1/8 Saber & Tohsaka Rin Summer Ver. by Alter

Released last year's July 1/8 Saber & Tohsaka Rin Summer Ver. by Alter are the oldest figures in my "to review" list. Now I still have 4 unopened figures (for now), but at least those are releases of this year...

 

Both are sculpted by Numakura Toshiaki, who also did an Ayanami figure also by Alter and Alter's Aozaki Touko alternate head, and is inspired by a Takeuchi Takashi illustration used for the C79 goods. Both figures are rather plain, and probably that is why costs only 4,800 yen each instead of  about 7,000 yen, that in the past few years became the usual price for 1/8 figures.

The illustration theme was "Summer Holiday", so it displays Saber in a very light and casual summer wear.

 Close up of the rather pleasant face.

 Side view. The figure itself is pretty simple, without intricated details or an over-exagerated pose.

 

Back view. I like Saber better with Saber Lily's hairstyle (or completely down) than her usual bun.

Rin is also wearing a simple summer clothing, and being red does a pretty good combination with Saber's white.

 Face close up.

 Side view. Is not really appreciable in the pictures, but she's wearing shorts and not a mini skirt.

 Back view.

Each one includes a postcard with a Takeuchi illustration with Saber and Rin doing the same pose of the figures (the original one was different).

Fate/Zero Blu-ray Disc Box I

After a long delay in customs (over a month), finally received Fate/Zero Blu-ray Disc Box I

I pre-ordered it several months ago in Amazon.jp, but when the payment day arrived none of my credit cards was accepted. At the end I bought it at AmiAmi, but since I bought it before the release date I didn't received the pre-order bonus (a set of posters) ;_;

The contents are the discs, sorted in two digipaks, and the booklet Fate/Zero Animation Material I.

Inside the digipaks, each disc features a serigraphy of a Servant. The discs above are the blu-rays (3 episodes each except the first disc that contains only the first -longer than usual- episode), and below are the Fate/Zero Drama Cd I and the Fate/Zero Original Soundtrack I cd discs.

Fate/Zero Drama Cd I is a 37 minutes long drama cd that narrates the events 9 years before before the anime starts, how Kiritsugu and Irisviel meet and fell in love. Is really a good piece of information that fleshes a lot both characters.

Fate/Zero Original Soundtrack I cd disc includes the excelent BGM for Fate/Zero. the disc is 24 tracks long (47 minutes) composed by Kajiura Yuki, who also did the OST for the Kara no Kyoukai movies.

Fate/Zero Animation Material I is a bunch of interviews to the main staff. The first one includes the main persons for the scenario: Urobuchi Gen (author), Aoki Ei (director) and Kondo Hikaru (producer), and after that features interviews to the people responsibles for episodes direction, key art, backgrounds, photography, music...

Random page. Key animation section interview to Sudou Tomonori and Ikariya Atsushi (character designers and key animation directors) and Shimizu Keita and Motegi Takayuki (key animation directors).

Another random page in the photography section explaining each step in production (right) and the use of 3DCG elements (left). The illustrated pages in the booklet are very scarse.

Last page includes a message from Takeuchi with a picture of Waver, Kariya, Kayneth and Ryuunosuke.

The blu-ray themselves are great, with nice sound and picture quality. There are several new scenes included, some of the dialogues were lenghtened (mostly the scenes between Kotomine and Gilgamesh) and scenes that had subpar quality were redrawn (most noticeable in the kings meeting of episode 11). Some random new scenes:

New scene in episode 3, Iri and Saber arriving to Japan and followed by a bunch of homunculus maids in the airport.

A talk between Saber and Irisviel in the castle added in episode 9.

Ryuunosuke and Caster "deeds" were censored with shadows in the TV version, but in the BD are visible. Those gore scenes are not as shocking as I expected...

Sola-Ui talking to Lancer in a roof, scene added in episode 13

The extras included are creditless opening and ending, previews and commercials in disc 1, commercials for the blu-ray box in disc 2 and the special episodes Onegai! Einzbern Soudanshitsu (Please! Einzbern Consultation Room) included in discs 3, 4 and 5.
Those 3 special episodes are about 10 minutes long Q&A sections that serves as the Tiger Dojo corner of Fate/Zero. The host are Irisviel (the "Instructor") and "Student 0", that is a young Taiga (in Tiger Dojo Taiga was the Instructor and Bloomers Illya was Student nº 1).
All the discs have both Japanese and English subtitles, but for some reason those 3 special episodes have only Japanese subtitles available.

The first special episode is used to intoduce Iri and Zecchan (Student Zero-chan) and explain the basics of Holy Grail War system.

The second special is used mostly to explain the magic world and a bit about Masters and Servants.

The 3rd special is focused in the special rules applied to Assassin class (only one of the Hassan i Sabbah can be an Assassin) and the Noble Phantasm of this time Assassin (gives multiple bodies to his multiple personalities). Zayed, one of the multiple personalities of Assassin that was killed in episode 2, appears as a guest.

Fate/side side materiale complete

To complete yesterday's review of Fate/complete material IV Extra material, this entry is the review for the extra artbook also included, Fate/side side materiale complete.

As I said in the previous entry, this book compiles the previous 3 side side materiale books with an extra one only for this edition.

The side side materiale books (nicknamed "Are Hon" or "That Book") were the exclusive bonus if you preordered the Fate games directly from TYPE-MOON's webpage. Fate/side side materiale was the extra of Fate/stay night, Fate/side side materiale 2 was the extra of Fate/hollow ataraxia and Fate/side side materiale 3 was the extra of Fate/stay night [Réalta nua].
As can be seen in the picture above, the format of this book is considerably larger than the original releases.

The contents of those books is rather random, mostly congratulation messages from the staff members and guest artist making pictures to commemorate the release of the game. There's also a lot of stuff that is hardly categorizable and doesn't fit anywhere else, so it ends in those books as well.

Random photo of Fate/side side materiale 1, draft for the opening movie.

Random photo of Fate/side side materiale 2, the message from Takeuchi, and early designs of Caren and Kaleido Ruby.

Random photo of Fate/side side materiale 3

By the way, those 3 books were very limited and are now collector items expensive and hard to find (specially the first book) but are available to download in pdf format at TYPE-MOON webpage.

And now the new contents:

Random Takeuchi's drafts from diverse sources: his webpage, covers from the spin-off games...

Magical girl Saegusa Yukika

Guest illustrations. Caster Lily by Koyama Hirokazu and Rin by Takayama Kisai

I particulary like this drawing by Morii Shizuki homaging this legendary Chun-li picture by Bengus/CRMK

Fate/complete material IV - Extra material

Now is the turn to review an artbook that I received almost 8 months ago, Fate/complete material IV Extra material., mostly because in a few days I'll receive the latest volume, Fate/complete material V Hollow material..

This artbook also includes Fate/side side materiale complete, a compilation of the previous 3 side side materiale books plus an extra 4 volume exclusive to this compilation. Since this entry is quite heavy on images, I'll review it in the next one.

Extra material is mostly a gallery of Fate related games not included in the previous books (Fate/unlimited codes, Fate/tiger colosseum and Fate/Extra) plus a bit of Fate/Zero. The only new material are the characters designs for an scrapped project for an online game, Fate/Apocrypha.

The first part covers Fate/unlimited codes; illustration for each character, their endings and face portraits.

Luviagelita Edelfelt entry. Her picture in the selection screen and her opening and ending images.

Saber Alter face portraits and her pre-battle image.

The last section covers promotional art and illustrations that appeared in merchandising.

Next is the turn of Fate/tiger colosseum, including the characters and new endings that appeared in the sequel, Fate/tiger colosseum Upper.

Rin entry. To the left her endings in the regular game (up) and in Upper (down)

Again including promotional art at the end, like this two pictures that appeared as telephone cards.

Fate/Extra section is really short, covering only a brief profile of each character:

Main character(s) and Saber

Leo & Gawain and Pieceman & Saver

Fate/Zero is also quite short, covering mostly the illustrations from the novels and the drama cd's.

The character profiles directly from the novels.

Illustration from the novel (upper right), Return to Zero cd cover (upper left) and the image from the drama cd's holder box.

And as I said, the only new content is Fate/Apocrypha, a project to do an online game using original servants that was finally canceled.
Most of the servants were designed and/or drawn by different guest artists, and it have almost nothing to do with TYPE-MOON universe...

Karna (Lancer class) is the only one out of the fully developed characters that was designed by Nasu (and drawn by pako, character designer in some entries of the Shining Force Saga and most recently in Un-Go)

The trap Astolfo (class Rider) designed by Hoshizora Meteo and drawn by Konoe Ototsugu from circle Closet Child.

And Joan of Arc, the only character from Apocrypha designed by Nasu AND drawn by Takeuchi, that was supposed to be the special administrator of the Grail War under the class Ruler. Since it was supposed to be a NPC, her entry is not as long as the others.

I'll try to review Fate/side side materiale complete tomorrow.

Carnival Phantasm 3rd Season & Fate Prototype

Released in the past Comic Market 81, here's Carnival Phantasm 3rd Season review.

The contents are:

• Box to contain all 3 seasons and the bonus attachments
  
• Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code PC game
• Carnival Phantasm 3rd Season (both Blu-ray and dvd versions)
• Fate Prototype Blu-ray
  
• Prototype material artbook
  
• C81 exclusive hand towel
  

3rd Season consist again in four episodes, but unlike the previous seasons only "Loli reversion" part of episode 10 was based in the original TAKE-MOON, the rest are new material

Like the other 2 seasons, both Blu-ray and dvd discs are included, no subtitles and the special audio commentary this time is made by Mahoutsukai No Hako characters Hibiki, Chikagi and Keitai-san.

The last part of the last episode acts as an epilogue, and gathers almost all the Type-Moon cast at Ahnenerbe.

My favourite characters from Tsukihime, Kara no Kyoukai, Fate/stay night and hollow ataraxia sharing the same table.

Mahoutsukai No Hako characters at last making an appearance. It's kind of weird that only appeared here, considering they work at Ahnenerbe.

The special bonus if you purchased it at TYPE-MOON both at Comike was a large hand towel (one of those used in Japan during summer to wipe the sweat) with the ending illustration.

Since is very long (20 cm x 225 cm) I was unable to fit it in one picture.

The anime this time was bundled with Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code for PC:


Actress Again Current Code was the improved arcade version of Actress Again for PS2, tweaking a few movements and including "new" characters, and this is the improved-improved version for PC

The only "completely new" character is Powered Ciel, a playable version of Executioner Ciel (that was a non-playable mid boss in Re-Act) and Archetype:Earth now uses her own sprites instead of reuse the ones from the regular Arcueid so can be considered "new". Some stages, like the one in the pic, are also new.

Characters exclusives from the PS2 version are playable as well, like school uniform Akiha and Ryougi Shiki.

The box can hold all 3 seasons, Melty Blood AACC and all the books (Catalogue, CP Dokuhon and Prototype material)

And the last bonus included is a twelve minutes Blu-ray featuring Fate Prototype, a short clip based in the original draft that Nasu wrote in his high school years that was the base of Fate/stay night.

The main character Sajyou Ayaka summoning a male Saber.

Since the main character was female and most (if not all) of the servants were male in the original draft, Takeuchi suggested to change the gender of the main characters to fit in a H visual novel, so Ayaka became Shirou and King Arthur became the female Arturia.

Prototype material includes the script of the anime and a basic bio for each character with rough sketches by Takeuchi.

The main heroine Sajyou Ayaka, a below average magus with low self-esteem. It was retconned to have blue eyes intead of black (as appeared in Character material) so it gives her a not-so-gloomy look.

Saber true identity is King Arthur. Chilvalrous yet more carefree than female Saber, was first summoned in the previous war by Ayaka's sister Manaka, but betrayed her in order to save Ayaka.

Reiroukan Misaya, Lancer master and prototype Rin. Her personality is a mix between Rin and Luviagelita, and uses black dogs as familiars.

Like the final version Lancer, prototype Lancer true identity is Cu Chulainn, and pretty much have the same personality.

Archer true identity is Gilgamesh. This Gil is not as much as prepotent as the final version, and have traits of Emiya Archer in his personality. He wants Ayaka as his woman.

Rider identity is Perseus. His master was terminally ill and used all the command seals to make Rider fully human and during the story he acts as a normal student going at the same school as Ayaka and at the same time acts as a master disguised with a mask.

Sajyou Manaka is the sister of Ayaka, and have a similar role to Illya (a seemingly inocent young girl that is in fact much older and ruthless). Summoned Saber 8 years ago and reached the Grail, but after seing the corruption of both the Grail and Manaka, Saber killed her. Resurected like Kotomine by the Grail, now is the master of Beast (similar to Avenger) and a yandere towards Saber.