Fate / Zero 14 — Inhuman Monsters and Deathbed Conversions

When this show was airing, I wasn’t particularly fond of it. But I was looking forward immensely to watching it today. I think it goes to show how horrible the past season of anime was.

Regardless, this episode did not disappoint! We start out fighting Caster’s monster from last time, with Berserker fighting Gilgamesh in midair from the top of a jet. The action was pretty exciting. It was all CG, but I don’t really mind that.

Tohsaka is a Big Poopy-Face

I’ll admit, I was almost feeling sorry for Tohsaka as he bowed and scraped to Gilgamesh. Who exactly is the servant here? But his meeting with Kariya reminded me of what he did to Sakura. After he justifies his actions and thanks Kariya for allowing Sakura to be turned into worm food, I have to agree with Kariya:

I loved this shot, as we see the worms that compose Kariya’s body as he accuses Tohsaka of being an inhuman monster. Have to say I agree with him though.

Tohsaka has an interesting comeback. I fail to see, though, how allowing your body to be overcome by worms qualifies as not taking responsibility. I would say that the first condition of humanity is not responsibility, but empathy, which Tohsaka clearly lacks.

Deathbed Conversion

Ryuunosuke!!! Nooooo!!! You were so COOL!

I loved his death scene though. Usually in the villain’s death scene, they see the light and repent. Ryuunosuke’s death has all the trappings of a deathbed conversion. However, what he sees on his deathbed is that his own body can provide the blood and gore he’s lusted after. It’s not a repentance at all, but a confirmation and acceptance of his own identity. I love this. He doesn’t regret anything, but accepts what he’s done, and in his own way, finds joy even in death. By Tohsaka’s definition, Ryuunosuke is a fine specimen of humanity. Let’s hope that Ryuunosuke can enjoy being gored for all eternity in hell.

And of course, I’m looking forward to Caster’s greatest cool!

Next Episode

I am so looking forward to this! If you don’t remember, I spent most of last season complaining about Saber and Lancer and their chivalry and how boring it was. Hehehe… I can’t wait to see how he exploits Lancer’s chivalry!

4 thoughts on “Fate / Zero 14 — Inhuman Monsters and Deathbed Conversions

  1. The point is that Tokiomi doesn’t even know about the wormrape. Only blaming Tokiomi is completely wrong. He is right, it is very dangerous for Sakura’s well-being if he is not allowed to train her unlike Rin and thus giving her to another family was not thaaat bad of a choice. However, giving her to Zouken without further research was just plain stupid.

    Now it’s partially Kariya’s fault too for not explaining that crucial fact: the reason he left the Matous. It’s not just because he is disgusted by the Magi in general, he clearly realized that the heir of the Matou family will become Zouken’s puppet and he maybe even knew that Zouken will eventually take over the body.

    Nevertheless, he didn’t tell Tokiomi anything about that. His jealousy and hatred towards Tokiomi completely blinds him, he did not understand Tokiomi’s message at all and we(the audience) who can only understand Kariya as non-magi cannot comprehend Tokiomi’s logic. As it is stated in the novel, Kariya only heard what he wanted to hear from Tokiomi and now found his ultimate reason to kill him. Both Tokiomi and Kariya are partially right, but the lack of proper communication will lead to a disaster and Urobuchi is perfect in portraying tragedy and disaster…

    1. I find it really hard to believe that Tokiomi doesn’t know about the worm rape. He’s known Zouken forever, surely he has some idea of how his magic works? Regardless, why hasn’t he at least tried to check on his daughter to find out if she’s ok? I don’t buy his claim that not teaching her magic would be a bad thing, either. Tokiomi thinks that people who don’t know magic are worthless, and I couldn’t disagree more. But I do agree that he’s stupid. 🙂

      Kariya probably should have tried to talk more with Tokiomi though, I agree. Especially before / right after Sakura was adopted. He is blinded by hatred and jealousy, but I can sympathize with him much more than with Tokiomi. Tokiomi is lecturing him about taking responsibility for Sakura, after all, when it’s him who handed Sakura over!

      1. Zouken hasn’t probably left his house for the last 100 years or so(there is no reason to and sunlight is not good for his body). The Matou family is known for being specialists in familiars(including worms and bugs; it was Matou who invented the Command Spells to control the Servants after all), so that was nothing new for him. There is a high chance that he is not aware of the rape, as he doesn’t know how the worms work actually. And I’m sure he doesn’t know that Sakura was raped by Shinji in her childhood lots of times.

        The reason he didn’t check Sakura’s condition is easy: that was part of the deal he made with Zouken, when Tokiomi gave Sakura to him. Both families are not allowed to interact with each other and have to “forget” that Sakura was a Tohsaka. That’s basically what Rin does during FSN the whole time, besides greeting Sakura in school.

        The problem of all of this is the fact that both Sakura and Rin have extraordinary talents and traits. Sakura possesses a very, rare sorcery and elemental trait called “Imaginary Numbers”(Shadow), which makes her strong against ethereal beings, but completely weak against any other one, since she does not possess one of the 5 elements, while this is exactly Rin’s elemental trait: Five Elements. Sakura got another elemental trait when she learned the Matous’ magecraft: Water.

        If the Magic Associatian(the “rabble” he was talking about) or any other magus who is researching, would find out about Sakura, they would try to kidnap her, put her in formaldehyde or incarcerate her for the rest of her life. The excuse for doing that would be sth like “in order to protect the trait” and no one except for the victim family would give a damn, that’s how cruel the magic society is. This is what magi call “Sealing Designation”. Get a Sealing Designation and you better hide yourself for the rest of your life because the Magic Association will send their Enforcers(similar to the Executors of the Church; Kiritsugu was a part-time Enforcer during his time as the Magus Killer).

        Someone who learns magecraft can protect him/herself better and it will be more difficult. Someone who is the heir of a magus family is given divine protection against such acts(though there are exceptions, Rin was almost doomed in FSN when she ended up in an unfair trial). However, except for the Edelfelt family, only one child can inherit the Magic Crest of the family and become the heir. An exception are highly distinguished families like Sola-Ui’s Nuada-Re family or the Archibald family. Tokiomi was aware that Sakura would face constant danger if she wouldn’t get taught magecraft and get the protection an heir gets. It was inevitable for her to become a normal human(in his opinion; he is the magic expert, not me), so she needed a strong family who adopts and protects her. Zouken promised both, that’s why Tokiomi agreed very easily without doing his research.

        Both Tokiomi and Kariya are right and wrong. While one of them acted like a magus and knew a lot about the magic world, the other one acted more human and knew more about the Matou family. The irony of Tokiomi’s plan was that Sakura was abused and used anyway, since Tokiomi failed to see what Zouken intended(while Kariya knew that, but he didn’t tell Tokiomi). On the other hand, Kariya as someone who knows nothing about the magic society didn’t know that Tokiomi intended to give Sakura a decent and safe future. You could say it’s a curse that Aoi was able to give birth to two abnormally talented children.

        And you misunderstood Tokiomi regarding the responsibility. Kariya wasn’t supposed to take responsibility for Sakura, it was for himself(this is actually a wisdom for life in general). As he abandoned the path of magic, he came crawling back for the Grail and destroyed his body in a year to learn the magecraft he refused to learn. Since Tokiomi did not understand why Kariya did that, he is nothing more like a dog in his eyes.

        1. Hm, I guess that’s possible. I still doubt his family with their long magical history and such wouldn’t be keeping tabs on the other guy, but ok.

          He doesn’t know about Shinji because it hasn’t happened yet. Right?

          And it seems to me like even making this deal to forget about her indicates that something is wrong. I don’t know though.

          Crap, I didn’t know the magus association did that sealing designation thing. That puts his decision in a much more charitable light. Still, the show sure could have explained this better…

          And thanks for all the explanation! That was quite interesting, and does cast Tokiomi in a better light.

          Still, I don’t like the guy. 🙂 Tokiomi was willing to cast his daughter out of his life without doing his homework, regardless of whether it was necessary for her survival. He doesn’t even seem to miss her. Kariya, on the other hand, gave up his body and went through tremendous suffering to save someone else’s daughter. Tokiomi can talk about responsibility all he wants, but I don’t see not becoming a mage as irresponsible. The way I see it, it’s not about responsibility but love. Kariya loves Sakura, and Tokiomi had no trouble casting her off. So I’m on Kariya’s side.

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