Archer Goes Rogue? Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works E7 Reaction | AVR2

[@bbb56nagisa80]

Seems that I am not the only one writing a paper here now, nice. 4:13 As another comment said, the Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City can only summon one type of assassin, and that is Hassan Sabah. In Fate/zero, we have already seen Hassan of the Hundred Faces, who can appear in dozens of forms at the same time. In this Holy Grail War, due to Caster's interference, Sasaki Kojiro was summoned in Hassan's place. 7:17 Yes. Sasaki Kojiro is a servant summoned by Caster, but Caster cannot always provide the mana he needs. So instead of providing it only herself, she changed the source of Kojiro's mana to the spiritual veins under the entire temple. In other words, it is the magic power of this land itself that provides Assassin with his existence, means that he cannot leave Ryuudou Temple, can only be the gatekeeper. 10:38 Assassin gave up the advantage of the high ground and stood on the same stone stairs with Saber. The moment he called out the Noble Phantasm, Saber's skill, Instinct, was activated. She sensed the threat of death and released Invisible Air. Instinct (A Rank): Artoria possesses the ability to always instantly identify "the best personal course of action" during combat. It is an innate ability. Due to having been strengthened by a degree from the specialty of the Saber class, it is essentially a sixth sense in the realm of predicting the future. 10:47 _Tsubame Gaeshi_ :Sasaki Kojiro's Noble Phantasm. It is not a special sword or item, but his Noble Phantasm is the swordsmanship that he has practiced to perfection. He only pursues the peak of swordsmanship throughout his life. He trains himself in pursuit of swordsmanship and does nothing but swing his sword. After a long period of time, his technology finally reached another level. A flash of light from this world, followed by two flashes that overlapped at the same time, ignoring the concept of time and space, and slashing from three different directions. The first slash → Go back to before the first slash → Perform the second slash → Go back to before the second slash again → Perform the third slash → Stop backtracking and execute the three slashes at the same time To Saber. 16:05 Saber relied on her own instinct skills and the Invisible Air on Excalibur to dodge quickly, allowing Assassin's sword to hit the armor without suffering any fatal injuries. 20:39 When Shirou was injured by Archer, we returned to Rin's perspective. She saw Archer standing on the Mountain of Swords in her dream. The blue portal will be introduced later, so we won’t go into details here. Fate route: Saber ignored Shirou's decision and went to Ryuudou Temple alone, and met the assassin, Sasaki Kojiro in front of the gate. The two began a duel, but Saber underestimated her opponent and was almost killed by Kojiro's mysterious swordsmanship - Tsubame Gaeshi. After regaining her composure, Saber prepares to unleash the power of Excalibur to battle Kojiro. However, Shirou, who discovered Saber had left home, arrived in time. Kojiro lost interest in the unexpected guest and returned to the temple after giving him a warning. Saber eventually fainted due to lack of mana and was taken home by Shirou. UBW route: Saber, who discovered that Shirou had left home mysteriously, rushed to Ryuudouji Temple, where she met the assassin, Sasaki Kojiro. She was dragged by the assassin and unable to rescue Shirou, who was controlled by Caster. At the critical moment, Archer rushed to the rescue. There are 4 servants fighting with their opponents inside and outside the entire temple. Caster underestimated her opponent and was defeated by Archer, but Archer let her go because Archer needed her to consume each other with Berserker in order to annihilate both opponents in one fell swoop. Shirou couldn't agree with Archer's approach and turned around and left. But at this moment, Archer cut him and tried to kill Shirou. Shirou struggled and rolled out of the temple gate and was caught by Saber. Just as Archer was about to chase him, Assassin intervened because he couldn't stand this kind of backstabbing. The two immediately started a new round of fighting, and Saber quickly evacuated with the seriously injured Shirou.

[@TheGenreVerse]

Thanks!

[@amari7782]

@@TheGenreVersefor context the only reason the fuyuki grail can only summon Hassan is because Hassan is the root word to Assassin so they changed the settings to be as simplified as humanly possible

[@knightofthelake8112]

Shirou isn't naive, he is just selfless, survivors guilt is a very serious issue for someone his age. Remember that he was the one who wanted to end caster while archer spared her and even called her soft. Sometimes you gotta fight, but that doesn't mean that you should give up on seeking diplomatic solutions and resort to violence as a last resort.

[@nadoghost146]

At this moment he IS naive, not because he's "selfless", but because of what he expects to get out of his selflessness. This is still a Shirou who will make a big mistake if he doesn't change. Shirou starts every route naive, he only stop being naive in different ways.

[@knightofthelake8112]

@nadoghost146 That's not true at all, even in the fate route shirou was not naive, he literally was willing to off shinji if he doesn't take down the barrier, he can choose not to fight and his dialogues with saber show how much he is mature compared to his age that he is even called out for bring that special by taiga, saber and Ayako. His selflessness doesn't come from nativity but rather a low self esteem that he can't control, his decisions going forward can be considered naive if you take his path going forth itself as a mistake. Otherwise you can't call someone who is ready to die or kill naive, there's a reason he was able to convince archer later on.

[@nadoghost146]

​@@knightofthelake8112 Did you not read what I said? Let me restate it: BIG SPOILERS AHEAD Being "ready to kill or die" doesn't make you not naive, it doesn't make you mature. Shirou simply appears mature because he has the mindset of a machine. He hasn't yet found a purpose, he doesn't make plan for the future, he's just following an instruction. He literally tortures himself every night for no reason just because it's routine. Shirou is naive because he believes he can become a "Hero of Justice" even though he doesn't even know what to do to become one. He is naive because he believe that saving just enough random people will make him happy. He is naive because he still believes that he can (and so he must) achieve his ideal. The Shirou at the start of the story, who hasn't developped and learned, is the one closest to who Archer was when he made the deal with the Counter Force. He is the Shirou who would break when his ideals fail him. He only gets more mature after each route: Fate: he learns that failures happen even if you did your best and to not obsess over that. UBW: he learns that his goal is impossible to achieve and to enjoy simply pursuing something beautiful with no hope of reward. HF: he learns to put people he actually cares about over abstract ideals.

[@TheGenreVerse]

I'm selfless. To a fault. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you how much I hate compliments and being selfish. Except I am selfish, especially with my time. It just so happens I want to serve others or work with a team towards a goal bigger than myself. That's part of why I was in the Army, why I'm with LRM instead of my own, and why I would rather be in physical pain to make my son dinner rather than bother Christine if she's had a bad day. It's not the healthiest thing to do, but I'm not delusional about the effects of my sacrifices. Shirou is delusional (read naive) about the feasibility of achieving his goal and/or the actual cost to human freedom (potentially existence) required to achieving it. It's good he is willing to throw down at some points, but still thinking he can save the world from itself somehow is naive. That's my take at least.

[@Blaze19]

​​@@TheGenreVerse To clarify, Shirou knows more than anyone how unachievable his ideal is; he just doesn't like that people can't be saved, as he said in Episode 1. He will try to save the person, but if the said person is beyond saving, he will not hesitate to pull the trigger. The best way I can describe him is selfishly selfless. This is the only way of living he knows after the effects of F/Z. He believes he will fall apart if he doesn't live like that. FSN explores his self-destructive ideals in different ways. The fate route already explored the feasibility of achieving his ideals and the cost to human freedom required to achieving it briefly in one way. UBW challenges his ideals that are explored in the Fate route in a different way through Archer.

[@nadoghost146]

3:37 "Japanese swordmanship is just that good!", says Japanese author 4:16 Fate/Zero is, I'm pretty sure, the most "proper" Grail War, and even then a participant is colluding with the Overseer. This War, although the original depiction of a Holy Grail War, is a complete mess. You will find out that the "rules" are truly background noises this time. 4:28 Supposedly, an Assassin summoned normally would always be Hassin-i Sabbah, because the Order of Assassins (Hashashin) he founded was the origin of the word. And the reason Sasaki Kojirou is summoned this time instead is because he wasn't summoned by an actual Master. Of course, with the success of Fate, there has been many new Assassins across the franchise so this detail gets more dubious everyday. 7:00 True Magic in this universe is differentiated with normal "magic" (called Magecraft) by being able to accomplish impossible things, transcending the laws of reality. Like world peace, time travel, teleportation, or swinging your sword 3 times at the same time. The goal of traditional magi like Rin's dad is to access true Magic. 9:05 He thrown them earlier, they came back because they're special boomerang swords. 9:20 "I am the bone of my sword" The author is not good at English, but this line is iconic regardless. You may try to figure out what it actually means later. 10:10 Good on you for actually googling Archer's sword-arrow! 11:20 What's happening here is Assassin attack is so lethal Saber's Instinct is screaming that she's gonna die, making her instinctively activate Excalibur to deter it. Saber's instinct comes up in every one of her fights and is why she can dodge even "undodgeable blow"s. 14:40 Pacifism is a very broad belief that violence and war is bad, "sometimes you have to fight" do not lessen the idea that nonviolent solutions are preferable and should be pursued whenever possible. Anyways, I believe this same thing was actually explored in Fate/Zero through Kiritsugu. He went through one situation where he could have used violence and didn't and that caused disaster, so he took that lesson to heart and only chose violence from then on. He did everything because he "has to", that was his character. I'd say, Shirou and Archer are also not what I'd call pacifists... but UBW's core theme is Shirou's Ideals, so I won't elaborate and let you look forward to the show exploring them! 16:48 He swung his sword so many times, he broke space and time. 17:02 Remember when Archer told Rin that he would never do such a thing? I'll let you decide if he was lying then or now. Archer starts to show his hand this episode, but keep in mind that certain things are suspect, like how he claims Shirou isn't willing to fight or would even save Berserker, simply because he doesn't want to involve innocents. Even though Archer was the one who spared Caster and Shirou was against it. Or how he tried to kill Shirou after going there INDEPENDENTLY to save him.

[@TheGenreVerse]

Thanks for the context and comments on our comments! 😆. Always appreciate stuff like this.

[@1998rg]

Determining archers identity tru the name of his noble phantasm is a great trail of thought; actually smart reactors eh ? Nice

[@BekindBekbek]

In terms of skill this Caster surpasses Zero Caster with ease. I`d even say that she is like top 10 Casters in Fate. In terms of skill at least, I`m not talking about pure power

[@TheGenreVerse]

😲 at least she seems more sane... Not good or anything, just... More in control.

[@amari7782]

@@TheGenreVerseto be fair caster really just wants the war to be over with so she can live fine with kuzuki. It’s also stated that she’s one of the 5 best mages in the world Zero really doesn’t put this into perspective but mages throughout history with exceptions aren’t really the best of people. There was a caster name Paracelsus von hoenheim ( if u seen FMA that’s ed and Al’s dad) who made a philosophers stone and the mages immediately put mans of fbi most wanted and killed him. Also caster is coming off from a shitty master prior to kuzuki and her history with her husband prior to being summoned and she’s Greek, so she’s just kinda done with everyone’s shit.

[@nadoghost146]

@@amari7782 That's some fine SPOILERS you got there, buddy

[@amari7782]

@@nadoghost146 Greek could mean anything but the top 5 caster is from fgo

[@nadoghost146]

@@amari7782 Uh, no. I meant her entire friggin story in UBW.

[@BekindBekbek]

8:08 "You`re weird. You`re weird about each other" - Caster, probably

[@anusaukko6792]

3:33 I mean if I had to be exact, there are probably lots of different myths where Arthur loses in a swordfight, but in this context Kojiro is JUST THAT GOOD at swordplay. He's a step above everyone else in skill. 7:00 Like someone else said, True Magic is separate from ''magecraft'' aka pleb magic that everyone uses. Magecraft is almost like science in a way, it has hard laws and things it cannot accomplish because it would defy certain rules or things, although you can still do crazy stuff with it if you're good enough. True Magic is what EVERY traditional mage wants to get, and they would stop at absolutely nothing to obtain it. It's always something broken as hell like time travel, creation from nothingness that violates law of conservation of mass, operation and usage of parallel worlds etc. 11:13 Saber's Instinct skill is so high she can feel any danger at all, basically to the point she sees into the near-future (which is why her future self died, she got hit.) Assassins skill is basically him being so unbelievably good at swordplay, that he can violate the laws of reality to slash 3 times at once. In the instant he attacks, three simultaneous swings exist, which is a feat akin to True Magic.

[@PossessedbyPhoenix]

It's a funny coincidence you focused on Kojiro's status as the loser in the ultimate duel against Musashi, as recently another anime Legend of Ragnarok which is also about legendary figures coming back to life to fight, really went all in on that idea, portraying him as "History's Greatest Loser" who never won a fight, but rather kept only challenging the strongest enemies that he knew were far above him to gain experience, then trained until he mentally knew he surpassed them, without feeling the need to officially win, as he immediately became interested in the next unbeatable challenge. He continued training nonstop in the afterlife and surpassed even Musashi as the strongest samurai. Meanwhile, in the actual myths, he was an undefeated legend until his final duel and in some versions even Musashi recognized he was the more skilled swordsman. Musashi relied on tricks and strategies to win, such as intentionally arriving very late to disrespect and upset Kojiro, and so the sun wound be at the right angle to blind him during the duel. He and Musashi are so tied together that the original Japanese names for Jesse and James from Pokemon were Musashi and Kojiro.

[@TheGenreVerse]

Our focus on the "loser" aspect is purely comical. Don't know enough about him to be serious 😆. Thanks for sharing the information though!

[@wymg4480]

Assassin lowkey one of the coolest characters. Dude just swung his sword a billion times and created an attack that rivaled a Noble phantasm.

[@amari7782]

More like achieved true magic which is a greater feat

[@Angras_advocate18]

18:33 yeah that’s just anime, copious amounts of blood come with the territory😂 the most notorious 1’s I’ve seen do this is bleach & berserk

[@Angras_advocate18]

21:16 that someone was joking, the rules r absolute it’s just characters r smart & or equipped enough to find loop holes around them

[@BekindBekbek]

That twin swords that Archer uses also have names btw. It`s not really a spoiler, but could be a food for thought for sure. It`s Kanshou and Bakuya. They are from Chinese legend.

[@whitegrimaceakatheshmoo4021]

In the myth, Arthur loses against Lancelot, who is the most skilled swordsman of the knights of the round table.

[@TheGenreVerse]

That wasn't in the Disney movie! 😆 I have no problem admitting my Arthurian knowledge is limited to the most common big parts. Not that this loss isn't possibly a big part, just that I'm more of a stone/lake/Gwendolyn/merlin basics guy.

[@whitegrimaceakatheshmoo4021]

@@TheGenreVerse Oooh, boy. What about the part where his sister the witch Morgana Le Fay shape-shifts to seduce him, and gives birth to Mordred, who eventually kills Arthur? (Though Mordred dies first, Arthur from his wounds.) That shit gets saucy.

[@darwin7785]

Some lessons on Magic in the world of Fate: There is Magecraft, which is the wisdom of the humans on how the universe operates, when applying the right materials and the conditions they can interfere with nature (This is what most Master uses). There is Magic, which can be used by entities that have great affinity on modifying the world around them naturally, without any need of magecraft or incantation, and last but not least, there is True magic, this is the highest form of magic which is in part of miracles, using True magic means that the person can alter concepts and physical laws on how the universe and dimensions operate, the user can bend future, past, other dimensions, destiny, and others impossible things that can not be achieved under natural circumstances. Also a fun fact, Saber has the highest stats on luck and intuition too, she saw herself being defeated with her intuition and prevented it before it happened.

[@TheGenreVerse]

Thanks!

[@asahelpillado2676]

fergi jajaja, keep focus in archer the bastard still have alot of secrets.

[@Litia440]

a brief explanation of assasins noble phantasmal, when alive he as a human train so much that made a multiversal phenomena to be able to do 3 slashes not consecutive but the 3 happen at the exact same time as if there were 3 different ppl each one doing each slash, and the joke why his np is so famous in the fandom he train to reach that level of swordsmanship to kill a swallow midflight, about the summoning since this wont be pointed or shown by any of the animes, for a master one just need to be able to activate a circle of summoning for the ritual of the grail, the better mage you are the better for your servant but if both are servants that means one cant fully feed mana to the other one even on fate zero ryunosuke was a shity mage but caster managed to get mana from other sources so far on what you watched there is nothing really "outside the rules"

[@BekindBekbek]

3:35 well, Arthur died from sword, so you can say that it happened at least once. Also, IIRC, in Fate lore Lancelot was the best in terms of skill from knights of the Round Table

[@Raldphium]

To add onto this, in Arthurian legend, Arthur lost to Lancelot in a sword fight and throw such a tantrum that he broke the sword he pulled from the stone which proved he was king. He had to go on a quest to redeem himself to get Excalibur.

[@Johnithinuioian]

Next episode is when?

[@TheGenreVerse]

Thursday.

[@Johnithinuioian]

@@TheGenreVerse Cool, cool. I'm looking forward to the release date!

[@askechadd2473]

Just because i noticed it in this episode. I think you should take note of all the references the UBW anime has to the Zero anime (including literal flashbacks to scenes in Zero) and all the things in UBW that would make no sense without watching Zero first. Because despite significant gaslighting by visual novel readers (who don't even like the animes btw) the intended watch order of the creators of the ANIMEs by Ufotable is Zero first and UBW by Ufotable is clearly made with the idea you have watched Zero first.

[@marcey2687]

Those supposed "Fate/Zero references" in the UBW anime were already in the Visual Novel years before Fate/Zero was even planned. In this episode notably, Fate/Zero was the one referencing Fate/Stay Night by showing Kiritsugu with Shirou at the end of the show in what was meant to be a "full circle" moment. Because despite significant gaslighting by anime watchers (who didn't even read the visual novel or light novel btw) there are no major story differences between the LN/VN and their respective anime adaptations that justifies flipping the order intended by the actual authors.

[@askechadd2473]

@@marcey2687 "actual authors" very interesting language. Were Urobuchi and Nasu working on the script with Ufotable staff? First time i've heard of that, they credited as scriptwriters for the Ufotable animes? As demonstrated very nicely here you don't care about the anime order or the intended order of the creators of the ANIME. You only care about the intentions of Nasu and Urobuchi. Interestingly you would fight this claim of fate zero references. I'll just ask you to lie then. Is the flashback to kiritsugu when Shirou and Archer are having their conversation anime original or did the same flashback happen at some point in day 6 UBW? It couldn't possibly be that the flashback is anime original because the creators of the anime knew people had watched Zero and would equate Kiritsugus deflated ideology with Archers, right? Interesting strawman by saying people claim there are major story differences between LN/VN and the animes. Who said that? I haven't even heard someone say that before. Did you just make that up? Name a single major story difference you have hear someone cite before? The justification of different order comes from the anime for UBW and HF specifically missing out things because they are explained by Zero. Why is gilgamesh around, this isn't a mystery in the VN because it is explained in the VN by Gilgamesh immediately in his first appearance infront of Saber. Why is Gilgamesh around in the UBW anime... idk, they don't explain it, he's just there, wonder why they left out the explanaton given in the VN... couldn't be that you were meant to watch Zero and already know that gilgamesh has been chillin since the 4th war. and to be clear you think that everyone who watched Zero in 2011 actually should have waited until 2020 when the final HF movie was out. And you even think that was the intentions of the creators of the ANIME. Or you can just say what you really wanna say...

[@marcey2687]

@@askechadd2473 Wow, so Fate/Zero and FSN were actually new original story by Ufotable?! Let me look this up, "Original Creator: Gen Urobuchi and Kinoko Nasu" ah no, it's written that they are indeed the creator of Fate/Zero's and FSN's story, how odd. But I suppose that according to you the scriptwriters, whose job is to put an existing story on screen, are more important that the guys who wrote the story in the first place. The flashback itself happened earlier in the VN. In UBW day 6 specifically the narration says "One cannot save everyone. Kiritsugu always said that." It couldn't possibly be that the flashback would be put there because they thought it would be better to use visuals instead of narration in the anime like they constantly did. It's not like Shirou, Archer and Kiritsugu's ideologies were a core aspect of the VN's story from the start and Ufotable was just adapting it on screen. Gilgamesh spent nearly 10 minutes yapping about his circumstances and about the Grail in the UBW anime. He couldn't explain them more thoroughly if he tried, tf you mean they didn't explain anything?! Not to mention his first appearance in anime is supposed to be in FSN 2006, but suddenly, the order of the anime doesn't matter anymore when it comes to 2006 even though they straight up said they didn't remake it because they consider it to be a good entry.

[@amari7782]

@@marcey2687it’s wild how people will bend any logic possible to justify watching a prequel before the original series even tho no one recommends doing that for any series. I don’t know why people insist everyone watches zero first if anything they contribute the most too the confusion