UBW Blu Ray Q&A

[Milbunk]

So apparently from what I can gather if you want to ask Nasu or Takeuchi a question you can fill out this sheet and they might answer it in the next Q&A when the blu ray comes out next year.

http://www.fate-sn.com/ichimon/index.html

I've already put in a few, is anybody else interested?

[Cherry Lover]

I still want to know what happens to Sakura post-Fate and UBW (which is actually a relevant question here, assuming the anime doesn't answer it). Whether he'll respond to that is another matter, though....

[Elf]

. . . I want to ask who was Archer's Lover.

She was mentioned in both UBW and Extra.

[SINIB]

Plz be luvia. Plz be Luvia!

[Kat]

I would ask about every glaring plothole caused by ufotable's laziness.

[Kiritsugu_Emiya]

How the fuck did Saber kick Herk's ass in episode 3 would be my question.

[Kaze]

How did Saber whoop Herk?
How did Shirou and Rin not get their organs squishied by Kuzuki?
Why did Kuzuki and Caster run from Saber after he already beat her?
Why does Saber have minimal importance at best after her rather significant role in Zero?

To name a few. While the latter two make sense if you've read the source material, as a standalone anime I had expected Ufo to expand on the route and make it more capable of standing on its own outside of the VN.

[Cherry Lover]

Why does Saber have minimal importance at best after her rather significant role in Zero?

You could ask the same question about Sakura, though, with the same answer (well, that plus the HF movie...).

To name a few. While the latter two make sense if you've read the source material, as a standalone anime I had expected Ufo to expand on the route and make it more capable of standing on its own outside of the VN.

Why ask questions where the answer is just going to be "read the VN"? Particularly the third one, since the fourth one is more a question of why they decided not to add to Saber's role in UBW.

It's also not possible to make the UBW anime "stand on its own". Even if it were to include more Saber stuff, it would still ignore HF.

[SINIB]

It doesn't need to include HF stuff to be a stand alone anime. It just needs to tell its own self contained story, or at least build upon where zero left off. So far they've largely failed, and have more or less just done a completely straight adaptation of the route, sans some internal dialouging and herk vs saber.

Furthermore, Sakura was a side plot in Zero, while Saber was one of the main characters, and had a good amount of characterization and development in Fate/Zero, while now she's just a cute girl who fights occasionally. While that was fine in the visual novel, where we had just finished Fate, it is extremely jarring to an anime only viewer who's coming straight off Zero.

[Cherry Lover]

It doesn't need to include HF stuff to be a stand alone anime. It just needs to tell its own self contained story, or at least build upon where zero left off. So far they've largely failed, and have more or less just done a completely straight adaptation of the route, sans some internal dialouging and herk vs saber.

It doesn't need to include Saber either. UBW is a perfectly self-contained story without Saber being anything more than "girl who fights".

Furthermore, Sakura was a side plot in Zero, while Saber was one of the main characters, and had a good amount of characterization and development in Fate/Zero, while now she's just a cute girl who fights occasionally.

No, Sakura is not just a damn "sub-plot", she's important in Zero as well, and Saber is just there to fight for Kiritsugu anyway. There's absolutely no reason Saber should be given priority, and I'm astounded that you of all people are suggesting it.

While that was fine in the visual novel, where we had just finished Fate, it is extremely jarring to an anime only viewer who's coming straight off Zero.

And it's jarring for someone coming off of Zero to see Sakura's situation totally ignored as well. Doesn't mean they're going to cover it.

[SINIB]

It doesn't need to include Saber either. UBW is a perfectly self-contained story without Saber being anything more than "girl who fights".

Except it's not. It was written to continue building upon the story the Fate route presented us. In UBW almost all of Saber's development happens offscreen or passively, as a result of her watching Shirou and Archer do their thing. This was fine in the VN, we had just spent an entire route following Saber and learning about her, after all. We didn't need to be shown the same development twice. However, this isn't following Fate, it's following Zero. They should have done something to remedy this problem, adding new scenes, modifying old ones, whatever. Instead, they dropped the ball and
decided to take the lazy path.

Additionally, Fate/Zero set up Saber as an interesting and important character, and they advertised it as a successor to Zero. Her change confuses many anime only viewers. In Fate/Stay Night, Saber has just returned from:

1: Having a generally shitty experience in the HGW, the only servant she actually liked was back stabbed in front of her.
2: Having her beliefs on what a king should act like be questioned and gaining serious doubts about it as a result
3: Finding out one of her most trusted knights went insane because of her actions
4: Being betrayed by her master at the very last second, right when her goal was within her grasp.

It's reasonable to expect that she would show some reaction to this, but instead we get Saber being thrown out of focus completely, I don't  remember her even reacting to Taiga's story about Shirou, instead she just kept eating or something. Nor can I recall any reaction to Shirou introducing himself to her with the surname "Emiya."

No, Sakura is not just a damn "sub-plot", she's important in Zero as well, and Saber is just there to fight for Kiritsugu anyway. There's absolutely no reason Saber should be given priority, and I'm astounded that you of all people are suggesting it.

In Zero, Sakura is Kariya's motivation. She's important, yes. But Saber is one of the main characters, or at least one of the most important member of the supporting cast. Furthermore, Saber already has a presence throughout UBW. Boosting her importance wouldn't have been hard, but they instead decided to use her for being cute in a fuckton of slice of life, screen time they could have used for new Illya scenes, or even to help deal with the disconnect Saber's character has.

On the other hand, to increase Sakura's role in UBW and resolve her story would require a great deal of effort. They'd have needed to write many new scenes, and modify many existing ones. It would have required alot of time and money, far more than with Saber.

And it's jarring for someone coming off of Zero to see Sakura's situation totally ignored as well. Doesn't mean they're going to cover it.

Not nearly as much, since she disappears very early on in UBW. I think so far Saber has had more screentime than even Rin.

[Koto]

I still want to know what happens to Sakura post-Fate and UBW (which is actually a relevant question here, assuming the anime doesn't answer it). Whether he'll respond to that is another matter, though....

It's not really relevant to the blu-ray release of the first half of UBW, no.

[Cherry Lover]

It doesn't need to include Saber either. UBW is a perfectly self-contained story without Saber being anything more than "girl who fights".

Except it's not. It was written to continue building upon the story the Fate route presented us. In UBW almost all of Saber's development happens offscreen or passively, as a result of her watching Shirou and Archer do their thing. This was fine in the VN, we had just spent an entire route following Saber and learning about her, after all. We didn't need to be shown the same development twice. However, this isn't following Fate, it's following Zero. They should have done something to remedy this problem, adding new scenes, modifying old ones, whatever. Instead, they dropped the ball and decided to take the lazy path.

Well, OK, this is a valid point. They should really have brought some of the stuff over from Fate into UBW, and I assumed they would.

Additionally, Fate/Zero set up Saber as an interesting and important character, and they advertised it as a successor to Zero. Her change confuses many anime only viewers.

Yeah, and the fact that Sakura's sub-plot is entirely ignored would confuse anime-only viewers as well. It's obviously important and something that needs dealing with, particularly with Rin being in-focus.

No, Sakura is not just a damn "sub-plot", she's important in Zero as well, and Saber is just there to fight for Kiritsugu anyway. There's absolutely no reason Saber should be given priority, and I'm astounded that you of all people are suggesting it.

In Zero, Sakura is Kariya's motivation. She's important, yes. But Saber is one of the main characters, or at least one of the most important member of the supporting cast. Furthermore, Saber already has a presence throughout UBW. Boosting her importance wouldn't have been hard, but they instead decided to use her for being cute in a fuckton of slice of life, screen time they could have used for new Illya scenes, or even to help deal with the disconnect Saber's character has.

On the other hand, to increase Sakura's role in UBW and resolve her story would require a great deal of effort. They'd have needed to write many new scenes, and modify many existing ones. It would have required alot of time and money, far more than with Saber.

Yeah, I can accept that. The same basic logic still applies, though. If you're doing a Zero sequel, you need to deal with Sakura too. They're not doing that because it's not a Zero sequel.

And it's jarring for someone coming off of Zero to see Sakura's situation totally ignored as well. Doesn't mean they're going to cover it.

Not nearly as much, since she disappears very early on in UBW. I think so far Saber has had more screentime than even Rin.

I don't see how Sakura "disappearing" affects that. Her sub-plot is still clearly ignored, and she does still exist even if she's not heavily involved.

I still want to know what happens to Sakura post-Fate and UBW (which is actually a relevant question here, assuming the anime doesn't answer it). Whether he'll respond to that is another matter, though....

It's not really relevant to the blu-ray release of the first half of UBW, no.

Nor is Archer's lover....

The questions that people will ask are not mostly going to be about the blue-ray, and nor is Nasu expecting them to be. There is relatively little to explain there, because we already know the story. And, it is relevant to UBW overall (as is Archer's lover), even if not to the first part.

I would like to know why Rider's Bloodfort affected Sakura, though. It seems really bizarre given Rider's intentions and the fact that she would disappear without Sakura (so even for Shinji, killing Sakura is dumb).

[Koto]

The questions that people will ask are not mostly going to be about the blue-ray, and nor is Nasu expecting them to be.

You seem oddly confident about that.

Remember, this is the anime that still refuses to call Gil anything but "blond Servant". It's not operating under the assumption that everyone has already read the route or even that everyone has seen Zero.

[Koto]

I would like to know why Rider's Bloodfort affected Sakura, though. It seems really bizarre given Rider's intentions and the fact that she would disappear without Sakura (so even for Shinji, killing Sakura is dumb).

Sakura realized what was going on and felt guilty because it's technically her fault so she sent herself into a coma like she did in HF that one time she attacked Shirou with shadows.