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Old 07-16-2014, 09:49 PM   #1
Talon87
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Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya


In this re-imagining of Nasu Kinoko's Fate/stay night universe, Illyasviel von Einzbern is just your typical schoolgirl -- whose life is changed forever when a chance encounter with the kaleidostick Magical Ruby results in Ilya's becoming a magical girl. Ruby considers Ilya a more suitable master than her previous owner, Tohsaka Rin. Rin has been assigned by her mentor Zelretch to collect seven Class Cards from Fuyuki City, each containing a Heroic Spirit of legend. However, with Ruby now refusing to part ways with Ilya, Rin is unable to complete her quest. And so Rin persuades Ilya to complete the quest for her. So begins Ilya's life as a magical girl!

Prisma Illya is an interesting creature. As magical girls show, you can find better. And as FSN spinoffs go, if you want something which stays truer to the spirit of the original story then you can find better. But there's something ... magical about Prisma Illya. The marriage of the two ideas -- a magical girl anime on the one hand and an FSN parody on the other -- works surprisingly well. If you're skeptical, you're not alone: I was very skeptical myself. In fact, I almost didn't watch Prisma Illya. I only ended up watching it because I didn't want to hate on something without having given it a try first. Ten episodes later, I was already looking forward to tuning in to Season 2. So if you're a fan of FSN and aren't allergic to magical girl shows, I'd definitely suggest checking this one out. And heck, even if you are allergic to magical girl shows, you should still check this one out if you really loved FSN.
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Old 07-16-2014, 09:50 PM   #2
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Index of Past Posts


Episode 01: big bad birtha, Talon87, lilbluecorsola

Episode 02: Talon87

Episode 03: big bad birtha

Episode 04: Talon87

Episode 05: Talon87

Episode 06: Talon87

Episode 07: Talon87

Episode 08: Talon87

Episode 09: Talon87

Episode 10: big bad birtha, Talon87


Episode 01: big bad birtha
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Old 07-16-2014, 10:37 PM   #3
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That title card looks more like an H-game logo than the actual Fate/stay night one was.
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Old 07-17-2014, 12:23 PM   #4
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Hmm...maybe I was being overly critical last week. Well I watched episode 2!

Season 2 episode 2 spoilers
Spoiler: show
It was better than episode 1. I didn't feel bored to tears, and the battle scenes were cool as hell. Also Rin and Luvie were entertaining as always. Not a great episode, but alright.


Oh yeah, has anyone bothered to watch the OVA? I have it downloaded, but I haven't watched it. It seemed like it would be a big pile of fanservice.
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Old 07-17-2014, 06:30 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by big bad birtha View Post
Oh yeah, has anyone bothered to watch the OVA? I have it downloaded, but I haven't watched it. It seemed like it would be a big pile of fanservice.
Well it's funny you should mention that ... because I watched the OAV the other day before getting started on 2wei.


Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya: Undoukai de Dance! (OAV 1):

Spoiler: show
As you might surmise from the subtitle, the Prisma Ilya S1 OAV takes place during the sports festival and ties in with dancing. It's a fun little special. By no means necessary to watch, it's something that I think fans will enjoy if they're in the same position I was in when I watched it: hadn't seen the characters since last year and watching in between completing S1 and starting S2. If you've already started 2wei and then go back to this, you might find it to be a waste of your time? *shrug* But I dunno. I thought it was cute for what it was.


Our story begins with Taiga telling Class 5-1 that the sports festival will be held next Sunday. Tatsuko gets fired up and soon the entire class is abuzz with excitement. When the topic of dancing comes up, Taiga mentions that they'll be practicing for it all next week since the dance competition is worth a lot of points. Miyu mumbles to herself but otherwise seems normal.

After school that day, the loli sextet discovers that Taiga is being blackmailed by a lecherous, fat, ugly male teacher. If her class can't manage to win the sports festival, Taiga will be forced to let him partake in her delicious meat! The girls resolve to do whatever it takes to win the sports festival. And since Taiga had previously stressed the importance of the dance event, that can mean only one thing: extracurricular dance practice.


You may remember from Season 1 that Miyu is a wonder child who excels at just about everything. Academics, cooking, combat: Miyu can do it all. ... Everything except dancing. ^^; The girls soon discover that Miyu has two left feet when it comes to dancing. She's great at memorizing the moves, but her execution is too stiff and awkward. Similar to how she battles, she is too much of a perfectionist -- to the point that, as it applies to dancing, she tries to reproduce the moves down to the millimeter. It makes her dancing technically accurate but sterile. The girls try to show Miyu by example, starting with Ilya, but before long it's time to call it a day.


Miyu continues to practice very hard. Even when she should be taking a break for the sake of her own health, Miyu in secret continues to practice, pushing her body to the limit. Ilya discovers this and, after talking with Miyu a bit about dancing, falls asleep. This scene was great (along with a lot of other scenes in the special) for the Ilya x Miyu yuri fodder. I don't know why, but some fans look at me funny when I suggest an Ilya x Miyu ship. To me, it's frickin' obvious by the end of Episode 12 of Season 1. Ilya may not feel about Miyu that way, but Miyu C-L-E-A-R-L-Y is in love with Ilya.


Miyu ends up asking Magical Sapphire for help. And before long it's the big event itself.

I guess this is where I'll transition from writing a more plot summary-based post to a more opinions-based post.


I enjoyed both of Luvia's scenes. The first one, where Miyu reveals why she didn't invite Luvia to the sports festival and then we see that Luvia is quietly cheering Miyu on from the other side of the school fence ... that was both cute and a little sad. I like Luvia, even if she has her fair share of problems, and the scene of Luvia cheering for Miyu outside the school fence reminded me of a mother who, also unseen, cheers her son on in the school play or the sports meet and has to do so from the sidelines because her son was like, "Mom, don't come! You'll embarrass me! Gosh, " worried about looking like a momma's boy to the other kids at school.

Luvia's second scene, pictured above, was also good. Itou Shizuka is such fun in this role -- "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH HO HO HO HO!" -- and Luvia is such a delightfully stereotypical haughty ojou-sama type. "A fine dance, fitting of the name Edelfelt" indeed.


And speaking of that dance: here's the video of Miyu and Ilya dancing. You'll recognize the song -- it's ED1, "Prism Sympathy". I thought the dance number was part lolikon fanservice, part adorable fanservice, and part "Hare Hare Yukai" knockoff. The lolikon fanservice bits -- mostly zoom-ins to wiggling tushies in gym bloomers -- I could've done without, but to be honest the fact that they were even present reminded me of just how friendly Prisma Ilya had proven to be to a non-lolikon like me. The adorable bits -- like that little elbow pump of Miyu's at 1m20s -- were great if few and far between. As for the HHY aspect ... to be honest, it stood out to me a lot more when watching for the first time. Re-watching it now, I can see that like half of the song has the girls off screen. So you couldn't exactly recreate a faithful dance number to go with the ED credits based on this one video alone. But still. Even if it's not as obvious a HHY knockoff as other dance numbers in other animes have been, I still feel like it appeals to the same feelings in the audience that Hare Hare Yukai did eight years ago.


The bit with the girls running from Tatsuko was amusing ... if somewhat mean-spirited. ^^; Poor Tatsuko.


I thought the way the episode ended was cute. Taiga ends up losing her delicious meat after all -- though not to a fat lecherous man but instead to a bunch of lolis and shotas. It was obvious that the "meat" the children overheard the teachers talking about had to have been literal meat and not a metaphor for Taiga's body, but it still surprised me in the end to learn the specific details behind the meat Taiga was so desperate to preserve.
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Old 07-18-2014, 12:56 AM   #6
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We're back for another season of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya! Last summer was Season 1. This summer, we'll get to enjoy the next installment in the series: Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei!


2wei Episode 01:

Spoiler: show
What can I say: I absolutely loved this episode. Not in the "10/10 masterpiece" sense, but in the "7/10 Good but oh my god I am having too much fun ^^; X3" sense. Even though I had watched the OAV within days if not hours -- or perhaps because I had watched it recently -- I was super stoked to see all of my favorite friends again from this charming little spinoff.

One thing which really impressed me with this first episode was how much it felt like a prologue out of a book or film. It was well put together. It didn't feel clumsy or forced but rather genuine, natural.


One of very few complaints I had with this episode, Ilya mistaking Miyu for Shirou and almost kissing her on the lips again was a scene I either:
  1. would have been happier without; or
  2. would have been happier with had it been the very same exact scene from Episode 10 of the first season
It seemed to follow that scene so closely that halfway through it I began to suspect that that was what we were seeing. It wasn't until the end, with Ilya failing to kiss Miyu on the lips this time and Miyu being much calmer than she was the first time, that I realized this was indeed a second occurrence. Once was enough, guys. ^^; Don't force it. To your credit, that scene in Episode 10 remains one of my favorite Nasuverse moments of all time. Why, just the other day I re-watched the scene and thoroughly enjoyed it! But if I want to re-enjoy it, let me do it that way. You don't need to go running it into the ground.

The interplay between Sella and Leysritt was one of the highlights of this early morning scene. I'd quote it or link you to a bunch of screencaps, but you should just go and (re-)watch the scene yourself. It's much better that way. (It starts at 1m15s. )


2wei wastes no time reminding viewers that by the end of the previous season we had seen the BFF-mance between Ilya and Miyu blossom into a full-fledged romance from Miyu's side of things. While Miyu has become less hostile towards Tatsuko and her other classmates, she still displays signs of attachment to Ilya. And it's more than that, as this ice cream scene shows. Miyu was already adorable to begin with. But a Miyu in love? My heart can't take so much sweetness.


The scene where Rin abducts Ilya and Miyu right in front of the other Class 5-1 girls' noses was pretty hysterical. Again, this is one of those things that has to be seen, not read about, so go watch it if you haven't already and go watch it again if you've only seen it the one time.


Luvia's as fun as ever. Another scene I can't do justice in words.

I will take this time to comment on Rin's and Luvia's role in 2wei, however, as it's another one of the very few complaints I have with the episode. While I understand that the reason behind their continued presence in Fuyuki City was more of a macguffin than anything else -- we needed some excuse to get to the juicy part with Ilya and we also needed some reason for why Rin and Ilya would be here in Fuyuki instead of back in London with Zelretch -- it still doesn't change the fact that the plot development felt contrived. "Good job collecting all of the cards, girls. Oh, and by the way: after you collected all seven cards, the thing that was supposed to happen didn't happen. You need to fix that. So go and fix it. Okay, bye."


One thing that really stood out to me while watching the first episode of Prisma Ilya 2wei was the animation.

First, it's absolutely gorgeous. Not all of the time, no, but even at its worst Prisma Ilya looks like a fairly typical anime. But in scenes like this final one inside of Ryuudou Temple's secret cave, the animation is (dare I say it) almost on par with what you'd expect out of the ufotables and the Kyoto Animations. It is very, very good.

Second, the animation's always been this gorgeous. Having gone back and re-watched small bits and pieces of older episodes when grabbing pictures to use for the Table of Contents post that lists all of our Season 1 writings, and having also recently watched the OAV, I can say with confidence that what we're seeing here in 2wei matches what we saw in Season 1.


Just gorgeous.


The episode does an excellent job of priming the viewer to want to see Ilya in her Archer form once again. So when you finally do get to see Ilya equip the Archer card and kick ass in her hybridized form, it's quite the show. Lots of flare, lots of excitement.

And now for the meat of this post ...


The #1 question on my mind before starting Prisma Ilya 2wei was, "Where to next?" Season 1 ends with the arrival of Bazett in Fuyuki City, but I wasn't sure what the author would do with her. Aside from that, I had no idea what to expect from 2wei.

On the one hand, having Ilya split into two halves is quite the cliché. I haven't read bbb's post yet, but I imagine from his outside-the-spoiler-box complaints with this episode that he was not enthusiastic about seeing 2wei revisit such a tired trope. Yet on the other hand, I feel like this was the perfect plot development for the author to explore at this moment in time. :o I mean, just think about it:
  • he's tongue-in-cheek toying with the idea of 2's. "This is Season 2," he says. "Or, as I like to call it, 2wei. So I should do something that has to do with twos. Twos, twos, two ... hmm ... aha! " What better way to roll in Season 2 than to have it be about two Ilyas?
  • presumably so long as Archer Ilya -- or Dark Ilya as Rin appears to be calling her -- exists separately from Ilya, presumably Rin and Luvia will be one card short. That's no good if they're supposed to report back to Zelretch with all seven cards. So macguffin for their extended stay aside, this gives them a more concrete reason to stay put. It'll be too late to explore this plot twist if/once the cards are handed over to Zelretch. If we want to explore the idea of Archer Ilya splitting off from normal Ilya, it's now or never!
  • Miyu (explored below)
Part of what makes Dark Ilya such a fascinating little plot development is the uncertainty surrounding her allegiance and her role in the story. The end of Episode 01 suggests she is a neutral party. The sneak peek for Episode 02 suggests she is an antagonist. And the ending credits, with the part where she's desperately reaching out to Ilya who is just out of arm's reach, suggest that she is an ally. How do we reconcile these bits of data? Well, I'm guessing that it's going to go something along the lines of:
  • Rin and the others are going to want to try and merge Dark Ilya and Ilya back into one person again; Dark Ilya, valuing her newfound freedom and separate identity, is going to resist their efforts (this is pretty typical of the genre)
  • something or someone is going to come along and make Dark Ilya whimper in fear and wish Ilya was there to help her
  • Ilya and Dark Ilya will end up teaming up and becoming friends. Presumably Dark Ilya will go back inside of Ilya
But the thing is, who knows!? Normally these kinds of stories are told such that a person splits into two halves -- their nice guy half and their evil guy half. The nice guy is usually this comically polite pushover while the mean guy is just horrible. But that's not exactly what happened with Ilya and Dark Ilya. Despite the names, Ilya seems to pretty much be the Ilya we've always known her to be -- good and bad all rolled into one. The only difference is, she exists separately from the person she becomes when she equips the Archer card. That Ilya -- the Archer-equipped Ilya -- now seems to exists as a separate person. Again, not necessarily good or evil (despite the fact that the sneak peek for Episode 02 makes her seem like an antagonist for the time being). Just separate.

But perhaps the thing which most excites me about this plot development is how it will affect Miyu. After all, the episode has gone out of its way to re-establish the fact that Ilya is more than a friend to Miyu -- she's the girl Miyu's in love with. So what is going to happen now that there are two Ilyas?
  • Is Dark Ilya going to try and steal regular Ilya away from Miyu?
  • Is Dark Ilya going to try and seduce Miyu?
  • Is Miyu going to find herself torn between Ilya and Dark Ilya?
These questions and more are what I'm wondering might happen with Miyu in Season 2. Suffice to say that I feel like even though Dark Ilya is the obvious choice for a star character in 2wei, the real star will probably prove to be Miyu.
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Old 07-28-2014, 11:16 PM   #7
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2wei Episode 02:

Spoiler: show
Sorry that this post is so late! @_@ Rest assured: when I finished watching this episode almost one week ago, I went on an image-hunting spree for an awesome post. I kind of overwhelmed myself in that regard and then didn't feel like going through the effort of a huge, image-heavy post. ^^; But since UTW's release of Episode 03 should be coming up pretty soon here came out almost two days ago, I'd better get my thoughts on Episode 02 out without further delay.

If there is one thing that stood out to me with Episode 02, one thing that I had to choose to discuss, it would have to of course ... be this:








...

...


... eh?

I ... I think I'm seeing things. Because surely I didn't just see--








...

...

...


... eh?

This.

scene.

was.

in.

credible.

And I'm not attaching any particular sentiments to that statement. No joy nor rage, no delight nor disgust. Make of this scene what you will! But love it or hate it, it. was. incredible. Unbelievable. This scene felt lifted straight out of an H-anime. The animation, the content, the music, all of it. While I imagined -- nay, called -- that something like Dark Ilya flirting with Miyu might be a thing, I never in my wildest dreams imagined a scene like this. Even manga readers I think were pleasantly shocked!


When we talk about taking a manga and bringing it to life in the form of an anime, this is what we mean. But wow, folks. O_o Wow ...!

So ... what were my personal thoughts on the scene? Well, my only major gripe is the characters' ages. Not for them in-universe -- it's not as though 5th graders don't ever kiss or think about kissing -- but for us watching at home, it would be a little less uncomfortable if they were girls in their late teens at the very least. Other than that ...


I loved it. I was squealing and "OH MY GOD "-ing like such a fangirl. It was so cute ... it was so hilarious ... the scene was just done so perfectly. It could have easily been done so wrong and felt like a really gross rape scene, but somehow they miraculously dodged that bullet and gave us an adorable comedic gem.


When Ilya races over to Miyu's side, for instance, oh my god! How they played it up like Miyu had been mortally wounded in battle. And the way Miyu talks to Ilya then ... it's like she's a king's fallen knight, apologizing for not having been stronger ... and then she "dies," and Ilya's all "MIYUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! ;-;" in that shrill little voice that only Kadowaki Mai does. It was so perfect.

So the burning question of course is: what did Miyu think of it? And the episode is kind enough to reveal later on that Miyu, ashamed to admit it, somewhat enjoyed it. (Dun dun duuuuuuuun!) Which of course leads us to the thrilling romantic setup where:
  • Miyu is going to have to grapple with her feelings. For example, does she feel like she's betraying Ilya to have enjoyed the kiss from Dark Ilya?
  • Ilya is going to have to decide whether she'll fight Dark Ilya over Miyu or whether she'll leave Miyu to the Dark Ilya wolves.
Miyu is so adorable that I can't wait to see how this all plays out for her.

Spoiler: show
Splitting this post artificially into two halves to make reading it a bit easier. You can think of that first half as the kiss scene commentary and this part of the post as ... well, just about everything else.


Episode 02 marks the first time we get to see the new OP credits. And while Bazett has yet to show up, the OP is kind enough to confirm that she will play a major role in this series. The OP also suggests, similar to the ED, that Dark Ilya is not going to be a villain forever but that she will be an antagonist for quite some time.


I thought the part with Ilya's unlucky morning was cute, solid fun. The Prisma Ilya we know and love.


One of the biggest questions on my mind at the end of Episode 01 was, "What will Dark Ilya's personality be like?" The sneak peek for Episode 02 hinted that she might be something other than a) Ilya's exact clone or b) Ilya's exact opposite. Episode 02 sure enough confirms this: Dark Ilya has a unique personality that seems to be pretty darn independent of Ilyasviel von Einzbern. It begs the question: is the entity we're calling "Dark Ilya" actually the spirit of the Archer card given form in Ilya's body? The thing is, Episode 02 does suggest at other points that Dark Ilya is in fact an entity that branched off from the original Ilya. Like, it seems apparent that Dark Ilya has all of the original Ilya's memories. She knows who Miyu is, she knows the limitations of combat as a Kaleido magical girl, she remembers battling Berserker, so on and so forth. So yeah. I guess that while Episode 02 answers my question from Episode 01 in one sense, in another sense I guess it does not.


The combat in this episode was pretty nicely animated. Not too much to say about it though. Human interaction was the show stealer this week, not flashy spectacle.


Was this the first time we've seen Rule Breaker in the Prisma Ilya universe? I think it might be. I don't remember there being any opportunities for it to show up in the battle with Caster in Season 1, and I can't recall seeing it later on either (although that one I can't really rule out; I feel like maybe we saw it? ). Either way, it was a nice nod to the franchise to see it show up here.


Easily my second favorite scene of the entire episode. The kiss was phenomenal, but seeing Rin and Luvia like this ... just perfect. Once again, you can tell the voice actresses are having a blast. God bless Itou Shizuka. Anyway, yeah. Great reactions from Rin and Luvia. Great reaction from a mortified Dark Ilya. And great reactions from Ilya and Miyu, half lost in disbelief, half embarrassed to admit that they even know those two.
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Old 09-17-2014, 01:00 PM   #8
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I've finished the second season of this show. I've been watching, but nothing really much to say. Some final thoughts though:

Illya season 2 spoilers:
Spoiler: show
For the most part, it's a fun show with some really cool action scenes. This show has some really exciting fight scenes. The character development isn't half bad either, which is an improvement over season 1, which I felt was kind of cliche. My biggest issue with Prisma Illya S2 is the SoL scenes. I don't know why, but when I see Illya's classmates, I want to throw something at my screen. Watching them do their boring, forced hijinks fills me with rage. That's the main reason I was so irritated with the first episode.

This season seems to cover Fate/Hollow. Still, I wonder if Shirou will actually contribute in battle, or if he'll just stay boring harem fodder.


I'm not sure what to rate this, to be honest. I guess I'll give it a 7? I enjoyed it well enough I guess.
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Old 02-02-2018, 12:49 PM   #9
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WE'RE BACK! I might be three and a half years late to the party, but ... I am finally, finally committing to watching the rest of Prisma Ilya. We left off last time after I had seen (but not yet written about) Episode 03 of Season 2. I had been enjoying it so much I wanted to roll out the red carpet treatment for every episode. But this was taking increasingly much of my time and became so onerous that I ended up not posting at all. And because I didn't want to advance with the show prior to writing up a post (because I knew it would compromise the eventual post's quality), I just ... ended up de facto dropping a show I adored. Well, three years and some months later it's been picked back up. I actually started a month or so ago, and have since rewatched all of Season 1 (plus the sports festival OAV), the first three episodes of Season 2 ... and have even pressed on, after re-watching 03 five times and still not pushing myself to post, with watching Episode 04. ^^;

I don't think I will do big red carpet treatments this time. But I would still like to offer up episode posts. So ... we'll see. I might do posts in chunks of episodes or even in entire seasons. I will try my best not to fall into the trap of writing de facto episode summaries or play-by-plays. They take way too much time and I'm going to assume that if you like the show then a) you've already seen it and/or b) you'd rather watch the episode for yourself than read my thoughts on every 30-second segment of the show.
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Old 02-02-2018, 01:10 PM   #10
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2wei Episode 03:

Spoiler: show
Following the lesbian hijinx of the previous episode, this was the episode that three years ago ground my posting to a halt as I scrambled to write up a post that could appropriately convey in words what I felt about what I had just seen. Three years later, I find myself a lot less blown away by the episode (and, for that matter, the entire production) than I was at the time. I'm not sure what factor or combination of factors it is, but I definitely feel ready to at least write some short (by my standards) posts about the episodes I see.

Episode 03 escalates the action and in a lot of different ways. It ...
  • has Chloe kissing all of Ilya's friends and even Fujimura-sensei
  • introduces a possible plot twist that Miyu is Shirou's biological sister
  • establishes that Chloe is at once both a copy of Ilya and at the same time not. Shared memories, very different personalities.
  • introduces that not only does Ilya crush on Shirou, not only does Chloe crush on Shirou ... but Luvia and Rin also crush on Shirou!
  • has Ilya's secret life as a magical girl revealed to her friends (but subsequently played off as cosplay)
  • has Chloe's side-by-side existence with Ilya revealed to her friends (but subsequently played off as Chloe being Ilya's "cousin" from Germany)
  • establishes a blood pact which limits Chloe's ability to harm Ilya
  • further establishes something previously introduced: that Chloe is not intent on killing at Ilya at all costs, but rather very specifically wishes to replace her; in other words, mutual annihilation is not acceptable
I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting. Lord knows I originally had over ten different pictures planned for ten different subsections of this post. But for now, suffice it to say that this episode covers a lot of ground quickly and does so in an exhilarating, titillating fashion.

I think my favorite thing in this episode is the plot twist that Miyu "mistakes" Shirou for her older brother. The fact that Miyu and Shirou share identical eye colors is something I would have never noticed before, but now that the implication has been brought to our attention I can't not see it. I definitely think it will be revealed that the reason Miyu is an orphan is the same reason why Shirou is, and I look forward to seeing where the story goes from here.


One thing that continually surprises me about Prisma Ilya is just how good it looks. I brought a lot of attention to this in 2014. It's just ... impressive how pretty they make it look on so (relative to ufotable productions) small a budget. And to be fair, it's not like the show is a Studio Ghibli movie from start to finish. Lots and lots of lesser scenes feature the sort of animation quality typical of series like this. But every important scene doesn't. And a number of the unimportant scenes also don't look shabby. The animation director knows how to achieve much with little.

(The spoiler boxes below contain possible spoilers through Season 03. I am unsure myself.)
Something I'm less excited about, especially as the spectre of:

Spoiler: show
a permanent Chloe

looms on my peripheral horizon, is how Chloe has been introduced to everyone else as "Ilya's cousin" but remains hidden from Sella and Leysritt and is known to Shirou as Ilya proper with a suntan. It creates a schizm of misinformation that has to come to a head at some point, especially if:

Spoiler: show
Chloe isn't going to be written out of the show.

Further complications arise, and will have to be dealt with eventually, when we're told that Ilya is only at one-third or one-quarter her normal power level. The implication is that her mana is being spent powering Chloe's very existence, but if:

Spoiler: show
Chloe is to remain with us for the long haul

then we're going to have to address the reasons for this power drop sooner or later.
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Old 02-02-2018, 01:21 PM   #11
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2wei Episode 04:

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Not too much to say here. This episode brought me the excitement of my very first "new" Prisma Ilya episode in over three years, but aside from that excitement I think it was a pretty ordinary fourth episode of a second season. Like ... it was enjoyable, but nothing to write home about.

I enjoyed how much time Caren got to have onscreen. This version of Caren is reimagined as something of a slightly older, MILFier lady. That's perfectly fine by me! While the earlier episodes I had seen had teased whether Prisma Ilya universe's Caren is involved with the mage & Church stuff or whether she is simply the school nurse, Episode 04 goes ahead and reveals that, yes indeed, Caren is here on assignment. They actually take it to humorous extremes, having Caren all but tell the students that she doesn't care about them. They stop short of saying who exactly she is here to monitor, but it will be interesting to see how the Church, which was entirely absent from Season 1, factors into the Prisma Ilya universe.

More hinting that Shirou is Miyu's actual biological brother.

I'm having a hard time getting a read on what the author's intentions are for Chloe's identity. I think we can safely rule out that she's "Ilya minus the inhibition" or "Ilya's dark side" or whatever else. She isn't really Ilya ... She has Ilya's memories, and she even shares many of Ilya's same desires ... but their personalities are so utterly different from one another. It feels more like ... the author has a preconceived notion of what the Heroic Spirit Archer is like, and if you treat H.S.Archer like a lens and Prisma Ilya Ilya like a beam of light, then Chloe is the light that comes out the other side of the lens. You pass P.I. Ilya through the H.S.Archer lens ... and you get Chloe. An "Ilya" with Ilya's memories and desires but with H.S.Archer's personality. I'm not sure if that's the correct answer, but that's my current running hypothesis.
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Old 02-05-2018, 11:22 AM   #12
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2wei Episodes 05 and 06:

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So, it's finally been explained who or what exactly Chloe is. And ... I can't say I'm too thrilled with it ^^; , but whatever. Supposedly in the Prisma Ilya universe, when Irisviel and Kiritsugu have their baby, at eight months old Irisviel does something to the baby that causes there to be a rift between before and after: Chloe is the Ilya from before the rift whereas the Ilya we know is Ilya from after the rift. So they supposedly really are the exact same person ... and yet Chloe has a different skin tone and personality than Ilya has. It's weird and doesn't make good sense. It's further complicated by Chloe being identified as the Holy Grail (which of course fits with what we know about Ilya from FSN proper) but nobody acknowledging that Ilya would also have to be the Holy Grail. It's further further complicated by Chloe telling Miyu that she is what happens when Ilya summons the Heroic Spirit Archer from the Class Card ... but never quite identifying as Heroic Spirit Archer.

I dunno. Based on what I'd seen up until this point, if it were me and I had been writing this story, I would have made it so that when others use the Class Cards to summon Heroic Spirits they do like what Miyu does, and they gain the armor and attributes of that spirit but are still themselves in body and soul, but when Ilya does it she takes it one step further and actually invites the Heroic Spirit proper from the Throne of Heroes into her body and allows them to take over her body for the duration of the summoning. It would have made a lot more sense out of why Chloe has the Archer dark skin and such a wildly different personality from Ilya, i.e. because she's Heroic Spirit Archer inside of a 10-year old girl's body. (Of course, Chloe acts nothing at all like 5th War Archer from the FSN universe, so I suppose there would've still been stuff to complain about even had they gone this route.)

I don't get the impression that we're going to get much more explanation on Chloe's backstory. It feels like this was it. And yet ... it still feels incomplete. We're still not sure what changed Irisviel's and Kiritsugu's mind about the Grail War, or why they would have performed a mindwipe on their baby. It's still not clear why performing a mindwipe resulted in a schism, dividing one girl into two, instead of just ... you know, the orthodox interpretation of memory alteration in fiction which would be that you're still the one and only you, it's just that now your memories have been altered.

It's also a little rough around the edges how the Prisma Ilya writer attempts to have his cake and eat it too with the Einzbern clan. He simultaneously argues that they were involved in the Holy Grail War (!!!) ten years ago and that they are a magical family that goes back over a thousand years ... but at the same time that "they have no ties to others of the magical families," notably that Tohsaka Rin has absolutely no idea who they are (and thus in the Prisma Ilya universe there is zero involvement of the Tohsaka family in the Holy Grail War) ... I dunno, it's all just really messed up. I guess these were always going to be the dangers of doing a spin-off that is half-based on the original and half made-up, but I guess in S1 where we were only just dipping our toes into the pool it was easy for everything to come across as perfect and polished. Now that I'm halfway through S2 the chinks in the armor are starting to show, and it's disappointing to say the least.

If I had to point to a "jumped the shark" moment for the series, at least as of this writing, it would have to be S2E06 with the moment Iri's car comes crashing down into the middle of the fight between the three girls. I certainly hope that this won't last and that I'll feel like the series is right back on the rails doing strong again in later S2 or in S3 ... but for right now, at least, I feel like Camelot is over.

Credit where credit is due though: S2E05 was the most atypical and unorthodox "bathhouse episode" I think I have ever seen in an anime. The air quotes are very much deserved here: while it technically is set in a bathing room and features many of the tropes associated with such a setting (BOOBS, for one), it is about as distanced from typical bathhouse episodes as they come. The focus is primarily on plot and characters, and they actually use the bathhouse to further both. Was really, really strange seeing this setting used seriously and not, as it typically is used, for a throwaway fan service filler episode.

Six episodes in and Bazett still hasn't really appeared outside of one brief scene in an early episode where she's shown at the airport interacting with some kid and his family. We still have no idea who she is in this universe or why she matters to its plot.

Now that the Holy Grail War is officially canon in the Prisma Ilya universe, I'm expecting to see something eventually with Kiritsugu and the creation of this fork. Because I do think that's what this is going to have to be at this point: that Prisma Ilya's universe is a fork off of the main FSN universe, and that it's going to tie in somehow to Kiritsugu and the 4th Grail War. We'll see.
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Old 02-05-2018, 12:02 PM   #13
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Old 02-06-2018, 06:02 PM   #14
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2wei Episode 10:

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Now I see why Bazett was introduced so late: because she's an ultimate. You can't introduce her early. Once you introduce her, you have to either kill her, be killed by her, or (as they did) somehow neutralize the threat / buy time. Having never played F/HA before, I never realized she was this badass. She's basically a younger, female Kotomine Kirei. And instead of being an Executor in the employ of the Church like Kirei or Ciel, she's an Enforcer in the employ of the Mage's Association. The idea is fundamentally similar: a human killing machine, a Bruce Lee on steroids, "if Bruce Lee had Shirou's Avalon-granted stamina and Saber's great strength."

Still, I'm somewhat disappointed with how things end. It feels like Bazett is going easy on Ilya & Friends throughout much of the fight, yet this is never expounded upon. (Does Bazett have a soft spot for children? Is she secretly averse to killing, preferring to KO foes rather than kill them? Other?) And yet in the end, Bazett loses to Team Kaleid Liner -- and becomes none other than Chloe's metaphorical cousin, a fellow pain-slave of Ilya's.

Not too thrilled with the idea that so long as Chloe exists we're never going to see the Archer card again. Archer Ilya was 10x more exciting and interesting a character than Chloe has been. Not saying I want Chloe dead, but ... I dunno ... I'd be lying if I said I didn't think the story would have ended best had Chloe faded back into the aether.

Even worse, the series re-acknowledges that Ilya is still operating at like 25% of Season 1's energy levels. Even if it were cheap and hand-wavey and still invited my scorn, I would have at least preferred it to what we got (NOTHING!) if they had done something like, "Oh, with THIS, you're back at 100% max output and simultaneously Chloe still gets to exist too." I had thought that that was what we were witnessing happen when Chloe wished to the Grail that she not fade away -- only for a later episode to reveal, "Sorry, nope! Chloe's still in need of others' mana if she doesn't want to disappear." And, of course, that Ilya is still not back to max capacity.

All of this makes Chloe feel like, in some ways, one of the worst things that could have happened to Prisma Ilya. I mean, don't get me wrong! I was super excited back in the day by Eps 01, 02, and 03. And I still love them to this day. But like ... it feels like 2wei has badly neutered the series, and that the only way to un-neuter it is to either kill Chloe off (which isn't going to happen) or else to do an unsatisfactory deus ex machina that explains away Ilya's energy drop.

Really enjoyed seeing Rider Miyu. Super cute! Super cool.

Mixed feelings, though, on the reveal that Rider Miyu is like Archer Ilya rather than like Saber Miyu. I both like it and dislike it for some of my theories that it rules out, primarily the one that Ilya can summon Heroic Spirits' very souls into her body because she's a soulless Homunculus. If soulful Miyu can do it, then we get to have soulful Prisma Ilya too. To say nothing of the fact that I've never much cared for or bought the idea that Iri and Ilya are soulless dolls.

Mixed feelings, also, on the presence of an eighth card. On the one hand, it feels very Hollow Ataraxia (and I mean that in a bad way rather than a good), very ... oh, how shall we say ... tacking on "me too"-style baggage to an already fleshed-out story in FSN. It also feels like a massive plot hole re:Season 1, because Season 1 made it abundantly clear that every time we got a Class Card that the closed space in the next world would be smaller, that this was why it was such a ridiculously cramped space when fighting Berserker, and that Berserker was "clearly the last card" because you couldn't get any smaller than this. Welp, we're getting smaller. And if we don't, then it'll be an internal inconsistency.

One reason I think I'm unhappy with Chloe's persistence or in turn Ilya's having to power Chloe ... is that I had really been looking forward to seeing Berserker Ilya and we still haven't gotten to see that. It had better be in S3!
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Old 02-07-2018, 01:38 AM   #15
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Overall thoughts on Season 2 of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya ... it's difficult to say with confidence just how good or bad this season was compared with Season 1. When I put the series down in 2014, I did so quite unintentionally and because I couldn't handle just how incredible the series was. "Incredible" in the truest sense of the word: "I can't believe what I am seeing." Picking the series back up in 2018, I don't think my excitement ever got above an 8 out of 10. Indeed, were I to give it an overall score, I'd probably say 2wei gets a 7/10. It was good, but not great. It remains one of the very best magical girl series I've ever seen, but perhaps that's because it is ever an FSN facsimile in magical girl sheep's clothing.

S2 asks a lot of questions that it then fails to answer. The creators admit as much, teasing that Season 3 -- labeled the second half of 2wei -- will answer at least some of these. That doesn't change the fact, though, that Season 2 all on its own feels somewhat incomplete. This is made even stranger by the fact that 3rei was already being published in manga form, iirc, when 2wei first started airing -- and the fact that S2 feels so, so stretched / stalling for time. While it was ten episodes in length, I feel like we only got six episodes' worth of content. Season 1, by contrast, gave us ten that felt like ten.

Looking forward to 2wei Herz.
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