Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya / First Impressions

「負けました」 (Makemashita)
“We Lost”

Rider was easy. Caster was hard. It only gets harder from here. Do you like pulse-pounding magical combat with plenty of danger and explosions? If so, you should be watching this show.

Don’t Think, Imagine!

Even when it gets into Nanoha-style explosive combat, Prisma Illya doesn’t stray too far from its mahou shoujo roots, and for this I’m glad. That’s why I actually enjoyed how Illya and Miyu’s magic is the “believe and you can make it happen” sort. Normally I’m more of a fan of rule magic (trope!) ala Fullmetal Alchemist, but when the bullshit nature of mahou shoujo magic is baked into the plot, it makes it easy for them to do fun and interesting things with it, without too much regard for potential plot holes. Better yet, Prisma Illya isn’t abusing this too much, as so far most of the magic is pretty consistent (trope!), even if it doesn’t make sense per say. Sorry, a little detour into tropesville there. I just like the set up they have going.

What this gave us this weeks was the best gags of the episode. I mean, Luvia shoved Miyu out of a helicopter!! Plus it was nice seeing Illya be the better one for once, on account of being an airhead. Here’s how I think of it: Miyu’s strength is her logic and discipline, while Illya’s is airheadedness and anime. It takes all kinds, right? Hah!

Defrosting Miyu

In true mahou shoujo form, Illya won’t stop until she had made Miyu her friend, and this episode made a good start of it. (Hopefully she just doesn’t go the Nanoha route…you don’t have to blow people up to make them your friends, Nanoha-chan!!) Where before Miyu was perfect and wanted to go it solo, now she has shown herself to be vulnerable and seen the benefits of teamwork. Amidst a harrowing episode, that gave me the warm fuzzies. Friendship, d’aaawww!

Stilts Nanoha-style Combat

If you didn’t believe me before, here it is – true Prisma Illya-style combat! This is a magical girl show, sure, but it’s a Fate story as well, and you can’t escape at least some of the danger and blood of that universe, nor would I want to. While the battle against Rider wasn’t that big of a deal, Caster was hard. Rule breaking nukes, rule breaking shields, and the ability to teleport to cap it all off? Hax!

I loved the tactical ebb and flow of this battle. Okay, actually first of all–I really enjoyed all the explosions! This is simply the kind of magical combat I love, filled with nukes (I’m using that in the fantasy RPG sense, by the way) and explosions all over the place. A true duel among spellcasters… *shudders* Love it.

But back to my point, I loved the tactics on display. After the initial shellacking, the characters got to show some serious tactical chops. Miyu’s workaround for flying, for one. If she can’t imagine it, imagine something that will work just as well! Mind you, I don’t understand how that’s easier to imagine, but I don’t have to. Magic, right? She was clever to find a way around it.

The best part was the strategy Miyu and Illya used to get the first big hit in on Caster, though. In effect, Caster lost because she allowed herself to become predictable. If you slip out of an attack and teleport behind someone the enemy once, that’s a solid little trick, but if you do it again, your enemies will use it against you. Illya and Miyu did exactly that by anticipating the teleport location and making sure they were already spraying fire there when she beamed in. Zam!

But seriously girls, you have to be more careful. Remember rule #2? Double-tap! Also, never count an enemy dead until you see the body (trope!). But their mistake just gave Illya another chance to show off with her rocket-nuke. Miyu’s intelligence and drive + Illya’s optimisim and cleverness…not a bad team, eh?

Looking Ahead – Dark Saber

Dark Saber is heeeere! I don’t really have anything else to say, just that Dark Saber is here! Fun things happen when Dark Saber appears. Not for our protagonists, of course. They’re in for a world of hurt. But for us, the viewers? Fun times indeed!

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – The action has well and truly arrived as the girls go up against Caster, with explosive results #prismaillya

Random thoughts:

  • Ruby is a good onee-san to defend her imouto with that Ruby Eye Poke. Take that, Luvia!
  • Special thanks to Kairi for helping me with caps this week. When this goes up I’ll actually be several states away from home, getting drunk with my best friend. Thank you for enabling my drunken shenanigans, Kouhai-chan!

For more from yours truly, check out my blog on writing, art, and the book I’m working on at stiltsoutloud.com.

 

Preview

End Card

61 Comments

  1. Not sure if I’m the only one, but on the front page, none of the screen shots are showing correctly. Anyways, this series just keeps getting better and better, as a Fate Stay Night fan, I’m so glad they did this.

    bakakubi
    Reply

  4. For someone so grounded in science I’m amazed Miyu accepted a talking wand in the first place. She should have just walked right past it and convinced herself it was some kind of a hallucination.

    Absaroka
    Reply

    1. Well, it’s more of a logic issue than science. If a thing is saying it’s a magical wand, then it can do stuff magical wands are supposed to do like shoot beams and stuff. But she is too grounded (literally too) when it comes to what humans are able to do. So it’s not like she can’t use magic, but rather, it needs to suit her perception of how humans normally do things (like those footholds).

      Dangerism
      Reply

      1. From the TYPE-MOON Fes. 10th Anniversary Event (and I quote), “WHITCH OF THE HOLY NIGHT”. They recreated the inside hall of the Tohno Manor perfectly yet somehow they messed up with the english/engrish title of “Mahou Tsukai no Yoru”.

        Ko-Gil
        Reply

  6. Watching this fight made me wonder if Caster would’ve won the 4th HGW if she fought at this kind of level. An extremely powerful defense, nuking spells….
    And seriously, a 5 minute long fight. That has to be the shortest Nasuverse fight ever.

    KUROI SABER!! YEAH!!

    Ashkem
    Reply

    1. You mean 5th HGW.
      And while she was stocking up on prana in one of the routes to get energy on this level, there are two things preventing her from winning it. Namely, Saber and Berserker. 3 things if you include the King of Heroes.
      So that’s a no.

      belatkuro
      Reply

  7. They covered two chapters with this episode, quite nicely too. Everything that was in the manga was perfectly portrayed here. It looks likely everything may just fit in 10 episodes.

    This little scene was quite adorable too. It looks like Fate Miyu is starting to warm up to Nanoha Illya.

    And as usual for me, I will leave a little cute fanart here. Happy Emiya family.

    MasterDragonKnight
    Reply

    1. Oooo, I didn’t realize that! I haven’t read the manga in a while, so outside of the first like two chapters I forgot what happened in which chapter. Good to see that the pacing is on mark to give us an ending by episode 10 (probably/hopefully). Hell, maybe they actually planned it out like that all along. Wouldn’t put it past Silver Link to be so…so competent.

      P.S. That fanart is amazing and I’ve spent the last five minutes throwing money at my screen to try to make that a canon thing. It’s not working!! (Yet? :3)

      Stilts
      Reply

  8. Loved how they broke the 4th wall (whether unintentionally or not) with Illya remarking to Miyu that ‘it is anime so you shouldn’t think too much about it’ , and next pops out Illya’s “DON’T THINK, IMASINE!’ scene

    Andro
    Reply

  9. Wow i’m disappointed that this went EXACTLY how i said it would last week (the perfect girl founds out she isn’t so perfect and it makes the connection between her and the main character closer). Like i said the perfect girl trope is so easy to cheaply implement into a series. I’m not trying to sound like a hater because i still enjoy watching this series somewhat but personally what i don’t enjoy about this show is that it KNOWS that it is a generic magical girl series and tries to be humorous about it by pointing out it’s own cliches. That kind of humor never was my cup of tea. It’s pretty much like saying “Hey we know there is nothing special about our show but LOOK! We have characters from a famous anime so we can give you plenty of fanservice!”.

    Maybe i’m just expecting to much from a spinoff lol.

    leatherhead333
    Reply

    1. Huh? Nowhere in the show did Miyu ever thought of herself as perfect. There’s a simple reason why she thought that ‘humans cannot fly’ , simply because Show Spoiler ▼

      And how is viewing things based on hard facts an indication that someone isn’t perfect? Ok there’s a lack of imagination. Then? Does it deter from the fact that she’s able to do amazing things? No. If you’re that unhappy you can just drop the show you know.

      Raila
      Reply

      1. She doesn’t think of herself as perfect but she tries to do everything to the best of her ability and gets angry with herself when she can’t do something that should be simple for a magical girl like flying. Idk about you but that sounds like a perfectionist to me. Just because she hasn’t said she must do everything perfectly doesn’t mean isn’t trying too.

        The fact she can’t properly fly is an imperfection in her mind. Even though she found a good alternative she was still unhappy with the result even after they won.

        leatherhead333
        Reply

      2. Nowhere did they even mention that flying is a ‘simple’ task. Both Rin and Luvia had to train for one whole day to master the basics of flying. To Illya it was ‘simple’ because of the fact that she watched magical girl shows that had the characters flying. And the fact that she’s angry that Illya can fly and she can’t is because of the fact that she’s brought up understanding that humans can’t fly, that’s why she’s angry (If you can even say that) that what Illya was doing was ‘defying’ what she was taught.

        And I’d like to point out that the reason why she was unhappy at the end was because of the fact that their strategy might very well have failed, and they might’ve died. She always preferred the much safer alternative (If there’s one). This becomes prevalent as the series progresses. It’s not because of her being unable to ‘fly’

        Raila
        Reply

      3. Her staff pretty much consults her after the fight saying that her using mana blasts for footholds was impressive and also tells her that it isn’t about which person is superior (she was comparing her methods to illya’s flying in a obviously negative way if you watch the scene). Though i noticed after seeing the scene again her staff tells Miyu that illya can be trusted so it’s possible Miyu doesn’t trust anyone but herself? Since you’ve read the manga you know what and why characters act the way they do. But i’m basing my opinion on what i’ve seen from the show so far. So far the past two episodes made her look like a perfectionist from my perspective. I know NOW that her past will be explained probably but as of now i’m just judging by what i’ve seen that’s all.

        leatherhead333
        Reply

    2. You said friend. This is a spin off. Not brings something new. It is a mixture of the characters we love or we like, presents a different story (alternate reality or change of scenery), and add more action and comedy for our amusement.

      This is a story to relax, have fun, laugh at the jokes about the Maho shoujo genre and the Fate universe, excited with the action, see your favorite characters differently.

      This is not funny if you do not want to see the characters of Fate in otherwise, or like the jokes and references to Maho shoujo shows.

      Shadow74
      Reply

  10. Watching Luvia push Miyu out of the helicopter reminded me of who the seiyuu were.

    If this was in the Strike Witches universe instead, the show is about Sanya and Lynne learning how to be magical girls under Heidemarie and Hanna Marseille!

    Karutaku
    Reply

  12. >Dark Saber
    >not Saber Alter
    ……….

    As I’ve been saying before, it’s a really bittersweet feeling to see Saber Alter here. On one had she finally got animated in all her dark armor/aura goodness. On the other hand, she got animated first outside of Heaven’s Feel. The armored version I mean, as Carnival Phantasm did animate Saber Alter first. Oh well.

    And still feels weird to see Miyu with boobs. I-it’s not like that’s the only thing I’m looking at you know!
    Other than that, excellent episode. I expected them to deliver a superb animation on this fight and they didn’t disappoint. From the beamspams to the Gae Bolg activation. Awesome stuff.
    Looking forward to the next fight. Should be good and insanely difficult.

    PS. Illya, there’s more to that Archer card than just that bow 😉

    belatkuro
    Reply

    1. Nope. So start asking yourself who could be. Four cards are down, the fifth has just shown itself. Two others remain. Which one of them would you think really has final boss potential?

      Wanderer
      Reply

      5. I don’t think I was spoiling. I just pointed out what we already knew: four cards down, the fifth one was right here so it obviously couldn’t be the final card, which only left two cards that could possibly be it. I left it open to everyone’s imaginations and their understanding of the genre and the rules of drama to deduce which of those two was most likely to be the final boss.

        Wanderer
        Reply

    2. Berserker? He’s already nuts even in normal servant state…I was thinking it would be hilarious if a Berserker class’ “out of control” state would be a well spoken docile gentleman with a British accent

      gawrshness
      Reply

  15. If she can’t imagine it, imagine something that will work just as well! Mind you, I don’t understand how that’s easier to imagine, but I don’t have to.

    She can’t solidly picture herself flying. Her mind can’t form an image of it. But she can picture herself standing on something, and she knows she can create impermeable forcefields with magic (Sapphire keeps her alive with one, after all). She simply combined the two concepts, and was standing on a mobile, invisible platform for most of the fight. For that final bit, in that desperate moment, she was able to make the jump and conceptualize Illya’s magic blast as also being a functional platform.

    Wanderer
    Reply

  17. Ilya could summon Archer’s bow, but was not sure how to summon the arrow. Guess she’ll need none other than her brother to teach her how, if the rules of the Nasuverse still apply.

    Anonymous
    Reply

    1. @ c2710 For Gilgamesh Show Spoiler ▼

      Asmalti
      Reply

  24. Lol, the archer card is pretty useless unless Ilya can trace a weapon. I thought it will summon Kanshou and Bakuya and joke about Fate archer using a melee weapon. And don’t tell me they will use the Caster Card Rule Breaker to deal with DSaber.

    Jhacks
    Reply

  25. It took me this long to realize, but Ruby is voiced by Kohaku, while Sapphire is voiced by Hisui. Never underestimate Type-Moon’s love for random references – and I don’t only mean their sibling status.

    SingerOfW
    Reply

    2. I could…but this is way more fun 😀 Plus I prefer to help make their engrish live forever, so maybe they’ll try a little harder to make sure they don’t screw it up next time.

      Stilts
      Reply

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