“Gae…Bolg!”
Summary
Ilya learns more about her role as a magical girl, with Rin instructing her on collecting the seven Class Cards hidden throughout Fuyuki City. After a regular day at school, Ilya and Rin are transported by Ruby to an alternate dimension – a parallel “mirror” world, where the first Servant, Rider, lies in wait.
Impression
I was hoping this wouldn’t be the case, but it looks like there’ll be two separate airings of Prisma Illya – the online release, and the proper, TV airing one week later. I don’t think I’m able to wait one extra week just for a slight boost in quality, so I’ll be making do with Nico’s craptastic version for now. Depending on my future schedule, I might decide to swap over to the TV airing at some point.
Anyway! This episode was all about Ilya’s induction into her new secret life as a magical girl – and as viewers, we learn quite a lot about how everything works in this alternate reality. Here, Rin’s still a magus, and still uses her Jewel Thaumaturgy as a form of offense. As I speculated last week, both Rin and Luvia were sent to collect the Class Cards on order of the Clock Tower in London – more specifically, from a grown-up Waver Velvet. Damn, he’s really aged since the Fourth War. The Class Cards themselves hold slight similarities to Servants, and are based off “high-level magic theory” with the potential to destroy cities in a black muck that coincidentally looks like Angra Mainyu’s pollution (I see what you guys did there). Rin has Archer, and Luvia holds Lancer – in two weeks, they have to collect Saber, Rider, Caster, Berseker and Assassin. Wait, what about Gilgamesh?
I’m glad they didn’t cut down on showing Ilya’s daily life. As this is a magical girl show, that applies even more – school scenes tend to form huge contrasts to the secret “double” life led by these protagonists. Ilya can’t really process the massive change that’s happened in her life, and in many ways things are still the same – she goes to school, Taiga still gets mad at her and she hangs out with her friends (I don’t even know their names by the way). Oh, but she gets the occasional death threat message from Rin now 😀 It’s definitely one of those fun, happy magical girl shows! Much like how Madoka was before Episode 3. And I kinda hope it stays that way, especially if we keep getting cute poses from Ilya (as per Ruby’s sly prodding). Also, it totally cracked me up when Ilya decided to transform in the toilet xD
So it seems like Rider’s first up. I was wondering how a Class Card was actually collected, and this method seems legit to me – the Servants all reside in a mirror world of sorts, which Ilya and Rin end up travelling to. Rider was definitely corrupted, and it almost seemed like Angra Mainyu’s corruption – I suppose that’s why we see Saber Alter in the OP instead of regular Saber. A Servant has to be defeated for it to revert back into a card, and then a Kaleid Liner can “Include” it into their stick to summon the Servant’s weapon. Ilya really didn’t know what she was doing…why didn’t Rin give her Archer to help her out? At the very least, Rin should tell her more before throwing her into a fight xD
Well…I guess Rin was just as unprepared for Rider’s Bellerophon as Ilya was. An A+ rank Noble Phantasm, and all Rin responds with is a defensive shield right in its path =_= God knows what would have happened if Miyu didn’t turn up and get rid of it with Gae Bolg. If we assume that Miyu became a magical girl around the same time Ilya did (as Ruby and Sapphire deserted their Masters in unison) then Luvia’s just done a much better job at educating Miyu than Rin has with Ilya. Miyu looked like she knew exactly what she was doing…and meanwhile Ilya was running away from Rider and blindly shooting pink blasts everywhere xD With this, a rival’s shown up and Ilya now faces competition! They’re uh…probably going to fight soon, aren’t they.
Because it is a sensible thing to do instead of turning nude in front of your enemies? 😛
PS found this while searching for gen’ei taiyou.