Koi to Uso – 08

Ririna continues to keep her distance as the class play (Gender-swapped Romeo & Juliet) comes together in Yukari’s class. Misaki is impressing in her practices, while Nisaka is being fawned over by the girls he doesn’t like as usual, but when the costume designs are unveiled, he peaces out.

If he doesn’t want to do it, why should he? Yukari’s attempts to persuade him otherwise are failing…when Nisaka’s Dad suddenly shows up.

Nisaka’s Dad makes it clear Nisaka was always a hugely popular, magnetic kid with tons of friends, but while Yukari says he’s still popular, things have changed. Now friends are at a premium, and his Dad urges him to treasure the few who stand by him, which is kind of a dick Dad move. Whether his Dad picks up that his son likes Yukari, I have no idea, but he does like that someone like Yukari is friends with him.

When Nisaka shits on R&J as a story about two selfish fools, Yukari likens it more to their situation as notice-havers. He believes even if they’re never with the ones they love or no one accepts it, it’s “not meaningless”, which, while true in a sense, is far too on the nose with Nisaka’s feelings for Yukari to not feel a bit forced.

The only bit of Ririna we see is as she slips a postcard into the mailbox, and Yukari notes its historical theme is a little off the mark, as he really only likes burial mounds. It’s a sign they can only learn so much from each other through exchanged letters. But he sent her tickets to the play, so hopefully she’ll show.

While it’s nice to get some Yukari and Nisaka quality time in, it didn’t really move the needle forward on their plotline, unless you count Yukari meeting Nisaka’s father as progress. The fact that Yukari’s feelings are not romantic and Nisaka’s are, and Yukari has no idea of the difference, continues to hold it back. It feels static.

We witness something similar when Misaki and Yukari find themselves alone at school again. They don’t make out this time, but Misaki reports that despite her ban and the realization she wasn’t chosen, her love for Yukari has only grown and intensified. When Yukari asks her what love is, she does what anyone would do: define it in terms of how she’s felt it, all the years she’s known Yukari.

The fact that she wasn’t chosen to be his wife by the Ministry cruelly has zero effect on that love, meaning it’s now a source of short-term happiness and long-term pain. She’s also worried Yukari is starting to fall for Ririna (if he hasn’t already), and, well, he kinda is.

So again, nothing new here: Yukari still doesn’t quite know what to do. I’m not saying it’s up to him to immediately choose someone and move on, but that kind of decision is not too far off the horizon.

Fate / Zero – 11

Iris detects the massive mana of Rider heading towards the castle, and Saber suits up for a battle…only for Rider to show up in his t-shirt and pants with a giant barrel of wine. He’s not there to fight, he’s there to drink and talk. A Holy Grail “dialogue”, as he puts it.

Saber has no objection, and drinks from the barrel with Rider. Soon, Archer also arrives, on Rider’s invitation, and after rejecting Rider’s “swill” opens a portal to his treasury to draw out…a golden jug and three golden cups.

This would be absurd if it wasn’t also frikking brilliant, for Iskandar and Gilgamesh share one thing in common: they are hedonistic tyrants of yore.

Gilgamesh is such a tyrant he considers all treasures in the world to be his, since they all sprang from his treasury—a treasury so vast he isn’t even aware of all it contained.

Iskandar wants to be reincarnated as a flesh-and-blood man to take up his world conquest anew. Saber…wants to save Britain, in part by erasing all of the perceived mistakes she made in life as king. She wants a redo.

Archer laughs in her face at the fact she harbors regret for the deeds in her life, and Rider can’t help but agree. As far as they’re concerned, it’s the duty of the nation and its people to serve and sacrifice for their ruler, not the other way ’round as Saber would have it.

By insisting upon being a “slave to what’s right”, Saber might be able to save Britain, but she can never lead it, and so Rider ceases to see Saber as a real king.

Kingship, to him, has always been a wondrous gift, and throughout his rule he lived and fought as grandly and greedily as possible, living life to the extremes of both good and bad, that he might inspire men to fight and die for him. When Assassins surround them (a test by Kirei and Tokiomi), Rider transports everyone into a Reality Marble.

There, in the vast desert sands, Iskandar’s endless armies march, and when he mounts his trusty horse and orders them to advance, the Assassins are quickly routed. Saber, Iri and Waver can only sit and watch in stunned awe, while Archer does his best to look unimpressed. It’s the biggest spectacle since the port battle, and it is well and truly momentous.

When the battle is over and everyone’s back in the courtyard, Rider takes one more drink, then takes his leave, which is just as well, as I don’t think anyone’s ideals could have been shat on as thoroughly and mercilessly as Saber’s (If I didn’t know better, I’d say Rider was a cruel drunk). Archer remains to mock Saber, urging her to go ahead and continue believing in her ‘backwards’ philosophy so he can laugh at her some more.

Their words cut as deeply as any blade, as Saber remembers one of her Knights of the Round Table stepping down because he didn’t think Arthur understood his people…and Rider and Archer’s words only served to reinforce her growing crisis of confidence.

But while it doesn’t end well for Saber, like at all, it was fantastic to see three Servant Kings simply sitting in a courtyard, drinking wine, and shooting the breeze…and for Rider to show that he can back up all his big talk, and then some.