Before Rin can finish panting in front of Shirou, S&M Servant tosses a knitting needle through Shirou’s arm and kites him around the forest while it sounds like Shinji is laughing. Shirou taunts the Servant for being weak, and fortunately Rin arrives in time to save him. It seems that S&M Servant’s Master is farming all the students at school for experience, and Rin and Shirou agree to a temporary truce. After the school board learns that so many Masters have enrolled, they rename the school Volcano High.
When Rin goes to heal Shirou, she discovers that Shirou has totally been leeching off of Saber for the auto-regen ability. Then there is a tense moment when Rin gets mad at Kiritsugu for caring about being a parent more than about being a magician. Things get all awkward, so Rin sends Archer to walk Shirou home. Naturally the two verbally spar as they debate the validity of Shirou’s new style of fighting, Kira Yamato Ryu. Somehow Archer matches up the description of the kinky servant with his crazy ex, Rider, and then we get a shot of poor Ayako about to get molested. Back at home, Saber tells Taiga that Sakura is a fat cow because she eats too many carbs.
Well, this episode was a bit of a snooze-fest, although Saria’s comments about Rin’s willingness to be EWB made the episode a lot more enjoyable. However, Shirou is driving me absolutely nuts. He’s a nice guy and he’s brave, etc. etc. but damnit he is so hard to work with.
Ok, here goes the rant. Shirou thinks he can tank because he wears cloth armor, dual wields desk legs and pipes, has a simple buff with a long cast time, and idolizes Kira Yamato. While this is certainly admirable, he’s totally leeching off of Saber’s auto-regen ability and her mana; this goes completely against what everyone really wants. If Shirou wants to win, and Saber wants to win (both of which are assumed, for purposes of the War), then Shirou is actually screwing them over. Take this example: you are helping a friend get out of debt (from buying too much manga and anime) by giving him a little money every month. To thank you, he treats you to a lavish dinner and pays the bill with his 35% APR maxxed out credit card (I did not say your friend was Moyism, you made that up yourself). While this is an admirable and noble gesture, it’s actually going against your mutual goal of getting your friend out of debt. This is exactly what happens when Shirou leeches Saber’s MP and sustains horrible wounds from large rocks and knitting needles. Saber’s still paying the mana bill, only the price is so much higher because Shirou sucks. Shirou, the Kira Yamato plan only works when you actually have skillz. Mojo is not enough.
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This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1938 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
> Saber’s still paying the mana bill, only the price is so much higher because Shirou sucks.
Actually Rin was puzzled by Shirou supposedly being able to leech Saber’s auto-regen. She said that Masters are supposed to give Servants power but not the other way round (and tried to excuse it by calling Shirou a weirdo). And she also noted that Saber was incompletely summoned. Put former and latter together, we have a Spoiler. But suffice to say that Shirou probably isn’t leeching Saber.
Haha, I’m glad I could do something for you. EWB? Don’t you mean…EWP?
“Ok, here goes the rant. Shirou thinks he can tank because he wears cloth armor, dual wields desk legs and pipes, has a simple buff with a long cast time, and idolizes Kira Yamato.”
This made me giggle. I love you, Kabitzin. XD
Rin is being too surprised to realize like she said before, Masters can’t draw off from Servants, no way, no how.
If they were somehow sharing, there would be two problems, 1. The connection is way too weak atm especially at the distance from his house to school 2. Saber would then realize something is up if power is getting drawn.
>> “Shirou, the Kira Yamato plan only works when you actually have skillz. Mojo is not enough.”
LOL! That pretty much sums it up. Is that WOW talk btw?
I think he has the aggro range of a dinosaur too. All the other masters just love to gank him. 
Great entry as usual… ^_^
..let’s face it: Shirou still sucks donkey pole in the skillz department, and even shows little potential, and a somewhat “lozer” attitude. So the game is set to make him pull out something BIG sooner or later for us all to say “woooowwww”.
Actually I loved Rin in this ep…she obviously has something for Shirou, because she wasn’t serious at all during the fight with him. She actually might have done it to wake him up a little…you wouldn’t put bandages on a guy you wanted to kill 5 mins before, and she looked really worried for him. Ahh, some guys get all the luck. He’s got even the strongest and maybe the cutest female servant (the hottest being this RIDER girl servant-o – very appropriate name, methinks ^_^).That’s cheating, Shirou!
I also liked a lot the cloud of mistery surrounding Archer. Very well done…the pace is slow as h*ll, but we already know this.
This “whispered” love/hate affair between Archer-Rin-Shirou-Saber is great nonetheless.
Ah,little rant: more SABER moments, please.
Poor Shirou, so unappreciated at the moment.
>> Naturally the two verbally spar as they debate the validity of Shirou’s new style of fighting, Kira Yamato Ryu.
One of these days I need to watch at least one episode of SEED. The problem is, I can’t stand the character design for that series.
>> Somehow Archer matches up the description of the kinky servant with his crazy ex, Rider,
I wonder if his thought process went like this: “Big boobs, blindfold, chains, oh yeah, that’s her all right”.
>> and then we get a shot of poor Ayako about to get molested.
Noooo.. have mercy for the poor civilian. T_T
>> Back at home, Saber tells Taiga that Sakura is a fat cow because she eats too many carbs.
XD *died* I agree with Wyk, great entry!
You can take the big boobs for granted. You’d have to mention if you wanted them at a reasonable size. Actually I wonder, could there be a relation between big boobs and melon bread?
Poor unappreciated Sakura ^_^ … especially since she looks just like a treat with no ounce of surplus fat so far.
May I dare to say something entirely heretical?
Out of literally ALL the females introduced so far, the one I’m interested in the LEAST is Saber. Why? Because I suspect that I already have her character all figured out. Noble, knightly, true, brave, caring, valorous, yada yada. She ain’t playing, that’s how she IS. I’d be delighted to get some character development on her, but I don’t expect it, because she’s consistent to begin with.
_All_ other girls are interesting. Rin alone would be enough for me to follow the entire show, being extremely inconsistent and moody, but I’m a glutton for the tsundere Ojousama type. Sakura is interesting, because it’s clear from several details that there’s more to her than meets the eye (think her Rin encounter, who called her “Sakura”). Taiga will have lots of funny antics. And I almost hope that we’ll get to see more of Ayako than simply being the victim, because she too seemed worth a couple more looks. Rider’s feral behaviour didn’t match her soft voice, especially after Shirou stupidly (in hindsight, ingeniously, it saved his life) taunted her. And as a standard mage on WoW any any other MMORPG, of course I count the hours till we get to see more of Caster.
Saber? You can have her, guys. Really ^_^
I’d much rather that Rin have Saber. ^_-
Mentar: I’m not a “proper” Saber fanboy, but I like these weird moments when, being a “spirit” of some sort,she interacts and lives with the otehrs in Shirou’s mansion. I’d like to see more of her because I find this affair with Shirou quite intriguing. A surprise to me here in f/sn, is Rin. I expected her to be different, more cold, less .. handsome. But she’s damn cool, BUT without being ass-holic like I thought in the beginning. She’s my favourite char as now, but I like the show as a whole. Sakura….to be honest she doesn’t rox my box. Taiga neither. But I guess it’s early to judge.
actually, he’s not leeching off saber’s mana…
>> Saber? You can have her, guys. Really ^_^
Don’t mind if I do.
Saber is easily the best character in my eyes because her personality clashes so distinctly with everyone else’s. It doesn’t take a complex character to be interesting.