And we’re back. Last episode was quite an upset – plot-wise and direction-wise, I thought it was actually pretty fantastic. Atmospheric, creative, full of nice little details… on its own, I felt it was a very strong episode. That said, I’m pretty much never a fan of this “care about characters in retrospect” style of reveal – of all the things to keep as a secret, I think “the reason you should be invested in what’s happening” is about the worst possible choice. Felt it was a bad choice in Fate/Zero (I found that show’s entire first half pretty much emotionally sterile, and scattering the events of the longer flashback sequence from season 2 throughout would have probably fixed that entirely), felt it was a bad choice here. The only way I feel it can work is if you’re already invested in the characters involved – and that not being the case here was pretty much the fatal flaw for what was in the abstract an extremely compelling episode.
But negativity aside, great direction and smart storytelling are nothing to sneeze at, and last episode had plenty of those. I’ve also heard this episode has animation out to here, so that should be fun. Let’s get to it!
