Never have I ever seen an entire first episode of exposition like this and especially not a double length special. Although this isn’t criticism, I did have a good time watching. We spent the episode setting up rules, getting to know servants and understanding their connections so I suppose I’ll try to go over what I picked up on, as overwhelming as it seemed. We were initially taught by Tohsaka Tokiomi that there were two other major families to worry about. Including his they are the Tohsaka, the Matous, and the Einzberg. The original war that started all this appeared to turn into conflict between Tohsaka, Einzberg and “Makiri”, a family not mentioned in this episode and one that may have been replaced by Matous in prominence. This somehow created a war that happens every sixty years where this Holy Grail which can grant any wish chooses 7 masters and these masters, which are necessarily mages when the war starts, take control over great heroes of the past and thus fight for the wish. This itself creates some questions such as why these heroes will fight as servants, be it if it’s necessary for them or if they have something to gain here. Beyond that, it creates a stacked load of characters, all of which we only got to really know 6 major masters.
We started with Emiya Kiritsugu who was adopted into the formerly pure Einzberg family which lost the first war due to their focus on alchemy. Not only is he an unusual part of Einzberg but he also had a child with Iri. We started with him unable to even look at his daughter as he feels guilt over feeling that he’s inevitably brought death to Iri and she didn’t deny such, rather she stated our first look into a defining feature of Emiya Kiritsugu. She is okay with this because of his “ideal”, that is “a world where no one has to cry the way you are now”. She has bought this ideal so much that she even suggested the king of knights would be convinced by it too. From here he seems all good, but as Iri also suggested, he’s already been fighting. His background is mysterious, he has a reputation of a mercenary and an assassin with the title “Mage Slayer”. He allegedly kills mages shamelessly and even bombs them or takes down planes. With Kotomine Kirei’s thoughts on him we also saw that he traveled the world into dangerous warzones at their peak danger for years until he stopped with Iri. That was the fighting he was already doing I presume. Later he suggests that the servant is a mere tool and it made me think he may be able to justify all of his alleged actions with that reasoning, that they are necessary. The line about how he was crying in the beginning from Iri goes to suggest he’s doing what he thinks he has to do, maybe he’d even unwish any of the cruelty he caused. But what’s clear is that he seems tortured, he is a killer, and he has a strong ideal motivating his action. Later the elder said “complete the Third Magic, Heaven's Feel".
Tohsaka Tokiomi can be appropriately explored with Kotomine Kirei. On the surface He and Kirei should be enemies, but with a secret allegiance between Tohsaka Tokiomi and the church they supposedly have the same intention for the wish, that is “to reach the source”. However, the Tohsaka family gave a daughter to the Matous family while he also voices that, to not stop the others, would be irresponsible. And further, evil goatee man sipping wine in the shadows makes me think Tohsaka is no doubt a 'secret' bad guy. Yet Kirei may not be so loyal, despite his father bringing him here and suggesting he’d jump into an inferno for the church, his records show a lack of convictions and confusion in his past as if he had no idea of self interest yet wasn’t always working for his father. Further, him leaving in the beginning started a conversation about how he was grieving the recent loss of his wife making it obvious to us that we should be curious about his past, and that he may wish her back alive. He also appeared to have already summoned the assassin Hassan, a master strategist who can see any tricks.
A good jumping point is the Tohsaka daughter that was given to Matous and their role in this. To continue this theme of bad guys probably manipulating their pawns like Tohsaka and possibly the church, we have one of the kindest contestants introduced. Matou Kariya is a Matou who denounced the life yet stayed in contact with his sister who married into Tohsaka. He loves his nieces Rin and Sakura and brings them gifts. Upon getting news of Sakura being breeded by worms to force her to fight for the incredibly evil Matou Zouken's immortality, he takes her place. The cute lad’s hair goes white, he loses color in an eye, he has a month to live, and he has worms in his body. He’s willing to die without question for his niece Sakura. The fact that he’s doing this rather than fighting against his family for Sakura is a reminder of their power, it’s probably useless. This does create the unfortunate reality that, if the idea that there are no survivors is accurate, the girls will lose a father or an uncle. The scene where he spoke to Sakura and told her that they could meet up with her family no longer referring to them as such made me tear up.
The next two that are easy to talk about together are Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald and Waver. Archibald is a 6th generation mage who is quite pompous and prejudiced, setting up a typical shounen power gap to jump. His whole character this episode was calling out Waver’s idea that skill matters more than blood which he shut down quickly and publicly. He sent Waver out angrily and someone gave him the relic that’s needed to summon a servant(possibly planned) and we got a huge exposition scene of him researching this secret Holy Grail war. He’s a confident little guy and he’s eager to show the world that blood doesn’t matter thus he steals the relic and flies off with it. The manipulated grandparents scene made me laugh so hard, I thought it was all real until he knocked them out and sacrificed their chickens. He’s naive, overconfident, eager, and a little bastard, I like him and the adorable contrast with his servant.
Almost no one felt that heroic. Tohsaka selling his daughter off, Kirei and Kiritsugu with pasts of murder, to be fair Archibald may just be prejudiced but not actually awful, and Waver has already shown he’s a total brat, brainwashing people for his benefit when it was not likely necessary. Kariya is the only guy who was painted as wholly good here. That is excluding the mystery psychopath we could see in the opening and possible serial killer. I do assume Archibald is a contestant given his opening appearance, just with another servant. Overall it made for a nice conclusion of summoning servants and I can understand why this series is so popular. Death games are an incredibly easy concept to make engaging with high stakes, but to spend this much time on every party gives it another layer. One that is normally lacking. |