Otakuism

So Fate/Zero Vol.2 was released last week and information has been slowly trickling in. So far most of it sounds awesome and just increases my love for all of the new characters. Here’s a couple new things that came up:

The Caster known as “Bluebeard” has been confirmed as being Gilles de Rais, the french soldier who was a friend of Jeanne d’Arc and thought to be a serial killer in later life. Here’s the wikipedia page for more information. He insists that Saber is his Jeanne, even though she keeps insisting she is Arturia. He and Ryuu both have no interest in the holy grail and are just kidnapping children and killing them in gruesome ways, most notably by making them into living pipe organs. Pretty insane stuff. His noble phantasm is Prelati’s Spellbook, also known as the R’leyh text. You know, R’leyh, where Cthulhu lies dreaming? The book has a mind of its own and can summon tentacle monsters not known to this world. Kind of a proto Nero Chaos. Not confirmed yet, but Caster probably dies at the end of the book, since the whole book seems to deal with him and the whole child killings.

There’s also more about Kotomine’s Hassan and why there’s a hundred of them. His Hassan is special; instead of modifying his body he modified his mind and split it into a hundred personalities. Thus, these hundred personalities become a hundred different bodies as a servant. Pretty cool. The female one is hot, too. Except the skull face is freaky.

We’re introduced to Kayneth’s wife, Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri. Damn long name. She supplies Lancer with mana (if you know what I mean) while Kayneth has the command seals. Kayneth also suspects Sophia is starting to like Lancer. No Way! Who could be attracted to that hulking bishounen of a man? Kayneth’s base of operations, the 32nd floor on a hotel, is attacked by a master but he sees this as no problem. He’s already modified the hotel into an alien world to protect him and kill anyone who intrudes. Too bad he didn’t count on Kiritsugu demolishing the hotel’s foundations instead of attacking square and fair. So the whole hotel goes kaboom and falls down. Kiritsugu just gets more badass.

Now here’s the best part: the dynamic duo of Iskandar and Waiver. Iskandar wants to go outside but Waiver won’t let him since he hasn’t killed any servants yet. The dailoge explains it all perfectly (translation by Arai of Beast’s Lair):

“Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“The city, obviously. To show the populace the new grand appearance of I, the King of Conquerors.”
“Put on some damn pants before you go outside!”
“Mm? Oh, gaiters you say? Now that I think about it, everyone in this country had been wearing those. I need those?”
“THAT’S THE BARE MINIMUM! Before you say it, I am absolutely not going to walk around town to buy some extra large pants for you!”
“WHAT!? Boy, are you declaring your objection to my rule?”
“There is ABSOPOSILUTELY! NOT ONE! SLIGHTEST relationship between your pants and rulership! Before you get giddy about playing outside, kill one damn enemy Servant!
“Gah, being too riled up you are. Servants? Hah! I can do that any time!”
“Then, do it now! Go beat someone up right now! I’ll buy pants or anything if you do!”
“…I see, yes, yes, I see. So, you vow that as long as I bring you the head of an enemy, you will give me pants?”
“….You…don’t tell me you want to walk outside with that t-shirts on that much?”

Hilarious. Where is a heroic spirit supposed to get a good pair of pants? Iskandar should just go to Men’s Warehouse for his trouser needs. Later Iskandar shows his other Noble Phantasm, which is completely, unbelievably badass. Ionian Hetairoi, where Iskandar summons an entire army onto the field. But it’s no normal army. It’s made up completely of heroic spirits like Iskandar, men who served with him and will heed his call even in death. Awesome. Gate of Babylon has nothing on that kind of HAX. With that kind of power, how did Iskandar end up losing the war? He was weakened by Saber and then lost to Gilgamesh, but maybe he gave up voluntarily. He seems like that kind of guy. Fate/Zero continues to be awesome, and I can’t wait for more information on this volume and future ones. Volume 3 should probably be out around June is the schedule remains the same.