And Illya has decided that she would rather be a loser.

OK. That is a little harsh. It is more like she has decided to leave the dangerous work to the professionals. Or at least that is what she keeps telling herself. But more on that in the article itself.

The most interesting thing about this episode is so far up until now the anime has pretty much mirrored the manga. There have been some minor tweaks there and there but that is the nature of adaptation from one medium to another. It is not the almost panel for panel reproduction of something like Naoki Urasawa’s Monster but it is hardly the fast and loose takes of something like Hayate The Combat Butler or Excel Saga as well. So this episode really stands out as it is the first instance that a good deal of completely original material has been added.

In the manga this episode basically speeds by in one chapter called “Become a Normal Girl Again”. It sort of starts in the same place and definitely ends in the same place but the middle has much more meat in it. The real question is if that was the best idea. It was certainly different.
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  Maid Madness is cuter than march madness, marble madness, and space madness but leaves you with a distinctly dirtier feeling than the other three. This episode of Fate/kaleid spends most of its first half soaking in the fetish of domestic servants in frills. But it is mostly just a needed break between dramatic events. After the three episodes of battle a bit of comedic refreshment is welcome considering how much this show is ostensibly comedic. But this being Fate/kaleid that also means awkward and skeevy fan service. Don’t worry there is some real story at the end.

On a tangentially related note if you ever really needed a refresher on how Fate/kaleid characters are different from their Fate/Stay Night counterpoints the simplest reminder is oddly enough the 9th chapter of the All Around Type-Moon manga. It has Prisma Illya and Miyu meeting Fate/Stay Night Rin. Sadly the manga ends just before the best meeting really started.

That also makes me think. When are we going to get the Army of Saber clones vs. all the Rin and Sakura variants crossover manga.

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  Who is Archer-ko, you might ask? If you don’t spend long periods of time looking into Type-Moon minutia that is not a name that would be familiar to you. But she is a semi-popular fanon character that as far as I can tell originally comes from the Sword Dancers doujinshi series. She is a version of Illya from the future who becomes a counter-guardian in an alternate timeline instead of Shiro. Therefore in that timeline she is Archer in the place of EMIYA. This alternate future Illya is then summoned to the present with all the standard powers we know for Archer but in the form of a cute girl.

That is either an explanation that makes perfect sense to you or something that requires charts and footnotes to even get something close to as partial understanding of.

Sufficed to say she is a fan made character whose atheistic appeal and odd back story hooked her a small fan following, But now that she has essentially appeared in an official work she has crossed that thin but important line from popular fan creation to official part of the universe. It sort of reminds me of the whole Fionna and Cake deal from Adventure Time. It is really only a matter of time before she start appearing in things like Carnival Phantasm or Fate/Extra.

Actually the random thought that just popped into my head was: “Wait! EMIYA has all the powers he does because his origin is Swords not because he became a counter-guardian. Therefore Archer-ko should have a completely different set of powers as a counter-guardian more probably aligned to the Third Magic.” Then I remember the MST3K mantra and the fact that the character was mostly made because someone thought dressing Illya up as Archer was hot.

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