Episode 09 – “I’ll End This Right Here”

So in last week’s impression, I was wondering what would be the catalyst that would bring Illya out of mahou shoujo retirement. It turns out that Illya gets an unexpected visit from her mother, Irisviel, who some of you may remember from Fate/Zero. The mother and daughter duo take the opportunity to take a bath together and catch up on life. I wonder if any American (or non-Japanese people for that matter) families bathe together. I guess it’ll always be one of those cultural things that I’ll never really understand.

Despite Irisviel’s slight airiness, she’s heavily perceptive of the things concerning her beloved daughter. It makes me wonder if she somehow actually knows what Illya’s been doing this whole time. She doesn’t seem to have much problem with the fact that a giant mansion suddenly appeared outside of her house during the time she was gone. In fact, it’s almost like she purposely came home at this point to help Illya in her time of uncertainty.

Irisviel talks to Illya in that way in which mothers typically do. She asks what kind of friends Illya’s made, and it was really sweet to hear the nice things Illya had to say about Miyu, despite their recent falling out. When Illya describes the nature of what happened, her mother shines the light about what Miyu must really be thinking, and I’m kind of ashamed I didn’t put the pieces together myself.

I think it was pretty obvious that Miyu didn’t mean to be mad at Illya. She only said those things because she didn’t want to see her get hurt. This becomes apparent during the fight with Berseker Alter, when Miyu sends both Luvia and Rin away to protect them. There’s only one problem with this plan. Miyu isn’t strong enough to take on Berserker by herself. Sure, she was able to defeat Rider, but Miyu hasn’t been really on the ball with the rest. Even after using Saber’s Class Card, she isn’t able to overcome Berkserker’s strength and trademark ability to resurrect himself.

I was pretty disappointed that we didn’t get to see a proper transformation sequence for Miyu into Saber mode. I’m also disappointed we didn’t get to see Illya transform one last time because I’ve already forgotten what it looks like, and it would have made the scene where she decides to return to the battlefield more epic in my opinion.

B.W.