And we enter into the second part of Kiritsugu‘s back story. He clearly already started down the road towards being a complete unfeeling killing machine when he killed his father. But a gentle hand could have easily pulled him away from his monstrous path if he were placed in an environment where he was immersed in the positive things in life. But this is a Gen Urobuchi novel. That is not going to happen. By they way, It seems like Gen Urobuchi has a fetish for murdering children. I know that infant immortality is sometimes a strong trend in fiction and people like to play with it for shock value. But this goes a little above and beyond.  With Caster is was a little creepy but made sense for the historical character involved. After this episode I think it might have passed into the minor fetish category.

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I said it was a good title for this post last week and I stick by that fact. But it seems the lesson of why Kiritsugu is a ruthless assassin apparently is going to take more than one episode. But I guess you don’t turn into a mechanical murder machine from one incident in your life. It takes a bit of time and wear to fully kill a person’s soul. You have to be involved with the deaths of all the people you have ever loved for one reason or another. We flash back to Kiritsugu’s origins that made him into the Mage Killer of the 4th Holy Grail War. And so the journey of a thousand miles begins with a few significant steps in this episode. Interesting note: They did not use the standard opening in this episode. They just play the credits over a conversation while driving to get the maximum story in this episode.

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We get mother flippin Saber in a mother flippin suit on a mother flippin motorcycle in this episode. While we have not see the best of Saber on a motorcycle we have at least been given a taste of the wonders that are yet to come. That aside I guess there was that B plot of betrayal and corruption in this episode as well. I suppose I shall spend the bulk of my post going into the details of the events that are not Saber riding around on a sweet chopper. I will say that I was slightly amused that Kiritsugu’s rather Machiavellian dispatchment of Lancer and Kayneth almost universally won the Mage Killer a dedicated fan base. I was slightly surprised by the number of people who were sympathetic to Kayneth and conversely by the lack of people who condemned Kiritsugu. But the one character whose death did not seem to effect most people at all is oddly enough the one that triggers everything that happens in this episode.

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