Fate/Extra Last Encore

Something something an empty vessel meant to be filled with other people’s anquish?

Sounds about right.

I have to say, I had a bit of as problem keeping track of all the different Alice's through the episode. So there's the Alice who turned into a monster, the Alice Hakuno been playing with which was a creation of the Alice in black who's actually the Nursery Rhyme, and then finally the "real" Alice in the hospital bed. Did I miss any?

I think the "artificial body" Alice that Nursery Rhyme created (the one Hakuno played with) and the Alice that turned into a monster are the same one.

So, three in total: the Alice puppet/monster being used as her body, actual Alice who's bedridden, and Nursery Rhyme, which takes on the appearance and personality of its Master.

Assorted thoughts/speculation:

• Everything we see of Alice that isn't her monster form attacking the protagonists is a flashback to the first war. She befriended Hakuno, let him ascend without a fight, started to fade away, absorbed stable code to stay "alive", which turned her into a monster. Then a millenia later vengeful zombie Hakuno helped kill her
• Amari:
  • There's some evidence that she's another manifestation of Nursery Rhyme, but I think she's her own person. Probably the next master, with the focus on her here being to make up for her not getting any in the game
  • Toosaka was worried about the possiblity that Amari was the floor master of layer 3, and presumably eventually remembered that she managed to ascend. That she's worrying suggests to me that Amari is aware of some weakness of the Cu Chulainn cosplay
• Speaking of, Toosaka is apparently a demi-servant now, but it looks a bit different from any of the other versions of this I'm aware of. Most noticeably, she maintains her colour scheme. To me this suggests that she took Cu's power for her own, rather than merging with him
• So it looks like the female protagonist is actually a completely different person from Hakuno. She was the original master of Saber Extra during the first war and beat all her regular opponents only to lose to Pieceman and Saver. Meanwhile, Hakuno's original servant was Suzuka Gozen, and he... also beat everyone he fought? I think the idea is that Hakuno was technically undefeated when the first war ended (because he never actually encountered the final boss), allowing him to ascend regularly in the later loops

There has to have been more than one Holy Grail War that happened before this. The one where Saber and female-Hakuno made it to the end but lost, and the one that male-Hakuno remembers fighting through.

Otherwise, male-Hakuno had to have been defeated at some point, and that would seem to contradict what we've seen, since previously-defeated Masters cannot ascend.

I kind of doubt we will get any answers until we encounter Saver and learn exactly what it is he thinks he's doing. His Noble Phantasm is running the show, which means he's the ultimate antagonist here.

I guess it's possible that shit went down during the second loop rather than the first, though that makes the first kind of pointless. My thought was that Hakuno being the impossible 129th master allowed the war to have two winners (the numbers don't work out, but they don't work out anyway, what with descending and Alice killing people)

But Saber and Rin talk like Hakuno been disappearing for long periods of time. So was he just getting lost constantly?

Don't we actually see "Amari" change back into Nursery Rhyme?

I think he's having flashbacks that're erased by Nursery Rhyme's power? It's not entirely satisfying, I know, but the timeline makes more sense if they're flashbacks

Indeed we do! I just think it's the story screwing with us. Amari is given a bunch of backstory and characterization that's at odds with what we know about Alice/Nursery Rhyme (note that Amari absolutely wanted to ascend, but Alice forfeited), and we actually see Alice and Amari in the same place a couple of times

Hakuno's Command Spell is explicitly shown to be a different one in some of his scenes with Alice so they should be flashbacks because why else would he suddenly have them in a different pattern and have all three

Also according to the website, Nursery Rhyme was stuck as the book that Hakuno picked up from the table because she lost her appearance as Alice after Alice transformed into a monster so Amari revealing herself as NR might've been another flashback?

edited 15th Mar '18 6:12:34 AM by Nouct

A note: TV broadcast will end on episode 10-11, will continue with web broadcast by the look of things.

Hoo boy, that was some crazy spoilers

Another Deadface, this time one that makes sense to the original character. Also confirmation that female Hakuno is the canon Hakuno in Fate/EXTRA.

At least for this show

Finally some answers. And with them, naturally, more questions.

Male-Hakuno is a Dead Face made up of thousands of dead Masters, mostly taking on the form of the real Hakuno, which was the female-Hakuno.

Still, for all they keep going on and on and on and on about how Hakuno is an embodiment of hatred, revenge, etc., he doesn't ACT like that. I can't help but think there's more to this.

And Julius is here in his mostly-dead form, which has been reinterpreted as another Dead Face.

Twice's monologue makes me think the divergence point from the games is that this version of Twice fell into despair and decided to just let humanity die. That might be why Saver overwrote SE.RA.PH, since if the Moon Cell is sealed off, there goes any hope for mankind's future.

Where the hell did Lu Bu come from!? Is Rani not actually dead yet after all?

Umu counter: 34

SHAFT Head Tilts: 6

Yeah. Male Hakuno was used for the CD Drama and for Extella's backstory, and the mangas. So female is "canon" to Last Encore only.

edited 18th Mar '18 6:45:52 PM by OmegaRadiance

So after MAXIMUM SHAFT we get MAXIMUM NASU, which I guess is fair but I don't really enjoy as much

Skipping layer 4, which still gives us one more layer than announced enemy servants

So I guess there were a bunch of loops with various and our nameless deadface's memories are a combination of different victors'. Also, I have no idea how the floor master thing makes any sense

Next episode might be a flashback?

Oh yeah, I did find it funny that they just skipped the entire 4th floor.

Apparently Ronnie and/or Monji are just too pathetic to bother with. Which is fine with Ronnie (I hated that psychopath), but Monji is really funny... then again, if they included Monji, then they'd have to include Arcueid, and THAT would probably be too much for this series.

What? They didn't skip the 4th floor. There's no Floormaster, so the ladder is already in place, but they didn't reach it because Julius on their way there. They are still on the 4th floor by the end of the episode.

Unless you just mean they skipped the 4th week opponents and worded it weirdly. That they did indeed do. We can't have Arc because that would remind Nasu we're still waiting for Tsukihime.

At the very beginning of the episode Saber remarks on how easy it was to clear the 4th floor: "Ah, that fourth floor enemy was hardly even worth mentioning!"

They're on the 5th floor now.

edited 18th Mar '18 8:07:24 PM by DarkHunter

I thought I just remembered the game wrong, bu nope, Berserker was skipped over due to being a cameo.

edited 19th Mar '18 5:00:57 AM by VeryMelon

Who knows maybe like in CCC Ronnie summoned Elizabeth and she already gets too much attention in FGO so lets just skip it!

But Liz's gimmick is always showing up again no matter how many times we already dealt with her. They would never skip her, it goes against her entire character concept.

Sounds like the best option for "opponent not even worth mentioning", especially when Nero is the one saying it.

edited 19th Mar '18 6:11:32 AM by Comun

inb4 Last Encore partially follows Extella Zero and the fourth floor Servant was Tamamo

Lol, they just skipped the fourth floor completely, and Saber just threw some mad shade at whoever the fought there.

So we spend most of the episode with Julius shit talking Hakuno like the sore loser he is.

Saber monologue about the nature of genius and human inherent inequality was quite interesting. We wouldn't get something like that from a jackal.

Wait, what was that giant thing that attacked Julius.

The whole "Hakuno is embodiment of hate" thing is one of the worst examples of telling instead of showing I've ever encountered. Nothing about his behavior makes me think he's full of hate, the show just tells us that he is roughly three times per episode.

Okay, so the backstory became quite a bit clearer now: this is apparently an alternative timeline where Hakuno failed to defeat Twice, who went on with his plan. Then when it - surprise surprise - didn't work, he threw a bitch fit, decided that if he couldn't do it, there's no hope for humanity, and sealed the core of the Moon Cell. Then he spent the last thousand years killing all challengers, which leads us to the present time.

Well he didn't realize that so long as mankind as a whole seeks to stagnate and self-destruct on its own as CCC mentioned numerous times, of course his plan would end in failure.

Hakuno probably didn't give him the "World of Cardboard" Speech they gave him in the CCC side materials either, Yeah definitely with Gil by their side shit talking someone else into relenting is pretty easy when you have tons of practice with King of Tsun.