Annotated Anime: Unlimited Blade Works episodes 13-14

Welcome to Wedding Night

When last we checked in with Unlimited Blade Works, ufotable's big, fabulously expensive-looking adaptation of Fate/stay night's most beloved story arc left our heroes in the lurch. Though an adorable date opened episode twelve, the last installment before the show went on hiatus will be remembered by many as the day our heroes lost their beloved Saber (or rather "Seibaaaa!").

Unfortunately for people who aren't fans of losing, episode thirteen shows us that Shirou and Rin have a ways yet to fall before hitting rock bottom.

Fans who know how this story goes won't be surprised: We're pretty much at the nadir as far as fortunes go for the good guys. To recap: Shirou and Rin are alive, but have lost Saber to Caster's cheat-dagger, the Rule Breaker. Shirou's been stabbed through the shoulder (by Excalibur, no less), and is no longer a Master, due to Caster stealing his Command Seals.

Everything's turning up villain, too, as Caster has taken over Kotomine's church to try to summon the Grail herself, and played dress-up with Saber in this arc's most creepily erotic scene. Look, I get that Fate/stay night had to have its sexy times for commercial purposes, but wedding-dress Saber with the panting and whatnot feels even more gratuitous now than it was in the original. As a fan, I'm sort of happy they left it in (and it certainly is done now than Deen managed in its 2010 movie adaptation), but it's kind of gross. Then again, the show's done a lot to make Caster seem like a properly formidable antagonist, so I guess this could be counted as a net gain, since it makes her look like a real creeper.

That aside, heroic hopes are crushed a bit further when the big twist hits: Archer completes his face-heel turn, and betrays Rin to free himself from their pairing. The sting's made all the more painful in this go-around because just earlier that morning Rin seemed to have come to an understanding with her jerk of a Servant. Their bond of mutual respect and closeted admiration had finally set in, only for Archer to break it once again upon the altar of opportunism. What a dick!

Well, if nothing else, fate (and Fate) throw fans a bone, because there's always a silver lining. That silver lining is the closest anyone in this show comes to confessing their feelings, which, for a tsundere like Rin, really does take being pushed to the edge of disaster. And it's adorable.

I had wondered back when this show began, how ufotable would make the most of twenty-four episodes when Deen could stuff the whole plot into a not-terrible feature-length movie. It turns out that going long with it was the right decision, as the character arcs and relationship-building feel much more natural and less forced when given this much space. It also helps that ufotable's been able to fill the gaps adeptly, to the point that I've begun to consider this work a more "definitive" take on the Unlimited Blade Works scenario than even the original game.

It's not even so much a question of "canon" as of presentation. Just like Gintama and Naruto work better when animated than in their "lead" manga formats, having it done this way just feels more "right" to me.

And just in time to validate my view comes this week's episode fourteen, which fully capitalizes on ufotable not just having that extra time to fill, but also its experience making Fate/Zero. I've mentioned in previous recaps that the most interesting viewpoint one could examine for your average Unlimited Blade Works audience member isn't that of the die-hard Type-Lunatic or the fresh eye that's never seen anything else, but of the Fate fan who got their start by watching Fate/Zero first. 

From their point of view, episode fourteen's examination of both Caster's tragic past and Shirou and Rin's attempt to visit Ilya in her castle feels completely at home, a natural extension of the work ufotable's been doing with Fate/Zero's adaptation.

Caster's backstory, which as far as I'm aware has never been flashed back to before, is a scene straight from the Zero playbook, with Caster's first Master being exactly the sort of clean-shaven monster Gen Urobuchi likes to pen. It's genuinely disturbing to see this jerk liquefy little girls to make magic crystals, then beat on his Servant for daring to be the better wizard, so much so that you feel relieved when he gets his comeuppance, and feel a little more pity for Caster's lot in life (and the afterlife).

Forever to be used, abused, and betrayed, it's no wonder that she herself became a monster. In fact, you almost feel retroactively angry at Archer for his contemptuous dismissal of Caster's character. "You don't know what she's been through, man!" is what you want to yell at the screen when rewatching those episodes.

Seeing Ilya again, after so long, is also a good callback to Zero. She was always a bit of a non-presence in the original game Unlimited Blade Works scenario, relegated to get fridged by Gilgamesh practically off-screen. But now, callbacks to Fate/Zero, as well as speaking roles for her maids Leysritt and Sella, deepen her character, as well as shedding light on her motives in this and other scenarios. 

All in all, episode fourteen feels like a checklist of why everyone was so excited back when it was first announced that ufotable would be adapting Unlimited Blade Works. It shows that they "get" the material, and have both the talent and wherewithal to improve on the original.

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