ufotable's Fate/Stay Night

She did really help to codify the trope in its present form, but I didn't really feel that she was that much of a tsundere in FSN at least. Well, she gets some more focus in UBW and HF so you have that to look forward to, I suppose? You'll probably want to read the visual novel at some point for that.

Rin's Tsundere doesn't really appear in the Fate route because she has to teach much of the setting to Shirou, and by proxy, the player.

Apart from the Grade-S, she reinforced the association of red and/or pigtails or half tails with Tsundere, although the one who started that was Asuka.

edited 6th Feb '16 12:20:57 PM by raziel365

She has her tsundere moments in UBW, but a lot of it is memetic. She's no Shana or anything. And if you choose to interpret the side of her you see in Heaven's Feel as still tsundere you could say it's a particularly dark take I guess.

Well, that was certainly something. Yadda yadda magical circuit transplant, blah blah Dangerous Forbidden Technique, never be a real magus etc etc. Then suddenly magical threesome. Then suddenly terrible CGI dragon Battle in the Center of the Mind. Uh, okay. Of course, they show Shirou doing his magic stuff later and he seems to have all his circuits intact (but still inactive), just like before. Not sure if that's a plot point or just a result of Stock Footage.

And yeah, they explained that Berserker has twelve lives for his twelve trials this episode, but someone can't count. They said Archer killed him five times and Rin killed him once, but apparently 12 - 5 - 1 = 7. Unless that's because Illya managed to give him one extra life in the meantime, like someone mentioned upthread.

Something I've noticed before but forgot to mention until now: what's up with people's eyes? Some people have pupils and some don't. Is it that people without magic don't have pupils? The ones who didn't were Shinji, Sakura, and Taiga, but IIRC one of Shirou's random classmates whose name I've since forgotten did have pupils. I guess he could be a Master; there is supposedly one more at their school that they haven't encountered yet. Also, at one point Saber's eyes were red (though now I can't recall the exact circumstances...) until Shirou got her attention and they went back to their normal color. I figured it was a Servant thing (battle mode = Red Eyes, Take Warning?) at the time, but none of the other Servants have done it, and I don't think Saber's done it since.

The eye thing is meaningless.

Red eyes are generally a sign of someone not being quite human. Like they have a bit of divine blood or maybe they're a vampire. I don't think Saber ever showed red eyes, though.

She does in one of her earlier battles. Against Lancer, or her first round with Berserker, I think? There's a scene where she's kneeling on the ground with her face lowered and her eyes are red, then Shirou yells at her and when she looks up they're back to normal.

Probably just an anime thing. Or maybe she had blood in them if she was injured. There is an instance where her eye color changes but it isn't to red and doesn't happen in the Fate anime.

So...has anyone else thought about attacking Lancer during the start-up for Gae Bolg, or in lieu of that, pulling a Saitama and just uppercutting/attacking the spear itself once it gets close?

Pretty sure it wouldn't matter in either case. Gae Bolg reverses cause-and-effect, remember? As soon as the spell is cast, the attack has already hit and done its damage.

I think it'd be impossible, even for Saitama, to uppercut the spear "before" it hits him, because it "already" hit him before it was even thrust.

And regarding the Mana Transfer Dragon: that was a something cooked up for the anime because the anime couldn't have a sex scene. In the VN, Shirou and Saber have sex and thereby transfer large amount of mana from him to her (to be fair to Nasu: there are a number of real-life mystic/religious beliefs that involve some sort of spiritual transfer during sex, so he didn't pull that concept out of his ass). There's none of this "magic circuit transplant" stuff, which, as you noted, doesn't make sense at all in-universe.

edited 6th Feb '16 2:45:27 PM by DarkHunter

It's an option if you're fast enough but Lancer is also fast, can Disengage, and Gae Bolg itself is a relatively cost effective NP.

So you could try, but you carry a real risk of falling victim to the spear anyway. The noted ways to get away from Gae Bolg from Nasu is to get out of range by back pedaling or use a shield with higher magical energy.

Not to mention the sheer buff it got in ufo's version.

"Mana Transfer Dragon" is officially the best Unusual Euphemism ever.

Also, I'm impressed that they distinguished between the Sword in the Stone and Excalibur. Of course, there are so many different versions of the Arthurian legends that sometimes they're the same sword, and the name Fate/Stay Night uses for the Sword in the Stone is Caliburn, which is an earlier version of Excalibur's name... but hey, they still get points for it.

That said, Caliburn being so awesome that Berserker getting stabbed with it once killed him seven times is anime logic at its finest. This is why we love you, Japan.

Excalibur is a beamu sword. Caliburn is too, it's just not quite as strong. Having a beamu erupt inside your stomach is going to do a lot of damage.

Well, yeah, but the issue isn't so much "how is it that strong" as "how does killing someone multiple times simultaneously even fucking work?" I mean, Rin blowing his head literally off only counted as one, apparently. I get what they're doing (Caliburn is seriously super badass, guys!) but it's still silly.

Hercules seemed like a pretty cool dude once he was released from his seals, though. "Hey Saber, is that Caliburn?" "...yes." "I thought that was lost forever." "It was. This is just a copy." "...huh. Pretty good copy." *ded*

A NP just hits a lot harder than magecraft does. So once his HP hit zero or whatever there was still more damage being dealt so it just kept taking lives, I suppose. Guess there isn't a particularly better answer than that.

For those of you keeping track at home, the high school magician girl is now fighting an ancient Greek witch for the soul of the girl who's in love with the guy she's tsundere for. Said guy, another high school student, is fighting one of his teachers, who is also an assassin or something and is capable of punching through stone pillars, while his superpowered companion (and also love interest) — who is actually King Arthur, despite being a woman — is dueling a fictional master swordsman.

Never change, Japan. Never change.

(Actually, change a little bit. Did you have to put Sakura in a fetish suit?)

edited 6th Feb '16 6:40:05 PM by NativeJovian

Putting her in that suit is actually the least fucked up thing they ever did to Sakura.

^^ Yeah, you're basically in a filler arc right now. Caster didn't really do much in the Fate route of the VN, she just kinda showed up and got killed off unceremoniously without actually accomplishing anything.

If that's filler, then I'll totally take it. Because it was pretty damn awesome.

It's partially lifted from UBW, as you'll see.

I just want to say, spanish only has the word lance no spear, so lancer's title makes sense.

I rarely even remember that the two are actually different. Not many cavalry charges around here.

Mind saying the difference in concept?

Spears are shorter and used by infantry, only requiring one hand to use; while lances are longer and used by cavalry. Pikes are longest, but also used by infantry and require the use of both hands. Javelins are the ones that get thrown.

edited 7th Feb '16 6:31:12 AM by TheAirman

The closest term in Spanish to a spear, as you describe, would be an asta, as in the hasta of the Hastati.

An asta can also mean 'flagpole'.