Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works
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whiskeyii
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What you're suggesting is to cut out the close up of Rin's legs and otherwise leave the scene as is. I'm not; I'm saying you "re-shoot" the scene to focus on Rin's face while still giving a clear sense of what's happening, much like Maria the Virgin Witch did. But I suggest you look at the Perfect Blue example. You get a good sense for what's going on without seeing any sexual intimacy, though those do occur earlier in the scene (not shown in the video, and the clip itself is hard to find on YouTube). However, those scenes are a) not close ups, and b) extremely brief. The main focus of the scene is on Mima's face. THAT'S what I mean by "focusing on Rin's face". @Valhern Understood. I thought you were saying you thought my points had no basis because they were based on assumptions. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5524 Location: Iscandar |
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I also think that the scene of Shinji touching Rin was done for titillation. There was no need to put so much emphasis on Rin's legs.
I think you are living in a bubble if you doubt that anime producers add titillation content for the viewers to get off. I am not saying that sexual or other any other kind of abuse cannot be used as an effective plot element, but it can be presented in a non pandering or fetishist way. Last edited by Angel M Cazares on Sat May 16, 2015 11:19 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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PumpkinMouse
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Long post incoming! Sorry about that, it kinda' ran away from me.
(Also quite a few people beat me to the punch, but I feel it's worth reiterating anyway.) @ konqueror Hey now, I didn't see Zero (except one episode where Kiritsugu shot down a woman in a plane with zombies or something--the friend wanted to pick an emotional episode, but I found it really bizarre and kinda' funny without context) and I saw Studio DEEN's anime, so I know all of the routes will center on Shirou's growth through them. Knowing all that, and still basically being a new fan, that doesn't make me like Shirou's arc any better. Honestly, I've seen this sort of character arc before in Rurouni Kenshin and Utena years ago (and I guess a little in Madoka) so I'm kinda' just hanging around waiting for the fights to start. /end of stuff strictly toward konqueror Speaking of fights, I find it really bizarre that Saber just goes "I'll stay here to oversee Archer and Shirou's fight" when she was so protective of Shirou as a master. I realize it's the plot keeping Saber away from Rin so other plot-stuff can happen, but I find it out of character for her not to go running to save Rin. And yeah, I know Lancer's there, and yeah, I know nothing comes of it, but Saber doesn't. This kind of thing, with authors acting like everything's gonna' be find because they know the plot despite the characters themselves not knowing that everything's gonna' be alright, always jerks me out of a story. So I kinda' see maximilianjenus's point about how there needs to be some indication of what's happening (if nothing else, to avoid the unfortunate issue one country had where they removed the tongue from the licking scene in the last episode of SAO's fairy arc and it made the scene look like the bad guy was humping Asuna instead) but I don't think it needed to be that long. In fact, I know it didn't, nor did we need to see her legs twice in close-up. I've had the luck to have recently seen the first two episodes of Say I Love You and the first few from Paranoia Agent recently. Both of these shows have creepy potential rapists in them: the guy from the bakery in Say I Love You who stares just a liiiittle too long at the main girl's legs and later starts stalking her, and the big guy from Paranoia Agent who stares at the main girl's legs from under a table and then very suggestively licks the top of his parfait. Now, the Say I Love You shot is pretty short, because you don't need much to show an unnamed, single-episode character having indecent thoughts about a high-school girl's legs, but the Paranoia Agent scene is longer, with a cut-in shot of the guy's eyes bulging. But here's the thing: we as the audience don't know these people yet--these scenes come from the first episodes of their respective series, so it makes sense that they need longer scenes than, say, a character that's been around from episode 1 and tries something shifty at episode 6. Also, the guy's POV shot in Paranoia Agent is much farther away--roughly the distance you'd be sitting with someone at an outdoor table. It's clear that he's taking a much closer (or maybe harder) look at the girl's legs than the audience, but we don't need the camera to jam the girl's legs right into our faces like UBW does to know--we can guess from his bulging eyes and lingering gaze. We get the point from this more medium-ish shot of the girl's legs. But UBW, for whatever reason, reeeeally wants us to see those legs. I'm also of the opinion that quick shots can be just as effective as longer shots. We don't need to linger on those legs, you can just have Shinji put a hand on her legs and cut to his face in close-up in some kind of evil whisper with the same dialogue. I mean, we all know he's a creep anyway, we don't need a moment to establish his villany. Heck, with a face shot we could even see Rin's face more clearly, which would be nice--just a grit of the teeth feels kinda' like a checkbox of "Showed the victim reacting? Check" rather than "this is how this character would react to this situation". I'm not saying I want a close-up shot of her in tears, but some acknowledgement of her feelings would be nice. Also, somewhat tangentially related: So far in UBW, I find Rin to be the most sexualized woman (by the camera, not by design; that award goes to Rider) in the show. There was a shower scene earlier in the show where the camera lingered on a lacy bra--clearly, not just to indicate that she's taking a shower. We would've known without it. and there have been a few scenes where you can see another character through the tent made by her legs. Plus, all the marketing I've seen for her (way before I'd even seen Studio DEEN's anime) was teasingly sexual. Admittedly, marketing and a show can be handled by very different people with very different mindsets, but all in all I'm not terribly inclined to give the producers the benefit of the doubt with Rin. Last edited by PumpkinMouse on Sat May 16, 2015 11:43 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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JacobC
ANN Past Staff
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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This isn't really that complicated. Making the shot not creepy while still conveying Shinji's full threat is incredibly easy. Side note: remember the comments in this thread last week, saying Archer wasn't really giving Rin up to Shinji's molesty-ness, and there wasn't any real danger to telling him "do whatever?" Yeeeeeeeeah. Apparently not. Dick move, Archer. Sucks even more in hindsight.
Anyway. See this shot? 
It's followed by this one. 
Then this one. 
Then back to the leg one. The way you fix this to convey all the same threat without being creepy and objectifying is to just cut the middle shot. Keep all of Shinji's dialogue the same, about liking her muscular legs, etc., but reduce the scene's shot composition to Shinji's face as he's bending over with his hands obviously on her lap, Rin's disgusted face, then cut back to his face, then the punch. It's literally just removing the shots of his hands rubbing her thighs. That's it. Those shots are only in there to objectify her. Cut 'em. Problem solved. Last edited by JacobC on Sat May 16, 2015 11:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Calsolum
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my day:
oh hey a new episode came out oh look a new review lets go see whats going on *reads* uh huh. yeah. ok. huh. well i dont agree with that, lets see what the forums says, lets see i was on page fifty something and --- holy lines of text. ... ... *sigh* better get to it. *a few cups of coffee later* I'm gonna need my typing keyboard. So i'm not even gonna bother with what came up a few pages ago cause i'll be writing all night so i'll just mention the most recent events. Shinjis attempted rape on Rin was unsettling and uncomfortable but isnt that what the little turd is? I mean if they 'really' wanted it to be titillating (learned this word today  ) they would have expanded on it or made the scene worse. I mean look back to Fate/Zero and remember the first time we actually see whatspoiler[sakura's 'training' consisted of?] Ufotable can be graphic if they want to, they didn't this time because it served its purpose. Rin did grit her teeth showing that she was definitely holding back and (probably) wanted to kick his balls in but as we've seen from Rin she's pretty level headed if she was too aggressive with him hed go cry to goldy-locks and shed probably be even worse off. Showing no reaction was probably the best way for her to go.
I found this episode to be very entertaining and I'd give it a B+ or A-, it rehashed what alot of people were discussing and already know and it did seem to repeat a few things that were already stated here and there but is that really a bad thing? Lets not forget that this is a reboot and i think fate/zero is the only thing they assume youve seen already so it makes sense that they'd take a full episode to clearly (very clearly)portray the relationship with shiro and EMIYA. I guess the only flaw in this is that its boring and rather redundant for people who already know or have figured this all out already but I think this was a necessary episode. On that note there were theories whizzing around here and there about what EMIYA 'actually' did as a Counter Guardian and i must say its an incredibly crappy job. especially considering shiro's(soon to be Heroic Spirit EMIYA) motivations for it. Its no wonder he wants to eliminate his past self and hell I think he should be allowed to do it, i mean he thew away his chance at salvation because of a naive wish and he just wants it all to end. I'd say the biggest reason he suffers so much is because he was so unselfish in the first place, hell even his selfish wish of ending it all initially only meant he would suffer but due to external circumstance other people got in his way and well, he really wants his past self to die and the Counter Force did teach him to be ruthless after all  .
But this leads me to think what if he didn't have to face this hell on his own? What if other people thanked him? What if other people saw that he was only trying to 'protect' the world? What if just one person understood his suffering and accepted him for what he is instead of the hatred and betrayal that he got? Maybe he might not have become so hell bent on undoing his fate? Maybe he could have come to terms with what he was and continue 'protecting' the world? Its too bad EMIYA ended up the way he did but I think his fate could have been averted in a much simpler way but lets see how he fares against his past self. And finally a moment of silence for lancer untimely demise who did the one thing that almost everybody watching this show wanted to happen for a loong time |
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whiskeyii
Posts: 2278 |
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Being a newcomer to this series, I'm of a mixed mind on the very lengthy conversation between Archer and Shirou. On the one hand, I WAS hoping to see a more in-depth conversation about how Shirou became Archer.
What I got, however, was a conclusion I'd already come to earlier: that Shirou couldn't, even as Archer, reconcile his actions with his ideals. The most I got out of that sequence was how he died. I still think like it's a really huge leap of logic to say that it drove him to suicide, but that's because once Emiya becomes Archer, he doesn't emote much, so it's harder for me to take his descent into utter regret about his life seriously. He just always has that deadpan expression. :/ EDIT: Now that I think about it, it seems like a missed opportunity to not show at least a little bit of what Archer's first experience as a Guardian was like. Nothing major, but a very anguished look as he makes his first mass killing and then slowly deadening that expression as time goes on seems like it'd be much more effective than just going "Yeah, I totally became numb to it all guys" while having that same fixed expression through all timelines. Last edited by whiskeyii on Sat May 16, 2015 11:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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HaruhiToy
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Didn't Shinji actually already complete a rape of another character in this story or was that in another incarnation of the Fate story? It has been a while so I can't remember. But it wasn't shown on screen.
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whiskeyii
Posts: 2278 |
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I think that's a major spoiler of Heaven's Feel. EDIT: Unless that was in Studio DEEN's take. Haven't seen that. |
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stilldemented
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Shattered suspension of disbelief due to knowledge of material.
Results=Cannot see forest for the trees That's more or less the root of the problem in these discussions. One person sees it one way because they read the visual novel. Another sees it a different way because they didn't. So on and so on and so on. Rin has looked down on Shinji the entire series. Why would she give him the satisfaction of a response to his stroking of her? Even though she's tied up and at his mercy she's still looking down on him. When it comes to the shot of Shinji stroking her thighs, the main intention is to invoke repulsion. In so doing it makes the next shot with Lancer intervening satisfying. Was it meant to be titillating? Yes! But not for the simplistic reasons of fanservice. As long as you're not into netorare you should also be kind of scared that Rin might be in actual danger. After all, we already knew that Shinji had an infatuation with Rin. Now he's getting the one woman he desired that undermined him at every given turn and putting her at his mercy. It's sick. It's twisted. And it kind of fits Shinji's character perfectly. He's a rather vile thing. Which then makes it all the more satisfying when she's rescued by Lancer. On a side note, it also provides a glaring difference between Archer and Shirou. Archer is willing to put Rin through that. Shirou would never do that. Thus indirectly reaffirming Shirou's belief that Archer and he are indeed two different people. TLDR- I can understand why it's there and can justify its placement. But if you don't think it's justifiable I can't change your interpretation, and don't really see any reason in doing so. 
Last edited by stilldemented on Sun May 17, 2015 12:16 am; edited 2 times in total |
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One-Eye
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Poor Lancer always getting the shaft (lance?).
I agree with most of what was written in the review. However, I disagree in that I've found most of the show (not just the last few episodes) except in a few instances to be snoresville for me. I've felt that overall the pace moved from a tad slow to full on glacial. The characters are just not quite as compelling so far for me. By the end of FSN I cared about Saber as a character even though I wanted to kick Shirou in the teeth throughout the entire show. And in F/Z there was enough background and interaction between the characters that they were mostly all interesting. Here Rider was gone before we really got to know her, is assassin still around without Caster or will he brought back later? Don't really know much about him, so don't care either way and Lancer was just starting to get interesting. As far as the male gaze, its there without a doubt and I agree the shot composition could have been handled differently. Actually now that I think about it the removal of those shots might have even made it creepier since it would leave some stuff up to the viewers imagination (eww..). This conversation reminds me of Ilya's earlier bath scene, which bothered me a lot. Last edited by One-Eye on Sun May 17, 2015 12:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Valhern
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Wait, he didn't kill himself. He says he took part and solved a certain conflict and the ones he saved made him take the blame of the conflict and executed him. He made the pact with the Counter Force and thus became a Heroic Spirit and a Guardian, thus he was summoned time and time again to kill humanity's enemies, born out of conflicts made by humanity itself, so he finds himself being betrayed by his ideals considering he did become a hero of justice but it did not go how it was supposed to, that's why he wants to prevent that by killing Shirou.
Well, it is implied he attacked that one girl from the archery club, it's highly likely he raped her or at least that's the feel I get. |
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PumpkinMouse
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I've already addressed the leg scene, so I snipped that, and I didn't think much of what was basically an infodump episode to me, so I won't say too much about that (but I can understand viewers wanting more clarification, so I can accept that it as a necessary evil), but I really just wanted to address this bit that you posted, because Revolutionary Girl Utena actually addresses this, and the result isn't a happy one. *SPOILERS FOR REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA (no names, but it's easy to infer who I'm talking about if you've seen past the coffin arc)* spoiler[ To give some backstory (in case you haven't seen Utena), long ago, there was a prince who did all the things a prince should do: be noble, be brave, and save young ladies in distress. The people loved their prince for saving their young women and doing nice things for them, so they began to rely on the prince to do everything for these women. When the prince was too weak from exhaustion to continue his duty, the people armed themselves and mobbed his house, demanding he continue saving and helping and comforting their young women. Eventually his sister came out and told them to leave the prince alone and to stop relying on the prince for everything. The mob stabbed her in revenge. Afterwards, the prince tried to continue doing his duty as a prince, but he began to lose his faith in the people he was trying to help (after all, they stabbed his sister, who didn't die but was left in eternal pain). He eventually gave up trying to help people, and started manipulating them for his own interests, trying to make himself and his sister happy instead. Essentially, trying to solve everyone's problems turned the prince and his sister into the Big Bads of the show.] So basically, the problem with people thanking Emiya is that, if people get used to thanking him for helping them, they eventually learn to rely on him and to complain or even turn on him when he doesn't help, which can lead to a crisis of faith anyway. Now, there's something to the idea of having someone else by his side to keep him motivated spoiler[(like the ending of Madoka)], but that requires someone to make a lifelong commitment to him, and unless Rin does that, I don't see anyone else having the guts to call him out on his hero complex and keep him from going crazy. That might be the endgame of UBW, but I haven't read the visual novel and I forgot what I read about that route on the wikia, so I'm not sure. Last edited by PumpkinMouse on Sun May 17, 2015 12:17 am; edited 1 time in total |
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whiskeyii
Posts: 2278 |
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I was talking about his extended time-traveling ploy to kill his past self. Which, strictly speaking, is still suicide because he doesn't want to exist any more. That aside, I get the premise behind Archer and how he became "twisted", I'm just not fully convinced by it. And I think part of that problem is Archer himself; he plays it way too cool and stoic, so when he says he's full of regrets, you don't get to see that in his face or anything, not even in past summonings. He just stoically states it like he's giving you a weather report. It's hard to believe that he regrets anything at all. |
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Sploradorali
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In this anime, Shinji has not been shown to have raped anybody. (Novel spoiler:) spoiler[However, in the visual novel, it is known that he has raped Sakura on numerous occasions previously. In UBW, all we know is that Shinji has physically assaulted her.] In regards to the review, I feel that Shinji, as a character, has been portrayed rather subtly in the series, which I suspect is because we don't know the extent of his complete inability to be a decent human being. This leads to a complete misunderstanding, which is how I see the reviewer's interpretation of him. Shinji is definitely a comic character in many regards, but, at his core, he is one of the ugliest characters of the bunch. Although even Gilgamesh has some sense of valor, Shinji is an abuser, a bully, a sociopathic killer (He ordered Gilgamesh to kill the defenseless Rin and Shirou simply because he was having a tantrum.), and a spoiler[rapist]. You could argue that it's completely ufotable's fault or a flaw of this particular route for not portraying him exclusively in this light, but we have had many, many clues that Shinji is just a terrible person altogether. He's not misunderstood. He's not just a "loser". He may have daddy issues. But he is clearly a very terrible person. Just because he's a coward doesn't mean he hasn't been adequately characterized as such. Because I had this in mind, I did not find the thigh scene titillating whatsoever and I don't feel like it's the intention of ufotable to portray it as "fanservice". In my opinion, if you believe that this was meant to be any sort of fanservice whatsoever, then you have a terribly skewed idea of what fanservice really is. Here, in this scene, we have a very real, very dark portrayal of Rin's situation. She is at risk of being assaulted and violated by a very nasty person. This is something that we see in Western film all the time (including a lot of great movies), but for some reason, because it's anime, there's some debate that it's meant to raise some eyebrows (among other things), despite the ominous framing, tone, and plot timing of the scene itself. I frankly find this unreasonable and it's rather presumptuous to assume that ufotable, after nearly four whole cours of less sexually explicit material than you see in Sunday mass, would be baiting for zettai ryouiki action. There has been plenty of rape mention, but never, ever has ufotable touched upon rape or other sexual themes in the Fate series in a titillating or otherwise light manner. I also agree with the notion that ufotable specifically animated the thigh frames in order to make it clear that Shinji was coming close to violating her completely had it not been for his agreement with Archer. By showing us what exactly he was doing, we know that he was doing no more, and no less. Despite my disagreement, like I said in the beginning, Shinji may not have been portrayed as perfectly as one may have liked. Had we have seen more of what Shinji has already done or what potential he has, this scene may not be as polarizing as it apparently is. I, myself, know how messed up Shinji is without needing to be reminded of it, but after almost two seasons and a 6 month break, it could be difficult to remember. But let's just remember that Shinji has a history of beating his little sister -- a fact that was established by Shirou right at episode 1. |
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Valhern
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Ah, yeah, that. Well you could say the trick behind it is that contradiction and the way he hides it. He wants to destroy his own self for the same reason he became like that, in short, trying to protect himself, which is ironic since the most twisted layer of Shirou's ideal is that he doesn't care about himself. It's like his own selflessness came to tell him to care more about himself. That's mostly why I like this episode and Archer a lot. |
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