Where is my Raincoat joke Ufotable? That is literally one of the funniest things in the visual novel where Saber is like "I can't get rid of my armour" and the next scene she's just in this huge yellow monstrosity, where as with this it barely gets a mention. It might seem like a little thing but unlike the previous two episodes this one didn't have as much actual good stuff holding the bloat together.
Like, in the visual novel this bit takes forever, but I enjoy it because the visual novel knew how to also use the endless exposition to introduce the personalities of the characters: we find out Rin is pretending to be this bag ass super magi while being a big sarcastic softy at heart, that Saber is incredibly focused but doesn't lack care, compassion or humour (Who knows Lancer? Maybe this thing I'm holding like a sword is actually a Spear, Maybe you're not the real lancer!), that Archer is a trolling asshole. I've appreciated the anime for mostly staying true to that.
And then Kirei walked in circles and we learned very little about his character. Even his most important line in that entire exchange is sort of thrown onto the end and Shirou is like 'meh' as he walks off. That's kind of why I bring up the raincoat, because it's a perfect example of missing how to do exposition without bogging the narrative too far down. It's like Saber can't go into Spirit form and won't go out without her armour so whats our gameplan for hiding that here?
There was some pretty good positives though, Saber's smile when Shirou asks her for her consent to be his master is fucking great, because you can see her thinking 'Oh good this one's not a fucking asshole'. Archer doing his whole tsun thing with Rin where he tells her the opposite of what he wants her to do because he's finding something to tease her about. Illya showing off her manners while Berzerker causes the wubwubs to happen.
