You're listening to the After Hours Arc, your
new anime podcast. My name is Antai, and I'll
be your host. In this podcast, join me as I review,
recap, and relive anime, one arc at a time. And
as always, these are all manga -free point of
views. In today's episode, we will be finally
diving into the Fate Stay Night Unlimited Blade
Works. This is one I was super excited to get
into. I ended up googling to make sure that I
found the actual order. And I did figure it out.
I didn't want it to be ruined for me. I wanted
it to be as close as possible. I will say, this
was a really, really long anime for me to get
through. I mean, the prologue was an hour. The
first episode was pretty close to that. And I
watched up to episode 7. So that was a lot to
take in. Now I was really confused. Because the
prologue was all about this character Rin Tosaka.
I love her name. It makes me laugh every time.
But she was the whole focus for the prologue.
So I had assumed that the story was going to
follow her. I will say she was really important
to show us first because she is a proper mage.
This perspective shows us what somebody who has
been training their whole life can actually do.
Tosaka was so fun to get to know through the
series. I thought the voice actor was the second
Kagome in Inuyasha, the final act. I did check.
It isn't. But they sound so alike. Oh my god.
One thing I really enjoy about Tosaka's character
is that she is extremely disciplined. She is
competent. She's a little bit sarcastic. She
was really fun. Why she was so important in that
prologue, though, was because it offered us a
chance to learn what we're going to end up seeing.
how that's actually supposed to be done. we find
out about this holy grail war and this grail
will grant the winner any wish. there's this
church guy he's pretty much like the ringleader
and he does play a major role later on but i
really thought nothing of him. so what i really
enjoy is we have seven mages that are called
masters. they summon heroic spirits which they
call servants and this is to fight for them in
the war. It is basically a deathmatch, last man
standing type of deal. These servants get split
into seven different classes. We have Saber,
Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Berserker, and
Assassin. Getting back to Tohsaka, this is where
we were supposed to see a proper summoning, so
I believed. She was going for the strongest class,
which is apparently the Saber class. But she
ends up getting Archer and his vibe is pretty
amazing. He is moody, sharp tongue. And of course,
he is voiced by one of my favorites, Kaiji Tang.
But to be honest, Archer is not one of my favorite
characters. It was actually Lancer who stole
my heart. And we're going to meet him next in
the series. They really wasted no time in introducing
him. And I probably will say this throughout
this review. But those fight scenes, they go
so hard. We have Tosaka and Archer who go out
to scout the city. And that is when they run
into Lancer. I wish they had more fights, but
it is supposed to be like the start of the series.
So I can sort of understand spending some time
to lay down a little bit of structure. This being
the first fight though. It really did set the
tone. I was so excited moving forward to see
all the different servants in action. The fighting,
it looks more like fireworks to me. Again, visually,
it was just stunning. During this fight though,
the actual main character shows up. He witnesses
the servant battle and apparently there's a rule
that any witness must die. So real quick, the
main character's name is Shiro. And I was not
the biggest Shiro fan. It's not that he's a bad
character, like at all. I just think they made
him way too overpowered at the end of the series.
Like the literal end of the series. And I usually
love overpowered characters. But this boy is
literally just figuring out how to use magic.
And I just had a hard time buying it. Getting
back to the situation though. Lancer goes and
kills him, like stabs him in the heart. And I
was not expecting it. He was like invisible.
It was crazy. More so, I wasn't expecting Tosaka
to find him inside the school and to save him
with this special pendant. It definitely contrasted
this perfect mage persona that the show was starting
to give off for us. Unfortunately for Shiro,
Lancer comes back to finish the job, right? The
thing about Shiro is his type of magic. And I'm
going to say that very loosely. It's like examining
and strengthening. And I wasn't sure exactly
what it was because he always says trace on.
But really, what is he doing? It seems like he's
examining, but he can also project items. It
was so confusing for me. I'm not going to lie.
Unfortunately for Shiro, like I said, Lancer
comes back to finish the job and he ends up cornering
him. We see Shiro rolling up paper and trace
on, right? He has this crazy desire to live.
And because of this, these marks form on his
hands. And what those are, are command seals.
The command seals are for the servant and you
get three commands that the servant cannot refuse.
He accidentally summons Saber and her entrance
was everything. I loved Saber. She appears in
all her armor, sword drawn, even though we can't
see it, and immediately goes at it with Lancer.
Again, visually, the fights are fucking stunning.
What little glimpses we get. After that whole
deal, Shirou becomes our main character and is
the seventh master in this war. It does sort
of fit as the story goes on, but again, I really
wanted Tosaka to be the main character. Speaking
of Tosaka, she is so mad. She is jealous that
a noob like Shiro just got Saber because remember
that is who she wanted. At this point, Tosaka
and Shiro are supposed to be enemies. Tosaka
has a heart though. She feels bad. She knows
this boy is like not going to survive this war.
It isn't until later that they're going to team
up, but Shiro is so confused by all of this.
He really has no idea what is happening. Tosaka
explains the Holy Grail War to him and that it's
a battle to the death between mages. The heroic
spirits from the past is what these servants
are. And while she's going over this, she is
just so casual. She's offering him tea while
basically bombarding him with all of this bad
news. So they're going to go end up to go see
that church man. I don't know if he was actually
a priest, but again, it was a church. It's like
the safe zone of the Holy Grail War. We also
find out that Saber has been summoned here in
this time period before, which I guess even surprised
Tosaka. Apparently that is not a common occurrence.
They finally go to meet the priest and his name
is Kirei. And again, the visuals in the church
was just amazing. The way they were panning and
walking throughout the church. It was incredible.
They're continuing to go over the whole concept
of the war. And the Holy Grail grants us one
wish. It makes sense though. The last Holy Grail
war was like 10 years ago. There was this massive
destruction of the city. It was a real catastrophe.
And this boy Shiro was orphaned because of it.
Shiro decides he's going to fight because of
this. And now him and Tosaka have their little
moment. I had a feeling they were going to be
love interest. So I was kind of excited to see
it form. Although Tosaka deserves much better
than Shiro. That's all I'm going to say. At one
point before this whole ordeal, Shiro was walking
home at night and he had passed a white haired
girl who's a little important and a little later
on, which I'll get to. But she says something
along the lines of you're going to need to summon
soon, brother, or you'll die. I don't know why
she keeps calling him brother. But he turns around
and she's gone. So obviously this was before
the saber summoning. We end up meeting the white
haired girl during a fight. With Tosaka, Shiro,
Archers somewhere. And sabers there. And this
white haired girl has berserker. I thought she
was going to be an absolute menace. During the
battle we finally see Archer with a bow. Up until
this point. He has been fighting with swords.
It did nothing though. Even having a barrage
of arrows, that spirit was still standing. Cut
to Tosaka and this white hand girl. They're still
fighting. And again, 10 out of 10 for the visuals.
When they did have fights on the screen, it was
absolutely incredible. They were just so short.
I didn't really get to enjoy them. So Archer
ends up shooting this spear -like sword thing.
It was super crazy to watch. and the girl originally
wanted Saber, but now wants Archer, and again,
I don't really know why she kept calling Shiro
big brother. We have a lot of mystery with her,
and we don't see her for very long either. The
next issue we run into is Shinji, and I do not
like him at all. Shinji is such a dick, but he
is a fellow master, and he's a fellow classmate
of Tosaka and Shiro. He had some hand in setting
up this magical barrier over the entire school.
It was designed to drain energy from the students.
Like I said, he's a total dick. His servant is
Rider though. And what I found out is Shinji,
even though being from a mage family, he has
to rely solely on Rider because he cannot properly
use magic. It was the best karma ever. I loved
hearing it. Moving on from him for a minute.
One of the most dangerous and important servants
to bring up is going to be Caster. I love mages
and I really wanted to love her. As a whole,
I guess I did. It just didn't feel as balanced
for me. She's able to break the rules and even
has a dagger to do so. She just does whatever
she wants, which I mean, you go girl. But I had
much higher expectations for her than I believe
were met. So Caster is able to summon servants
apparently. And it does become this big shit
show. There really wasn't as much action as I
was hoping for. At this point, Tosaka and Shiro
have a little truce and team up. Because Caster
is way more dangerous and definitely more important
to take out. And the story starts really picking
up again once we get to the Caster Temple's arc.
This is where things start really turning into
a conundrum for people. Because again, Caster
isn't just strong. She's breaking all the rules
of the war. She ends up taking Saber from Shiro.
And that was a wild moment for me. Because up
until that point, I knew she could summon her
own servants. I did not expect to see her steal
the command seals from a master. Saber was basically
Shirou's entire game plan. And without her, he's
basically just a regular kid with no magical
experience who's planning to try to survive a
war between legendary heroes. It's not looking
good. We find out that Caster's master is this
guy, Kuzuki. And he was a teacher at their school.
I did not expect him to be as strong of a fighter
as he was, but when he starts throwing hands,
this dude is a beast. I was so impressed with
him. Shiro and Tosaka decide they have got to
attack the temple and take Castor out pronto.
Again, this is where we're going to get some
amazing fights. We got to see Saber versus Assassin,
which was fantastic. Again, I really wish the
fights were longer. By the time I got excited,
It was fucking over. It was such a tease. As
amazing as it was to watch, that part made it
a huge letdown. But then like the biggest plot
twist happens. Archer ends up betraying Tosaka.
And I sort of saw it coming. First, I just assumed
it was a plan to deceive Caster. But Archer has
been acting super suspicious since he was summoned.
He has amnesia, can't remember his past. what
heroic spirit he is. So Archer joins Caster,
but it does turn out that Archer was just using
her. The moment he gets what he wants, he just
straight up destroys her. The whole situation
ended way too fast. It was a huge buildup for
such a quick kill. Again, it was another letdown
for me. I expected so much more. Then we do finally
start to learn what Archer's real goal is. And
this is where the story got a tad more interesting
for me. Because Archer isn't just a random heroic
spirit. We find out Archer is actually a future
version of Shiro. And he ends up kidnapping Tosaka
to pretty much make Shiro be forced to come and
fight him. He hates Shiro. He hates his ideals.
He hates his whole hero of justice dream. We
find out it's because he already lived that life.
I was like, oh my god, I knew there was going
to be some connection. I just wasn't expecting
future Shiro. He ends up becoming something that's
called a counter guardian, which basically means
he's just spending eternity cleaning up humanity's
mistakes. A lot of the times, that means killing
people. And Archer's plan is super dark. But
before we get into that, when Tosaka gets kidnapped,
we find out that church guy is actually Lancer's
master. And Lancer was there to try to rescue
her. And the church guy, Kiru, wants him to kill
her. He plans to use her as the vessel for the
Holy Grail, which we find out is a little bit
darker than we had originally known. And even
though he used a command seal, and mind you,
his whole arm was covered. Normally you get like
three. This dude had a full sleeve. It was ridiculous.
He commanded Lancer to kill himself. I thought
he was going to have him kill Tosaka. So Lancer
does. But of course, before he's actually dead,
he takes out Kiryu. And getting back to the Shiro
and Archer fight, this was one of the most annoying.
fights in the whole series for me and i mean
this fight isn't just about who's stronger it's
really about their ideals clashing it's it's
an important fight don't get me wrong archer
is basically saying that shiro's dream is stupid
and he can't save everyone which he's right honestly
but Shiro's response was very on brand for Shiro
because he's like yeah it may be impossible but
like I'm still gonna try. That is when we get
to see Archer's true ability which is unlimited
blade works. Now this was a very cool visual.
I really enjoyed any of these reality Marvel
scenes. There were gears in the sky, countless
swords stuck in the ground. And this is a place
where he can copy and project any weapon he has
seen. This will end up becoming Shiro's reality
marble. Because again, Shiro becomes Archer.
Somehow though, Archer loses to Shiro. Which
made absolutely no sense to me. I had such a
hard time with Shiro becoming... This amazingly
strong and powerful character in the blink of
an eye. I just really had a hard time swallowing
that. But this does bring us to the final villain
of the series, Gilgamesh. And before Archer like
disintegrates being killed by him, he pushes
Shiro out of the way and tells him to take care
of him. So the Gilgamesh character has popped
up a little bit. I might have forgotten to bring
up that white haired girl with Berserker. Again,
I'm not sure. She wasn't in it too much. I did
think she was going to be more of a vocal character,
but she ends up getting killed for her heart.
She was supposed to be the Holy Grail, apparently.
And Gilgamesh, who I absolutely love this dude,
I couldn't care less that he was a villain or
an asshole. My only issue is I could not figure
out what his whole deal was. I didn't know his
name. I didn't know his class. He didn't seem
to have a master. He is very arrogant and over
the top, and he treats everyone like they are
just completely beneath him. This does make sense
though, because he himself is the king of heroes.
His power is called Gate of Babylon, which basically
is this treasure vault filled with every single
legendary weapon you could imagine. And he can
just like launch them at people as if they're
missiles. So when Shiro ends up being the one
who fights him, I was a little confused because
again, this dude just learned magic and he's
not archer yet. So fighting one of the strongest
heroic spirits really didn't work for me. The
cool thing for Shiro though is unlimited blade
works apparently counters Gilgamesh's perfectly.
So every weapon Gilgamesh fires, Shiro can copy.
And for once, Gilgamesh actually gets overwhelmed.
Mostly this is because of his pride. He is too
proud to take Shiro seriously, which I don't
blame him. Again, Shiro sucks. The archer fight
and this fight were the worst fights for me.
This ends up becoming his downfall. And another
reason is Gilgamesh never mastered any of the
weapons he used. So somehow Shiro is able to
keep up with him because of this. Again, this
was not my favorite lineup. These fights really
didn't do it for me. But this is where we learn
that the Grail is corrupted and Gilgamesh's plan
is to activate it. Instead of granting wishes,
what it does is it just causes a massive disaster.
And this doesn't make sense because Shiro was
this orphan boy who got adopted by this mage.
It was actually because of the aftermath of this.
So that was 10 years ago. And that's also...
why Saber was brought into the same time period
again so recently. It is all tied in. So the
aftermath of this, we had seen scenes of Shiro
just as a little boy and he's in the rubble,
there's fire all around him. It really did go
full circle for me once they kind of explained
that. But after all the hype, in the end the
grail gets destroyed, the war comes to an end,
and Shiro and Tosaka survive. Like again, I expected
so much with all this buildup. It was a very
short ending to such a long series. I did think
it was cute though, because Tosaka and Shiro
leave Japan to go study magic in London. And
even though Shiro still has his crazy hero ideals,
he now has Tosaka to keep him there and be a
little more grounded. And she was so cute after
the war. She turned into a straight up girlfriend.
Again, I love Tosaka. Overall, I really did enjoy
the animation, the character designs. Just a
lot of these characters were amazing, especially
Lancer, Saber, and Gilgamesh. Those are my top
three. Archer would be number four, but that's
probably because I found out he's Shiro. And
that's probably why he'll get booted from this
list. I still think Shiro getting as strong as
he did was a little wild and probably why I was
not as thrilled with the outcome of the series.
I had been so excited to get into it and it was
a little bit of a letdown. Maybe I gave it too
high of an expectation. Who knows? The fights
were amazing, like I said, so maybe the next
one in the series will do more for me, since
the foundation has been laid down now. We'll
see. But that is my take on the Fate Stay Night
Unlimited Blade Works. I'm currently working
on Let This Grieving Soul Retire, Season 1 of
Freerun. and Mashal for reviews. And I will be
switching from Jujutsu Kaisen season three recaps
when our little core break starts. And I'm going
to start recapping the new anime that's coming
out, The Witch Hat Atelier. It airs the same
days as Jujutsu Kaisen, so it's not going to
affect my week at all. And I saw the trailer.
It looks amazing. It looks so good. Right up
my alley. I am crazy about fantasy. And a few
of the Japanese voices, they sounded a bit familiar.
So I am beyond ready to dive into that one in
April. Again, every Friday I am uploading these
recaps. And I did say Tuesdays I'll be doing
reviews and breakdowns. But I'm just going to
continue building a catalog for now. When I have
enough episodes... I'll start uploading a little
less and more consistent for that. Hopefully
you enjoyed this episode. And until next time,
I'll see you then.