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Captain Baal
Oct 22, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022
I actually haven't been keeping up with the show and just got to the Swallow Reversal and holy loving poo poo, they handled that move perfectly.

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Twiddy
May 17, 2008

To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.
Personally I'm counting down to the days when it clicks for someone and they realize who Archer is, and I get a very polite response in the thread apologizing for not seeing how Archer is an appropriate authority figure to criticize Shirou's ideals. Then I can respond with "no problem" and we can drink tea like the intellectual gentlemen we are.

Seriously, I've known the reveal so long that I can't remember at what point it should be stupidly obvious that they aren't just drawing parallels.

Compendium posted:

It could always be complaining about how the action isn't meaningful and there isn't the strategy like there is in F/Z. (Seriously what the gently caress was up with that one :argh: )
I hope someone goes oh snap at a person actually fighting a servant.

The only thing I'm annoyed about is that they didn't have Saber do much of anything. Which makes sense what with the surprise blow directly where the spine comes from the neck. At least they had the little flail at the end that Kuzuki perfectly countered.

Twiddy fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Dec 13, 2014

see you tomorrow
Jun 27, 2009



Intuition huh

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

勘 (かん)
Noun
perception; intuition; the sixth sense

Compendium
Jun 18, 2013

M-E-J-E-D
I gotta say, I was pretty drat hype to see Kuzuki animated with ufotable's flourishes and I wasn't disappointed.

Ibram Gaunt
Jul 22, 2009

I want a short story about his hosed up backstory.

Bholder
Feb 26, 2013

Gil, please don't step on Shinji's grandpa right in front of him!

Ibram Gaunt posted:

I want a short story about his hosed up backstory.

He just killed a bunch of people and he doesn't even care. What even is his backstory?

Ibram Gaunt
Jul 22, 2009

I thought he was sold to some assassin group as a kid or something, which seemed interesting. Could have sworn I read something to that effect on the wiki.

Captain Baal
Oct 22, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022

Bholder posted:

Gil, please don't step on Shinji's grandpa right in front of him!

No, do it more. It would help Shinji's mental state to see someone step all over Zouken.

Rody One Half
Feb 18, 2011

Ibram Gaunt posted:

I want a short story about his hosed up backstory.

Ibram Gaunt posted:

I thought he was sold to some assassin group as a kid or something, which seemed interesting. Could have sworn I read something to that effect on the wiki.

You should play known good video game Fate/Hollow Ataraxia :v:

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice

Cake Attack posted:

i predict this weeks flavor of the UBW thread will be complaining about the projection magic. the words shonen powerup will be used

anyway neat episode, had a title drop and everything

Speaking of, I just got to the part in FATE where Tohsoka helps Shirou unlock his magic circuits properly for the first time; the process for a magic to learn what to me as a D&D player is the "Transmutation" school of Type-moon magecraft is "strengthening -> Transformation -> Projection".

Here Shirou mentions he had actually succeeded at Projection first (in UBW anime) but he didn't mention this during that sequence in Fate; that's still the case in Fate and I'll learn that there in a bit?

So as for differences between Fate and UBW; Is what happened is that in UBW he manages to open his circuit properly just now this episode when he projected Banshou and Bakuya? Is that the "red" circuit indicates like in the VN?

jellycat
Nov 4, 2012

it's a nice day
I feel like he might mention that he was successful at projection first in Fate as well, but I could be wrong.

And yes, projecting Kanshou and Bakuya forced open his circuit the right way. I can't remember if it's made explicit, but I think the way he's described as feeling the next few days is the same as after Rin opened his circuit in Fate.

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn

Bholder posted:

He just killed a bunch of people and he doesn't even care. What even is his backstory?

He was trained in the Snake his entire life so he could be used to kill a guy. He got his position as a teacher just to have the perfect cover. But when he went over to the target to scope things out he ended up just killing the guy then and there and was at a total loss at what to do next. He was supposed to kill himself too, but didn't really feel like it and decided to just ditch. He was dedicated enough to actually become a good teacher, but pretty much spent his life without a purpose.

...Until he ran into Caster, whose dreams of her life before she got screwed over by the gods were so vivid that he decided to make his purpose helping her fulfill her wish to go home.

And then Gilgamesh killed him.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice
I guess another thing to ask is why were they so effective? Did they have particularly good stats for fighting monks or was it Shirou downloading all of Archer's fighting skills or both?

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Raenir Salazar posted:

I guess another thing to ask is why were they so effective? Did they have particularly good stats for fighting monks or was it Shirou downloading all of Archer's fighting skills or both?

Shirou's projection copies the skill and experience and to some extent, the strength associated with the use of the object, not just the object itself.

Kyte
Nov 19, 2013

Never quacked for this

Raenir Salazar posted:

I guess another thing to ask is why were they so effective? Did they have particularly good stats for fighting monks or was it Shirou downloading all of Archer's fighting skills or both?

Projections retain "the memory of being used". They can actually swing themselves in a way.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice
Sure, but how come they cut Kuzuki who I presume still managed to "block" or deflect them the same way he did Excalibur.

Paracelsus
Apr 5, 2009

bless this post ~kya

Fangz posted:

Shirou's projection copies the skill and experience and to some extent, the strength associated with the use of the object, not just the object itself.
IIRC this is why UBW can stand up to Gate of Babylon; Gilgamesh's stuff retains all of its original strength, but he doesn't have any particular skill at using them, while Shirou/Archer can bring out more of the strength from their relatively weaker projections.

jellycat
Nov 4, 2012

it's a nice day

Raenir Salazar posted:

Sure, but how come they cut Kuzuki who I presume still managed to "block" or deflect them the same way he did Excalibur.

Kuzuki "caught" Excalibur, whereas his attacks were presumably blocked by Kanshou and Bakuya, which cut him in the process.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

Raenir Salazar posted:

Sure, but how come they cut Kuzuki who I presume still managed to "block" or deflect them the same way he did Excalibur.

With Excalibur he seemed to be making sure to "catch" it on the flat side. By contrast, with Shirou's first sword he just punched it right on the non-existent blade and it broke. He probably assumed it was more like Shirou's other sword and less like Excalibur, so he didn't take any precautions. And, well, they were just scratches and probably wouldn't have slowed him down at all if they kept going.

Twiddy
May 17, 2008

To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.

BlitzBlast posted:

He was trained in the Snake his entire life so he could be used to kill a guy. He got his position as a teacher just to have the perfect cover. But when he went over to the target to scope things out he ended up just killing the guy then and there and was at a total loss at what to do next. He was supposed to kill himself too, but didn't really feel like it and decided to just ditch.
To be a bit more specific, he found it to be a massive letdown and a waste. He was totally fine with offing himself as a one off trained assassin for this super difficult job, being the ultimate tool to get the impossible done, but the guy just died. Kuzuki's like, "literally anybody could have killed that guy, what was the point?"

And then yeah he goes and becomes a teacher.

The moral of the story is that F/HA is really cool and if you ever desire a short story related to a F/SN character again it's probably in there.

Raenir Salazar posted:

Sure, but how come they cut Kuzuki who I presume still managed to "block" or deflect them the same way he did Excalibur.
Yeah don't know. I mean trivially, Shirou landed blows against Kuzuki's hands that Saber couldn't, but I don't remember there being an explanation. Maybe he wasn't as cautious or the stone skin spell started wearing off. I mean it's quite literally impossible that Shirou has more technique than Saber or that Kanshou and Bakuya are stronger than Excalibur, considering how stupidly powerful Saber is.

I think the only reasonable explanation might be that hand to hand styles aren't effective against dual wielding. Against a single weapon you can use one hand to deflect the attack and the other to either assist deflecting or attack, and you can also set up your entire body for the deflection. Against two swords you can't effectively maneuver out of the way or set up a parry that completely misses the edge of the sword (or the brunt of the attack), so you have to take a few blows.


Okay yeah this makes sense to me. When you're going hand to hand against a weapon usually your options are to avoid the weapon entirely, catch a completely harmless part of the weapon with great precision, or aim for the opponent themselves (generally when talking about dealing with a weapon you go for the wrists). The short is that you can't effectively block without taking some damage, you want a weapon of your own to block. Against dual wielding, there's too many attacks/weapons/points of attack that you can't get around all of it without blocking.

Twiddy fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Dec 14, 2014

Aumanor
Nov 9, 2012

Raenir Salazar posted:

Sure, but how come they cut Kuzuki who I presume still managed to "block" or deflect them the same way he did Excalibur.

In addition to what others said, with Saber Kuzuki could focus on catching her sword bcause it was enough to neutralize her damage. With Shirou he had two blades to worry about, so he couldn't block them quite as cleanly.

E: Ninjas :argh: So let's add one last thing: Saber went into the fight expecting Kuzuki to be a normal scrub, and pretty much everything Kuzuki managed to do in that fight rode on that initial element of surprise. A big part of why he managed to catch Excalibur was that until it happened Saber hadn't fathomed even for a second that he could do it. Shirou, while much worse in combat than Saber has an idea what to expect. And, as Kuzuki acknowledges, if Saber got back into the fight she would mop the floor with him in round two.

Aumanor fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Dec 14, 2014

Rody One Half
Feb 18, 2011

Worth noting is that the game explicitly states that Kuzuki could only really do that to Saber once. He's an assassin and his technique, the snake, is really only meant to be used with the element of surprise.

Sylphid
Aug 3, 2012
If I remember correctly, Kuzuki thinks Saber is more impressive than he first thought because even with the huge element of surprise he had, Saber was still able to stay alive because of her natural combat instincts.

AlternateNu
May 5, 2005

ドーナツダメ!
I never read the VN, but I did know about Kuzuki's crazy rear end combat ability going into this fight. I'm just wondering what was up with that vacuum punch he threw out before strangling the poo poo out of Saber. Was that specifically mentioned? Even Kirei couldn't pull that poo poo off unless we're just hand waving it as Attack Buff: Caster's Purple Magic Fists of Fisting.

Irony Be My Shield
Jul 29, 2012

Saber likely didn't expect any real resistance from a human, so her first attack was probably intended to either quickly kill Kuzuki or force him to surrender - that could make it easier to counter than her regular attacks. After that point Kuzuki injures her while she's still off-balance, so she never really has a chance to properly engage him in combat in the way Shirou did.

Kubla Khan
Jun 20, 2014

AlternateNu posted:

I never read the VN, but I did know about Kuzuki's crazy rear end combat ability going into this fight. I'm just wondering what was up with that vacuum punch he threw out before strangling the poo poo out of Saber. Was that specifically mentioned? Even Kirei couldn't pull that poo poo off unless we're just hand waving it as Attack Buff: Caster's Purple Magic Fists of Fisting.

This whole thing looked pretty bs in the VN, to me at least. Looked more like Nasu/whoever just wanted to insert a badass martial arts guy so it happened.

Stevefin
Sep 30, 2013

AlternateNu posted:

I never read the VN, but I did know about Kuzuki's crazy rear end combat ability going into this fight. I'm just wondering what was up with that vacuum punch he threw out before strangling the poo poo out of Saber. Was that specifically mentioned? Even Kirei couldn't pull that poo poo off unless we're just hand waving it as Attack Buff: Caster's Purple Magic Fists of Fisting.

That hand gesture before het goes for sabers neck is more a throwback for his VN combat stance picture

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120810214233/typemoon/images/a/a5/Kuzukibattle.jpg

Compendium
Jun 18, 2013

M-E-J-E-D
Found this while doing some Googling, goddammit I giggled.

tweet my meat
Oct 2, 2013

yospos
I really didn't think this fight was bullshit at all. He had the advantage of surprise, which is his specialty as an assassin. He had the skill to match a legendary warrior from his years of being a professional killer. Plus his attacks were being visibly strengthened by Caster who, if you don't remember, is a servant whose main specialty is magic. It's not really crazy that he could match a servant under those conditions.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice

Sergeant_Crunch posted:

I really didn't think this fight was bullshit at all. He had the advantage of surprise, which is his specialty as an assassin. He had the skill to match a legendary warrior from his years of being a professional killer. Plus his attacks were being visibly strengthened by Caster who, if you don't remember, is a servant whose main specialty is magic. It's not really crazy that he could match a servant under those conditions.

I don't think anyone in this thread at least is calling BS or anything, I'm just curious about "spot the difference" sort of thing since I haven't gotten to UBW in the VN yet but did get to a similar scene in Fate, so I was just curious. I think most people are just curious about things they don't recall or haven't read yet.

Compendium
Jun 18, 2013

M-E-J-E-D


Caster's item crafting skills are A rank.

Sylphid
Aug 3, 2012
Between Caster's hood, Sakura's ribbon, Rider's visor, and Saber's ahoge, it seems headgear in the Fate universe is a big deal. It can completely change your personality and turn into an entirely different person depending on if it's on or off. Caster being the most incredible transformation, of course.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice
Okay well that's weird. I got to the scene where Saber and Rin are rummaging around Shirou's shed and Rin seems to have noticed Shirou's specialization might be projection instead; but I don't see/remember how at all Rin would've came to that conclusion. Does Shirou mention leaving some of his hollow projections lying around anywhere?

HellCopter
Feb 9, 2012
College Slice

Raenir Salazar posted:

Okay well that's weird. I got to the scene where Saber and Rin are rummaging around Shirou's shed and Rin seems to have noticed Shirou's specialization might be projection instead; but I don't see/remember how at all Rin would've came to that conclusion. Does Shirou mention leaving some of his hollow projections lying around anywhere?

Yeah, in the VN Shirou describes the shed as having a ton of failed projections lying around. At the very least, when he messes one up earlier he just tosses in to the side.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice

HellCopter posted:

Yeah, in the VN Shirou describes the shed as having a ton of failed projections lying around. At the very least, when he messes one up earlier he just tosses in to the side.

I remember him constantly trying to strengthen various objects (such as a pipe) but I don't remember him projecting something. :(

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

Raenir Salazar posted:

I remember him constantly trying to strengthen various objects (such as a pipe) but I don't remember him projecting something. :(

He projected like teapots and stuff to calm himself down after failing strengthening.

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
So let me see if I've got this right. Shirou has a natural affinity for projection, which is normally pretty useless. But because he had excalibur's sheath inside him for most of his life, he became attuned to swords and by extension weapons in general. So, he can create swords and such far beyond what projection is normally capable of at the cost of being incompetent at all other forms of magic. Two possible end states for his ability are Archer's reality marble and HF's weirdness where his body turned into swords.

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
It's simpler than that, actually. Avalon gave him his sword origin/affinity, but his real talent comes from an extension of the one spell he used most of his life: reinforcement. Shirou's really good at analyzing an object's inner workings (it's how he fixes things), to the point he can understand any given item's essence. This lets him use projection, which normally just copies an object's appearance and most basic qualities, to create perfect replicas.

All Avalon did was make him better at tracing swords. UBW too is just a database of all the information he's ever gotten. As for what happened in HF, that was a side effect of grafting on Archer's arm. It's constantly sending magic into his body, and since Shirou/Archer's magic affinity is sword...

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Iretep
Nov 10, 2009

Serious Frolicking posted:

So let me see if I've got this right. Shirou has a natural affinity for projection, which is normally pretty useless. But because he had excalibur's sheath inside him for most of his life, he became attuned to swords and by extension weapons in general. So, he can create swords and such far beyond what projection is normally capable of at the cost of being incompetent at all other forms of magic. Two possible end states for his ability are Archer's reality marble and HF's weirdness where his body turned into swords.

If I remember right some of the bad endings in fate and UBW routes had Shirou bleed out swords too when he got hurt. So Shirou is a sword in all routes.

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