Posted here simply because it exceeded a reddit comment’s character limit, not because it’s in line with my usual essays. Stream of consciousness gang.
As strange as it is for me, I just still don’t have any particularly developed thoughts on this entry. Musings about Sakura as the central subject matter? Sure, I can vomit that out. But the film specifically? Well: It happened. It was good. I enjoyed it. It doesn’t inspire any meaningful discussion or review in me, and “it was nice to finally revisit the cinema in 2020” isn’t exactly a worthwhile reflection.
The soundtrack was as striking as the first two films, there were a few sick fights, and Sakura is still best heroine. That much remains true. There were some abilities and moments that felt kinda off – namely the look-how-cool-i-am Nine Lives Blade Works, and Shirou getting the blades jutting out of his body as a heavy-handed “archer is the bone of his sword haha do u get the reference” imagery – but obnoxious heavy-handed delivery is just par for the course in Fate/Stay Night babyyy. As far as the movies go: 2>3>1. It skimps on the sexual storytelling that accidentally made the second my favourite of Ufotable’s Fate, but is still better than the first film even if only because Shinji is dead and Zouken barely has any presence.
Sakura is always such a difficult character to reconcile. On one hand she’s easily my favourite of the main heroines, yes. I’ve mentioned it a few times before, but cohabitation romcom has always been right near the top of my favourite genres. Accordingly, I adore the Sakura route. Watching her and Shirou just live and flirt together brings me such immense happiness. If Chobits, Here Comes the Fiancee, Nadenade Shikoshiko or even Nobunaga-sensei no Osanazuma are any indication, you can make me like something purely by having the two romantic leads abruptly become housemates. It’s the coziest of settings. Sakura is always the best character in the spinoffs too. Whether it’s using her hidden yandere tendencies for very potent punchlines, or taking a more meta stance as she flaunts her voluptuous body and romanticizes herself as a ‘woe is me’ maiden, spinoff Sakura is an absolute riot! But as much as I enjoy her performance, I also think that the Matou are by far the worst piece of writing in the entire franchise. Zouken is an annoyance that actively jeopardizes Fate’s narrative integrity just by existing, Shinji is an unironic mistake that actively compromises the entire franchise and Nasu’s credibility as a writer just by existing. The dumbass penis worms and constant rape are not some kind of ‘mature’ or ‘dark’ aspect, it’s nothing more than a repulsive display of fetishism on the lowest level. Heck I’ll say it, they’re just as terrible as any low-hanging SAO villain that gets a hundred times more hate. There’s a lot that I dislike in the F/SN story, but these are the biggest blight upon it. When Shinji ends the second film screwing up his face and laughing as he says “shall I tell him how filthy all our rapes have been” I do not go “man I hate Shinji”, I go “man I hate whoever wrote this, they’re a moron.”
As a concise summary of my criticisms I often refer to Fate/Stay Night as something “pretending to be good”, and promising that this claim is certainly something possible. The Matou, as the largest offenders of F/SN’s crappy writing, are also the largest offenders embodying this assertation. Nasu seems to preoccupy most people with his excessive, yet highly fascinating lore, to the point of distracting one from seeing how basic and dumb dumb smelly poopoo so much of the rest of the writing is. While Sakura’s psychosexual turmoil may initially appear as expansive as her gigantic purple-haired boobies, with every broken shard of her fractured personality reflecting a new understanding of her inner makeup, on closer inspection she is as flat as the shikigami that accompany her. Curse the Matou, curse Fate/Stay Night and curse Nasu. They’re all terrible! But also I did give this a 7 and enjoyed watching it because the fights were flashy, Sakura is cute and there were a handful of interesting character moments. Such is the duality of Fate/Stay Night, stuck so far up its own pretentious ass that it somehow manages to tread – or even create – the precarious line of pretending that it’s better than it actually is.
The Matou suck, and in fact despite often praising Sakura, she’s actually just as bad. She is the centrepiece, after all. My word what a terrible character she is. I love her throughout the franchise, but damn. However perhaps it might be more accurate to say that Sakura is not wholly a shallow character, but a shallow experience? Realistically there can be a degree of (obtuse and unnecessary, but still technically present) complexity in some facets of her operation, but they’re largely worthless because they stem from the flimsy setting that forms her. Neither the thematic message nor her personal story necessitate such a graphic and overwhelming depiction of her suffering, and thus being included it likewise accomplishes nothing of significance. Nasu bullies her so hard without a truly justifiable reason, that it totally compromises any suspension of disbelief her route may have once held, and then at the end of it the storytelling suggests he wishes to be praised for ‘dealing with’ the unhealthy home situation. The character arc can’t help but feel cheap since she’s unapologetically designed as the most misfortunate girl possible to the point it almost feels like one sick parody, so her cries about how Rin never knew hardship are exceedingly hollow (and indeed only carry any real weight once Rin gives them meaning by appropriating them to illustrate her own sociopathy), and any momentary happiness for her is not quite hard-earned, but more like a masturbatory act of justice on part of the scenario. Her story of unrelenting sexual, physical and psychological abuse is unfortunately flat torture porn with no semblance of finesse, balance or vision, intending only to make the viewer go “yeah we did it guys we defeated the strawman we are good people and everything is great together with my big boobie wife”. It spends the entire time tormenting her as if holding up a big meta-physical “please cry” cue card, only to jerk itself off once it pulls her out of that situation and says “okay you can clap now”. She’s as one-note as Shinji is, to be frank. I just forgive her because she has big boobs.
Yet even still, it can’t be denied that a large part of why I like the character so much stems from this psychosexual turmoil she works through and the way it informs the abusive, highly destructive relationship she forms with Shirou. But again this all just comes as a side effect of Sakura being thrown into an atrociously constructed character setting to begin with. She simultaneously both is and isn’t a shallow character, and the more complicated parts of her character only come about as direct applications of how shallow her story framework is. It’s problematic and fundamentally contradictory, to say the least. But she has big boobs and it’s cute watching her live with her crush, so I’ll always enjoy it even if I don’t think I’ll ever respect it.
skapbadoa 