Tenka Seiha » Fate/CG #07 — What I Would Give For a Ball Gag

Fate/CG #07 — What I Would Give For a Ball Gag

November 12th, 2011

No, I haven’t given up on it yet, but I’m not going to talk about it unless it does something interesting. The first half was the usual parade of talking heads with Iskander’s random nonsense (but more amusing than the alternative) but the second half was much better although I can only find one sided destruction of CG (or CG destruction of property) so interesting. After the first clip, Saber and Caster spent the rest of the episode talking, and the second, well… Did every character involved in the scene really need to explain the move? I long for the subtle and nuanced exposition of Index. Let’s have a real fight already, UFOTable. Enough of characters dancing with CG pasted on afterwards.

Posted in Fate/Zero | 30 Comments »

30 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

Insatiable says:

November 12, 2011 at 10:45 am

It’s not getting any better considering how closely they’re following the source material. At best, the only fight really worth mentioning will be the one between kiri and koto. In other words…

This show is a horrible adaptation.

AGear2Ax says:
November 12th, 2011 at 10:52 am

Maybe that’s the problem with this show, it follows too closely the source material… I mean, we need more animation less talking… why the need to explain the things we can see? We are watching an animation not reading the light novels…

Aroduc says:
November 12th, 2011 at 10:59 am

Men after my own heart. A close adaptation is not the same thing as a good adaptation, particularly when moving between the written and the visual.

Insatiable says:
November 12th, 2011 at 11:02 am

Honestly, I feel like if everyone just watched the first 2 minutes of episode 1 of Hekiyoh, this problem would cease to exist.

Anonymous says:
November 12th, 2011 at 2:03 pm

The funny part is that some LN readers are kinda annoyed at LACK of insight and description.

Even so, I don’t think that this is really a bad adaptation. As far I see is very good and probably the best show this season. And volumes 1 and 2 are pretty much this wordy.

Anonymous says:
November 12th, 2011 at 5:16 pm

That’s exactly the problem as I see it. I’m still enjoying the show, but they really can cut out all the exposition that was needed in the LN and instead just show it.

The KnK movies were plagued with this endless exposition as well, it’s a shame that UFOtable is adapting these works so close to the written source then they could be exercising so much more freedom with the animation.

AGear2Ax says:

November 12, 2011 at 10:45 am

I don’t understand why after Kiritsugu put a great effort to hide himself from Kayneth… just when he have him with his guard down, has to say out his name out loud before he fire at him? I mean… do you spect Kiritsugu to kill Kayneth without second thoughts after what he did in the last ep…

Aroduc says:
November 12th, 2011 at 10:54 am

Kiritsugu is not terribly bright. Something he probably passed on to Shirou.

Keith Kurogane says:
November 12th, 2011 at 11:46 pm

Kiritsugu is not bright, period.
Shirou is much worse IMO.

willyvereb says:
November 13th, 2011 at 2:38 pm

Well, I don’t want to spoil you but Kiritsugu did have a reason to call out Kayneth.

All I can say it has something to do with forcing Kayneth to defend himself and that certain pistol he held before the credits rolled in.;)

Aroduc says:
November 13th, 2011 at 4:10 pm

Magic circuit destroying bullets. I’m well aware of the story. The point is that he could have just opened fire. Either the same thing happens, or he ganks Kayneth. They tried to combine calling out his attack for extra dramatic effect as well as an ambush, and surprise, two contradictory things don’t work well together. Hence, stupid.

willyvereb says:
November 13th, 2011 at 5:56 pm

Well, the effects of Kiritsugu’s conceptual bullets isn’t that simple (this is the Nasuverse, afterall).
Okay…MINOR SPOILERS!

His bullets have the best effectiveness if Kayneth puts all his concentration into a single magic. So he’s trying to first boost Kayneth’s ego then scare him and forcing him on completely the defensive. Thus producing the perfect scene to use his origin bullet.

Perhaps I agree that calling out his name was unnecessary since Volumen Hydragenium reacts automatically but I figure it was part of Kiritsugu’s plan to make Kayneth underestimate him. I guess he acted deliberately stupid. That and of course the Rule of Cool.

Wing says:
November 12th, 2011 at 11:28 am

Because mercury hax would still have blocked anyway it and he wants Kayneth to block the contender afterwards? I mean, kind of obvious….

AGear2Ax says:
November 12th, 2011 at 2:50 pm

Well, the point isn’t if mercury hax CG could have blocked the bullets or not even if Kayneth was distracted… the point is that it is silly to shout out the name of your target and make it aware of your presence instead of a hit&run kind of approach…

Anonymous says:
November 12th, 2011 at 3:21 pm

You will understand it once you see Kiritsugu plan next week.

hello123 says:

November 12, 2011 at 2:41 pm

I don’t understand why you are still complaining about the CG.

Imagine if the mercury wasn’t in CG. It would have been a big grey ball. The CG allows it to have the properties it has shown in the episodes, like reflections, depth, volume.

Don’t like it? Don’t watch it. Simple as that. Stop pulling complaints out of your ass for every little thing you don’t like.

Anonymous says:
November 12th, 2011 at 3:11 pm

A non CG mercury in anime nowadays would be really laughable.

hello123 says:
November 12th, 2011 at 4:43 pm

Then why does he keep on complaining? I don’t understand his way of thinking at all behind all that poor sarcasm.

Anonymous says:
November 12th, 2011 at 5:21 pm

Aroduc has a long history of not liking CG, especially not in action scenes.

Anonymous says:
November 12th, 2011 at 5:52 pm

Except when he praises the battles in C3 and Horizon, both of which filled with much uglier CG due to the lower production values they have.

Aroduc says:
November 12th, 2011 at 5:54 pm

Funny what having choreography, direction, style, and fights lasting more than 20 seconds can do, eh?

I’m a lot more forgiving of CG (and stylistic clashes in general) if they actually do something with it, not just have it pulsate in the background or because they were too lazy to draw tentacles.

Kunagisa says:
November 13th, 2011 at 12:59 am

Why do you care if he complains really?

His complaints are mostly valid for his own personal taste. I assume you’re not reading this blog just so he can agree with everything you are thinking … right?

Anonymous says:

November 13, 2011 at 12:43 am

I know Kiritsugu is a retard and all, but why didn’t he just accelerate the first time and give him a headshot instead of jumping in the hole?

Anonymous says:
November 13th, 2011 at 1:32 am

The speed only speeds up his own body, not the bullets themselves, so it would not have been able to get through his shield.

FlameStrike says:
November 13th, 2011 at 2:46 am

Hahahaha, stuff like this is why there’s so much exposition in the anime. All of Kiritsugu’s plans and etc where explained in the LN, but now when it’s cut out people are going “LOL KIRISTUGU IS DUMB? I NO UNDERSTAND!”, then when the exposition IS left in and explained, some other people go “LOL SO MUCH EXPOSITION, WHY EXPLAIN WUT U SHOW?” I bet if they left out the exposition in caster’s fight and etc there are going to be some head scratchers left in the dust. There’s just no avoiding complaints.

For me, I’m still loving the anime as whole. Even I admit that sometimes there is an excess of talking, but it doesn’t bother me much as I’m cool with exposition. The reason why many people like faithful adaptations is because there’s a much higher chance that if a studio changes things it will be for the worse. Of course I’m all for positive changes to improve adaptations, but with good source material then even a faithful adaptation will have a degree of success. At worst you’ll get a voiced version of an awesome novel that’s entertaining in its own right. Well, just making an audio book/drama would be a huge waste of potential though.

As for the CG, I guess that’s just personal taste, nothing more to be said.

Aroduc says:
November 13th, 2011 at 11:05 am

Those are some particularly nonsensical absolute dichotomies you’ve got.

FlameStrike says:
November 13th, 2011 at 12:41 pm

I guess I did over simplify the situation by talking as if the viewers were perfectly split between two exactly opposite opinions, but I didn’t really mean it literally. I over exaggerated to make a point: That people will disagree on how much explanation or exposition is necessarily, and that some people will speak out regardless.

Take the Kiritsugu fight for example, UFO table went to great pains (maybe overdoing it) to explain how Kiritsugu’s time control works, so no one is wondering how he went super speed or how he was able to avoid being detected by Kayneth’s search spell. Then at the same time, they didn’t go into a long explanation on how Kiritsugu didn’t bumrush Kayneth because the Mercury’s defensive speed and etc etc, or how he wanted Kayneth to get an idea of how strong his guns were for another part of his plan. Now we have some people wondering why Kiritsugu didn’t time hax and head shot Kayneth (The part that wasn’t explained by exposition), but some other people are saying that they spent too much time talking about Kiritsugu’s time ability (The part that was explained). UFOTable could do away with all the extra exposition in that fight, and the people wanting pure action would be much happier. However, if they did that some people would probably be wondering wth Kiritsugu and Kayneth did. Or if they go the other extreme and explain each and every action (What UFOTable is almost already doing) everyone would know what’s going on, but people annoyed by talking and exposition would rant on how unnecessary it is.

Of course that’s just one particular example. There are other areas that could be debated. (Did Caster, Lancer and Saber REALLY need to stand and talk for so long? Some say it built on their characters, others say it detracted from the fight, etc) There’s also lots of people with in between in opinions (Some exposition is good, but tone up the action.), but I was just using two differing viewer ideas as an example to make my point, not as an absolute statement of fact.