Fate/strange Fake

Episodes 9-10

In a way, this battle is a fight largely unlike those we've seen in Fate anime. While Servants and mages are battling it out, the impetus behind the conflict is a purely altruistic one rather than a selfish one. Basically, while Alcides and Gilgamesh are fighting as usual, an alliance of mages and servants has come together to try and rescue the young master of False Rider from the clutches of Jester and her own Servant. This kind of heroic action is decidedly the opposite of what a normal mage would do. However, Orlando, Ayaka, Flat, and Sigma are far from normal mages.

For Orlando, it's the fact that he is a police officer and has allied himself with justice. For Ayaka, it's that she is a normal person who doesn't want to turn a blind eye as a child dies. Meanwhile, Flat moves as a representative of a new generation of mages—ones who view Waver as a hero to be emulated—while Sigma is searching for who he is and what kind of mage he wants to be.

To further understand all that's going on in this chaotic pair of episodes, let's break things down into the three major fights.

The first is the fight between Alcides and the combined forces of the police and Jack the Ripper. This fight is centered around Jack being akin to humanity's primal fear of the unknown and Alcides complete rejection of his divine nature—making him weak to everything Jack is and represents. However, this doesn't mean that the former Heracles isn't still using divine weapons and armor—not to mention being powered by a legend that involves him stealing his foes' weapons and using them as his own.

However, what Alcides overlooks is the strength of the ordinary humans he claims to be one of. Alexandre Dumas has the power to create heroes—to take a normal person's story and twist it ever so slightly into a heroic legend. This not only gets Flat close enough to unleash his magecraft upon Alcides but also seemingly allows John to weather a seemingly fatal blow and come back at just the right moment to turn the tables. Unfortunately, that isn't quite enough to finish off the twisted Greek hero, which leads us into our next fight, Richard versus Gilgamesh.

While the fight between Richard and Gilgamesh is one spawned from jealousy (Gilgamesh can't accept even the possibility that anyone could replace him as Enkidu's friend), that's not really the purpose of the fight in a thematic sense. Basically, Gilgamesh is (and always has been) a mirror to the other characters. In his arrogance, he reveals things about them they have yet to see or accept.

In this case, the issue is that Richard is lacking conviction. Sure, he has made it his duty to protect Ayaka, and his current goal is to rescue Tsubaki, but he still lacks any greater reason to win this Holy Grail War. While he is enjoying the fight with Gilgamesh, he has nothing forcing him to give his all—no cause that would drive him to overcome the King of Heroes. This, of course, leaves him defeated—until a combination of attacks from Alcides and Ishtar leaves Gilgamesh himself at death's door.

Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding Ayaka deepens. Alcides is being powered by the corpses of thousands of people, which allows him to fight as he is. Yet, somehow, Ayaka is doing something similar. As Richard, not only shoots off Excalibur time and again, but she also supplies False Assassin with power at the same time. There should be no human alive (outside of those with True Magic) who should be able to do such a thing unaided—yet, Ayaka is only feeling a bit under the weather. With this, it's no wonder that Hansa asks not “who” she is but rather “what.”

Lastly, we have the battle between Jester and the team of Sigma and False Assassin. Similar to the one between Richard and Gilgamesh, this is a fight centered around jealousy. The vampire has clearly fallen for False Assassin in his own twisted way, and the idea that she is now working with a new master instead of him makes him enraged. (Of course, Jester has no way of knowing it is Ayaka and not Sigma supplying False Assassin with mana.)

Likewise, this battle shows the growing relationship between Sigma and False Assassin. At their cores, they are both people searching for meaning—trying to find something to believe in. False Assassin compares herself to the ideal for her kind and finds herself wanting. However, she realizes that only by striving towards that goal can she ever hope to attain it—and blames her failures on not having grown enough as a person. Sigma, on the other hand, is coming to understand that the search for what he wants to do in his life is as important as actually finding it—and that acting alongside someone else in the midst of that search has a value in and of itself.

Of course, in the end, all these battles are interrupted as the entire cast is enveloped in black mist. What this means for our heroes and villains, however, will just have to wait until next week.

Episode 9 Rating:

Episode 10 Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Without Rin's innately kind spirit to temper her, Ishtar's is far more of a cold-hearted villain than we see in Fate/Grand Order.

• Of the servants we've been introduced to, only Hippolyta and François Prelati are missing completely from this battle so far. (Enkidu is seen supporting from afar while True Assassin is on a mission to kill someone).

• Despite us seeing his crumpled, broken body, Gilgamesh still has to be alive—if not, he would have dissipated as his body is not real but rather a spirit made physical by means of the Third Magic.

• The most ironic thing about this whole massive operation to save Tsubaki? It's almost certain that she doesn't want to be saved.

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Fate/strange Fake is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.