fate/stay night - heavens feel: days 15 and 16, epilogue

day 15 - heaven's feel style

archer's arm eating at shirou, forcing him to atone for his sins: fate worse than death. birth of archer. awesome.

1. save sakura. bring back ilya.
2. we lost.

**** lost the game. anyway, what the hell is this choice?

save sakura. bring back ilya.

haha yesssss kotomine again man this guy's clutch. apparently someone dumped him and rin at the church doorsteps. 'i think i heard something i'm not used to hearing, but i decide not to ask about it. let's hope he doesn't literally mean "bury."' aww yeah

kotomine lets him go without grilling him. =(

oh, cool, he's talking outside the church. yessssssss shirou/kotomine tag team best ever.

1. refuse
2. accept

**** yeah i'm accepting whoo

accept

kotomine does the unthinkable and gets shirou a car. he also provides the black key, a weapon. and then holy crap exposition about sakura and the grail do not want. tells shirou that destroying the grail before it's summoned is not allowed. kotomine morality-dumps on shirou.

interlude 15-1

ilya's castle is getting wrecked. there's tension between zouken and assassin. seems saber and berserker live. shirou shows, and assassin and bizzaroker go after him. interlude out.

they climb in. shirou has mass exposition on the art of climbing. ilya tells him to go away, but shirou smacks her.

1. bring ilya back
2. bring ilya back
3. bring ilya back

awwwwww!

she's all happy and 'this won't end well' until kotomine comes in. haha kotomine jumps out the window and shirou follows and everyone's like WTF? WHY DID YOU JUMP.

'the most fearsome hound has been unleashed'

haha heroic kotomine picks up ilya and runs like a champ. they run at above-olympian speed through the forest. aww yeah archer's helpin' out. kotomine, on the other hand, is just straight up running. a++

what the hell kotomine is now fighting assassin while holding ilya and sprinting at 14m/s good god kotomine top tier this route

kotomine gives a cryptic warning, and shirou runs. 'i have a feeling we will never see never see each other alive again' noooooooooooooooooooo

interlude 15-2

kirei's point of view. begins with a long ass terrible piece of exposition of god, and then assassin starts talking. kotomine's got the weapons to win, but he can't kill assassin. dammit. and apparently this guy's an anti-church man. interlude out.

berserker catches up. shirou's strengthened black key saves him from the first blow, but he flies into a tree. he raises his sword above ilya.

interlude 15-3

it appears that little ***** zouken's appeared. he's cackling. kirei goes for the double kill, but...

'there are two surprises. one is that the black keys have sealed his movement. and the other is... "impossible! why are you not dead, kirei----!?"' yessss

oh you are not serious kotomine is going after zouken now

'i will kill. i will let live. i will harm and heal. none will escape me. none will escape my sight.'
'be crushed. i welcome those who have grown old and those who have lost. devote yourself to me, learn from me, and obey me. rest. do not forget song, do not forget prayer, and do not forget me. i am light and relieve you of all your burdens.'
'do not pretend. retribution for forgiveness, betrayal for trust, despaire for hope, darkness for light, dark death for the living.'
'relief is in my hands. i will add oil to your sins and leave a mark. eternal life is given through death. -- ask for forgiveness here. i, the incarnation, will swear.'
'-- kyrie eleison.' interlude out.

berserker continues his attack. shirou succeeds in countering with projection 'as a matter of course.' shirou begins to white out after taking two hits through his axe-sword, but ilya wakes him up. she starts telling him to leave alone, and he tells her to shut the hell up and run. somehow they escape into the trench that bizzaro saber's noble phantasm left.

dream music suddenly plays as shirou decides to use archer's arm. is he really gonna die though? i can't imagine you're supposed to think that given that archer is shirou, but even ilya, who ostensibly knows, isn't suggesting the contrary. shirou reveals that the only reason he has ever hesitated is fear of losing himself and forgetting what he wished to protect. now it's time for shirou to 'judge himself.'

the unleashing: white wind and pain everywhere, followed by archer's image. 'can you keep up with me?' shirou has a pretty badass moment as he runs past archer's image - 'you keep up with me!'

'my bones break' ugh i hate it when this isn't used literally. kickass music nonetheless begins to play. a sympathetic line comes in berserker's defense, that he is still protecting ilya. shirou hits him with berserker's sword in eight places - kuzu ryu zen? it's not enough, but ilya's appearance gives berserker a second of pause, and shirou capitalizes big time.

cut to ilya's viewpoint. badass pic of shirou's back.

cut to shirou. oh for ****'s sake. that's just not fair. bizzaro saber's there. she spares his life for the third time.

interlude 15-4

i'm not exactly sure how kotomine is wounded, unless it's strictly from that noble phantasm. assassin gives him some praise - he is matou zouken's natural enemy. kotomine reveals that knowing about the noble phantasm gave him the edge. assassin is scared ****less of kotomine and runs for it, looking for a new master. kirei takes a nap.

flashback. defective from birth. married a woman and was only sad because he didn't get to kill her himself. man he had a son too, and it was a long time ago... is it possible that the son... no, i won't make any predictions. >_>

... dammit. sakura. and she's not letting him go. she goes on a rant about hating the world, but kotomine calls her out on it. he tries to get away but can't, because she controls his heart. before she kills him, though, the death of berserker knocks her over. kirei escapes. interlude out.

music changes very quickly, but it's all pretty happy as shirou gets out of the forest with ilya. they get home by suggestion. static and continually shifting music continue. he's time-skipping again augh. ilya doesn't seem to be surprised at all.

evidently, shirou can no longer remember anything unless it's marked by pain. if he sleeps, he'll disappear forever. awesome music plays. he's full of archer fear, but he pushes it all aside. rin time. she's already over, and the ease of the situation almost results in shirou losing tension again.

so 'avenger' is the shadow and the taint and the problem. and then ilya begins her tale. and... holy crap this exposition is boring as hell. shirou cares almost as little as i do, even though rin is entirely engaged. haha, in the midst of the zzz lecture, shirou interrupts with his own ridiculous knowledge of past heroes. unfortunately, this triggers more backstory. angra manyu's story is actually fairly interesting.

upon hearing it, shirou is struck. kotomine has called him an anti-hero, just like this guy. then the exposition becomes boring again as we discuss zouken's motivations. they finally stop whining and decide to fight sakura at ryudou temple, but then it's sakura time.

it's just the shadow. sakura and rin have some dialogue where rin is made out to be omg so badass, and the shadow leaves. rin plans to let shirou have his crack at saving sakura. ilya appears, and she's like go away rin we're doing this projection without you. then she shows shirou the sword in her memory.

some horrible metaphors. then the einzbern ancestor appears. shirou tries to reach the sword in tohsaka's hands, but he can't and, after ignoring some yells from ilya, is zapped into consciousness. shirou's managed to get the gem sword. more exposition; shirou barely stays in the world but succeeds. more time skips. rin's here. she's not happy about the jewel shirou got from archer.

and now rider's here to kill shirou.
1. escape out the shed...!
2. fight back using projection...!
3. ...give her the answer to the previous question

3's confusing but the most interesting

.. give her the answer to the previous question

1. 'will i be able to fight until the very end'
2. 'will i not give up until the very end'
3. 'will i be on sakura's side until the very end'

3

'will i be on sakura's side until the very end'

it works. shirou wins rider over, and he teaches her how to beat bizzaro saber. nice. she agrees to let shirou be her temporary master.

ilya tells shirou rin's waiting. shirou walks around the house with memories of sakura flooding him. his memory's shot, but he can still remember sakura. it's sweet.

end of day 15 longest day ever ugh


day 16 - heavens feel style yes i finally figured out there's no apostrophe

interlude 16-1

oh for ****'s sake, zouken's still alive. ****ing ****. he exists in sakura's heart. but sakura wakes up in response to zouken's attempts to do anything, and she kills assassin and rips out her own heart. *squish* maniacal laughter* interlude out.

rin, shirou, and rider sneak in through caves to the temple. rider takes off her veil. rin asks shirou why he made the sword for her, and shirou admits he's sorry he didn't let rin win.

there's blood on the ground, suggesting someone's been there yesss kirei. bizzaro saber appears. she lets rin go, and rider essentially gives up her life to fight bizzaro saber ('i can last two minutes' =[). saber apparently retains some of her former qualities, but she has a 'cruel smile,' which is... 'what'

interlude 16-2

rin's moving forward, complete with exposition about **** around her. she's trawling for zouken, but... uh, yeah. poor rin has no one to fight anymore. sakura appears. mass exposition about the sword, followed by the ten millionth 'i am evil' speech from sakura, and then rin is attacked by things that 'cannot be blocked or dodged.' interlude out.

shirou uses a horrible metaphor about a shooting star and a black sun to describe the fight. ... man, rider's been fighting for twelve minutes. awesome chick. she keeps losing speed, her only advantage.

rider creates the opening, and shirou rips off the shroud and... loses something forever - it appears to be his promise to kiritsugu. 'it disappears. something i value disappears. i can't remember what i lost. but what i kept in my heart can never be recalled ever again.'

rider is on her knees.

1. attack saber...!
2. use another projection...!
3. wait for my chance...!

3 seems like the way to go

wait for my chance...!

rider doesn't die instantly; she buys two seconds with chains around saber's knees. a++ pic of rider's noble phantasm as bizzaro saber goes for bizzarocalibur.

haha what the hell. shirou considers archer's greatest asset to be... rho aius. a flower. damn this thing..! anyway, he uses it to back up bellerophon. shirou explodes, and the beam struggle ends with no decisive winner. but rider was weaker to start, and now she's definitely down. saber, on the other hand, has a chance at recovery. shirou moves in.

1. ...save saber
2. ...bring my arm down

argh. tough one, but the fact shirou's hesitating makes me hesitant. not sure how saving saber can help, but well see what happens.

...save saber

flashbacks. shirou drops the weapon. saber is ready to kill shirou, but sakura calls her off.

shirou makes his way to the cliff. sakura appears and reveals that she's finished rin off. sucked her in and is now putting her through everything sakura was put through. sakura reveals that sparing saber was what killed rin. shirou's ****ed. bad end.

...bring my arm down

shirou slays saber. he crushes the flashbacks.

interlude 16-3

whoa musix. rin fights the giants. rin one-shots seven shadow giants yesss. i feel silly rooting for her in this fight, since it's very sailor-moon-y, but whatever. rin's like 'second sorcery beats third sorcery whoo~~' and i'm like ok. >_>

ugh numbers being thrown around. hundred million, trillion 'lol' rin bluffs; she claims she can do this all night, but her arms are giving in way before the magic is. i mean, if the magic system were officially established, i wouldn't have this problem, but it's just something they use as a guideline, and the way that they keep using the same numbers is really irritating. the narrator then talks directly to the reader and is like 'PARALLEL WORLDS ISN'T THAT CLEVER' ugh

sakura breaks down and starts hating the world yet again. rin tells her that she sucks, and sakura is outraged. blood spurts as rin attacks, and i can only assume that it's shirou who took the blow. but it's not. it's rin. and rin's all 'yeah actually i did care about you' 'lol' interlude out.

azoth breaks. shirou, bleeding everywhere, moves forth. sakura's back to normal. rin's not dead yet. the darkness attacks shirou, and sakura tells him to go away, but of course shirou keeps advancing. steel is shirou's body or something, since now he can't be pierced. shirou busts out dealbreaker.

both women are still alive after the deal is broken. shirou prepares for the final excalibur projection, but his memory's shot. he doesn't remember rider's name but tells her to take the women and leave. rider complies.

yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss kotomine kirei is alive best ever, and his outfit's awesome without the cape. his name's been blocked out of shirou's memory, but it returns to shirou's lips.

kotomine morality-spiels shirou in a pretty badass manner, especially since shirou trying to deny its legitimacy would be hypocrisy, he himself having lost his own compass. kirei insists that the fight is meaningless but that it will happen.

'... i like kotomine kirei' yesss

'we need to extinguish each other's fires before our own blows out'

it's a straight up fistfight. cue kickass music. false chinese martial arts from kotomine, whose attacks are killing him due to shirou's body of swords, the 'thorns of death.' kirei just vows to attack more.

'i don't care about some centuries-old wish or the end of this small world. for emiya shirou, defeating this enemy is the last remaining purpose'

interlude 16-4 oh what the hell come on

and it's zouken what the hell nasu. he's just a lump of meat now, and he flashes back to the original einzbern. worst scene ever. interlude out.

music gets weird. man it's awesome that kotomine keeps attacking with bloody fists. for some reason that's just a really badass image. as kirei moves in for the kill, shirou of course has another flash to sakura augh. this magically inspires shirou to land seven blows, but kirei fights back. and then... he stops. he's dead. R.I.P. he tells shirou to hurry the hell up and do what he needs to do.

shirou basically gives kirei as giant **** you, and kirei smiles as he dies. 'i can't selfishly die' yesss man chills just ran up my spine after shirou said that. about goddamn time. oh what the **** he just took it back and busted out the sword anyway this is revolting.

fortunately ilya stops this last-second stupidity. she sacrifices herself to close the gate, and some verses appear on the screen, fading to black.

blue sky. shirou's like 'yeah i got rin's pendant whuddup' but no dice. ambiguous closing.

end of day 16
* i spelled this as lafter when i first typed it

epilogue

shirou's alive. shirou's traveled from london to japan. 'uh oh.' yeah, it's not shirou's point of view. rin's got shirou-sized font, though. what's up with that. man, it's been a year. rin confirms sakura is taking care of her house.

shirou's place, and... what the hell rider hahaha yesss. taiga's here too man why do servants always get to call fuji taiga. rin's a little bitter that rider's hotter than she is. it's been two years. 'um, you're not drinking blood without telling her, are you?'

'i will never allow sakura to know such a thing' haha ^5 rider refusing to answer straight. rin comments again on rider's hotness.

yay taiga. she goes through several facial expressions, including evil-relationship. taiga correctly divines that rin's got male attention in london. and then she thinks that she's in love with some idiot, when sakura appears. the two talk in euphemisms about magic training until taiga's reticence raises the unanswered question about shirou.

'man, shirou's late.' guess he's alive. man, i just realized we've never only seen shirou's sprite through rin's eyes once. gah. taiga gives the sisters privacy. now it's rin recap time.

the search for the holy grail wars was stopped for good. the magic association tried rin without jury or something. then the sorcerer appeared. zeretch?

whoa what kirei 'reported that he was just an ordinary person who got himself killed' kirei's alive...!?

shirou's back. rin's like 'you idiot you're so panicked' until she realizes she's panicked too. ha. man, i like shirou's sprite. but jeez, rin and shirou are so superior a pairing it hurts. the chicks talk about him in the third person for a bit, and shirou gets the rin-ish expression on his face. rin comments that it's the face where he can't say something. 'and the master of this house goes to make dinner for the freeloaders.' heh.

apparently, it's an all-new body for shirou. go grail and ilya! the ending is pretty much how lopen described the good ending to ubw. shirou and sakura have FREQUENT SEXUAL RELATIONS to keep rider alive and sakura healthy and shirou moving or something. haha, rin goes all money-grubber on us and starts talking about how she, shirou, and sakura would dominate at a magic tournament... without tax deductions !!

'nee-san? you had an evil smile' heh

sakura is happy.

credits roll

fin

the truman show

jesus christ what a good movie. love jim carrey.

bah, slightly frustrated

well, there's too much backlog now to keep track of everything, so i'll just list some stuff.

watched death note; for some reason i never noted that here. in addition, i saw hancock last weekend and will be seeing the dark knight soon. also of note this summer were iron man and wall-e, though i've seen neither. nothing else jumps out at me for now.

gonna try listening to some iron maiden either during the work day or once i get home.

list of stuff so that i don't forget

played demon's crest and tetris attack.

watched night at the roxbury.

read count of monte cristo.

there will be blood (anderson 2007) (there will be vagueness)

based on upton sinclair's oil, there will be blood chronicles the actions of daniel plainview, an entrepreneur who discovers gold out west in the early 1900s. the 'message' is familiar: greed corrupts. the execution is special.

from the very beginning, there is darkness and noise. the entirety of the film, actually, is extremely noisy. because of the constant presence of oil-drilling, rhythmic banging forms the bassline of much of there will be blood's soundtrack. hints to the current tone are concealed under the crashing sound of hydraulics, metal, and bubbling oil.

the visuals are dramatic and suitably so. in the style of classic westerns, the epic desert dominates any outdoor scene. there will be blood cuts harshly between the blackened, sordid pits of the oil wells and the blinding sand of california. every character is dark and flawed, and the costuming shows it. half the time characters on screen have their faces smothered in black oil. daniel day-lewis, whenever presenting a public image, is shot as having impossibly shiny, smooth hair and skin, as if his flesh and blood are made of oil.

and man, the shots it takes are just great. the oil itself is the most disgusting thing you've ever seen. in one scene, it explodes out of the ground and forms a geyser. a hundred-foot geyser that catches fire. it is a very, very cool sight.

of course the greatness of the film is in the acting. daniel day-lewis is, well, just as good as everyone has been saying he is. theatrical when pitching his sales, nervy when discussing the past, and throughly unhinged when mentally unquiet. the degradation of his character is remarkable, and, in what i found to be an incredibly bizarre twist, the film's tone becomes more comical as day-lewis really loses it. the drama and tension of the first two hours of the movie slowly dissolve into an equally tense but strangely humorous epilogue. the final scene in particular is a blend of pure slapstick and evil.

it's quite a long movie, and you'll start to feel it at around an hour and a half into it. it'll feel like an epic tale, which it rightfully is. but if you persist, you'll find that there is a ton of entertainment to be found here, too. and damn, it is good.

great teacher onizuka - thoughts on the second half and closing statements

well, i finished great teacher onizuka. have my overall thoughts changed? objectively it is much of the same. cliches and lazy writing abound in the dialogue, artwork, music, pacing, and basically everything. was it more enjoyable? sure.

i guess part of it is just the length of the series. as the show continues, i just tend to feel more connected to the characters. therefore, while onizuka himself ain't a great protagonist, i did manage to find that 'favorite side character' in the mid-20s, and she definitely helped to raise the overall rating of the show.

the concluding arcs of the show raise some serious business drama. unfortunately, the show suffers when it tries major drama. while gto's high points are generally darker and more serious, they are definitely not the scenes that result in dramatic gasps and predictable revelations.

how is the show overall? i certainly wouldn't call it simple, heartwarming tripe. i suppose it's got its comedic elements as well. but the 'life lessons' often feel a bit too forced. the show succeeds best when it it just lets its characters flow naturally.

grand teacher onizuka is not too long of a watch and it goes by fairly quickly. the humor is really funny sometimes. onizuka does have some great moments. it's generally feel-good, and it's got a great character. when it's serious it can be very touching. downsides have been methodically listed already. it's cliche-dependent, juvenile, visually unappealing, unbelievable within its own realms. but admist the sea of mediocrity it's got its moments. if you want a high school anime, are willing to wait for these moments, and can withstand some pure idiocy, watch gto. otherwise, wait for the next review!

gto (1-21, sub)

invested a bit of time and watched episodes 12 thru 21 tonight. mixed bag. some episodes killed me with how unoriginal they were, but often the subsequent episodes would compensate.

for example, episode 12 began a mini-arc of three episodes in which 12 and 13 were abysmal, focusing on a completely stereotypical character: a top-tier university graduate who couldn't look at onizuka without exuding snobbery and elitism. meanwhile, he has no redeeming characteristics. he is cowardly and will not even help his stalkee when she drops her stuff, though he does talk greasily to her. he is maniacal and attacks onizuka to the point where he breaks his own computer because he suspects onizuka likes his stalkee. he decorates his walls with pictures of his stalkee and spies on her from his apartment window. he licks his tutee's foot to ingratiate himself with her politically powerful parents.

and yet episode 14 manages to pull it all together, somehow. while the character receives no redemption, his plans to boot onizuka from the school are soundly foiled, and in such a manner that it downplays his existence at all. phew. call it fixing a mistake or just the development of the plot; i was just glad that ended.

the best episodes of the batch focused on a distinctly more complex character - a problematic student who never shows up to class but allegedly has an iq of over 200. while the development of her storyline was entirely standard, as a character she was very well drawn, well acted, and surprisingly well written. the episodes involving her were the most enjoyable of the series.

she fell into another mini-arc that continued the somewhat monster-of-the-week formula of gto. onizuka doesn't really develop as a teacher, but different students or adults will 'get in his way,' and it'll be up to him to set them straight.

for a series so lauded for its humor, i cannot support this popularity so far. onizuka's humor ostensibly stems largely from the fact that he is a twenty-two-year-old guy who's never had any experience with women and is a complete pervert. however, this idea is subverted so often with his maturity that it's a complete nuisance when it does occur. it feels like the show undermines onizuka's self-control when it makes him this pathetic sex-crazed maniac. like, i understand how it's supposed to be funny, and it could have been were onizuka someone like, say, satou from nhk ni youkoso! - but he's not. he's a jacked black belt with good looks and complete courage in himself. he's almost too perfect, which wouldn't be a problem in itself, except the show tries to play off his 'flaws' and tries to make him too much of a vulnerable character. compare to kenshin, where the series is all about how indestructible kenshin is and how he finds his own limits.

we know he's invulnerable. putting him 'in jeopardy' just doesn't work. and trying to play 'faults' seems like a waste of time, knowing onizuka's own invulnerability.