“Illya… what do you do at a birthday party?”
Impression
Popsicles! Who wants a popsicle?
Poor Bazett already feels so nerfed. It’s partly because her time as the main antagonist has come and gone, but also because she’s gone from being an Enforcer to working as a popsicle vendor for Tatsuko’s family in order to make ends meet and somehow rack up the money to pay for all the property damage she caused. And her credit cards were all frozen! Not that it’s wrong for her to have to bear all the costs after what she did. Of all the random groups in Illya’s life that clashed together in this crazy beach episode, Bazett as Illya’s former enemy has to be the absolute worst person to meet any of them, ever – especially if she decides to start a fight. All these people should never have mixed, ever. I guess at least she isn’t a certain homewrecker who threw frogs at Illya’s friend’s sister while fighting over Illya’s non-blood related older brother. I love how he described his hypothesis over Rin’s S-class zettai ryouiki in such detail though – he’s only ever gotten the chance to react to a lewd Kuro before, but under Veritaserum it looks like this Shirou is a closet pervert in general.
So alongside all that, we had a lot of subtle plot-related stuff about Miyu – they’re really pushing the Miyu thing, which I think will really pay off in the future. All the stuff about her taking things too seriously has been played for comic effect, but she’s like that because she genuinely hasn’t experienced any of this before – she’s been to the beach once before in her life, and even then she didn’t go in the water! So she doesn’t know how to do all this, and that begs the question of exactly what sort of life she led before she met Illya. And Illya doesn’t know much, which is another thing – for example, she assumed Miyu’s been living here all her life. Not that Miyu has divulged much, that is – it’s definitely not Illya’s fault at all. But the fact remains that there’s a hell of a lot she doesn’t know about Miyu, and while, a hedge sometimes keeps a friendship green, as Kuro says, here it’s more like it’s something which is keeping their friendship from developing further.
Finally, there was something really interesting in what Miyu said about her past – do not click this if you haven’t read 3rei and don’t want to be spoiled!
[spoiler title=”Miyu”]
Miyu said she lived in Fuyuki when she was young, with her father and brother. Her brother is the Emiya Shirou of her world, which as Illya herself says would make her Emiya Miyu. I’m presuming there was no fire in her world, as the Ainsworth ritual is different from the Einzbern one – which implies that Miyu and Shirou are biologically related in an alternate universe. There was no fire for that Shirou to be adopted from, so he stayed with his original family.
We know that, in universes in which a fire did occur, like Fate/stay, Shirou’s biological family died. Does this include Miyu? If she’s Shirou’s biological sister, then was she a casualty of the fire in almost all the universes? Or was she taken in by Kirei and tortured in the basement of the church for years?
[/spoiler]
Also, this scene was super cute.
About that spoiler – I’ve seen some spoilers of drei chapter 31 and if they are true – we’re in for a surprise.
About the episode, I enjoyed this one more than the first – the comedy was better and we got some plot hints as well.
I did not like the opening at all last week but listening to it more carefully (and with headphones) this week I guess it’s good enough. The chorus still has some lines that sound awkward thanks to the breathing, but whatever.
Also – veritaserum – is that a Harry Potter reference?
On the note of the new opening, it definitely has a much more subtle sense of drama and power behind it than the previous 2 and I can understand why people would be divided on it. However, I think that makes it perfect as the opening of a season that’s going to gradually take the story to new heights, as well as being perfect for Miyu as she’s more mature and composed than Illya or Kuro! That said, the lyrics easily and beautifully apply to all of them 🙂
But this episode had no yuri kiss scene! (Poor Mimi though, now she must think Illya isn’t just into polygamy but also incest with multiple family members)
I mainly like this OP for its awesome visuals, but the song itself is fine too – Prisma Illya has had a good set of OPs, I think. Kuribayashi Minami for 2wei, and ChouCho for the first season.
Yup, that’s Harry Potter! It was the first thing that came to my mind when Ruby injected him 😀
I’m uncertain whether I should be glad that spoiler was available to confirm my suspicions. Rather, I’m grateful to you and quite mixed on my feelings about that spoiler. Of course, I didn’t become suspicious about this just by watching the show. Many long-time fans kept teasing with the word [spoiler] “Miyu-verse” in the anime’s comments and nothing more :v
This… is so impactful. I never stopped to think about what Shirou’s original family was like or if they were alive in another timeline. Hell, Archer probably tried to save them as an alternative to having to kill his younger self who survived the Fuyuki fire, but even that wasn’t enough since he’s outside the laws of time and space as a Guardian. [/spoiler]
[spoiler]
If you know enough Nasuverse, you could have figured it out as early as the first season – I had my suspicions, but I never knew the sheer scale of it all until 3rei happened. Rin and Luvia were initially sent to collect the Class Cards on Waver’s orders, with the reward being that they’d become disciples of Zelretch, the creator of Ruby and Sapphire – and he can use Kaleidoscope, the Second Magic which deals with traversing parallel worlds. And all those times when Miyu installed the Class Cards into her body in the same way that Illya did, starting with Saber when she fought Berserker – it’s only possible for Illya due to her being the Holy Grail, so it hints that Miyu has to be a similar sort of entity.
[/spoiler]