Quote:
Originally Posted by jeroz
I find it funny that the criticism for this arc is pretty much either "bad pacing" or "it doesn't have anime physics"
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The people that are calling it filler are probably looking at it from the wrong perspective. Novel spoilers notwithstanding, ufotable has been very good at planning the story out thus far. There's been always some kind of purpose behind why each episode was structured in the way that is, even including the Rin's Adventure episode in the first season (it gave Tokiomi a bit of characterization that was missing in the main storyline). So when the story stops to include this interlude, the train of thought should not be "why are we stopping the storyline to include this backstory", but rather "how is knowing about Kiritsugu's backstory going to affect the main storyline"?
The main point of this backstory is to flesh out the motivations of Kiritsugu, and establish that he will destroy what he loves if it means it will save lives. Letting the audience know this (and driving home the point that this is important by allotting two episodes to it) also means that the show intends to make use of this information in the main plot. As a prequel, the story already has a predetermined ending so there's no real need to obfuscate the events to come. Attentive watchers can probably already determine the consequences Kiritsugu's motivations will have in the main story, and from this point we very much know the motivations and personality of everyone involved in this war. My belief is that we can now go full speed on the rest of the war, without having to stop and explain why somebody did something or acted in a particular way.