Oh my goodness. The last few days have been filed with systems failures of all sorts, so I apologize for the lack of updates. Here we are, back with an unexpected addition to Okazu.
As I said, when I reviewed the Fate/Zero anime, there are two Fate/Zeros – the one on the screen and the one in my head. ^_^ This remains true for the first volume of the Fate/Zero manga, as well.
We are first introduced to the Grail War through the talky-talkiness of Kotomine, eventually we listen while Kiritsugu talks at Irisviel and try to pretend that the art for her is better than it is. Kiritsugu summons Saber and basically leaves her to take care of Irisviel while he talks some more.
We switch to Velvet Waver as he invokes Alexander the Great and has no idea what to do with him. This is followed by some other nominally Grail War-ish plot stuff but we most follow Alexander making a man out of Velvet.
Kiritsugu heads off to talk at Maya and kisses her so we know he’s not “in love” with Irisviel, which is good, because by now we’re pretty much obsessing on Saber and Irisviel as a couple. Thankfully the manga is helpful in this regard.
We follow Irisviel and Saber, whom she has dressed up in that natty suit and they have a nice little together scene where Saber learns of Irisviel’s boring life. Saber swears to be the knight to Irisviel’s Queen and they head off to tour the town, until Saber runs into Lancer and the book comes to an end.
As one might expect, the manga is the Cliff notes version of the anime, without the same quality of visual input. But luckily for us, Irisviel and Saber are just as slashable as ever. Otherwise, this would be a really talky book.
Ratings:
Art – 7 at times, 5
Story – 5 Depending on if you care about the technical conversations behind the War
Characters – 7 Not bad, honestly. I don’t like them all, but they have some depth.
Yuri – Made up nearly out of whole cloth by us, but still a 4
Service – 1
Overall – 7 I’m reading the next one.
You may have noticed that the ads here on Okazu are gone. After I moved off Blogger last year, Google started a harassment campaign against Okazu. Pictures and content that had been perfectly fine for years on Blogger were suddenly unacceptable.
I’d love to run Okazu ad free, but I really can’t. It takes a lot of time and money to upkeep. We’re switching over to a new, more comics-friend network and I hope I can count on you all to click on ads that interest you from time to time and help support the comic artists and me. Thanks for your patience and support!
Oh myyyyyyyy. Must have.
Even a hint of Saber X Irisviel is plenty.
How about I send you this copy? I’d be glad to.
Kiritsugu kisses Maya in the manga? I do have to wonder why in each successive adaptation they keep trying to make Kiritsugu more unlikeable.
In the light novel Kiritsugu was given a more positive spin. I know why they would drop stuff for the anime but surely they have the time and the means for the manga.
I can only hope they do not trim out Sabers few cool moments in Fate/Zero as well.
Kiritsugu and Maya technically kiss in the anime as well.
How coincidental that I’m currently watching Aniplex’s bilingual Blu-ray release of the series, which is just gorgeous and worth the money, by the way.
They do but I would not say that Kiritsugu has any agency. I would say that Maya kisses Kiritsugu. In the novel it is an awkward moment made to look like Maya is trying to keep Kiritsugu focused and is as dumb and unnecessary as that sounds.
The Aniplex Blu-rays are wonderful but for one problem in that the Einzbern Consultation Room Specials are not subtitled. The DVD releases with the english dub track that were released later sadly do not even have the Consultation Room on the disks.
I just pretend Kiritsugu is the “donor” baby daddy and Saber and Irisviel go off to raise little Illya themselves. Kiritsugu raises Shirou because he realizes what he missed out on. (Take that, Urobuchi!)
Fanfiction: if you can’t retcon the ending then what’s the point?
Perfect. I love it.
I think I should warn your – manga tells same story as TV series, but shows things that we probably never wanted to see, like reallu disgusting scene of insect rape of Sakura. I’m curious if they’ll be brave enough to publish this scene in USA.