Impression
If Bazett wasn’t incredible enough last week, she’s managed to deliver once again! It’s amazing that she’s owning everyone while barehanded – she has a Mystic Code with her, but it’s not like she used it -or can use it- against Luvia, Kuro or Ilya. Things were looking pretty bad before Miyu arrived – Rider Miyu was wonderful, by the way. It’s really refreshing after only ever having seen her install Saber. Bazett’s human in the end, and as a close combat specialist to boot she’s not too well equipped to go up against a flying opponent. If only slightly, some of the pain she dealt Ilya and friends was returned when Miyu sent her down with a satisfying crash. Speaking of Ilya, her resolve was a great turnaround from the childish sort of way she’s been handling things recently. She was outclassed, but she still fought on and resisted despite that – I was bracing myself for the world of hurt she’d have felt when she refused to let go of the Rider card, because I’m sure Bazett would have smashed down on her hand with no mercy.
After all the trouble everyone went to in the first season to collect the Class Cards, it’s definitely frustrating to see Bazett just turn up and retrieve almost all of them – although there’s not much anyone can do right now against someone on her level. I have no doubt that she’ll pull off a clean sweep of everyone -including Miyu, whom she might seem like she’s in a pinch against at the moment- but for storyline purposes I have a feeling she’ll fail to take all the cards. And one of them’s in Kuro anyway, which Bazett has unfortunately found out about. What Clock Tower doesn’t know won’t hurt them, right?
It feels like the involvement of the Association in general has helped to clear up and formalize a couple of plot points. They’ve been long inferred, but it’s always nice to get it in writing. I remember wondering exactly what happened to Archer and Lancer during the original series – up until now, I’ve always assumed it was Rin or Luvia who collected them. After seeing what Bazett’s capable of, it’s no longer surprising that she was the one who took care of them – and her fight with a particularly wild-looking Archer certainly helped her go up against Kuro, who ended up being less of a challenge for her than I would have thought. And while a Mystic Code (Ruby/Sapphire) is conventionally what’s used as the catalyst to draw out a Heroic Spirit’s power, Bazett’s noted that a human body can substitute for that instead, bringing out the power of the card to a greater degree to the point that the wielder becomes the Heroic Spirit themselves.
One question I do have remaining doesn’t really concern the plot of the show itself, but rather how much of it they’ll adapt. At the time of writing, the number of episodes for 2wei remain unannounced. I’m not sure what they’re planning to do – will they just soldier on? Or go for a split-cour, or maybe just end it here until next year? To begin with, I’m not even sure whether the Bazett fight is a good place to pause. Maybe the fact that they haven’t said anything implies it’ll be two-cour – they may not feel that there’s a need to say anything since it’ll just continue.
The end of the Bazett fight ropes us into the larger plot of 2wei. We find ourselves abruptly left with questions, and feeling rather unsatisfied about some things. It’s a terrible place to STOP stop, but it might work as a “hey, I bet you guys would like to see more of this, wouldn’t you?” kind of pausing place to get people to throw money at them while screaming that they resolve things.
In other news, they dragged stuff out with some rather pointless scenes in the first five minutes of the episode, and managed to prevent us from actually seeing the result of the Miyu/Bazett faceoff. I suppose they wanted to be dramatic, but it’s surprising and annoying. Rider/Miyu was all in a single chapter in the manga.
I hope those pointless scenes aren’t a sign that they’re trying to wrap things up and move the series to a close for now. There was that little recap too, which I would have been a little more vocal about if it hadn’t showed us the best parts from Bazett vs Luvia.
It was interesting to see Vanillya fight tactically after the shooting & more shooting she always relied upon failed in the beginning of the fight. Without Chocoillya inside her she is not the powerhouse she used to be, so it’s good to know she can adapt. The last arc was just painful with Kuro owning them at every turn unless they decided to be smart about it (that bog).
Hahahaha, I’ve never seen them called Vanillya and Chocoillya before! What a great idea!
Even if she did still have Kuro inside her, I don’t think brute force would have worked against Bazett, because she’s got more of it barehanded than the girls do with Mystic Codes. And since Bazett’s had experience fighting the real Archer, it’s unlikely that Archer-style combat would have worked either. But yes, Vanillya is learning! With her, it’s always been one of shooting or massive outbursts of power, like in the fights against Saber and Assassin.
I’m hoping they explain why Bazett is so strong. I felt annoyed at how she showed up extra powerful and started owning the main characters. Even Kuro was no match at all and that surprised me since when she first appeared, they made her seem so strong the way she outclassed everyone else. Illya 2Wei is my #4 favorite Anime. I’m really hoping they continue the story because there is so much they can incorporate from the Fate series as a whole. I always wondered who Bazett was since I never played any of the Visual Novels or read any of the manga. I’m hoping all of it gets an Anime adaptation. I really enjoy the center focus of the Magical Girl genre. It’s a bit different from the usual, which makes this story interesting in its own right compared to the fate series.
Bazett is a sealing designation enforcer. She is one of the people the Mage’s Association sends to hunt down and capture mages who are too powerful and dangerous to be allowed to exist in society (actually the Association just wants to own their unique abilities, but you know, PR puts a spin on it). As such, Bazett must be MORE powerful than the people she is going to be hunting, capable of not only attacking them, but of taking what they can dish out.
She is using magical runes to augment her strength and her toughness here. In Fate/Hollow Ataraxia she didn’t have those, yet she was still capable of fighting hand-to-hand on par with heroic spirits. While there are certainly individuals in the Nasuverse as a whole who are capable of kicking her butt, against our leads here in Prisma Illya she’s a juggernaut.
Even though Prisma Illya is a spin-off, they do try to keep power levels relatively similar to that of the main Fate series – as Wanderer said, Bazett needs to be that strong in order to do her job (no-one ever receiving a sealing designation is ever going to come quietly, because to a practising magus it’s pretty much the worst thing that can happen disguised as a gold star sticker). I didn’t know about the magical runes bit though!
Just out of interest, if 2wei is your #4 (presumably from this season) what are your top three?