Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works high session 1

Watched the first 12 episodes like 6 months ago, but didn't start writing log posts for it until now. So far it's pretty much exactly the same story as the VN, except more animated. Some of the background and animation quality looks gorgeous. Now that I'm behind on the releases, I can watch the rest of this while high at my own pace.

This UBW series really is a great, faithful adaptation of the VN story... it has some new things added, but its storytelling style emulates the VN very well... While Fate/Zero was more like... Think of this in terms of Ryukishi07-style writing. Fate/Stay Night was the "question arc", and Fate/Zero was the "answer arc"... F/SN is designed to keep you in the dark about a lot of its plot details... mostly showing things from Shirou's perspective and teasing other perspectives once in a while... while F/Z was more about showing its story from multiple different perspectives, challenging the reader a lot less while still giving them a chance to figure the rest out on their own.


Episode 13

Archer is like the embodiment of Shirou taking his dad's old path (before he destroyed the holy grail)... the path of fighting to sacrificing a few to save the most people possible.
Archer ends up hating the human world after he becomes a heroic spirit...
"In the end, he continued to be betrayed by his ideal, even after death."

... omg this animation quality is phenomenal...

Archer: "Tohsaka Rin can believe in her own path right to the end."
Tohsaka asks him if he can...
Archer: "That question is meaningless. My "end" came and went long ago."

Rin plans to take on Caster herself. Her rule-breaker makes it too dangerous for Archer to fight her. She tells Archer to take care of Kuzuki..
Archer says that no mage is a match for Caster.. but Rin is confident she can take her down. She wants to save Saber and have Shirou rejoin the war.
meanwhile Shirou is already at Caster's hideout trying to save Saber.. not even fully healed from his wounds yet...

Rin: "If you didn't see his corpse, he's probably clinging to life somewhere."
Rin thinks Caster doesn't have a human shield now, and Kuzuki will be no match for Archer... so she'll be very easy to beat. Caster has more command spells left to get Saber to fight, and probably knows Shirou is there too...

Rin starts tossing tons of high powered gems at her... one of it gets passed her defenses to act as a distraction... wtf... Archer suddenly comes and knocks Rin down. He decides to ally with Caster?

"She's a woman who would tear apart her own younger brother to escape."
"Familiars that use dragon teeth as vessels are the hallmark of the King of Colchis's magecraft. His daughter, Princess Medea, was hailed as a witch without peer."
Archer asks Caster if she has enough spare mana to support another servant...
"The situation has changed. If Saber is under your control, isn't it only natural that I go over to the winning side?"

I sort of remember this from the VN I think? This was all part of Archer's plan to get back at his former self who cursed him with these ideals...

Rin loses Archer and is now helpless against the 3/4 of them.. Shirou then jumps in to save

Final thoughts/interpretation on Revolutionary Girl Utena's ending

The ending of this series has me so perplexed, and ever since seeing the movie's interpretation I've been even more confused... I've thought about it a lot more, and I think I've found a satisfactory answer that doesn't involve the movie's heavy implications towards everything just being a metaphor for Akio raping Anthy, cuz that's a cop-out answer lol

Anthy sealed Dios away by offering to take all of the pain that Dios was receiving from the world... "The Rose Bride takes the swords in place of the prince"... Dios became corrupted by no longer having any of the pain of being the world's prince, and instead he became "End of the World". He says he's no longer the prince that Anthy cared about, and yet, Anthy continues to take all the world's punishment in place of him... Since Anthy is continuing to suffer as a witch for Akio's sake, even though Akio no longer qualifies as her prince.. He feels that Anthy must enjoy being this way... that Anthy is letting him use her out of her own free will. So in that case, what is it that Akio could want?

Even though Anthy is the one who sealed away Dios and the power to revolutionize the world, it's clear that Akio and Anthy can not access this power on their own... They need a duelist who has reached duel of revolution. I theorized before that this restriction was Akio's or Anthy's doing.. maybe it's due to Anthy's subconcious effect on Dios's power, or maybe the "good" side of Dios placed this restriction on his power so that only a good and noble prince can use it... But anyway Akio and Anthy are able to show people a glimpse of eternity and manipulate them into dueling to make the Rose Gate appear. This is what Akio did with Utena when she was little.. he showed her "eternity", and that lead her to becoming a duelist.

Later in the series, Utena can no longer draw out the sword of Dios from Anthy, for reasons that are never explained... I think it's because Akio didn't want Utena to be the one to open the Rose Gate. He wanted to do it himself, using Utena's sword. He must have already tried and failed to open the Rose Gate using the sword of Dios, so he figured he needed another prince's sword. From then on, Anthy draws out the sword from Utena in all of her duels. In the final duel, it's Akio who draws out the sword from Utena, and doing this turns Utena into a princess... I guess that Akio taking Utena's sword boosted his own princely image, and made Utena take on the form of a princess (it doesn't need to have more meaning than that really)...

Revolutionary Girl Utena movie recap

The art design in this movie is gorgeous... it's like a masterpiece in visual storytelling. 

But... wow, this plot is so different. It's nothing at all like the show...
Whereas the show had a lot of subtle cryptic symbolism, this movie's symbolism is very blatant and over the top.

Recap:

The architecture of this school is all weird, like an Escher painting...

Utena has short hair, and wearing a more princely outfit... Juri, the fencing team captain, and student council member is referred to as the "prince" of the fencing team. Miki is described as a genius... Wakaba is showing Utena around the school, when suddenly she sees Touga up in a window and goes to see him. Apparently, they knew each other.

Touga says they made a promise to go to the planetarium together... Utena is surprised to see him here, and acts unfriendly toward him. She notices his ring, and assumes he's engaged.

This ring lead me to the academy. The mark of the rose.

Utena sees a white rose in the middle of a bunch of red roses, and it blooms very brightly just as she's looking at it... a ring pops out of it, with the mark of the rose, just like Touga has... suddenly, a giant staircase leading up to a platform in the sky... ontop of the platform is a rose garden... she meets Anthy there. Anthy looks a lot prettier in this.

Anthy introduces herself as the chairman's sister, and says that she is held captive by these roses... she sees the ring Utena is holding, and tries to take it from her... Saionji appears, asks Utena what she's doing with the Rose Bride... He explains how he owns the Rose Bride, and anyone who has the mark of the rose is a duelist, who is permitted to come to this square to duel for ownership of the Rose Bride..

Utena doesn't like how the Rose Bride is being treated, so she puts the ring on to duel him. She picks up a kendo stick to duel with. Anthy notices something about her... she jumps toward Utena to save her, kisses her, and then makes a sword appear from her chest for Utena to use. When Utena pulls it out, her hair grows long and she changes outfits. Anthy also changed to a different dress when she drew out the sword.

Revolutionary Girl Utena series recap part 7 (finale)

This is the last "normal" episode before the final duel starts... the creepy side of the story clashes up with the normal slice of life school scenes.

Episode 37

Revolutionary Girl Utena series recap part 6

This is where the plot really comes together, and all that weird symbolism from earlier on in the series begins to make some sort of sense... at this point I'm only watching the rest of this series during the peak of a high session. And I'm commenting a LOT more... like each episode I spend around an hour just writing about it.

Episode 34

Akio talks about how he discovered a comet, and named it, but didn't tell anybody... just the act of naming a comet makes it feel like you own it, but nobody owns the stars...

Good night, big brother.

Must you still torture me...

Utena gets a photo with Himemiya and Akio.. then they go to see a play together.

All life is like a play. You're either an actor or a spectator.

Nobody but them is watching the play...
The play is called "The Tale of the Rose". The actors are the silhoutte characters, including the "Extra extra extra!" person and the "do you know?" person.

This story takes place when all girls were princesses. The world still hadn't fallen to darkness back then. The reason for this was because there was a Rose Prince.

An old woman warns the prince:

A witch is plotting to steal the light and plunge the world into darkness.

...

Surely you know about it, the castle that floats in the sky. That is the witch's castle. The witch who lives there now... is planning to steal the light from this world!

The light is...

and then silhouettes of all the student council members come up:

That which is eternal.

That which shines.

The power of miracles.

The power to bring the world revolution.

Prince:

Then I will defeat this witch and save the light of this world!

He goes to the castle.. the witch turns out to be the same old woman that gave him the warning.

You fool! This was all a trap to seal you into this castle! It is you who is the light!

The witch reveals her true identity as the prince's little sister.

I'm just "the little sister".. I'm the only one you can't make a princess!

...

A girl who cannot become a princess is doomed to become a witch!

The witch still wanders our dark world even now. She searches for young, noble souls to sacrifice anew! She seeks to keep another from bringing light to the world, so that darkness will reign...

That was some deep stuff...

Episode 35

Revolutionary Girl Utena series recap part 5

Episodes 28-29

A couple episodes that focus on Jury and her confusing relationship with Shiori.. and a new duelist who returns, he happens to be the captain of the fencing team that Jury was filling in for. He's Jury's rival with Shiori, but it's more confusing than that. He shows Jury the End of the World and convinces her to duel Utena...

Episode 30

Akio shows up while Utena is getting scolded by teachers about her uniform.. Akio's the school chairman, so they're all afraid of him and he takes Utena's side. Utena starts falling for Akio and thinking of him as the prince from her childhood... Wakaba is also still trying to hit on him, and she shows up when Akio shows Utena his car.

I've seen this car before, is it a popular model?

... Wakaba gets herself a date with Akio, and refuses Utena joining in and says

Three's a crowd when it comes to dates.

Later, Utena hurts her foot playing basketball, because she's distracted thinking about Akio. Then Akio shows up in his car again, and takes Utena to the hospital.. she says Himemiya should come along too, but Akio says

Three's a crowd when it comes to dates.

...when they get back, Akio kisses her..

Utena talks to Himemiya in bed about her confused love affair.. the next day, Akio's fiance and her mother show up. The mother is worried that Akio isn't spending enough time with her fiance.. then Akio hits on the mother..

Throughout this episode, 3 candles keep being shown, and they go out one by one, as Utena thinks about her conflict between loving her prince and falling for Akio who is already engaged..

Revolutionary Girl Utena series recap part 4

These next few episodes I watched during the peak of an edibles high, and I commented a lot on them.

Episode 25