Impression
There were many things that impressed me this episode, least of all the fact that the show’s pacing has finally picked up once more – after a comparatively tranquil first half, that is. Bazett was impressive, Luvia was impressive and the butler was impressive – man, that was one cool butler. He’s literally the first male character in Prisma Illya to have prompted any sort of a positive response from me, if you discount Waver Velvet and Zelretch – with those two I was more interested in the fact that they existed in this adaptation as opposed to anything they did. I really do hope the butler’s okay, especially after he had the guts to take on Bazett head-on, Kiritsugu-style machine-guns and all – I never did think any more of him than a method to insert some oddly placed yaoi fanservice with Shirou, and it seems I was wrong. For some reason, I was also rather conscious of the fact that he was just cheerfully gunning down Luvia’s house in pursuit of Bazett, even though he technically did get permission from the former first.
Speaking of Luvia, I suppose I wasn’t so much impressed by her as I was to the fact that she spent a large part of the confrontation figuratively laughing while sitting on her huge pile of money. Forget about the mansion and the allowance she gave Kuro (she gave Kuro an allowance?!) those gems are expensive! I have a feeling that Rin’s support in the form of a few gandr-infused jewels had a financial advantage as well as a tactical one 😀 It might have been all well and good had she actually managed to harm Bazett after using up an entire treasury of gems, but she walked out unscathed from that – and she managed to pick up Fragarach along the way! That final scene was in last week’s preview by the way, and ended up being just as dangerously destructive as it seemed. Although the majority of the wreckage was caused by Luvia instead of Bazett, unlike what I initially believed. That being said, Rin and Luvia are usually relegated to support-type roles in most fights in this spin-off (it’s quite amusing thinking back on that time when they tried to fight Saber by themselves) so it’s nice to see Luvia fight properly for once, even if she was completely outclassed.
Even if we hadn’t glimpsed several scenes of her ominously making her way to Fuyuki, Bazett’s arrival had some pretty strong foreshadowing accompanying it. Presumably, Bazett is Clock Tower’s response to all the anomalies surrounding the investigation of the Class Cards, including the presence of Kuro and the subsequent loss of the Archer card – which will soon be discovered if Team Ilya continues to get curbstomped. I’m also not sure what the deal is with what Rin’s found out at Ryuudou Temple regarding the ley lines they were supposed to manage – what, exactly, is not over yet? The ritual they were performing? The collection of the Class Cards? The battle itself is certainly not over – Bazett hasn’t even thought about using Fragarach just yet.
The appearance of Rider Miyu atop Bellerophon next week is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because I happen to like Miyu, and seeing her in a sexy Rider outfit in my sleep-deprived state gives me this odd feeling of wanting to take her home. On the other hand, it’s bad because Bellerophon is a Noble Phantasm – the one Rider tried to use in the first season before being taken out by Gae Bolg. And if Miyu uses a Noble Phantasm against Bazett’s Fragarach, she’ll die. Ideally that won’t be the outcome, but from what I know of Fragarach, it’ll distort time, space, fate, destiny or whatever else it does to perform a successful counter against the opponent’s strongest move. So yeah, it’s not looking too good.
When a creature kills Bazett with their most powerful attack, Fragarach reaches back in time and strikes that creature through the heart the instant before that attack was made. Nasu used a lot of complicated words and nonesense about “laws of the world” and “severing fate” and “absolute system of time” and “flow of destiny” blah blah blah, but all it really means is “dude, Fraga changed history so the thing that attacked her actually died before it could attack her.”
The Nasuverse can get very flowery and complicated at times 😀 I think the only thing stopping this Mystic Code from being incredibly overpowered is the fact that Bazett must make her enemies use their strongest attack against her in the first place (while managing to stay alive in the process in the case that she’s outclassed). And she also has to identify exactly what it is, which becomes a laughably easy process when Noble Phantasms are concerned. Poor Miyu…
“Poor Miyu…”
Heh. I used some very specific wording in my previous post to give you a bit of a hint, if you could catch it. Apparently you haven’t done so yet. It may have been too subtle, but… well I couldn’t think of a better way to do it without being too obvious. If you can’t figure it out ahead of time, you’ll see what happens next week.
I think I might have, but it’s like I’m just concentrating on semantics. Potentially life-saving semantics for Miyu, but the validity of which I feel like I can still argue both for and against:
[spoiler]Is it to do with the fact that technically, it’s the Pegasus which will be attacking Bazett? And that therefore, the “creature” targeted by Fragarach is the Pegasus instead of Miyu. It’s the only outcome I can think of that doesn’t result in her death, which would make it infinitely lucky that she chose Bellerophon instead of something like Gae Bolg, through which Miyu would be the one attacking using Gae Bolg as a non-sentient weapon to carry out her attack. Then again, can’t you argue that Miyu is merely wielding “Bellerophon the Noble Phantasm” as a mechanism through which to attack Bazett? All the more so because this is just pretty much Sapphire transformed. Killing Miyu would get rid of the Noble Phantasm as well.[/spoiler]
Semantics can be important!
I’m not sure how to do spoiler tags in these posts… I’ll try the method that seems most common on blogs, but since there isn’t a preview post button I don’t know if it will work.
[spoiler]Remember that Bellerophon is just the bridle for the pegasus. The pegasus itself is an actual divine beast: a living creature that serves Rider of its own will. The bridle increases its power greatly and makes it rage, but it is still the pegasus that is doing the attacking. Rider herself isn’t attacking anyone, nor is she even using a weapon. Fragarach wouldn’t see Miyu as the attacker. And yes, it is extremely lucky that Miyu used Rider instead of one of her standard Cards, but there is a reason she ended up with that card in particular. You’ll see it.[/spoiler]
Fixed it for you! For future reference, it’s “spoiler” and “/spoiler” within square brackets around your desired text.
[spoiler]The Pegasus may be doing the attacking, but Rider must have an indirect hand in attempting to harm Bazett through ordering the Pegasus to do so. I’m not sure what determines how Fragarach recognizes things, but I doubt it’s Bazett herself if it goes after what it deems to be the “direct” attack, if you get what I mean.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]I believe Fragarach is more automatic: it’s prepared, it receives the power of the enemy’s attack, then it goes back in time and strikes what it deems to be the source of the attack. I don’t think Bazett designates a target. In this case, because the pegasus is an independent creature, striking down Rider/Miyu with a pinpoint attack would not necessarily guarantee that it would stop the pegasus’ charge. That’s why it hits the one performing the attack, not the one ordering it. To put it another way, Fragarach would kill a Servant that is using a Noble Phantasm against her, rather than kill the Master who ordered the Servant to use that Phantasm. Functionally it’s the same sort of situation. Normally we think of the Servants as the ones doing the attacking, it’s just in this case Rider summons another creature that does that attacking for her.[/spoiler]