AWTY 206 - GayBulge (Fate/Stay Night)

Yeah, well, unlike you, I don't get into that blue collar labor stuff. Hello and welcome to are we there yet? In exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I am an anime expert. dee hollander gonzalez.

What happens?

And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime egg. I'm smooth now.

Oh, yeah. Exciting updates in everybody's lives. First and foremost, Brendan shaved his head.

Yay.

I know.

It's the biggest, the primary one. Everyone reached their final form this past week.

Truly.

Some for the better, some for the worse. We all say who's, and I mean.

Less important, I'm married now. Whatever. Everybody was there, and it was a great time, and I married the love of my life and whatever. Who cares?

That's why we took off.

Happiness, fulfilling a lifetime of joy and grace and whatever. Okay, now that that's out of the.

Way, I can't believe he married someone he met through HomeStock. fuck wild. I want that on the record publicly.

Well, okay, so listener. My brother Ben was our officient. And in the first draft of the ceremony, he showed me it was just like an introduction he had thought of, like, a year before. And he said that we met through HomeStock. He said it, he said the name. But then during the actual ceremony at the wedding last week, a couple of weeks ago now, I guess no, still kind of a week. He said we met through a web comic and a randomized chat room. He did not say we met because of HomeStock on omega. bless my brother. But everybody knows.

Just generation proofing. It like, oh, when someone years down the line reads this story written down, they don't just get into weird terminology.

Good looking out for the history book. Yeah.

Now we're back here.

We're back here. We're back at our roots, our shameful internet roots.

You could say this is our destiny or even our fate.

Got it.

I turned into a medieval gesture in the middle there. That is my final form, unfortunately. But yeah, we've got a couple of different recommendations for a couple of different Fate series. Because it's anime. One show has a million different entry points, but yeah, so we've gotten recommendations from a few people. But Google told me to start with Fate Stay Knight, the 2006 one, if that makes it clear, because even that one, there's also another one that came out recently with an extra subtitle called unlimited blade. Will be starting the right spot. I sure hope so. You will tell me otherwise.

Will it make a difference? Do any of us truly know Fate Stay night?

I've heard of it. Here's my thing. I fully thought that the fate series was like an erotic visual novel. Dating SIM, is it not? It's not. It is a visual novel. There is like a game, but it is unfortunately not erotic.

I fully know this series as jojo's, but you date your stand, so I guess I was also wrong in that.

Well, I also know this because I know somebody who really enjoys it. And Brendan, you're going to get a kick out of this. They also love rezero.

Swipe.

Who knows?

Re endorsement. Yeah, this was one of those series where I heard the title working in localization of stuff that was going on. But I was like, I don't know. My brain can either remember it as like some King Arthur shit or just some other fantasy fairy tale stuff. But I could be conflating some other shows. So all I know is, yeah, big old war with nights and stuff. But I guess they're jojo's. So cool. That will go great.

We all have very differing thoughts about what this could be.

There's a lady with purple hair in this. And I've seen a lot of pornography of her. So I guess it's a popular series.

There you go.

That's the knowledge I'm going in with.

Well, get those expectations sky high. And we all have very different opinions on how these first three episodes will go.

Yeah.

We are farmers.

Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump.

Sponsor.

I was going to say back, but I mean, yours also equally as interesting.

Here's an ad just as interesting as our show. It's a glowing endorsement. I'm going to just get this out in front because I know you all be mad at me. It's hatchbell. We got zach Bell again.

I guess I've blocked out the plot of zach Bell.

So it's pokemon with children. This is pokemon with hot people. Hot and circle figure people.

Well, dear listener, I have the first episode to recap, but there's just so much stuff. I'm going to try to condense it a little bit and then we'll go through the pace of the show. But first off, there's just a lot.

Going on.

And very little that is interesting. So I say that. And we start out with two wizards blowing at the stage.

Boring as fuck.

Yeah, I say that. That's the opening of the series. So we hit the peak already. So we see these two people fighting. They blow up a city. And I'm again, going to conflate some scenes just to get this out a little more linearly. There's only one survivor, a young boy to limping out of the city, collapses, but is rescued by a mysterious stranger. Some might call him a mage. His name is somewhere in my notes, but his name is Emmya. Yeah. Emmya is the name of the wizard curry sugu. Emmya is the family name. That's what they call the main character. It's his adopted family name. Learning this now, yes, I realized this was what they call the main character in episode two. So they bring in this boy. He's like, hey, guess what? I'm a wizard. Can you do some magic? Cool. Not as good as me, though. But yeah, he gets brought on by a wizard. He learns eventually that he has magic. The boy is not very good at magic, especially compared to the grand master wizard that papa Emmya was. But he passes away, and some family friends look after him. And little Emmya inherited his old samurai mansion. So he has child living alone. Check. Okay, that was set up. orphan boy brought in magic. Cool. So, yeah, Emmya can do sort of like blue collar magic.

He's like gwen grayson from Sky High. He can feel technology.

Which one circuits it's?

The hot one. Mary Elizabeth winstead.

Got you.

So there's a purple hair girl. I assume this is the one from brendan's favorite porn, but no, not his favorite.

I hope mine has a bandana and a blindfold.

Backfired immediately. And we also outside of all this, we see a young woman casting a spell, summoning someone, saying like, ooh, the most powerful card in my deck. I summon you, a peculiar blonde stranger who has a witty rapport with me already.

Cool.

So, yeah, we see what purple hair girl has a name, logically, as like characters do in media, but for the life of me, it's soccer.

Soccer?

Yeah, soccer. Thank you.

You're welcome.

2006. They are not trying to be too.

Creative here, but yeah, so she's always helping look after emya. And Miss fujimura, who a descendant from one of the mage but mage is friends, is also there and checks up on them. Essentially, they all have dinner together, and there's just sort of like a found family. So trying to scroll through and figure out what is actually relevant to this and what is just a vehicle for hey, this is the introduction to an anime. Is it's a lot?

Yeah, there's an eda. He's not important. We haven't had one in a while.

So yeah, there are relevant stuff maybe. I don't know. There's news reports about gas leaks and oh, all these strange occurrences over the city of attacks and violence and what's happening as they're going to school. They see cop cars racing by. We learn later on that they're going to like, a quadruple homicide of a family. Who could do such a thing. He goes to school and he helps a club president fix their heater in their club room. But he's like, oh, can you step outside because I got to do magic, and you're not allowed to see it. And he repairs it, doing his low level magic visible.

He just closes his eyes and understands the machine. It's like he could have done that in front of people.

Yeah, that's true. He also just has to he doesn't even fix it with magic.

No, he just understands circuit videos.

The problem I guess it does make sense that it's like, oh, yeah, I'm here to fix your heater. And then you just start feeling it up with your eyes closed, and you go like, oh, yes. That might not be great for your case.

Yeah.

Yes. And believe not, because he'd see the magic, but because he just gets real weird with machines and like that's private time.

This is my alone time when I'm in the zone. Sometimes I subconsciously dirty talk and you can't be around for that.

Like that. You little heater.

Someone's got a bad coil.

We got to be careful, else we'll have to start making people pay for this.

Check out our patreon for not supermarket.

Check out our patreon for our erotic audio role plays.

You know how I think there was a better place behind the paywall content like this? What site could that be?

Listen, you know how I'm usually pretty conservative and safe for work on this podcast? We got the After Dark podcast where we really cut loose.

Hey, that's actually a really good idea.

Don't let me near that. I got problems as it is.

Hey, we need patreon ideas. I think that sounds great. Let's continue with this bullshit.

Yes, let's move on and protect my career. In children's media, we see a teacher late to class. She's young and quirky. Great. Again scrolling through what is even worth talking about in this episode.

So, played by zoe D sheetno, he's at school.

He passes by the girl we see summoning in the beginning, and in his brain he's like, oh, that's odd. I just saw her name in my notes. Sorry, I changed my notes format from actual pen and paper to the 21st century. In my phone, all the text looks the same and I'm lost. Okay.

It's rinca.

Rin tosaka. There we go. Thank you.

Sounds like tosaka. That's how I remembered it.

Oh, no.

After dark. Podcast.

Okay, well, we know Brendan stick for the rest of the episode. New business venture that we now have to deal with. Okay, we see rin on the top of the school with the blonde boy who she just calls Archer because that's his archetype. Because he's an archer.

Yeah, we never see him with a bow or an arrow, but he's an archer.

But he's got those special eyes. Brent the brand. So they're on the roof and they're like, oh, yes, enemies. Don't know where they are. Cool. They're like, oh, yeah, because you're an archer, you're not a sorcerer. Class. So your ability scores for checking, locating enemies is just a bunch of jargon that doesn't hey, no enemies are here.

Done.

That's what they said. They showed up and they're like, wow, there sure aren't people for us to fight right now.

I forget what you had to complain about. Another series that felt like it was made to be like an rpg, like a game. That's what this feels like. I think it started as a light novel and became a game, but it feels like it was made with a game in mind. First and foremost.

Yeah, trying to we have more class rule information and the cool rpg kind, not the bad society kind. We barely have information on the character. He's like, yeah, I'm magic, I guess, but what am I doing? We don't know. So they talk more about how Emmya has, like, a strong sense of justice because everyone he knew got blown up when he was a child. So he's like, yeah, let me protect people. But papa Emmya was like, oh, when you save one life, oftentimes it means you have to sacrifice another. Really filling in with great powers comes great responsibility. Stuff of don't be a hero son.

Can't save everyone, so why save anyone?

Yeah, he's walking home from work. He gets some bad vibes because there's, like, curfews since there's so much random violence popping up. He sees a blonde girl, and she says, get it? You better summon someone faster. You're going to die. whoo?

What?

Anyway, so we move on.

Spooky little Russian girl.

Yeah, nothing comes of it. Great.

Pays off in two episodes, kind of, yeah.

So more talk about his hero complex. Ms. fujimura is like, hey, you're a boy with no sense of direction in your life and a strong sense of justice. You should join the military. So the girls leave after dinner for the night, and he starts doing some magic, remembering papa Emmya, telling him for the first time, oh, I'm a mage. This is a secret. It should only be used to help others. And then we see rin and Archer on a city roof again, looking, and they're like, wow, we have great visibility up here. Not great visibility of enemies, because again, we don't see any. And then he's like, I can see the bolts on that bridge.

See?

I'm like magic. anyways, we're going to do great things in this town. And the episode ends and nothing happened.

Yeah.

I can't think of anything that you missed.

Yeah, it's a good first episode.

Really ropes you in, really sinks her teeth in you and bite your leg off and runs off with it.

And again, I cannot stress this enough, I skipped a lot of him just walking around doing normal guy stuff.

Yeah. So in the beginning of episode two, we do start with clips of the very important things that happened in the last episode.

Here's a spark note.

It was half a second long.

So episode two formally starts with a flashback. We see rin is given a necklace. Her dad is leaving. She knows he will never come back. He's probably going to die because he's going to fight in the previous Holy grail war, which we know ends in big fire. So in the present, she's sitting in bed looking at her necklace. She wanted to summon the saber servant and had been practicing the spell for ten years, but instead, she got the Archer boo. They're having tea. She says, I'm not disappointed that I summoned you, but I am disappointed.

I'm glad that you're here, because I can't get rid of you now.

But also, you are not what I asked for.

You are better than nothing. I will say that confidently.

So she says it's important that he knows his real history, his real identity, but he says his memories are jumbled because of the way he was summoned. And again, also passive aggressively is like, not that it's your fault, of course. Yeah.

This girl's like the token, like, perfectionist sort of student. She's like, I studied this magic for the last decade, and I still fucked up the summoning spell. It's like, how good are you?

Yeah, that's true.

She hasn't fixed a single heater so far, so I don't know the standards of magic I know.

So far, he's being actually useful.

Yeah.

So she says that knowing his true identity would help her make a strategy. And he says, you're a strong master. I can tell we're going to be fine. She says the upside is that the others won't know his real identity either. So the whole thing is that, like, these classes of characters are like versions of historical figures, I think. Real or fictional, maybe. I don't know.

Shrugs.

Shrugs. I'm fairly certain that the Sabre character, which is like, the blonde girl that everybody knows, I think she's like King Arthur or something. Like some I have no idea. And we don't find out.

Why are we speculating?

Yeah. So rin says that the upside is that the other people in the Holy grail War won't know his identity either. And seven masters have to be chosen for the war to begin, and they have to summon their servants. We get breakfast. banter between sakura, shiro and the teacher lady, he walks to school with soccer. He tells her she doesn't have to come on weekends, whatever. They walk into school and sakura notices that his hand is bleeding.

Whoa.

He says he's fine. It's probably nothing. It wasn't. They run into another girl as they walk in. She's a girl from the archery Club. She asks shiro if shiro is emmy, but I heard his name is shiro, so that's what I'm calling him. She asked him to keep an eye on shinji, who's, like, in the boys archery Club, and he's being an asshole. archery Girl says that shinji is probably mad because he got turned down by rin the other day. So that's a little relevant. Let's see. He talks to shinji in a stairwell, but it isn't very fruitful. He says some shit about shiro doing blue collar labor.

You love to see a high school classism. It's real cool.

Absolutely. School happens. rin is being dramatic in her window seat. She senses that an enemy is close and, like, she communicates telepathically to Archer. And he thinks that whoever it is is waiting for an opportunity to attack. shiro is leaving school after fixing a TV for the glasses guy, the club president guy, and runs into shinji. And shinji is like, hey, you're a fucking pushover. Come clean the dojo for me. So he does. He hears shinji have this conversation with all these girls he's leaving with, being like, yeah, he's such a fucking sucker. And the girls are like, stop it. He can hear you. And shero is just standing there, smiling. And I'm like, hey, maybe, like, get it together.

I mean, if I had something plot relevant to be doing right now, I'd be doing that, but I don't. So guess I really know the events of this show are happening right now.

You take the job, you say you'll clean the dojo for him, and then you just fucking bail. His responsibility.

Yeah.

He reminded me of Gary Oak from pokemon with, like, just a crowd of women, like, as they laughed. But at least Gary was just a dick. He wasn't a classist.

So shiro's cleaning late into the evening, and rin is still there on the roof of the school, waiting for the enemy to arrive. He arrives looking for a fight. He's the lancer servant. He's got a dumb haircut bring, short.

Cropped hair and one of really thin, long rat tail.

It's like a mullet, but no fun.

I've never heard of a Saturday.

Business in the front, business in the back.

So rin hops off of the roof. Archer follows, so does Lancer. Time for a fight. shiro hears it and goes outside to check it out. They're really just going at it. shiro remembers that the murder was probably done by a long blade. That's the speculation. So he's like, it's probably this guy. shiro runs into the building, but not before the Lancer guy sees him. And he follows shiro inside and says that because he saw the fight, he's got to die. So he gets stabbed, rips shiro.

I kind of respect Lance, hey, you got to die, and then kills him. He doesn't like, monologue at him for half the episode. He just gets it done.

Yeah, good for him.

Efficient.

Yeah, we love a go getter. So shiro is lying there dying, and he's just so upset that he wasn't able to save anybody during his lifetime. rin comes in, sees that it's shiro, and is, like, very upset by that. So she takes off her necklace and stands over him and casts a spell and heals him. Wow. He remembers his promise to his father again, that if he were ever made, that he would save people. And then he wakes up. Great. He just goes home after that. Well, guess I'll go home.

I already died. I can't do that again.

And he thinks those guys that were fighting didn't seem normal, not just people. And I was like, what was your first guess? Did you see their outfits, their hair? They were serving.

They looked amazing.

He remembers that someone brought him back to life, but not who. Back at home with rin and Archer, they don't know who lancer's master is. They weren't there. Archer is upset that rin used her necklace to heal shiro. And outsiders aren't supposed to see any battles, so shiro should be dead. And even though he's alive now, lancer will follow him home and kill him anyway. And surprise, he did just that.

No way.

So to defend himself, shiro uses a sheet metal poster that we saw before. And Lancer hops down and says he's mad. He's got to kill him again. Lance says there's a faint sense of magical power coming from shiro. And then we see it looks like ren and Archer are on their way to help him. shira and Lancer fight. Lancer bests him and says it's possible that he's the 7th, but he's got to die. So you don't even know. You don't even need to know what that means. And then we see that shero has a mark on his hand, and he summons the sabre servant, the blonde girl with armor that everybody loves so much.

She's great.

She's great. And so she's there now, and shiro is looking at her and he's like, I'm not speechless because I just did big magic. I'm speechless because she's so beautiful. loser. And that's episode two again.

The girl that studied magic for the last decade screws up the summoning circle. This guy this guy fixed a felix over here. Draws the summer circle with his mind, I guess it just appears.

This is a Luke skywalker. This is an anakin skywalker. This is you just they just fucking get it, you know? They have it. They have it. rin doesn't have it.

Except boys are better at magic. Confirmed by this.

Boys are better at magic.

Moving on.

Because he also doesn't have it because he only knows one type of met. It's stuff like this where it's just like the protagonist with like, the plot, armor and skill. It's like, why try to be good at anything? Just be born, right?

I also need to loudly say, I'm just kidding about that because I realized I realized I said, I'm next to the wall that borders my neighbors, and they are a pair of married magicians, and it loudly that boys are better than magic. And I really don't go bad for me right now with my personal out of podcast life. So if I just ruin this relationship with new neighbors over this goddamn podcast, over a nonchalant thing I just said about this goddamn show, I swear to.

God, I wish they were my neighbors. That sounds so great.

Hele'S weird.

They just knock on your door at 10:00 p.m. And they're like, do you want to see a card trick?

Can I fire a cup of sugar?

Oh, it's behind your eh. Oh, no, I've got everywhere. You didn't mention a cup.

Oh, man, I do love magicians.

Anyway, I just want your neighbors to be like, hey, I heard you say in some sexist shit about magicians, I hope you enjoy 1000 doves in your.

Apartment all the time. Just a scarf coming out of my like, dryer vent that never ends.

Anyway, episode three, let's get to it. Starts off a sabre, confirming that she arose her master and she's his servant, and they formed an accord. Cool. And then she runs off the fight. Lancer outside, and once outside, they start fighting, and she has an invisible sword. And Lancer calls her a coward for not revealing her noble phantasm, that is. And he's like, we all know you're a sabre. You got a sword. You're using a sabre as a weapon. She's like, why would you think that? Which, to be fair, we saw an archer using swords the last two episodes, like, I guess. But she tries to bluff and say, it could be an axe, it could be a halbert, it could be a number of weapons, it could be a bow. And I'm just using it incorrectly. Yeah, I guess. Sure. And Lancer says he's got to get serious, and he powers up and he goes into kokan. He goes, super san one, whatever, and he calls out the name of his weapon, which I found out celtic has a different name. What I heard was gay bulge.

Yeah.

I looked up the name. It's gay bulge. It's pretty damn close to gay bulge.

We're going to keep saying gay bulge.

I'm going to keep saying he's wearing a very tight outfit. So as far as I can tell, it was just stabbing with the lance again, like every other time he's done it, but this time it was glowing red and was fatal, I guess. And after he yells out the name of it, saber is able to figure out his identity and say he's a famous irish fighter that has a particular spear. And I guess that's the name of the spears, gay bulge. He says, according to the rules, that if someone figures out your identity, you have to fight them to the death. I feel like if that's the rule, you shouldn't be yelling at the name of your very infamous spear or lance. He could have just not said it. And then after he says that if you find out their identity, you have to fight them to the death, he just leaves. So I guess that's not a strict rule.

I'll see you later.

But also, everyone gets a freebie, so this doesn't count.

Yeah, it's weird to establish this is a finite rule and then ignores the rule. After he leaves, we see saber's armor kind of heal a bit on its own, and then they formally introduce themselves, sabre and shiro. And sabre can tell he isn't a typical type of master, only imagine why. And then we see shira's got a weird red tattoo on his hand now, and it starts to sting, and his arm tenses up. And zebra asks him to heal her before she goes running after him to finish off the fight. Apparently her armor can heal itself, but the wound underneath didn't. She needs him to heal her for that. He can't do it because he's an idiot. And then she runs off the fight anyway, and she runs down the alleyway, she runs into Archer again. The girl who spent ten years summoning a guy did it wrong. He's still a formidable servant. Gets fucking just stomped to death by favor in like a second off screen that we don't even see. By the time we see Cherry catch up to them, archer is like disappearing, like returning to the balkan ball because he got his ass handed to him.

Rip.

So I really don't know how good Archer is. He has failed at every turn.

Introduced in the ending of the first episode, being like, we're going to do great things in this town. I'll be dead in an episode.

I don't get it. Maybe he should use a bow instead of swords. I don't know. Once Archer is gone, sabres like, cool, now I can murder the Master, which is tasuki. And shira runs in as ren is throwing another red gem at her. I guess that's where her magic is. Saber just like punches it out of the air and it turns the dust. So again, how good is she? A magic? Not very. shira stops her from fighting, and sabre's reluctant, saying like, it's a Master and a Servant. We're in the Holy War, we got a fight. And Rain kind of calls her out like, oh, a Servant disobeying a Master. I thought sabres were notoriously loyal. And it kind of gives her pause and makes sabres stop. So after they stop, Rain goes back to shiro's house and fixes all the damages like they had when Lancer attacked. And this is where she reveals that he doesn't know magic beyond the reinforcement spells. The spells he can analyze, not even technology he analyzed like a fucking lead pipe earlier. So I guess just analyzes anything of what its makeup is and then can, I guess, strengthen it.

I love when he does his magic and he's like activate it.

It looks like a weird grid, like an electrical, like on a motherboard or something. I don't know, it's weird. And she says she's surprised that so and so ineff was able to summon save her. Same.

I think we were all surprised by that.

I think we can all agreed the writing of the show, it doesn't quite make sense. Then she starts explaining about the Holy grail war. She says that there are seven Masters chosen every few decades. They all get servants that they are able to command using the seal on their hands. And the seal is made up of three different commands. So she says they are able to command their Servant to do something against their will using those commands, but it uses up the command once they do it. So she says, always make sure you have that last one in case you have to force someone to do something against her will. I. Don't know. That was a weird way of putting it. And she sees that sabre hasn't fully materialized. And sabre says that it's because shero doesn't have enough magic and he's bad at it, so she can't go into her spirit form like Archer did earlier, and that because of that she'll be slow to heal. So she's hindered a lot by shiro not being good at it. And then Ren says that they'll go to see the man overseeing the whole Holy Grail War, the supervisor for the war, and they end up going to a large church. sabre says it's better for her to stay outside to protect them, so she dips out. rin goes inside and says, the priest here is also a magist. Maggus magus magi. They pronounce it different in every fucking.

Anime we ever watch.

It's never wizard Spellboy. And she says he's also her teacher because he was one of her father's pupils. So they've known each other a long time and they hate each other. And we see it's a long haired priest we got at the beginning of episode one, who kind of gave just like the backstory with the explosion ten years ago and stuff. So he's getting tied in now.

He doesn't seem bad or creepy at all.

When has a priest ever been bad?

Am I right, folks? We love God here.

We all have uncomplicated feelings.

And we see ren introduces shiro to the priest, saying like, oh, it's a shiro nevermind. I forget his last name already. And when she says his last name, the priest smirks and we get like a black and white static cutaway of his face was like, he clearly knows some shit about shiro's dad or what happened ten years ago, but we don't get into that right now. He says shiro can't just walk away from being a master once he's chosen. And if he truly wants an out, if he truly wants to get out of this Holy War and not be involved and just be a regular kid, he has to win the whole fucking thing. Which I think is hilarious, because that's not an outman. That's not what you just said. But he says if he wins the Holy Grail, he can make a wish on it and it will come true. He wish to go back in time before this all started, but if we know anything about time travel, he'll just repeat it. So it's a pointless wish.

It's just like, future diary.

Drove me fucking insane. But yeah, he says if he gets the Holy Grail, he can just wish it all the way and wish himself out of this Holy War. And that the war is a series of battles between masters and servants. A lot of info dumping this fucking episode. They are chosen by a ritual to determine who is worthy of the Holy Grail. Servants are either legends or historical figures that resemble spirits and are summoned by the Holy grail itself to fight for it. sabre can't go into her spirit form because of shiro's inability with magic. shiro asks why they have to kill over the Holy Grail, why they can't just share it, the naivety of a young child.

Why can't we all just be friends?

No blood and murder. And the priest says that the Grail dictates the whole war. So I guess it's also sentient and it chooses people that will fight over it. I don't know, this explanation kind of sucked. Why do we have to fight over it? It's like people who love to fight just get picked a lot. So like and rin says that there's no rule that says you have to kill all the other Masters. The only true objective is your servant has to be the last remaining servant. So because they're not technically people, we don't have to respect them and they can all die, but the Masters themselves don't have to die. So if she ever wants to avoid killing, he doesn't have to kill the other people. But the priest points out that Masters are squishy and soft. They're the pokemon trainers, they do nothing. So the easiest way to stop a servant is to kill the Master. So that tends to be just the easier way to fight this battle royale. And they say if a Servant is freed, if they are disbanded from the pact with their Master, if the Master dies, another Master can swoop in and take control of them. Again. It's just pokemon. And they have to use one of their command seals they have, so they only got three. So I guess you can have up to two other surface as well and have your big historical fighting thruble. The priest says that this is the fifth time the city has hosted the Holy Grail War, which is hilarious to me. Why this random city in Japan?

Because it's very closely associated with Christian history. Of course. That's where it would be. Brendan.

All the anglo saxon historical and mythical.

Figures loved Japan, as we know from the religious text st young men. Jesus did spend time, you know what? And that's probably brought over his Grail.

That's true.

It makes more sense than anything else here. So yeah, I'll take it. And he says the past Holy Grail Wars have been particularly brutal. I don't know why it's called a war. It's not known for being soft. And he says, ever since the third Holy Grail War in the city, the Council of Magic appointed a supervisor, which was the priest's father, and now is the priest. And shiro points out that if the Holy Grail grants wishes, that they can just wish to erase the rules that they broke earlier. So the rules are kind of pointless. And the priest is like, yeah, kind.

Of okay, but I like the bloodshed.

It's so weird. And shira says the war has nothing to do with him. He doesn't want to be involved. The priest says that ten years ago, the Grail came in contact with someone who was unworthy and chose not to fight. And that's what caused the huge fire that left shira the sole survivor of. So it's basically saying like, yeah, you don't have to fight, but someone else might get it and blow up another town like you were in. The priest says, another man? Yeah, another man tried to fight or tried not to fight in the Holy Grail. He tried to avoiding it and trying to be a pacifist. And when he finally got the Grail, it rejected him. So again, you cannot fight, but you will just die. It is an option, I guess. And the man that didn't fight was this priest. And that's why he's the supervisor now.

Somehow shiro just figured that out. He's just like, hey, that was you. And the priest is just like, you got it, bud.

Hey, you know a lot about this thing, but you don't actually do or contribute anything to it. Yeah, I'm a supervisor. Okay. And shiro confirms his interest in the Holy Grail war because he was basically threatened into it by saying, if you don't, there's just going to be another fire bombing. So Priest says, for virtue to prevail and evil must be defeated. And his noble aspirations and despicable desires are coming from the same source. I don't know why I wrote that down. I thought it would be important for something. Sure it was not.

I commend you for your accuracy.

I made the same mistake with the whole first episode.

They leave the church, they go back home. shiro thanks Ryan for helping them out. And then the little Russian girl appears again and she's like, ha ha, time to fight. And she's just got this giant hulking figure behind her that looks like the one soccer a girl from dungeon ropa.

Yeah.

And I guess they, I guess that's her servant and they're going to fight next episode. But that's episode three. It was a shorter episode this weekend.

This was really boring, you guys.

Yeah.

Good chuck out of gay bulge.

Yeah, that was the best part.

The peak for me.

Yeah. I think for me I really understood why there are so many series of this because boy, the pacing is really set up for you to take three series to tell one story.

I don't know if they're telling a lot of stories because I looked up a little bit because God knows the three episodes here didn't really lock in any information for me. And it seems like it changes around a bit. Like spoiler for other fate stay stuff. lancer ends up becoming the servant for a rent at one point. So it seems just like there's a running joke was shown and stuff that like the tournament arc because every series has one. It seems like that's what this whole series is. It just seems like the tournament series.

Yeah. Well, you all know I love a death game, but this one that is true made it not fun. Maybe, I don't know, maybe it gets more fun. But there was just like, nothing in these first three episodes. And I also shiro, and it makes sense if this is a visual novel. shiro is one of those characters that's just like a self insert character of like, oh, he's just a typical normal boy, but he has immense power. That could be me, right? I bet I have something boiling special deep inside me. And I just want to say you don't. Sorry. That was mean. Sorry.

Hey, listener, there is something special deep inside you. It's not world saving. You probably are just good at coding. Yeah, maybe take a class.

Maybe you could bake or something.

Or maybe you're still over 30 and still try to use telekinesis sometimes. I don't know, maybe one day.

I mean, that is universal. We all still try the Force just to make sure.

You know what? It might kick in on a random day. It's something weird sense I'm about to say. It's something I appreciate about Monster Massume, where it's like, here's a bland, generic, boring protagonist and they didn't bother to act like he wasn't that. But these older shows that are like, no, he's a unique characteristic. No, he is not. He is personification of white bread. He is dull.

Yeah.

And I don't necessarily think this is bad. It's very 2006 anime, though, which isn't good, especially in hindsight.

Yeah, I'm sure as this goes on and there are more servants and fighting, like, I'm sure that's very exciting. And I don't know that it's fairly interesting that rin takes on lancer as a servant later. Like, oh, cool. But I don't care. I don't like any of these characters, so I'm not invested in their story.

Yeah, you know, jojo is popular because when they're like, hey, we have guys who are basically weapons. They make them unique and interesting. And don't just slap an archetype that is used in anything fantasy related to the point where it's so bland. It's really more of a placeholder than an actual archetype because archer bow not.

The first three answers, I can tell you that much.

Yeah, so, like, already you're not using the archetype that you're trying to use. I think maybe just go personality instead.

I think they were leaning into that kind of playing like he's got amnesia and he thinks he's an archer, but he's actually short sword or dagger or something. But boy, howdy do I not care about that character at all? And I don't care why he doesn't use a bow. So it's just like, again, we've seen so much worse in this podcast, but this is very 2006. So it's just like yeah, if you.

Like this, I'm so happy for you. So happy you found value in this series. But this one, this fate stay night yeah. Who knows if we'll watch a different one? This one wasn't for me.

Yeah. Hey, multiple listeners. Multiple listeners. Hey, we love you. We love that you love this show. We are coming to it too late. And I know what you're saying. That one of those multiple listeners. Hey, try a recent one.

We'll see. We'll see.

This has promised wasn't the best first impression.

Listen, I love a visual novel series or a light novel series. It's called du rock. They tore me a new asshole for that one. So you're not a lone. listener, we all have bad taste sometimes. It's okay.

I love Future Diary. And I mean that. God, I know it's bad. I know it's fucking terrible, but that's why I love it. And you have to embrace that, you know?

I can see why you like it. It just physically hurt me to watch.

Yeah, that's the fun. That's why I finished gilmore Girls and I'm watching the Sequel series. It's because I hate myself.

Well, listener, if there's a gilmore Girl series of anime you would like us to watch, please send that to our email. Are we there yet@gmail.com? Or reach out to us on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. Are we there yet? On all of them. And I just want to say I really have a lot of respect for all of the women in magic in society today, and I just need to say that loudly and without purpose. anyways. Sorry, dee.

If you want to find me on social media and DM me about how terrible lorelei and Rory gilmore are, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at honey, period. D or on Twitter at honey d eight and honey d art and Honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. You can find me.

On Twitter at a bts. Brendan stands for Almost Better than Silence, which is a video game podcast. I also did it's. Got a 420 episode backlog because we and you can also find me supporting the wide assortment of female magicians unprompted, like Margaret steele. Big fan. Or madam. Oh, I picked up madam adali. aladd, herman.

You definitely knew that one. Off the cranium off the dome.

Yep, because I don't hate female magicians.

Camera this is an audio medium, so that goes unregistered. Thank you to camille Rule for our artwork. Thank you to Louisong for her themesong stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Rory gilmore slept with a married man. Yeah, she knew that.