Forum - View topicANNCast - Chewing the Fate
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konqueror
Posts: 129 |
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Why can't I open this with Media Player Classic?
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I have no idea. It's just an MP3, should work fine for you.
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Chrysostomus
Posts: 335 |
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Sorry but Hope is just flat out wrong. In the LN it's clear that Kariya's true motives are saving Sakura and not boning her mom because he knows he's gonna die by the end of the war, if he even wins.
Hell, it's pretty clear in the anime too that he knows he's gonna die from the get-go so that thing about him being oh so selfish is just not true. |
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navycherub
 Posts: 233 |
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I disagree with the idea that the ending doesn't wrap up the themes properly. The point of the ending to me is that there is no easy way to make the world the way you want it to be; the grail is corrupt and never would have actually helped because an Easy Mode button like that simply can't exist. This is followed up by Kiritsugu finding happiness in simplicity instead of a grand goal, which puts a ribbon on that theme.
What Kariya perceives as his own goal isn't necessarily his actual desire. It is just like Sayaka in Madoka Magica, or Micchy in Kamen Rider Gaim - people being self-sacrificing and lying to themselves and others about what or who they are really doing it for. |
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Chrysostomus
Posts: 335 |
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And even if he was lying to himself it's very clear that he cared about Sakura and his desire to save her just can't be summarily dismissed as selfish. He's arguably the noblest master of them all. |
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Lord Starfish
Posts: 167 |
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On the topic of where to start with the franchise, I would personally say the UBW anime is the better choice if one is an anime-only kinda person. Mainly because, yeah, UBW has some stuff in it that wouldn't make sense if one hasn't seen Zero first... But Fate/Zero just casually goes and blatantly spoils pretty much every twist in the Fate-route and several things from Heaven's Feel over its run. Not to mention, Fate/Zero's first episode is just one massive infodump. While one might say the writing is overall better in Zero, UBW to me had a much more engaging and compelling introduction. I also showed the UBW-anime to a friend of mine a while back, and he had no prior knowledge about the franchise from what I knew, and we ended up sitting through like half the first season in one sitting. Only stopping because I was starting to get bored. I am not sure he would have been as interested in seeing the rest if I'd showed him Zero, with how it kicks off with what's basically three episodes straight of people talking about this amazing battle that's about to take place before we see any of it.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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Just thought I'd point out that F/Z can't really spoil anything about F/SN because F/Z is a *prequel* to F/SN. Basically, it assumes you're familiar with F/SN as a whole (all three routes), while F/UBW only assumes you've been through the SN route (the first route) of the VN. I will say, though, that ufotable's version of UBW does make a few shout-outs to F/Z, but you don't lose much if you've never seen F/Z. |
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JacobC
ANN Past Staff
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Right, which is why he strangles Aoi when she misunderstands his feelings. And also why most of his narration in the novels is filled with desire and anger and regret and anger and anger and annnnnger. I get where you're coming from, but part of the story's point is that even the noblest and most self-sacrificial actions can be mired in dark, uncomfortable motives. The reason he went so far to sacrifice himself is twofold. One, he's notoriously short-sighted and wasn't really thinking about the full ramifications of his decision. He thought "yeah sure it'll shorten my life," but I'm not sure he took into account just how much it would completely ruin him until it was too late. In fact, I believe he rushes into the worm decision before he even sees Sakura in the books. Two...his life is kinda empty. Kariya spends his days visiting Tohsaka's family and pining after his wife and daughters. That is his life. He abandoned the Matou teachings, so he kinda has nothing else. That's been taken from him as much as Sakura has been taken from Aoi. I actually thought Kariya was a little more tragic and noble when I first saw the show, but after reading some of the fan translation of the novels (really wish it had an official translation,) I was pushed more in the direction of him being the Ultimate Nice Guy. (Although my first tipoff when watching the show was his first confrontation with Tohsaka where he starts going all "DEVOUR HIM ALIVE MY BUG-MINIONS," even though it's a really foolish move for trying to win the whole Grail War, which is the only way to save Sakura, not just "killing her dad." It seems like a bad idea that could get him killed, and it basically does. Guy is not thinking with the head between his shoulders if you catch my drift.) Even after he knows he's going to die and he's sacrificed his body past the point of no return, he harbors these crazy delusions of martyrdom and the children seeing him as their real father and stuff. It's pretty creepy. His motives are completely delusional and selfish. Last edited by JacobC on Fri May 15, 2015 1:14 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Seif
 Posts: 458 |
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In a lot of ways he is a prototype for the ideas 'Boochi explores with Sayaka. Unfortunately, Kairya lacks the self-awareness of his flaws that she had. |
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Chrysostomus
Posts: 335 |
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He has those delusions of being a father because, ideally, he could have been a better father to Sakura and maybe to Rin. We all know that Tokiomi was a magus before being a father, which is why he shipped Sakura off to the Matous. That's why Kiritsugu didn't want to teach Shirou any magecraft, he wanted his "son" to have nothing to do with that insane world of magi. I think this is one of the themes in Heaven's Feel, how the fucked up lifestyle and goals of their magi parents directly lead to that disaster that is the Fifth Holy Grail war in the HF route. |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1608 |
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Exactly. I feel like this is a common pitfall for a lot of people who review fiction: we're so used to tidy happy endings that we act as though an unhappy or unconventional ending can never serve a story. That's simply not true. Fate/Zero is obviously a prequel (more to the current UBW series than the original show at this point, but still) but I think it can stand on its own as a complete story nonetheless. On one level it's a tragedy about Kiritsugu and Saber both striving to achieve something and falling short of it. But it's not a completely tragic story, because even though Kiritsugu does not become a "hero," (by his definition of the term) he finds something else he's been missing all his life: peace. |
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justsomeaccount
 Posts: 471 |
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One problem I had with the structure of the show is that the first half is all hanging around (there are fights, but as the guest says, most of them end up interrupted without actual consequences), and while it helps to know all the characters in action and little development, it can be a little too padded especially with Caster, and it was hard to take seriously that for the most part the characters waited or were very inmune in the first half, and then in the second they die and kill like beasts at the minimal chance. I feel that kind of tension was missing in the first half and contributes to the whole "just people talking and sometimes fighting" feeling. Fortunately the characters are strong enough that you want to stick with them, but I think it's a fair criticism.
In terms of shock value, the women being strangled didn't call as much my attention as the whole children being murdered, to the point of being overtired. The first time is creepy. The rest of time you just go "okay, we get it, how monstrous Caster is, how gross, uhh I'm creeped out, can we stop wasting time with these scenes you have repeated a lot of times?". By the way, was really all that much backstory about Maiya in the anime? I don't know in the novels, but in the anime the only intimate scenes she has was one in the early episodes with Kiritsugu (which almost looks like he's cheating Iris) and then the episode when she dies (which feels a little "here's her backstory right before she dies so you feel bad"), but even those scenes didn't that many information or subtext as they told in this podcast, or at least I don't remember it. Is that in the novels or something? Last edited by justsomeaccount on Fri May 15, 2015 1:27 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Which is what we said. Exactly. I didn't say "the themes didn't wrap up properly", I said they were undercut by the lore. It's a completely different problem than the themes "not wrapping up properly". |
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navycherub
Posts: 233 |
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OK, I think I might have misinterpreted something you said then.
But that is all they are, from beginning to end - delusions. We don't know that Kariya would have actually been that great a dad to them. I doubt he had the maturity to be a parent in the first place; his reaction to not liking what his family does and what magi society is like is to simply isolate himself from that world entirely until it all comes to a head and he actually has to deal with real life and its consequences. He just isn't a very level-headed person, and throughout his whole life he has trouble coming to terms with anything he doesn't like, opting to run away or go with the nuclear option, never a compromise. |
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JacobC
ANN Past Staff
Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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There was just enough where I was like "Wait, what?" when watching the show, and knew she was his mistress and not just his underling, before ever reading the novels. The novels go in deeper as to Kiritsugu and Maiya's feelings for each other, how Irisviel feels about it, etc etc. In the show, you basically just get the two scenes though, yeah. |
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