Recap

Shirou spends three days cooking and cleaning before he nearly gets himself killed, causing him to summon Saber.

Iro’s Thoughts:

How the fuck does Mitsuzuri eat so much?

Marlin’s Thoughts

It’s been a while since I’ve read or seen anything of the beginning of Fate/Stay Night. As such, I found this episode to be good at what it was trying to accomplish. I think you get to see a lot more of Shirou’s personality in this episode than you do in the VN by this point if I remember right. I definitely liked the callbacks to Kiritsugu. If there was any question that this wasn’t meant to directly follow Fate/Zero, that was definitely the clincher. It was almost painful to watch the shell of a man he’d become after the events of that series. Unfortunately, it did lag a bit just like the first episode. I remember this is much of the same reason as why I didn’t enjoy the beginning when I read the VN. It did manage to redeem itself in the end, though, as the saber vs. lancer fight was pretty great. The fight was fluid and entertaining, but I do worry that people wholly unfamiliar with the series would find parts confusing, most especially saber’s obfuscation magic, and the invocation of Noble Phantasms. Still, considering super powers are very common in japanese media, hopefully most newcomers would at least understand enough to make the connection that its a power specific to the fighter. With Berserker coming next episode, I’m looking forward to what Ufotable has in store for us next.