Fate Stay/Night: Volume 4
- Label:
- MVM
- Certificate:
- 12
- Discs:
- 1. (4 episodes)
- Running time:
- 100 mins approx
- Video:
- 16.9 anamorphic
- Sound:
- English 2.0, Japanese 2.0
- Subtitles:
- English
- Release date:
- 5th April 2010
- RRP:
- £15.99 - Amazon - Play - MVM
Fate Stay/Night: Volume 5
- Label:
- MVM
- Certificate:
- TBA
- Discs:
- 1. (4 episodes)
- Running time:
- 100 mins approx
- Subtitles:
- English
- Video:
- 16.9 anamorphic
- Sound:
- English 2.0, Japanese 2.0
- Release date:
- 3rd May 2010
- RRP:
- £15.99 - Amazon - Play - MVM
Brief synopsis:
Volume 4: When you’re up against Beserker - a servant that not only easily outclasses you in both size and power but can also regenerate from almost any wound - your options are somewhat limited and your chances of victory slim. With Saber badly injured and out of action it’s up to Archer to show his master that he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve which can go some way to levelling the playing field. But will they be enough to defeat Berserker or is he just buying time before suffering total defeat at the hands of the strongest Epic Hero the Earth has ever known?
Volume 5: With the number of remaining servants dwindling, the servant team of Caster and Assasin make their move by kidnapping one of Shirou’s friends. Caster’s plan is to use her as a human sacrifice in order to immediately summon the Holy Grail and therefore bypass the rest of the Grail War. As Shirou, Saber and Rin race to save their friend they soon find out that when you rush headlong into the enemies territory you leave yourself at a major disadvantage.
Comments:
So now we’re five volumes into this show and the true identity of six of the seven servants has been revealed with enough clues about Archer’s true identity being scattered around to make figuring out the seventh an emanate possibility. Mind you, once you’ve got that figured out they go and introduce a mysterious eighth servant – one with some kind of connection to Saber - into the mix just to mess with our heads.
The latter part of Volume 4 as well as most of Volume 5 is very battle heavy, which this show does very well. Unfortunately the last episode of Volume 5 veers off into fluffy human-interest story (with Shirou showing he’s still as much a clueless prat when it comes to women as he ever was), which this show doesn’t do so well. The Certification for Volume 5 hasn’t been decided at time of writing but with all the blood - and the S&M gear poor Sakura gets bundled into - a 15 cert wouldn’t surprise me at all.
On the upside, the dub, which I complained about previously, seems to sort itself out during Volume 4 but then on the downside it seems to lose it again in Volume 5. Mind you, the English script does at times explain the situation better than the Japanese version does even if the voice acting’s not so good.
Extras:
Volume 4: Music video; Textless closing animation; trailers.
Volume 5: Promo video; Textless closing animation; trailers.
Fate Stay/Night: Volume 4 is available now with Fate Stay/Night: Volume 5 available from 3rd May 2010. Previous SFL reviews for this show can be found here and here.
FATE/STAY NIGHT: UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS will be playing as part of SFL's Manga all-nighter Sat 2nd May 2010. Details of which can be found here