So this episode seemed to determined to make sure someone finished their anime fetish bingo with a single episode. If your card has BDSM, incest, lolicon, yuri, and non-con all in a row then you were probably a winner. Or a loser.It all depends on how you want to play it off. I don’t want to beat a dead horse but there was a distinct squick factor to the first season but it was all the same level of squick that was in the manga. That one OVA chapter was pretty horrible but such are OVAs for a show like this. While nothing this season has fully reached the depths of depravity of that hell-scape they seem to be making already sort of questionable scenes in the manga even more intense.

To have some positivity I will say that this, the end card has set the bar insanely high. I feel like all the other end cards are now just competing for second place. 70’s shoujo Shiro is probably the best part of the whole affair.

 

After capturing Kuro the Illya faction tries to determine why the dark-skinned doppelganger is trying to kill her counterpart. Since they can’t dissuade the clone from her homicidal path they can at least prevent her from casually harming the original Illya. But just because Kuro can’t disembowel Illya does not mean she cannot make her life a living hell.

With considerable effort they caught Kuro but they are not just going to execute her. Rin and Luvia maybe monsters but they are not going to casually slit the throat of a young lady. Emphasis on casually. What they do under duress is another story. They try to interrogate Kuro to see why she seems so hellbent on killing Illya. While Kuro is not forthcoming with her exact motives it is clear that she is determined to kill Illya Classic™ and kill take down anyone who gets in the way of that goal.

At that point Rin decides since they can’t negotiate with Kuro, but don’t want to kill her, so they need a third option. The solution is to make it that Kuro has more to lose by killing Illya than she might have to gain. Rin links Kuro’s flesh to Illya’s with a simple sympathetic magic curse. Whenever Illya is injured the same injury appears on Kuro. Any fatal action to Illya is just as deadly to Kuro.

In retrospect there was one major flaw with this plan. If Kuro was some sort of Days of Future Past’s Cable she still might have been willing to kill Illya FOR THE FUTURE! or some similar reason. If that were the case she would be willing to die as long as she kills Illya in the process. At that point this would have done nothing. But I suppose even if that were the case it was a better solution than nothing.

Also if you look at the symbol the curse makes on Kuro it is the same symbol as Rin has when she is a Master in Fate/Stay Night. Now you know.

Before we move on I have to say that Rin, Luvia, and Miyu are some pathetic security guards.The three of them live in the same mansion with a butler. You think one of them could have stayed and watched Kuro. Did they all have to watch the season finale of Game of Thrones together? Will Luvia spoil stuff if you talk to her afterwards?

But since Kuro can’t just kill Illya anymore she has to be creative with her time. Apparently the time is not going to be spent discovering a way to undue the curse on her. No. It is clearly more effective to try to seduce Shiro. Since she looks like Illya the little scamp decides to do what her counterpart could never do.

Overall this makes sense. If Kuro can’t hurt Illya physically she might as well do the next best thing and hurt her mentally. Fortunately for Illya Shiro is immune to subtly to matter how unsubtle it is.

If nothing else this leads to an amusing scene of Illya having to smack herself around in order to stop Kuro’s advances. I will admit I do like physical humor like this a little more than I should.

Apparently Rin, Luvia, and Miyu finally finish discussing the fight between the Hound and Brienne of Tarth (or whatever they were doing) and come to recapture Kuro. We see that both Rin and Luvia are quite smitten with young mister Emiya.

This quick rescue leads to Miyu finally meets Shiro which apparently never happened until now. (I guess we will just chalk this up to Shiro leaving early every morning and coming hope equally late.) As it turns out Shiro has another admirer although this is more about Miyu thinking that Shiro is like her brother than a romantic paramour. (Then again this is Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ILLYA. Those things are not necessarily as mutually exclusive as the would normally be.)

This does bring up the question of Shiro’s family in Fate/Stay Night. Other than the fact that he was orphaned in the fire of the Fourth Holy Grail War we don’t really now anything about his parents. Presumably he did not have an extended family that could take him in but it is never stated exactly how much of his family he lost in the fire. One presumes his parents died but he never goes into that. They also never mention any siblings. Theoretically Shiro could have had a younger sister that died to the sea of fire but it would be fairly callous of him to never mention her. That could mean that even in Fate/Stay Night Shiro had a little sister like Miyu as a lack of evidence is not proof of nonexistence. It is not like he ever goes into any details about his biological family.

An interesting thing to think about.

The next day starts with an awkward limo ride. Luvia planned to start the day with some Kuro styled Shiro ambushing now that she knows where he lives. Instead she merely finds Illya and Miyu so she begrudgingly gives them a ride to school. This leads Illya trying to ask  Miyu about her brother since she took off after her awkward hugging of Shiro. Eventually Illya is just forced to drop the topic as Miyu just puts up a wall of icy silence. Luvia breaks the mood by talking about how much she wants to date Shiro in her little world of delusion.

I do feel Miyu’s silence has more to do with author wanting to keep parts of Miyu’s past a secret rather than Miyu naturally being a closed off character. I do feel at this point in their relationship Miyu might not be Chatty Cathy but it seems like there are close enough that she should at least say a little.

But when Illya gets to school she finds a little lynch mob has formed to greet her. Apparently Kuro has come to school and started kissing everyone that Illya knows. In a very intimate fashion. This leads to all the victims wanting some revenge including Miss Lonelyheart herself, Taiga Fujimura. So Miyu is forced to hold off Taiga, Tatsuko, Suzuka, and Nanaki from getting their revenge.  Illya finds Kuro and misses out on being able to save Mimi from getting an oral exam. I’m sure the audience was super disappointed that Illya could not save her friend. SUPER DISAPPOINTED. While the kiss was not as graphic as the Miyu kiss it was still more than it was in the manga. I’m think that scene with the tongue got more animation budget than some of the fights.

I will point out that everyone else just want justice but Tatsuko seems to want to do a little more than get her pound of flesh. That Tatsuko sure is Tatsuko.

As it turns out Kuro is kissing people to steal their mana. Who knew that Kuro is a secret member of the Fujou family. But with a recharged battery and some dangerous words said it seems that when Illya blames everything on Kuro it sets of a trigger in her makes her ready to fight to the death. The only thing that stops a fight from going down is everyone bursting in wanting Illya to pay for her crimes. Kuro merely plays it off by saying that she is Illya’s prankster cousin but Illya freaks out when everyone sees her in full magical girl mode. So the episode ends with out protagonist running for the hills as Kuro successfully inserts herself into her target’s life.

The next episode it is on like Donkey Kong.

Overall the creepy factor has remained high. While we did not have anything as utterly horrify as the Miyu porn kiss they have kept up the uncomfortable fan service with Kuro on the restraining rack and the long nonconsensual kisses. All these things were in the original manga but they were more restrained. Is that not usually the other way around? I’m a little worried about the upcoming scene with Tatsuko in the dental floss bikini. It was a single panel in the manga. I have a feeling they are going to play that up.

Oh Saber that hurts my heart and my head.

I like Kuro. She is a fun antagonist. I just wish they did not have to make her introductory arc creepier than it already was. Prisma Illya needs less troublesome material than more. I’m mostly just viewing this as the opening act you have to sit through to get to the band you really want.

That band is Bazett.

– Alain