Today's Menu for the Emiya Family

Episode 4

April is the cruelest month, so what better way to open up April than by turning the spotlight on one of Fate/stay night's most cruelly underused servants? Sasaki Kojiro has never been much more than a miniboss in Fate/stay night's storyline, but even grunts appreciate a good meal. This means it's time for Shirou to fulfill his purpose in this world and deliver him some snackage.

So Ryuudou Temple is throwing some sort of party, and our boy Shirou has been roped into delivering the booze. First of all, I've got to say that I'm insanely jealous of this city's climate. My April is nowhere near as green as the one these guys are getting, and I don't see any of them still begrudgingly confined to their winter coats. But I digress. Honestly, this was easily Today's Menu for the Emiya Family's worst episode so far, mostly because it focuses on characters so minor that I struggled to care about their antics. After all, how many of you even knew that “Shirou's boss at his part-time job” and “some monk at the shrine” were characters before this? Seriously, when the fake Assassin who gets like one fight scene in the original visual novel is your headliner, you know that your episode is lacking star power.

But that's enough bitching about this topic. Kojiro may be an underused character, but he has fans, and I'm sure that any amount of screen time will be treasured by them. On that front, it looks like he's up to his usual antics of standing at the temple gates waiting to be attacked by servants. That job may be pointless in this nonviolent timeline, but he's still at it – most likely because it's impossible for him to actually leave the area where he was summoned. It was awfully kind of him to help out Shirou and his boss when they nearly dumped all their crap on the sidewalk at the top of the steps.

After that, Shirou succeeds at making me hungry again by cooking up some delicious leafy green sandwiches. Everyone mooches off his cooking skills, and even Kojiro is allowed to join in on the fun. Boss lady and monk guy reflect on their time spent together as classmates alongside Taiga, thus giving the episode a slight MONO NO AWARE vibe. This vibe is enhanced by Kojiro's parting gift of sakura petals before he leaves to go jerk off or something. (Look, I presume this is his main form of amusement under such confined circumstances.)

To be completely honest, I'm hardcore struggling to come up with much to say about this episode since it was so uneventful and focused on such minor characters. This isn't to say that it wasn't at all enjoyable – even at this ebb in its entertainment value, Today's Menu For the Emiya Family is still a high-quality iyashikei show. It's just 100% fanservice for Fate fans, so it's going to be most engaging when it features characters from that franchise who I'm most invested in. On that note, I'm looking forward to seeing how Medea and Souichirou are getting on. We got a glimpse of them today, and judging by their presence in the OP and ED sequences, I suspect that they'll be getting their own dedicated episode some time down the line. Overall, I'm content calling this month's episode a mild dud, but may these April showers bring May flowers (in the form of Sakura's dedicated episode I hope).

Grade: B-

Today's Menu for the Emiya Family is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.