Fate Apocrypha – Episode 25 Review

One must walk endlessly, one must wait endlessly. But in doing so a miracle will occur.

The twenty-fifth and final episode of Fate Apocrypha opens with Hanging Gardens collapsing in on itself as the damage it took and Semiramis’s own injuries have left it too fragile. Shirou wakes up on on Semiramis’ lap for the second time and learns from her that he’s going to die from his injuries. He doesn’t feel anything because she cut off his sense of pain and they have a final talk about the nature of their relationship before Semiramis kisses him. Then he dies in her lap and she can only thank him for looking after her before she fades away and the Hanging Gardens fully break apart.

We then cut to Sieg inside of the field of flowers that is the Greater Grail with Astolfo. Since they’re the last Master-Servant combo, Justeaze’s hologram congratulates them and asks them what it is they desire. They naturally want to stop Shirou’s wish, but she’s already started so she can’t stop it.

Sieg believes its too soon for humans to become immortal, to which Justeaze agrees by citing that chances are it would do some damage and bind their existence to the planet and give up their future (I’ll explain this later).  Since the wish will go as long as the grail is on the Planet, they can’t do anything to stop it. Worse, Sieg is starting to grow scales along his arm since the Command Seals are gone.

He’s going to turn into a Dragon if nothing is done, but thankfully the Grail can heal him.  Except that he refuses upon realizing that aside from being the only normal person in a world of immortals (remember, he’s not human so the wish won’t affect him) and then asks Justeaze a question that could change everything. We don’t hear the question since the show is trying to be clever, but from Astolfo’s surprised look and Justeaze agreement that its possible, they now have a solution to the matter of granting humanity immortality.

Astolfo considers it more painful than dying and that he wouldn’t be happy, which went against his reason for saving Sieg. He assure the Servant that both his and Ruler’s belief in humans was worth the sacrifice and that he would ensure they didn’t waste the effort. All he wants is for Astolfo to help the world in his place however he can, which Rider agrees to. They shake hands before Astolfo leaves the Greater Grail and Sieg asks that his wish be granted.

Astolfo then goes with Caules and Laeticia  out of the collapsing Hanging Gardens while Shakespeare remains behind to write this down like a madman. Astolfo puts those riding skills to use and they manage to get out, whereupon they and Shakespeare sees a Dragon carrying off the Greater Grail  Shakespeare then has a writer’s orgasm before fading away and Astolfo reveals that Sieg’s wish was to take the grail somewhere it couldn’t affect humanity as he turned into the dragon Fafnir.

That place is the Reverse Side of the World and Fafnir carries it off (I’ll explain this later as well).

We then get a timeskip with Caules heading back to the Mage’s Association. His faction did rebel against them, but because Caules did them a solid in retrieving the other Masters they sent, got rid of Shirou, stopped the Greater Grail, and there’s only so many of them left alive, Waver treats him as a guest. Thus Waver will be looking after him during his studies.

Astolfo meanwhile bids Laeticia  farewell while thanking her for offering herself so that Jeanne could be there, allowing him to be there as well. Laeticia basically goes back home while thinking that Jeanne fell in love with Sieg and she hopes they meet again, while Astolfo takes flight.

We then get a scene of Gordes returning home to his family with the homonculus and teaching his son Alchemy. Fiore, who has retired from being a magus, learning to walk on her own.  Caules being harassed by one of Waver’s students about an atomic battery or something. And then comes the ending music,

Once that’s gone, we see the scene from the first episode of Jeanne crossing a boundless path towards the dragon that lies in waiting. Eventually she makes contact and Sieg returns to normal. Thus the two lovers are reunited once more and will explore this new world.

Exposition time.

Okay, so the anime didn’t explain a lot of things that will leave you wondering what just happened.  I’ll try to explain them as best I can before I give my opinion.

It’s not mentioned here  but a common theme in Nasuverse is that Earth (Gaia from here on) is going to die and the Universe doesn’t like stagnation.

In around a 1000 or so years, the planet will die which leads to the story known as Angel Notes. Humanity in that time forcibly evolved themselves  (and did some genetic engineering that led to a war, but that’ll take too long to get into) to survive past the planet and Gaia didn’t like that, so she calls in some other planets to send their envoys to finish off them. The simplest solution here would be for them to leave the planet, which means going to the stars, but Shirou’s wish would make the earthbound and thus they would essentially be bound to the planet and go when it goes.

Now, the Universe, is basically a supercomputer in itself. Fate/Extella reveals it has limited resources and is constantly expanding, so it has to trim down on things that don’t offer it anything. By which I mean it cuts entire timelines off.  There’s something called a Quantum Time Lock that basically has the universe trim timelines where no progress is made, while some that do are allowed to continue on. It also prevents time-travel to an extent.

So his wish would not only screw over humans in the short term, but he’d doom the timeline as well. He was basically giving up their future for peace. So he was “wrong” in this instance.

The Reverse Side of the World is basically a layer of reality where all the mythological beings from the past that you don’t see around in the modern day live. It’s normally impossible to access for humans, hence why Jeanne’s trip takes her a looooong time by both her and Sieg’s account. It’s basically the ending of Fate Stay Night (the Visual Novel) where Artoria is in Avalon and Shirou spends who knows how long walking towards her after his death, where one has to wait and one has to walk endlessly until a miracle occurs and connects them.

Sieg becomes Fafnir because he’s linked to Siegfried’s story. Where one exists, the other exists. So once Sieg lost the protection of the Command Seal, he was basically cursed to become Fanfir. The Grail could have stopped it by doing what Jeanne did in the end, but he realized that only be becoming the dragon that horded treasure could he realize the wishes of everyone else.

Now, Astolfo remains in the world after Sieg becomes a dragon because he’s technically still a Master. He didn’t die, and the connection between them remains despite the length, so he’s basically got an endless supply of magical energy to run free with. He didn’t incarnate like Gilgamesh did after getting dunked in grail mud.

Review time.

Now, onto the review for the episode and then the series. Basically, the episode brings the story to a close and attempts to give closure to all the survivors of the war.

With the Red Faction, we see that Shirou acknowledges his defeat and that Semiramis truly did love him as they died together. It’s only when both are doomed to die that they confess and share a kiss.  Shakespeare only wanted to write his story and was satisfied with seeing it unfold, so he went out only lamenting he couldn’t be the protagonist.

With the Black Faction, the survivors of Yggdmillennia have basically failed in their attempt to withdraw from the Mage’s Association. Not that it was a problem. The problem was that they had the Greater Grail. Since the one behind it was dead, along with all the other complications, they’re allowed to rejoin but they’re going to be ostracized. Waver, who went through a grail war with Alexander in this timeline too, decides to take them on as students  either way because why not?

I explained the situation with the rest above in exposition, so we’ve got that covered as well.

The animation was pretty decent overall, none of the disjointed frames that bothered me in the action scenes as of late since there were none. The end scene with Jeanne was really gorgeous looking, so I guess we know where the budget went. It was fine as far as episodes go and it did give closure, even if they don’t explain anything for casual viewers.

The series as a whole had ups and downs, but overall… it was okay.

I enjoyed it as a Fate fan (far more than the Grand Order OVA last year), but because the series had so many pacing problems like the development of Sieg’s relationship with Jeanne, some things are kind of screwed up. If you go in acknowledging the flaws, you’ll be fine, but its no UBW.