Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 15
My reaction to this material is mixed. As I said before, it does provide a reason for Illya’s psychotic nature but if does bring up some questions. People only starting from this anime will have no idea what’s going on and even I as a Fate fan am not certain as to what it was. Is it simply Illya’s imagination leading her to dark conclusions or a connection to a certain dark entity? The second option is feasible…I guess. But I am not certain if I am happy with it. It is understandable that they wished to give Illya some more attention before the big scene and this in turn does bring one of the faults of bringing Fate/stay night into anime. For you see the three routes of the Fate/stay night visual novel are not meant to stand independently. Each one is there to strengthen the others and are meant to be viewed in order. The fate route helps build a bond to Illya’s character so that her scene here would affect the reader more so than the characters themselves. But without it this does come across with weaker impact. The scene with the homunculi in the water chamber was also pretty bad. Just clunky exposition that wasn’t needed and doesn’t make much sense in context. The start of the wolves scene was also awkward with Illya standing up and more or less explaining to the audience what’s going on by talking to herself.
However seeing the wolves knock Illya down and proceed to attack her was a difficult scene to watch. That wasn’t the only scene that was hard to watch. Anyone who read this route knew it was coming as it is one of the most defining moments of the route itself. And make no mistake, Illya’s death was just as sad as it was there though missing a certain heart wrenching finale. Made all the more tragic by Rin desperately holding down Shirou to prevent him from running out to try and save her which I thought was a good change as in the visual novel he just waited and ran down the stairs when it was already too late. It makes more sense for his character to jump into action immediately rather than watch over silently. There is some disgust with the fanbase over Berserker breaking the chains of Enkidu as that should by all means be impossible. In the visual novel it’s just said that he escapes it somehow but doesn’t break it. Honestly though, this is the Nasuverse, where every unbeatable thing has an exception or several. I will admit that I am disappointed as to how this was handled. The flashbacks broke up the action and messed with the pacing. The new material was not the best. And cutting out the last part of the scene, while understandable as to why they did it, still left me wanting. Well now things are not looking too good for Rin and Shirou with the man turning his blades at them and them no servant to hide behind. But from the look of the preview a neglected fellow is about to get some spotlight.
