Summary:
Even though he told Saber to stay hidden before he left for school, Shirou is worried about her for the rest of the day. When he gets home, he’s relieved to find her sleeping, though she senses him and wakes up. Saber, who’s been getting a lot of rest, has more or less healed from the previous battle. At dinner, Fuji-nee dividing up the meatballs reminds Shirou that Saber is alone and missing out on dinner. So before they start to eat, Shirou brings her to the dining room and introduces her to everyone. Of course, Fuji-nee objects, but Shirou claims that she’s a distant relative. Saber tells them that she’s here to protect Shirou at his father’s request. Hearing that, Fuji-nee decides to test Saber’s ability with a fight. When Saber soundly defeats her, Fuji-nee has no choice but to let Saber stay. Though Saber and Shirou want to sleep in the same room for safety reasons, Fuji-nee insists on the three girls staying together for the night.
Meanwhile, Rin is out fighting skeleton warriors, but fails to get her target. However, it does seem that Archer has healed. He asks if what Rin would do if Shirou appears in front of her on his own initiative, to which Rin responds that she’d kill him. In the morning, Fuji-nee and Sakura leave after breakfast. Shirou reassures Saber that he’ll be ok at school, but she’s still worried about Rin being there. She warns him that their connection is still weak, and if he gets in trouble, he needs to summon her with the symbol on his hand. Most importantly, he should think about protecting himself. In front of school, Shirou experiences a bad feeling, but it quickly goes away. From a nearby tree, a shadowy figure is watching him. In the hall, Shirou comes across Rin and tries to say hi, but she just ignores him. Shirou goes to the student council room and learns from a sleepy Issei that Mitsuzuri Ayako and Matou Shinji are missing.
After class, Shirou encounters Rin again by the stairwell. This time, she’s prepared to kill him, especially since no one else is around. She shoots at him as he runs, but he manages to get away. Shirou barricades himself in a classroom and finds that Rin has erected a barrier around the school. With her casting a potentially devastating spell from outside, Shirou uses his power on a desk and strengthens it as a shield. Outside, still in that tree, a blindfolded Servant starts to smile.

This ends up being an amusing episode, especially since they made Rin trying to kill Shirou into a joke. With the animation style that they adopted for that scene and the panty joke, it’s hard to imagine that Rin would actually accomplish her goal. It’s the same style they use for all of Fuji-nee’s scenes. And I do have to say that Saber showing Fuji-nee who is boss is pretty fun to watch.
Overall though, I am not that impressed with the episode. There are some funny moments, but the major progression of the story is mainly the disappearance of Shinji and Ayako and the appearance of Rider. Rin attacking Shirou doesn’t seem like it’ll go anywhere (i.e. neither will die) and Shirou revealing Saber to Fuji-nee and Sakura doesn’t feel that groundbreaking. I admit that this may just be fallout from how good yesterday’s Otome was (yes, I’m still getting over it). Next week may be a lot more exciting since, from what the preview shows, Rider is going to be attacking Shirou.

46 Comments

  1. Solicited DVD count is 8, with a tentative 3 episode count per disc. So that’s 24 tentative episodes. How they are going to fit something as large as the F/SN-verse, we don’t know. But at least it will be fleshed out more than Tsukihime.

  2. It was officially announced that this is going to be a 12-13 episode series. Craptastical jackassing bastards. The only /successful/ 12-14 episode series I’ve seen is KGNE. >.>

    Shinji103
  3. “The only /successful/ 12-14 episode series I’ve seen is KGNE. >.>”

    Serial Experiments Lain? Haibane Renmi? FLCL was only 6 episodes long and I thought that did fairly well.

    Christopher7xii
  4. t was officially announced that this is going to be a 12-13 episode series. Craptastical jackassing bastards. The only /successful/ 12-14 episode series I’ve seen is KGNE. >.>

    And it was officially announced that there’ll be 8 DVDs for the whole F/sn. And unless someone is the markets department is screwed, there’ll be more than 20 episodes. 3 episodes per DVD for a TV series had been a staple for a long time now.

    Nighty - Gale
  5. Maybe 2 season, considering 7 servant’s story couldnt be easily covered in just 13 EP.

    Couldnt Rin just summon archer and fight Saber instead, why go directly and kill Shirou. I like to see the servants fighting rather than the master plotting to kill each other to eliminate the servants.

    fisherman horizon
  6. Strictly speaking, a Japanese television season is 12/13 episodes. And for the record, I believe this will be 24 episodes.
    bj0rN`, where did you hear/read that they’re splitting the series up? I don’t believe rumors unless I read them from somewhere reputable.

  7. “Strictly speaking, a Japanese television season is 12/13 episodes. And for the record, I believe this will be 24 episodes.
    bj0rN`, where did you hear/read that they’re splitting the series up? I don’t believe rumors unless I read them from somewhere reputable”

    that what i though. 24 episodes? aww its even worse i though it would be 26..hmm let me check in the site…oohh ya its 24 episodes aww that sucks =( i thought it would have more T_T

    AznSoulBoy
  8. At the rate things are progressing, 24 episodes should be enough to tell the whole story.

    The max I can see is 37-8 episodes, is if they’ll do Fate/UBW/HF, one per season.

    Village Idiot
  9. Japanese TV guides stated this series was going to be onlly about 13 episodes. I want it to be a full 24-26 too, but when it’s stated in Japanese TV guides like that, I try not to get my hopes up… D:

    Like the Kishin Houkou Demonbane anime coming in April. The production staff has already announced it’s going to be only /12/ episodes. Anybody who has played the Kishin Houkou Demonbane game (and what an awesome game it is 😀 ), knows it’ll be at least hard as hell to make the anime only 12 episodes and stay true to the game. >.>

    Shinji103
  10. well thats true but we can actually get our hopes up because they surely would have learned their mistake from tsukihime =( as much as i liked it theres tooo many holes in the show and with the pacing atm 12-13 episodes will not cut it , it will be rushed and i also hoping that they add a little bit from ubw which i know people are looking forward for it

    Z3r0(keluangman)
  11. It’s paced as a 24 episode series, and given the amount of material they’ll need to go through, there is no way they can end it in 13. Unlike the Tsukihime anime, Fate anime is very faithful to the original game, so some of the scene just ‘have to be there’. I sincerely hope that they’ll merge the Saber arc and the Rin arc together, I would LOVE to see the boss battle in ‘Unlimited Blade Work’ animated ^_^.

    They can also broadcast 13 eps, and the rest are on DVD only..

    Ronin8317
  12. To clear up something…

    From what I know, there’ll be 24 episodes total, but done in TWO seasons of 12 episodes each. That’s why people think there’re only 12-13 episodes… because it’s only for the 1st season.

    Kai
  13. Rin wasn’t seriously trying to kill Shirou in the 2nd half of the eposide. Rin was mad at Shirou for not protecting himself better by bringing Saber along, and she wants to teach this “idiotic” Shirou a lesson for being so careless.

    I actually like Rin getting mad, it flesh her character out more, and shows her affection for Shirou. Next eposide looks like Rin sense hostile servants closing in and team up with Shirou to stay alive.

    Tal
  14. Moon Phase has Fate/Stay Night up as a 24 episode show.

    I strongly disagree with the opinion that a 13-episode show can’t be good:
    * Haibane Renmei
    * Now and Then, Here and There
    * Windy Tales
    * Kokoro Toshokan
    * Serial Experiments Lain
    * Genshiken
    etc, etc.

    In addition, I know people who enjoyed Boogiepop Phantom, Saishuu-heiki Kanojo, AIR and a gazillion other shows.

  15. I dont know if this is a spoiler or not, but i spoilerized it just in case
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Sorry if I did the spoiler tags wrong

    bob
  16. Hmm…. that’ll be good news. 24 episodes would be quite good to cover the series.

    I’d been initially hearing that it was a 12/13-episoder, but with the recent pacing of the show, I started to doubt it.

    @bob
    Show Spoiler ▼

  17. 唉……没有懂中文的啊……
    我的英语又不是很好,很多东西看不懂……
    不知道这段话别人看会不会变成无可救药的乱码……
    恩……i like Saber.

    ^__^ 我可以讀你寫什麼。

    Anyways, with regards to the episode, I don’t think it’s really realistic. Everything takes too much time. Like, for one thing, fisherman is right. Rin could just summon Archer instead of wasting her time. In the second episode, Lancer would’ve killed Shirou right away if it weren’t for fanatics and such. Saber seemed to take pretty long to be summoned, and in reality, by the time she is summoned, Shirou would’ve been already stabbed by Lancer.

    mango
  18. I do wonder which ending they’re going to be following, out of the games, so far as arcs go. Still, the trust between Saber and Shirou is developing VERY slowly, more slowly than I thought it would have, given the way the game this is based on goes.

    Of course, watching Saber and Fujimura-sensei interact is… interesting. 😀 Especially given the contrast in personalities, it’s a lot more fun to watch than it is watching Saber and Sakura… or Rin and Archer, for that matter.

    Haesslich
  19. I didn’t get a kick out of this episode *sigh* it’s pretty slow… I’d have been happier had Saber done more than look cool when challenged by Fuji-nee. But I’m glad that Rider is finally being pulled into the scene, was waiting for her ^^. Damn Shirou, for some reason he’s pissing me off… but Archer is wick.

    scythsei___51

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