrection on him, which isn’t very helpful. He’s alive, but that lancer guy will definitely kill him if he finds out he’s alive

Well, Lancer winds up finding Shiro at his house, and threatening to finish the job, before this REALLY attractive chick in blue armor shows up…

Anyway, things appear to be heating up in this series, even though it looks like watching a dungeons and dragons game. They even admit to what classes each of the characters are.

NEXT EPISODE

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Anime in Focus: Fate Stay Night Episode 1

Hello again readers, I’ve had a new anime club meeting, and hence a new batch of episodes to review. Well, sort of. We watched the first four episodes of Fate/Stay Night then everybody bailed to study because it’s getting to the end of the semester. So I’m going to watch some more stuff on my own to review so I don’t just post four straight reviews for the same anime. Won’t hurt me at least.

Anyway, on to the actual segment. This is the mandatory exposition episode. My friend who’d seen the series said we can skip it, but after seeing the first four eps, I can say he’s full of BULL****. Although not much happens, this episode sets up the characters and the general premise of the story. It starts with out a couple of warriors fighting and causing an explosion in some village. Unsurprisingly, the only survivor is the main character, Shiro.

After that, we learn about something called the “Holy Grail War, ” where a lot of people are fighting over something. Probably the Holy Grail. Then we’re transported to modern day, ten years later. Here we learn that Shiro has some strange power that makes him a really good mechanic. Also, we see a wizard summoning up an ancient warrior to do her bidding in this “Holy Grail war”

Lesse, not much happens in this episode… apparently there’s a” gas leak” (Why is all alien activity covered by gas leaks?) and some people being murdered with a bladed weapon. The main character seems to think it’s not going to affect him, but he’s definitely wrong. The main ends up walking past a creepy little girl, after a flashback about his father, and a few rants about the main character’s idealism. Also, the main character keeps having an image of a sword appear in his head.

Series looks good actually, I’m pretty exited to see everybody duke it out.

NEXT EPISODE

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