Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Fate/Zero Season Two episode 5

Hello there my lovely readers! Today was a slightly _X day at work. Am I a pirate or is my eye twitching? In any event it is becoming clear that I am either the only sane person who works there…or I am the devil. A devil that wants people to do their jobs properly and not cause me problems. Fear me for I am evil.
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Is Tenchi going to make me work too?!
Speaking of evil…ready for a day at the beach?! Sure you are! It is time for Fate/Zero Season Two episode 5. Spoilers for…Tenchi getting her hopes up. :(
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Things never end well for the childhood friend does it?
Episode Summary: Instead of being in the middle of the Holy Grail War….it is a magical carpet ride back in time. A young Emiya is sporting a tan and living on some random island where everyone looks like Hawaiians. Maybe the Japanese tan real well. Or maybe they aren’t Japanese since everyone in all animes speak Japanese no matter what. In any event Emiya seems to like island life and has some friends. His closest friend is an old girl named Shirley. She explains to Emiya that many villagers are scared to visit Emiya’s house as it is built on an old temple ground that has a shady past. But Shirley isn’t scared and visits all the time. Emiya’s father is a mage working on some sort of potion (do they refer to them as potions?) that would increase a human’s lifespan or cause them to have everlasting life. So far he has succeeded making flowers never age (yet they never grow). Emiya shows an interest in helping his father and becoming a mage as well. Father Emiya is like no you are way too young and uses Shirley as his apprentice instead. Emiya seems slightly sad but never goes jealous and Wolverine on anyone. Shirley seems to think she is only a lowly apprentice and Emiya is the true heir.
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And thus Emiya's kill one to save many mentality was born.
Shirley takes Emiya to her secret place and slightly flirts with Emiya, knowing that he likes her. She asks what kind of adult Emiya wants to grow up to be. When he can’t give her an answer she says she wants him to grow up realizing Daddy Emiya’s dream and will stay by his side until that happens. Later that night Shirley breaks into the workshop and steals Daddy’s potion. The next morning Daddy asks Emiya if he went into the workshop. When Emiya says it wasn’t him Dad is like…stay here all day. Emiya waits all day for Shirley but she never shows up. Emiya decides to go to town and finds her….eating live chickens and crazy eyes. Apparently the everlasting potion did not work. She begs Emiya to kill her with her knife but he refuses. She escapes and starts infecting the entire village. The priest tried to protect Emiya but he ends up infected as well. Suddenly there are tons of outside and not tanned people in the village. Got some cloaked people slicing up the infected people. Who are NOT zombies apparently. Another group appears and starts using magic to kill the infected and burn the village down.
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Come with me if you want to live....and if you want to become awesome like me!
Emiya is like X___X and is almost nommed when ANOTHER person appears out of nowhere and saves him. He takes an instant liking to the woman and follows her. She basically explains that the two forces are the Church and Mage Association are the ones hacking up the village. They both have different reasons for being there. Oh and the infected are actually vampires, something that neither group wants to have around. She explains she is hired by the Mage Association and is there to find the either mage who made these Immortal Apostles. Emiya makes his way back to the house where he finds his Dad burning all his work and packing. Dad is like OH there you are…glad you are not dead. Emiya questions what the heck is going on and Dad explains that to reach Root he is going to need a lot more time than a normal human lifespan. He basically says it is too bad that Shirley died but now he knows what is not going to work with this potion. Oh and don’t worry son I will never turn on you. So Emiya stabs Dad with Shirley’s knife. There is a quick scene with Emiya explaining to the woman that the shield around the forest is too hard to break so he will kill Dad instead. The woman confirms later that the spell around the forest was easy to crack and it appears Emiya just wanted to kill his dad. Adult Emiya voices over that the woman safely got him off the island and spent the next few years with him. He ends up following in her footsteps and the rest is history? THE END!
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Who are you calling a vampire?!
I was SO excited halfway through this episode. ZOMBIES! Zombies! I love zombies! Zombies movies are some of my favorite horror movies to watch. I was like I can’t wait to blog this episode because there are ZOMBIES! I never thought I would see zombies in this show and since the current zombie show isn’t really…RARW zombies I was excited.
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My name is Alice....and I am airbrushed to hell despite the fact I am gorgeous.
But then they turned out to be deranged vampires. You should have seen my disappointed face. I was going to say HAHA ignoring your terminology. But then it became a major plot point and technically vampires are considered immortal while zombies are more gross undead things that many won’t consider the key to beating death.
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So much happy! Let's see how long that lasts.
So with that said…:( let’s blog this episode. I must say it was a real bizarre feeling, to go from the marriage ceremony/death of Tokiomi to the happy beach scene. Like whoa what is this, happiness and sunkissed kids? I mean I am sure Emiya didn’t start off all gloom and doom but I don’t think I was expecting this. XD Such a happy…if not very laid back kind of place.
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What a special nickname.
As much as I butcher Japanese names (I go pretty far in avoiding speaking their names out loud) I have to say…I was cringing every time Shirley’s name was spoken. XD It just sounded so weird to me. This has nothing to do with the show. I just thought it was funny that Emiya was having a pout because his name was being butchered but to me it was Shirley’s name that was sounding all weird to me. XD
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Please tell me again this story but this time with a bigger smile.
The back story about where Emiya lived right now…makes a lot more sense. You thought when Shirley was telling Emiya that story that is was just that, a story. Each small town has one right? But by the end of the episode you realized that Daddy Emiya picked this place on purpose. He didn’t want the locals messing around in his project. He either used Emiya to find a curious soul in town or let the curious soul come to him. Either way this scary location for the house was picked on purpose and not just because that is what happens in animes.
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Someone doesn't sound loved...
I want to say Daddy Emiya is just as bad as Tokiomi…but he might be worse. Tokiomi at least seems to have faith in Rin. While I think training a kid at 5 years old is a bit young it might be better than waiting until they are too old. I am not sure how old Emiya was but he seemed like a young teenager. Well old enough to help out Daddy Emiya. But if Daddy Emiya was just using Shirley and didn’t want to put Emiya in danger I guess that is okay. But then at the end of the episode you realize he probably doesn’t care about his son as he is trying to live forever and thus doesn’t feel the need to leave a legacy, like Tokiomi was trying to do. But since Emiya isn’t full of BUGS…he can’t be the worse dad ever.
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Poor tragic little Shirley.
It is hard to find much fault with Shirley. She was nice to Emiya, tried to bridge the gap between Daddy Emiya and the rest of the villagers, and only wanted Daddy Emiya to succeed in life. She wasn’t jealous of Emiya’s position, didn’t think too highly of herself, and seemed eager to learn. Yes she did end up taking the potion and killing everyone on the island but her intentions were pure. Heck she even wanted Emiya to kill her before she hurt anyone else. She didn’t ask for a cure and when Emiya hesitated she tried to kill herself. So basically Shirley was perfect and Emiya snapped when she died.
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See how innocent and lovely this looks? Everyone loves flowers!
I have to say that the trials with the plants and the reasoning behind them made a lot of sense. Like it didn’t seem like such a stretch when the truth was revealed. So it is easy to see where Emiya gets his cunning and planning from. Maybe a bit comes from Natalia too. I am sure Emiya would credit Natalia with his strengths and not his father.
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Is there a shop that people buy their badass clothes at? ButtKickingRUs?
The…cleansing of the island got a little chaotic. Good thing Natalia showed up to explain everything to us. But if she was working with the Mage Association and they were there…wasn’t her presence unnecessary? Couldn’t they have hunted down Dad and called it a day? Seemed like it was a bit of…stretch, to make Emiya’s backstory make sense. Also I thought Natalia was a hot boy and I was disappointed when I saw the boobies. Highly disappointed.
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LIES!!!! All lies!
Did I mention they were NOT zombies?! Like wtf man. WTF! Uncontrolled vampires my ass. It is like they took my hopes, went over to Blood-C, and tossed them in the bunny blender. :( And the censored bunny blender at that. But I guess if this show is going to make King Arthur a woman maybe they got the term zombie and vampire mixed up. Maybe folks.
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Now we are exercising our kill one, save many mentality.
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Oh indeed.
Emiya taking out his own Dad. Harsh. But maybe he wanted to confirm that Dad was not the good person he thought he was. He had to be certain and he would never get that confirmation if Natalia killed Dad. Or Emiya really wanted revenge for him killing Shirley. I think a logical Emiya would have realized that Dad did not MAKE Shirley take the potion but since he could care less after the fact it makes him look slimy. Add in the fact that Dad didn’t even sell me on the fact he would NEVER use Emiya and yeah…stab away.
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Adoption at its best.
So there you have it folks. The story on why Emiya is the way he is. His mage dad caused his friend’s death thus all mages are dead. Of course there is always the possibility he would have just grown up a sad little orphan but Natalia made sure he followed in his footsteps. So while this episode….seems weird next to all the other episodes it felt better than the random Rin episode last time. Now back to the honeymoon? I mean Kirei and Archer kicking butt?
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Tricked I tell you!

5 comments:

eternia said...

This might disappoint you, but Kirei and Archer's honeymoon has to wait; because Kiritsugu's flashback story doesn't end here.
:-)
Also, the villagers acted more like zombies rather than vampires, because they are the Deads, mindless walking corpses who should serve the Dead Apostle. But Shirley herself is a failed experiment, so they are somewhat unorganized.
More explanation here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_%28Kinoko_Nasu%29
Really, some people have too much time, I would never write such documentation myself.
:-D

Anonymous said...

The island is Arimago/Alimango Island,Philippines. And by the way, right now,their crabs ARE in season...

He killed his dad partly (the other part is because of Shirley) because he know his dad will go off to another island and continue his research and repeat the tragedy... in order to stop that Kiritsugu killed him.

Quote from takashid and I agree that......
>The best parts of Kiritsugu’s back story is that final moment with Shirley. She begged him to kill her, and if he had, the village would have been spared, he wouldn’t have ended up killing his own father, and Shirley could have died as a human at the hands of a loved one instead of hunted down as a beast. But he can’t. Because he loves her, because he isn’t the Kiritsugu we know yet. This is the thing that really changes him, though the trauma of seeing the island slaughtered didn’t help I'm sure. This moment right here.
I really wish they had kept one part of the novel in the episode: when Shirley asks him to kill him, he refuses and runs off to the priest begging for someone, hoping for a hero like Saber to fix this. To quote the novel:

“Now, all that the boy prayed for is to have someone to save them.

The boy firmly believed that there must be someone who can release them from this nightmarish terror.

Shirley will surely be saved. Someone surely is going to save them.

The boy kept repeating this to himself.”
Fate/Zero Volume 4

But no Hero of Justice arrives, and instead everything is destroyed because Kerry couldn't bring himself to kill the one he loved. That’s the lesson he learns from it. He thinks about that all the time, and it becomes the backbone of his motivation. He totally blames himself for not killing Shirley when she asked him to, because he knows it would have prevented the tragedy. This is how his “kill one to save many” policy started. He constantly blames himself for not killing Shirley, and that’s also why he kills his father, because he was planning to run off to a new island and repeat the tragedy over and over again until his experiment succeeded. Thus, killing his father saved a lot of lives. Kiritsugu will never again hesitate to kill, even if it is the people he loves, even though it hurts him to do it. That’s one of the most tragic things about his character, and its one of the best ways to show how he became the Magus Killer.<

Oh, and his name, due to Visayan (most populated group in the Philippines) accent, thus the name, “Kerry”.

Also, I never known Kiritsugu is a siscon, hm, new discovery….
The vocal version of “let the stars fall down”, Manten by Kalafina at the ED is Gorgeous and Powerful. Totally love it!!

Anonymous said...

“What do you want to be, Kerry?”
Me thinking on his (could be/future) reply,”I.......want to be an hero of the justice!”
;_; –that just broke my heart.

Gatx375 said...

I think Cornelius Alba made a cameo when they showed the Mages Association people slaughtering the vampires. Which is awesome because I loved Kara no Kyoukai. Oh, and Eternia most of the documentation on Type Moon vampires is copied word for word from the different times Arcueid and Ciel explain them in Tsukihime, which I highly recommend reading by the way. Too bad there's no anime for it.

Christina said...

Eternia- NO HONEYMOON?! How sad for me :(

But I guess we will see how he met Irisviel and became caught up in the war. That is acceptable. But it seems as if we will have less battle time....

Zombies for everyone! Poor sad Shirley...ruining the terminology. XD Such an earnest kid.

Anonymous- I figured it was some tiny island off the mainland of Japan (well as mainland as an island country is XD). But at least it makes more sense why everyone has such impressive tans.

I feel bad for Emiya. Clearly in retrospect he should have killed Shirley. But he didn't know the disease would spread like that and he loved that girl. So now he is punishing himself forever based on a pretty understandable decision he made as a child. It was probably easier to kill his father anyway since he was the cause of it. I mean I am sure part of it was kill one, save many but surly some of it was based on revenge. XD

Anonymous- That line of thinking might have gotten him recycled in the Hero pool for the War. Which would be all the more tragic in his case. So sad how dreams can get so twisted when the intentions are pure.

Gatx375- There should have been more focus on the Mage Association and the Church going at it. Like them having confrontation with each other. Of course this was Emiya's flashback and since he doesn't really end up serving them it makes sense why they weren't showcased much. Just they felt very...random. Like BAM here we are and now we are gone. And cameos indeed.