Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya 2wei! Episode 10 [Final]

Impression

It feels quite strange that 2wei’s over at this point in the story. But first – Bazett!

Team Illya got off lucky. It could have been much worse – certainly, the fact that they’re alive is an achievement in itself, as Rin said. If Bazett needs to kill a loli in order to achieve her objectives, she will kill that loli without mercy – Fragarach was really cool, but thank god Miyu herself wasn’t its target. Rather than her physical strength, what’s coming off as the real scary thing about Bazett her devotion to duty and her willingness to carry out whatever it is the Association wants at all costs. So if matching her in battle isn’t possible, then the next best course of action would be to shake up the situation – to introduce an outrageous wildcard that will force her to change the way she’s going about things. Luckily, their wildcards worked – although I think the real game-changer was the new info Rin provided about the Fuyuki ley lines rather than the fact that Fragarach was supposedly sealed. Bazett could have opted for a variety of methods to get Kuro to cough up. Rin was pretty happy with the way things out, but the fact of the matter is that they still didn’t manage to beat her, instead forcing her to retreat. Having her as an enemy in the future won’t be good at all, especially as they may have other issues to contend with as well.

That being said, it’s true that there were some victories achieved – not all the Class Cards were lost, and they now have the upper hand in terms of dealing with the mysterious eighth card that has appeared underground, which Miyu seems to be rather shocked about for some reason. The most significant “victory” was probably Kuro though – I suppose she was technically reformed a bit earlier, but after having risked her life to protect the others, she really does feel like a part of Team Illya. At the end of the day, the first half of 2wei is really a plot about Kuro – and after that cute night scene on the balcony, her arc feels like it’s been well and truly resolved. It’s actually pretty nice how the Class Cards have remained fairly central to everything, even though it appeared to be an exhaustive plot befitting a standard magical girl series – after all, the Jewel Seeds were forgotten after Nanoha and Fate finished collecting them, and had the tiniest of roles in StrikerS. In Prisma Illya, the plot always has something to do with the cards – they’re continually changing hands, they’re being used in battle, Archer was involved with Kuro and a certain golden bastard still has to be subdued. There’s still lots going on, and I’m sure the second half of 2wei will deliver.

Overall Thoughts

I’m a bit unprepared for this, I honestly didn’t think this would end here. I dismissed the rumours as rumours right until the very end, so it’s a bit of a surprise – at least, I certainly didn’t want to think 2wei was going to just stop midway through the series. It doesn’t feel like everything’s over, and while epic, Bazett felt more like a mid-boss when you compare it to the fight against Berserker in the original season. Of course, that can be explained by the fact that it isn’t over, and that Bazett actually is a mid-boss. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve done another ten-episode run and decided to scamper off until next year, making 2wei a split-cour series with a whole lot of split – I’m not actually sure why they couldn’t have just made it two-cour and not worried about halves and second parts. It’s what’s happening with the ufotable remake of Fate/stay night as well, which means that alongside the Heaven’s Feel movie we’ll be getting a lot of Fate in 2015. Well, this is the only one with lots of lolis while the others are fairly grimdark. Best of both worlds!

2wei was good. I don’t think it was as charming as the first season was -from what I can remember at least- but there’s no denying it was entertaining, which is what it’s supposed to be. I’m fully aware, however, that my opinions on it right now are merely based on the first half of the series, and you can add in the fact that I expected it to last for a lot longer than it did. It certainly managed to deliver by the last few episodes once Bazett came onto the scene, but I feel that it took a bit too long revving up – retrospectively there were too many slice of life scenes. Illya’s school life is fun, but it’s not as fun as the magical girl battles. The reason I never really said anything was because I predicted they’d make up for it by getting serious in the second cour – except there is no second cour any more, at least not for a couple of seasons. I hasten to add that they weren’t necessarily a bad thing – some of them contributed to Kuro’s development for example. And of course, I will never forget the yuritastic kiss between Kuro and Miyu – easily one of my favourite scenes of the series. I feel immoral even thinking about it.

Ultimately, a lot of the issues I have with 2wei boil down to this pesky break, and the fact that Herz seems a long way away – things like Caren’s presence haven’t really been cashed in at all. I’ll reserve proper judgement until everything’s been fully adapted in 2015. The silver lining is that I’ll be able to blog this without worry if it won’t resume until next year – that way, I won’t have to struggle with keeping up during a season when I’m officially supposed to be on hiatus. If it airs whenever Nanoha ViVid does, then that’s even better – because I have every intention of covering that too.

Now I’ve got to avoid the temptation of picking up the manga…