Time to have a little flash back and to see how Kiritsugu became the man he is today.
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As always, this show simply blows my mind, it is simply beautiful in so many ways, the story is well-built, the soundtrack is incredible and the animation and art is fluid and feels more perfect than reality. There really is nothing to hate about the show…or is there?
This episode felt a little empty, we are presented a story to understand Kiritsugu better, but we already meet a mysterious kid with weird ambitions and values. Maybe something else happened already in the sad life of Kiritsugu that explains his behavior, but what I see from the get go is a distant and weird kid that might already be too fucked up to be saved. The sad thing is, he had not even killed his father or become a professional killer yet by that point, the kid was weird from the get go.
I think I would have preferred to see him get a little more corrupted and twisted over time, instead of having him already so twisted and psycho from the beginning. Isn’t that the fun of a flash back after all? We want to see what happen that made the character what they are now, but while Killing his own father was most likely a big turning point in Kiritsugu’s life, it didn’t seem like such an extreme decision on his part when he did it, we already had plenty of clues that told us that Kiritsugu had a unique vision of what the world should be like. We already know that he was mentally prepared, still that young, to kill his own father.
Something that did surprise me this episode was the Zombie Apocalypse that started on the small island. I did not expect for something so catastrophic to happen in this episode, I was already mentally prepared to see something bad happen to some important character, but I did not foresee the death of EVERYONE. I guess that is one way to start a new life. Have everyone who knows you die in a zombie apocalypse and run away with a bad ass women that kills vampire zombie for a living. I was expecting a little more magic and a little less shot-gun and zombies from a show like Fate/Zero, I was pleasantly surprised.
With Sankarea, Tasogare Otomoe x Amnesia and Kore wa Zombie desu ka? all playing this season, I feel like I’ve seen way enough zombies and I won’t mind if there is a little less in Fate/Zero.
Finally, I just have to say that I really loved how the ending theme was set up this episode, it was such a smooth transition, it was really something, I think that if something sad had actually happened before, I might have cried, from the music alone.
ZeroG signing off
This was like…an epic Type-Moon crossover. Kiritsugu meets Tsukihime’s Dead Apostles with that blond guy I remember seeing in one of the Kara no Kyoukai movies turning up too.
Also I liked Shirley until she started ripping apart chickens. Fate/Zero’s take on a beach episode just had to end with everybody dying didn’t it…
Funny how I started liking Shirley only when she started ripping apart chickens, but I completely agree that this beach episode had a surprisingly low amount of boobs and much more blood than anticipated
Um, what? Kiritsugu is portrayed as a normal, bright happy kid up until everything goes to hell. I don’t see what you mean by weird from the beginning. Unless you mean killing his father? Kiritsugu’s character is basically forever changed by what happened with Shirley. If he had made himself kill her when she asked, most of the tragedy could have been prevented. But he didn’t because he loved her. So he blames himself for it, and he learns that he can’t hesitate because of his feelings, and should stick to cold logic. He kills his father, because his father’s reaction to everyone dying was “eh, sucks to be them”, and because his father was going to go off and destroy more and more islands until his experiment worked. Killing his dad saved hundreds more lives. it was the “logical” thing to do, even though Kiritsugu loved his dad and did not want to kill him.
From the beginning of the episode I felt that Kiritsugu was a bit off, yes he seemed to have many friends and live life like a regular kid, but he did not seemed really attached to any of them except for Shirley.
Most likely because he was a magic user from the beginning, he was always half rejected, he was never completely accepted in the “normal” world. Yes in the end he was allowed to play with the kids, but still at that point his relationship with them seemed to be really shallow.
What more, Kiritsugu didn’t seem like your regular kid from the beginning, at his age when you are asked, “what kind of adult you want to be?”, the answer usually is something like “I want to be a policeman” or “I don’t know”. But for some reason Kiritsugu already had an immense sense of justice and he seems to have little regards for interpersonal relationship.
We already witness that he is ready to kill his own father to save more lives. But he could have simply disabled his father, not kill him, or even better, he could have simply let the magus kill him for him.
But Kiritsugu, for some reason, already has some profound sense of justice that goes beyond what a normal person would have, even more a regular child. He wants to save the world and atone for his father crime for himself.
Now, why is Kiritsugu, the child, already so determined to do good in the world? Is it really only because Shirley die that he became so radical? I don’t think so since he already showed sign of it before her death, this is why I say that Kiritsugu didn’t change much during the episode, if anything, the events that occured simply helped him become who he already was.
I agree with ZeroG. Kiritsugu wasn’t a regular kid. Since the beginning of the episode I felt he was distant, he seemed to think too much for a kid of his age.
This episode was really amazing,but I think the novel explains better what happened since it shows us what the characters are thinking and I really want to know what he was thinking. I only read the first novel and some chapters of the second, but I can tell that if you want to understand the characters better you have to read it. when the anime end I’ll read the rest (and play F/SN).
Will the next episode continue showing Kiritsugu’s past or will continue with the fight? I only know that when the fashback end we’ll finally see the fight between Archer and Rider (I’m dying to see it).