I’m a Type Moon fanboy, so I thoroughly enjoyed this episode just for the sake of going back to the Fate / Stay Night universe. But this episode was pretty disappointing for a double length episode. The entire thing was just setup. This could be forgiven in a single episode, but for a double whammy? Get to the meat of the story already.

Much of the fun from the original Fate / Stay Night derived from not knowing what was going on, and figuring it out as we went along. But here it seems like they’ve revealed nearly everything up front. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.

Kotomine and Emiya were two of the most intriguing characters in the VN, so having them in starring rolls will be nice. It’s a vast improvement over Shirou, to say the least. Emiya’s wife doesn’t thrill me at the moment: I guess her main purpose is to die some tragic death. The Matou household is always exciting. And little Rin and Sakura are cute.

But what’s up with Waver, this kid from the magician’s association? Is he supposed to be a joke? He already seemed like he was going to be the first one to die, and then he went and summoned an orangutan?

The production is up to snuff for ufotable, and the music is great. The episode served to get me psyched for the rest of the show, even if it wasn’t that exciting. There was a sense of building tension just through the dialogue. I’ll probably be blogging this, depending on the second episode. As an aside, more anime need snow. Snow makes everything better. Just look at Haruhi.

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