Fate Apocrypha – Episode 9 Review

This asshole. This asshole needs to die.

The ninth episode of Fate Apocrypha has arrived and it begins with a look into how the events of the Third HGW played out.  Darnic called in Nazis to help lift the Grail into the air using blimps and then killed Zouken, which I approve of, before betraying them and then spiriting it off to their current location.  Now, after 50 years, the grail has been fully charged with magical energy and can be used to reach the Root.

I have to say, compared to how normally composed he usually appears to be, his ranting at the end was a bit of a surprised. Then again, he’s a man who thinks he’s on the cusp of winning. However, given this is only the ninth episode in a two-cour series… you deluded fool.

Anyway, back with the actual best girl, Frankenstein refuses Shirou’s offer with her mace and he breaks out the Black Keys. What follows is a chase as she pretty much tanks those trinkets and he’s forced to break out the Japanese steel that Caster turned into an Noble Phantasm. He swiftly turns the tide of the battle and draws first blood, which has her use her Blasted Tree in an attempt to nuke him.

With the other Servants, Astolfo  gets bored of cutting down the flying minions and breaks out another NP to wipe them all out before charging in.  Karna and Vlad keep going at it to no avail when Spartacus pops up. Archer tries to help, but gets punted across the battlefield for her trouble before she decides to use her NP on him, also to no avail as he regenerates again. And Chiron and Achilles get back to their fight, with the latter’s immortality basically being nothing to Chiron since he possesses Divinity and makes it a much more even fight.

Sieg gets to work in freeing his comrades, arguing that it was better to die elsewhere than on this battlefield, as Astolfo gets the crap kicked out of him by Semiramis. When Sieg notices, his freed kin urge him to go help Astolfo. He’ll need it since Mordred has popped up and she’s looking for ass to kick while her Master decides to watch away from the battlefield.

Ruler, meanwhile, has to deal with Semiramis, who tries to keep her away from Shirou. The latter tries to run, but Frankenstein chases him down and it forces Shakespeare to pull out his Noble Phantasm. Inside of it, she’s forced to remember the abuse she suffered at the hands of her creator, who she considers her father. Then he suddenly appears in front of her and tells her a bunch of sweet things that contrast with her memories and it ends up driving her into an insane rage until her Master calms her down with a Command Seal.

Then we get back to best trap Astolfo, getting manhandled by Mordred. Mordred  mocks  Siegfried for dying for his beliefs, which hits a lot of different buttons on Astolfo, but being mountless she really can’t do much. Likewise, Semiramis can’t do jack to Ruler despite hitting her with an Age of the Gods laser beam, which leaves Shirou luring Berserker over to Rider.

The episode ends with Sieg getting ready to fight Mordred  before she can kill Astolfo.

So, the episode doesn’t really focus on any single character but the varying degrees of the battles between everyone. We have the Servants of the Black largely going against the Servants of the Red to varying degrees of effectiveness.  For example:

Archer was doing jack-all to Spartacus, except making him stronger. Shirou couldn’t actually seem to do any lasting damage to Frankenstein, so he resorted to having Shakespeare mind-rape her like an asshole.  And Semiramis couldn’t do anything to slow Ruler down, despite that impressive blast of magic she stole from Medea.

On another note,  Sieg’s kin  took to the notion of freedom really fast. I mean, I get the allure but they took to his side really quick.  A little fleshing out would have been nice there.

And that art was wonky when Berserker started to cry. I know they were going for some heavy emotion there, but seriously don’t ruin her like that, yeah? Other than that though, it was alright. A slug-fest more than anything else, but it was okay.