Category: Anime

Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ILLYA 2wei Herz! #008: Gilgamesh Gets Naked … Again

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hisui_icon_4040 It seems that the new trend in Fate related series is ending a season with some naked Gilgamesh. Apparently they are really desperate to try and court that Kate market. They have to give that up. It is an honest effort but Kate is not going to watch a Fate series no mater how many times you undress the King of Heroes. She is definitely not going to watch anything Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya related. Maybe JUST maybe if you adapt Fate/Strange Fake but that is distinctly a Hail Mary pass.

On a completely unrelated note I did have a revelation about the various Fate universes in general that was only fully solidified with this episode. The various Fate stories are all subject to the Anna Karenina principle. The Anna Karenina principle states that, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Every Holy Grail War that we see is broken in its own special way. Therefore the strange rules and odd restrictions in one version of the Holy Grail War do not necessarily carry over to a different version. That is why that state that only iterations of Hassan-i-Sabbah can truly be summoned by the Fuyuki Holy Grail War and any other Assassin is a fake but other Holy Grail Wars ignore that rule.

The best way to picture it is via a Table Top RPG analogy. Given the origin of the series that is the perfect tool. Overall the Holy Grail War idea in the generic RPG Core Book. It has the standardized rules, themes, and mechanics but nothing more than that. Each version of the Fate Universe is its own setting on top of the Core Book rules. They add all the characters, details, and flavor specific to that setting are in the supplemental setting. That also means that any rules that the individual setting introduces can alter, change, or contradict rules in the vanilla Core Book or other settings. They only have to be internally logically consistent. The rules laid down in Fate/Apocrypha are different that what is seen in Fate/Zero or Fate/Extra. Most of the rules are the same but each of version that is not a direct sequel or prequel exists in its own timeline where the rules broke (because they always break) it their own special ways.

Hopefully that helps both the Fate universe in general and this episode in particular make more sense.
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Cowboy Bebop Rewatch Podcast Session #04: Gateway Shuffle

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cb_spike

As Cowboy Bebop has become this evergreen ambassador of anime, we decided to go back and re-watch the show now that is has gotten a beautiful Blu-ray box set. Every week we will share our memories and then re-evaluate these stories with 16 years of experience and distance. Which episodes are just as we remember, which have major flaws, and which have aged like a fine wine. At the same time, we will also look back on the music, cultural references, and holistic connections contained within each episode. Plus, we will judge if there in an appropriate amount of Ein.

Does Cowboy Bebop hold up as a classic or was its reputation all a dream? Let’s rewatch Cowboy Bebop together and find out!

Session #04

The Anime and Manga Spirit

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We are the champions – my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting
Till the end

OK. That might be a little overly dramatic but we are not the sort of site to win awards on a regular basis so we might as well celebrate.

FiddleTwix from Anime Madhouse nominated us for a Free Spirit award. It is technically more of a viral writing project than an award proper but it is still an acknowledgement from a fellow blogger that they liked our work enough to tag us in the project. It is so very easy to feel like you’re shouting into the void when you’re blogging so little nods like this put a smile on our faces.

Speaking of which the topic that we were asked to write about was “Little things in life that never cease to put a smile on your face.”

We’re going to center our answers around anime and manga otherwise it will be a post just about hamburgers and being proven right. While that might be amusing on an abstract level we try to keep the blog as on topic as we can.

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