lapassantjuriste | Kariya is truly the master of Berserker

And when Kirei decides to do something he does it well. Now that he's given into his dark side, there is nothing holding him back, and what he did to Kariya proves it. Although I do not think that either he or Gil thought that Kariya would kill Aoi.

As for Kariya, I don't know what to say other than, someone should put the poor fellow out of his misery, although with people like Kirei and Zouken around who just love to watch him suffer I don't see that happening any time soon. On that note seems like Kirei doesn't like being compared to Zouken, even though as the later points out they are remarkably similar, which points to the fact that Kirei has not entirely embraced the new him.

What I did not understand was, why would Kariya trust Kirei in the first place? Even if he did not know about the whole thing with Assassin, I'm sure that even he would be suspicious as to why he was suddenly helping him. Of course its quite likely that like his servants' obsession with Saber his goal is to kill Tokiomi and will try to achieve it through any means necessary added to the fact that all he's endured up to now had probably unhinged him a little.

I also knew that this goal of his would lead to disaster, because even if things had happened differently I don't think Aoi would have taken the fact that Kariya had killed her husband well, given her reaction, she really did love Tokiomi so there is no scenario where this would have worked out. Kariya probably never realized this and thought by killing Tokiomi he was saving her in some way.

On a different note, its quite sad to see Maiya go, even though I knew she was not going to survive the war, and her death is made sadder by the fact that we didn't really get to know her character. Maybe I've been reading things wrong, but until episode 20 it seemed like she was in love with Kiritsugu as well, but then in episode 20 she tells Iri that she was a child soldier and that in her own words, as a human being she is dead inside, which contradicts her feelings of love, or at least the way they were portrayed. It also doesn't explain, why Kititsugu took her in, or much else really. But since I've acquired three of the novels I'm hoping to find the answers in there.

But I am very pleased with the animation quality of the chase scene between Saber and Rider, especially Saber and her motorbike, which is something I've been waiting for since the start of the series.