All Spoilers OK F/SN UBW TV - Episode 3 Spoiler Discussion / Poll

[Rev Okkin]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Well yes, the difference is imagination. When you're reading the details, you as a reader have to imagine what the author is getting at. This anime adaption has chosen to be very LITERAL with their interpretation of Nasu's writing. I totally understand that the VN likes to point out how superhuman servants seem, but the basic fact of the matter is there are times when the servants are not THAT far beyond humans. Otherwise how does Kotomine beat True assassin, or how does Rin get the upperhand on Caster, or how does Saber get owned by Kuzuki. What I am wary of in this anime adaption is how these kinds of scenes will come across because they built servants to be more than just monsters, but literally like DBZ warriors. I thought the F/Z anime had a more reasonable approach to portraying the servants, even if it that too was a little off. I also personally just find it more appealing to able to tell what's going on most of the time. This is flashier, but less intelligible.

The problem at the moment is that it has only been Servant to Servant battles. It has reason to show them literally as superhuman fighters to the point you can say, are DBZ fighters (though aren't DBZ fighters superhumans anyway?)
True Assassin has low stats and Einzbern Consultation Centre said that it is possible for either Kirei or Kiritsugu (in their abilities from FZ) to battle and win against an unveiled Assassin. Kirei has a Grail heart, has years of experience as an Executioner, basically he's beyond a normal human. Remember he can keep up with Kiritsugu using Time Alter in close combat with no enhancements on himself.
Rin gets the upper hand on Caster, as I remember, by outsmarting her. She has Caster think it's a magic against magic battle but Rin drops a feint and lands a surprise hit using martial arts she learned from Kirei.
Kuzuki had enhancements from Caster to the point he can openly damage a Servant and his expertise in assassination and in his unique fighting style caught Saber off guard which is a window of opportunity he exploited efficiently.

None of them other than Kirei had an upper hand over the Servants by openly fighting them. Rin and Kuzuki looked for opportunities to turn the battle over to their side by surprise attacks and fighting styles the Servants themselves don't know.
Kirei is a different beast all together plus fighting one of the physically weaker Servants already had the battle over to his favour

[JustThisOne]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Well yes, the difference is imagination. When you're reading the details, you as a reader have to imagine what the author is getting at. This anime adaption has chosen to be very LITERAL with their interpretation of Nasu's writing. I totally understand that the VN likes to point out how superhuman servants seem, but the basic fact of the matter is there are times when the servants are not THAT far beyond humans. Otherwise how does Kotomine beat True assassin, or how does Rin get the upperhand on Caster, or how does Saber get owned by Kuzuki. What I am wary of in this anime adaption is how these kinds of scenes will come across because they built servants to be more than just monsters, but literally like DBZ warriors. I thought the F/Z anime had a more reasonable approach to portraying the servants, even if it that too was a little off. I also personally just find it more appealing to able to tell what's going on most of the time. This is flashier, but less intelligible.

For the record, I consider this a somewhat minor complaint and I know many on Beast's Lair pointed this out too so I am not alone .

In the VN the fight scenes do not leave much to the imagination, I don't understand how you can interpret them in a different way. And the point is that the servants are supposed to be beyond anything human. The few instances that lesser beings do manage to do something against them is supposed to show how great a feat they accomplished. Also, it should be noted that "power levels" are often very inconsistent in the Fate series.

Lets take a look at your examples.

Rin vs Caster, to begin with Caster is not a physical fighter at all. Caster's specialty is in magic not physical fighting like the other servants. All Rin had to do in that fight was to take advantage of Caster's weakness. Rin did this by using magic to amplify her physical abilities and closing the gap between her and Caster so that their fight would not be a magic fight. But take into account that earlier in the UBW route Caster was able to fight Archer. Meaning that Caster at least had superhuman reaction capabilities. So are you going to say that Caster is only human level with really good magic or that Rin managed to temporarily surpass human limits that allowed her to fight with Caster?

Kotomine vs True Assassin , seriously don't be one of those guys who are like "I don't like how superhuman they are so I'm just going to ignore their superhuman feats." Kotomine is mentioned to be a top executor in his class even in F/SN and Nasu also compared him to Ciel. Before the Kotomine vs True Assassin fight, Kotomine was able to carry Illya through the forest while running a like 50 mph without breaking a sweat. Also, True Assassin is a crap servant and lost because Kotomine managed to catch him off guard when True Assassin realized that Kotomine did not have a functioning heart.

Saber vs Kuzuki, Kuzuki just had a martial arts style that Saber could not understand and that is why he was able to land some blows on her. Later in the fight it was mentioned that Kuzuki's attacks would no longer work on Saber, because she understood what was going on. On day 14 in UBW, Kuzuki punched Archer with a force that would of smashed a normal person's skull. Yet Archer did not even flinch or take any damage. So is Archer without a master somehow more powerful than Saber with a master even though its someone like Shirou?

While Fate/Zero had fights that were more "down to Earth", it also failed to show that the servants were astronomically superhuman. In the Fate/Zero novels, Gen made it perfectly clear that servants were superhuman. During the Saber vs Lancer fight Irisviel literally could not perceive the fight between the two because they were moving so fast to the point where "they approached the speed of light."

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Dengar

If you want your argument to hold water, you might want to come up with examples that actually include normal humans.

It doesn't matter if you're a normal human. Human is still human. They're not servants. EMIYA is more powerful after he became a servant than before.

Originally Posted by Rev Okkin

None of them other than Kirei had an upper hand over the Servants by openly fighting them. Rin and Kuzuki looked for opportunities to turn the battle over to their side by surprise attacks and fighting styles the Servants themselves don't know.
Kirei is a different beast all together plus fighting one of the physically weaker Servants already had the battle over to his favour

I am not arguing with the justifications in the VN. I am arguing with how these justifications will be perceived in the anime given how they have interpreted the servants.

Originally Posted by JustThisOne

In the VN the fight scenes do not leave much to the imagination, I don't understand how you can interpret them in a different way. And the point is that the servants are supposed to be beyond anything human. The few instances that lesser beings do manage to do something against them is supposed to show how great a feat they accomplished. Also, it should be noted that "power levels" are often very inconsistent in the Fate series.

I am not really arguing much with the VN's justifications. Stop using them. My point is given how the anime imagines the servants, I won't have as good a reason to believe in the justifications in the anime. What about this is so hard to understand?

[Fellen]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

It doesn't matter if you're a normal human. Human is still human. They're not servants. EMIYA is more powerful after he became a servant than before.



I am not arguing with the justifications in the VN. I am arguing with how these justifications will be perceived in the anime given how they have interpreted the servants.



I am not really arguing much with the VN's justifications. Stop using them. My point is given how the anime imagines the servants, I won't have as good a reason to believe in the justifications in the anime. What about this is so hard to understand?

They could increase the base abilities of ''normal'' humans so it would not be that hard to understand. Since your argument is that the servants are too fast they might as well make the humans faster for continuity's sake.

[Jaden]

Don't think it will be a problem, the humans never beat servants by overpowering them. It's always some kind of trick or exploit. So, they never have to show the humans moving like a Lancer or making craters in the ground with a single blow like a Saber....right?

[Akashin]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Don't think it will be a problem, the humans never beat servants by overpowering them. It's always some kind of trick or exploit. So, they never have to show the humans moving like a Lancer or making craters in the ground with a single blow like a Saber....right?

No, they don't. Reckoner's point, however, is that those tricks and exploits will be harder to buy when we have standard humans going up against Servants as they're being portrayed here.

[Nayrael]

Unless you think that a Servant will feel a need to fight full-strength (which includes jumping and stuff), it won't be a problem. By the time they start taking it seriously, something kills 'em.

[Touko]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

His growth was merely in fighting style and the ability to summon his reality marble. Shirou is NOT a servant.

I am not sure what is your point.

Of course Shirou is not a Servant. However, the skills and techniques he siphoned from Archer (and the Noble Phantasms) allows him to function at a level that can give Servants a shot.

It is no different from when Shirou projected Caliburn. During that fight, he was able to harm and parry Berserker himself.

Was he a Servant? No. Was he on Servant-tier for that brief period? Yes.

I think you should review the VN before flaming UFOtable.

[Touko]

Originally Posted by Akashin

No, they don't. Reckoner's point, however, is that those tricks and exploits will be harder to buy when we have standard humans going up against Servants as they're being portrayed here.

That's not the point.

Let alone Servants, when you fight ANYONE, you don't try to match their strongest trait. In other words, you don't duel Caster with spells, and you don't try to compete Lancer in speed.

Gilgamesh's strong suit is long-range Noble Phantasms bombardment, so Shirou chose to fight him in melee, where he is weakest. What is the problem?

Not all Servants are lightning fast like Lancer, you know.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Touko

I am not sure what is your point.

I am not sure how many times I can reiterate the same point. Unfortunately I don't have the patience to try and explain over and over again what I am getting at so we will just have to leave it at that if you can't disconnect the VN from the anime here. Akashin seems to understand what I am saying at least. Just one last time I'll try to explain.

The VN describes servants as superhuman and at times their actions are so fast that the human eye cannot even follow them. This is how the VN describes them yes.

The anime however took a very literal interpretation of this and makes them so fast that you start getting motion blurs. This isn't even just being inhumanly fast, this is getting down to basically DBZ style fighting. You also have things like Berserker slam dunking saber in the air and she's barely damaged at all. I compared this to Fate/Zero which I thought had a more reasonable portrayal of the fights, even if maybe they should have sped things up a tiny bit. I argued that this makes the exploits of the humans versus the servants harder to buy than what I imagined in the VN, and that from an entertainment perspective it is just a lot less intelligible.

And please, I am not flaming Ufotable. I love most of what they have done here so far. I'm just criticizing the direction of the fights so far.

[Touko]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I am not sure how many times I can reiterate the same point. Unfortunately I don't have the patience to try and explain over and over again what I am getting at so we will just have to leave it at that if you can't disconnect the VN from the anime here. Akashin seems to understand what I am saying at least.

You are really not making a point though.

The Shirou at the end of the UBW story is a Magecraft User who approaches Servant-tier, not the human boy at the start of the story.

You concern about "humans cannot fight Servants" is entirely unnecessary, because Shirou is no longer an average Joe.

[JZangetsu]

If it will harder to buy it will be entirelly up to how Ufotable do it in the future, and its inconclusive for what it showed right now, i think that "DBZ fighting" an exaggeration of it, as in the VN the fights was explicity superhuman too, with servants flying and making difficult magecraft in a blink of an eye, and what we had of human x servant until now (Shirou x Lancer doesn't count, as he was just a normal human and not a magus) was Rin using her jewels on Berserker, and they present it in a form that was a good magecraft to buy time for Archer, they can see that Rin have some abilities that can affect servants because she is a magus, not just human.

And for Kuzuki punching Archer, i think that didn't affect him at all because he uses reinforcement too.

[Geburah]

Originally Posted by JZangetsu

And for Kuzuki punching Archer, i think that didn't affect him at all because he uses reinforcement too.

Archer wasnt affected at all because Kuzuki had no longer his fist magically enhanced by Caster. Remember that servants are completely inmune to conventional weapons and atacks.

Originally Posted by Touko

The Shirou at the end of the UBW story is a Magecraft User who approaches Servant-tier, not the human boy at the start of the story.

You concern about "humans cannot fight Servants" is entirely unnecessary, because Shirou is no longer an average Joe.

Shirou is FAR from servant level simply he has the best chance to beat ONE servant (Gilgamesh) and that chance according to Word of God was 1/100, so he had plenty of plot armor to pull it off.

Remember that 5% Archer was owning Shirou hard and Archer is quite average stat wise and not using NP to obliterate Shirou

[Subarunyon II]

To add to the discussion, both Berserker and Lancer have A rank agility. I think ufotable is justified in making them move really fast. I think Saber's portrayal in ep3 is acceptable, to me she feels more calculated, and definitely not DBZ-level (she has rank C agility). From what I read so far I can still buy Rin besting Medea, and Shirou beating Gil. I'll see how they portray Kuzuki.

In the end whether something is believable or not depends largely on how the content is delivered, and so far I see no problem buying into the fights. YMMV of course.

[Touko]

Originally Posted by Geburah

Shirou is FAR from servant level simply he has the best chance to beat ONE servant (Gilgamesh) and that chance according to Word of God was 1/100, so he had plenty of plot armor to pull it off.

Remember that 5% Archer was owning Shirou hard and Archer is quite average stat wise and not using NP to obliterate Shirou

Servant level in terms of output. Not Servant levels as in "can consistently win against Servant".

Furthermore, you are going out on a tangent and not taking my point in context. My point is that Shirou at the end of UBW is not longer an average Joe like when he was at the beginning of the story.

[Geburah]

Originally Posted by Touko

Servant level in terms of output. Not Servant levels as in "can consistently win against Servant".

Not sure what you mean with output, his prana generation/output if thats what you mean is still crappy, just not as bad as before, but I agree that on the end of UBW his power grow more than on any other route (Archer arm is more like doping instead of developing his skills). Shirou is quite buffed even on the start by the way so is above the average joe already

[Dengar]

In the beginning he only has his ability to not die when he is killed.

[Tenchi Hou Take]

Originally Posted by Dengar

In the beginning he only has his ability to not die when he is killed.

Actually the beginning his main ability was that he was a Master level Archer, which is obviously useless against servants and he molds it into tracing.

If Ufotable skips the Archery conversation I'm going to be pissed as may not bother properly adapting the route if your aren't going to have one of the most important scenes in establishing Shirou's character,

[Amarantine]

Originally Posted by Tenchi Hou Take

If Ufotable skips the Archery conversation I'm going to be pissed

The preview for episode 4 confirms they'll be showing the student council scene with Kuzuki, and in the VN you have to choose between that and the archery range scene, so unfortunately there's a chance they might.

But considering how strongly they've been foreshadowing Shirou's connection to Archer, it'd be a little weird if they skipped that scene.

[Geburah]

Just me or it was hinted that Shinji made Shirou to leave archery club already?