Fate/EXTRA Last Encore

[Wandering Swordwoman]

Second hypothesis and analysis. It's long and I hope it covers all details.

2nd

2. Nero talked to Mumei(?) and they know each other - PROBABLY

2nd

When I first saw this scene, it's really strange to see why Nero is always staring at things in front of her. If she was talking to Hakuno, she should see her left side because that's where Hakuno stands.

I get more confused when I saw the animation during this stage, Nero talks to someone.
The way SHAFT showing the storyboard is really strange


When I saw this scene I thought Nero is looking at Hakuno (I really did)
However, the next scene of Nero starts talking is even much more confusing. Because the camera doesn't tell us whom she is talking to. (If you want to show two people talk to each other and who is talking to whom directly, the ordinary photographer will picture two people into one scene like this.

This is just an example, you can clearly see two people are talking to each other.
However, the next scene is showing that Nero is still staring at things in front of her and it seems like she is talking to the air. (Look at the background, it's almost the same angle and its symmetry which suggests Nero doesn't turn to Hakuno's side nor look at him. If she does, she should at least roll her eyes to the left so we know she is looking at Hakuno)



If I picture this scene in this way you will know what I mean to.

So it really appears she faces nobody right?
The next scene shows Mumei and suddenly, all strange storyboards seem to make sense.



Then the next scene, if you watch the anime carefully you will see Nero apparently doesn't pay attention to the Hakuno stands beside her. She is still staring and walking to the things in front of her.
Then the last scene, watch the anime again, did you see it?





Why the background has to be symmetry? SHAFT played a small trick here

---

Normally, if you want to picture two people standing in front of each other, you place the camera on the side of them and take the picture, because it directly shows the relative position of two people.
However, in this case, the relative position of two people (Nero and Mumei) is hidden cleverly. Because the camera is placed IN THE MIDDLE OF them.
So, it looks like this


How do we know the relative position of two people under this circumstance?

The design of the theater is very special because its round and almost identical to see it side to side.


The point is if the background is identical, you will have to understand their relative positions from a limited perceptive.
Therefore, the camera hides Mumei intentionally. Although it seems like he is disappeared to us because we are deceived by the perceptive from the camera. He is always there.


And finally, all these strange storyboard cuts don't make non sense now. It suggests Nero is neither talking to the air nor Hakuno before the fight.

The person she is talking to is actually Mumei.



I think SHAFT wants to hide this because Mumei has connections to Nero. The relationship between the characters is getting complex again.
Nero said "It's you." before she fights Mumei, if this word is really said to Mumei, it may suggest they know each other because Nero sounds like she is greeting an old friend.

Well the strategy SHAFT may have used here gives me a feeling of watching "Kara no Kyoukai: Mujun Rasen", and it's getting even more interesting now. However, The character sakuga of the first episode is really bad and some fight scene looks like slide shows.
Such as the animation around this time, you can feel the stutters when you are watching it.

Spoiler:

Furthermore, according to Nero's cast, Miss Sakura Tange's blog. She suggests the animation is far from the completion at the after record stage. Normally they should finish the movie at that time and obviously SHAFT is way behind the schedule. Well, they already have 3-gatsu this season so it's critical.

Overall opinion (Fate gets shafted)
Nasu's Script & Animation storyboard and Enshutsu: Very Interesting
Character Sakuga: Don't count on SHAFT
Work schedule: Don't count on SHAFT
Special Effect Sakuga: Fantastic
Music: Fantastic
Photography(Satsuei): Meh

Thanks for the laugh

[onepieceuc1]

To be honest I'd prefer the Masters just stayed away because I don't want another repeat of Lostroom's pokemon battles

I see your point but him staying behind and only watch would be really bad too :/ That's why I hope they put a lot of thoughts into how animating these battles.

[RoydGolden]

About Amari (the Tamamo-lookalike)... isn't she dead? Shinji told Hakuno she was hiding someplace safe, but since he'd already snapped and decided to kill everyone he could in the hopes of passing to the next round the most logical conclusion would be that he killed her too. Granted, she could still show up again like Hakuno did, and her character design is awfully distinctive for a one-episode minor character...

[Iceblade44]

About Amari (the Tamamo-lookalike)... isn't she dead? Shinji told Hakuno she was hiding someplace safe, but since he'd already snapped and decided to kill everyone he could in the hopes of passing to the next round the most logical conclusion would be that he killed her too. Granted, she could still show up again like Hakuno did, and her character design is awfully distinctive for a one-episode minor character...

If Shinji already killed her he wouldn't have needed to kill Hakuno, it's 1 kill equals 1 pass. Most likely she has passed as a Master Canidate and is now part of the main tournament

[RoydGolden]

Also, let me summarize the events of the episode to check if I understand everything properly. A bunch of people with Master aptitude are transported into the Moon Cell through some unknown process (I presume mind-uploading, but it's described so vaguely they could be physically held in capsules Matrix-style). The Moon Cell then reconstructs a virtual "paradise" from all their memories where they can live out an ordinary high-school life in an idyllic environment.

Their memories are also likely being tampered with to keep them from noticing any irregularities in the virtual world (like the chess-club dude dying). Once 150 potential Masters are gathered, the Moon Cell then culls all but a select few (I don't understand the point of this. Why bother reaching a quota if you're just going to slaughter most of them anyway?) and lets the survivors pass to the next "round", where the Holy Grail War will begin properly.

There also seems to be a time-loop involved, going by the fem!Hakuno we see fighting Buddha in the prologue and all the dead Hakuno copies we see near the end. So the cycle of ordinary school life, 150 students being gathered and the robots appearing and killing everyone has repeated god knows how many times, until Hakuno finally managed to awaken his memories and break out of the loop by surviving.

I really don't understand this part, as if the whole system is meant to assess Master candidates then what would be the point of resurrecting the ones who already failed and killing them again? Especially since, going by Kotomine's speech at the end, all the students except Hakuno met the same fates in every iteration of the loop, so continuing the cycle would be completely unnecessary if the only point was to determine who would survive.

I don't know, maybe most of this stuff is deliberately kept mysterious and will be revealed later on. But those are my thoughts so far.

[bassgs435]

About Amari (the Tamamo-lookalike)... isn't she dead? Shinji told Hakuno she was hiding someplace safe, but since he'd already snapped and decided to kill everyone he could in the hopes of passing to the next round the most logical conclusion would be that he killed her too. Granted, she could still show up again like Hakuno did, and her character design is awfully distinctive for a one-episode minor character...

Shinji only needed to kill one people to pass (People who pass get their name display go from orange to white, and Shinji's went white after stabbing Hakuno. Meaning he didn't kill anyone before that)

[Cipher One]

There also seems to be a time-loop involved, going by the fem!Hakuno we see fighting Buddha in the prologue and all the dead Hakuno copies we see near the end. So the cycle of ordinary school life, 150 students being gathered and the robots appearing and killing everyone has repeated god knows how many times, until Hakuno finally managed to awaken his memories and break out of the loop by surviving.

I really don't understand this part, as if the whole system is meant to assess Master candidates then what would be the point of resurrecting the ones who already failed and killing them again? Especially since, going by Kotomine's speech at the end, all the students except Hakuno met the same fates in every iteration of the loop, so continuing the cycle would be completely unnecessary if the only point was to determine who would survive.

Well considering what Hakuno's origins, I guess it's one way to explain why they came back. Either that or there's some sort of time-loop going on as you said.

[Kratosirving]

My take on it is to draw a similarity from Red vs Blue of all shows; Epsilon's iterations in the memory unit; could be the Cell trying, deciding what we saw in the first few minutes was a wash, and rebooted again. :|

[bassgs435]

Lots of text

There are hundreds or thousands of candidates here. To begin it's HGW, the Moon Cell needs 128 masters, not one more, not one less. Once most masters pass this trial, the last few are chosen by having the remaining candidates kill each other to get on the final few spots. Keep in mind at this point there are still more candidates than spots. Once the 128th master was found, the moon cell purged the rest of the candidates who couldn't kill one person in time. For reasons that will be explained, Hakuno survives and becomes an anomaly (notice his display not going white, but red)
Also, the loop from losing HGW to selection stage may be something only Hakuno experiences and not a feature. Again, Hakuno as a 129th master who lived when he was classified dead (display grey/turned off) is an anomaly (display red)

[You]

Since you need to kill someone to get into this HGW the question is
what happened to Jinako-sama

[TamamoRoute]

Also, let me summarize the events of the episode to check if I understand everything properly. A bunch of people with Master aptitude are transported into the Moon Cell through some unknown process (I presume mind-uploading, but it's described so vaguely they could be physically held in capsules Matrix-style). The Moon Cell then reconstructs a virtual "paradise" from all their memories where they can live out an ordinary high-school life in an idyllic environment.

Their memories are also likely being tampered with to keep them from noticing any irregularities in the virtual world (like the chess-club dude dying). Once 150 potential Masters are gathered, the Moon Cell then culls all but a select few (I don't understand the point of this. Why bother reaching a quota if you're just going to slaughter most of them anyway?) and lets the survivors pass to the next "round", where the Holy Grail War will begin properly.

There also seems to be a time-loop involved, going by the fem!Hakuno we see fighting Buddha in the prologue and all the dead Hakuno copies we see near the end. So the cycle of ordinary school life, 150 students being gathered and the robots appearing and killing everyone has repeated god knows how many times, until Hakuno finally managed to awaken his memories and break out of the loop by surviving.

I really don't understand this part, as if the whole system is meant to assess Master candidates then what would be the point of resurrecting the ones who already failed and killing them again? Especially since, going by Kotomine's speech at the end, all the students except Hakuno met the same fates in every iteration of the loop, so continuing the cycle would be completely unnecessary if the only point was to determine who would survive.

I don't know, maybe most of this stuff is deliberately kept mysterious and will be revealed later on. But those are my thoughts so far.

For what I could gather it's more like this:

-The Moon Cell selects 256 master candidates from Earth and transports their soul to the virtual world that is SE.RA.PH;
-There their memories are supressed and it's a countdown until 100 of the 256 have perceived that "the world is not right", recover their memories and kill another candidate to earn the qualification.;
-Once those 100 pass, a "Purge" starts in order to make the remaining 28 places be quickly filled by pressuring the candidates still in campus;
-I don't think it's a time loop, it's indeed a new Grail War every time. In OG Extra Twice killed all winners of the precedent Grail wars because they didn't want to make his wish come true, meaning all Masters always died
-If Hakuno is like in OG Extra, then he is a sentient NPC, meaning his consciousness maybe could occupy a new body after he dies, which could be the case with Hakunon -> Hakuno

[pinetree]

About Amari (the Tamamo-lookalike)... isn't she dead? Shinji told Hakuno she was hiding someplace safe, but since he'd already snapped and decided to kill everyone he could in the hopes of passing to the next round the most logical conclusion would be that he killed her too. Granted, she could still show up again like Hakuno did, and her character design is awfully distinctive for a one-episode minor character...

The most logical conclusion is to assume he killed the one person we saw him killing, I don't even know how you got "snapped and decided to kill everyone he could" from that.

[Asunder]

Since you need to kill someone to get into this HGW the question is
what happened to Jinako-sama

As a neet that does not interact with the World, Jinako-sama 'killed' herself thereby gaining the right to 'live'.

[pinetree]

Also, considering there were other mistakes in the subtitles during the after credits scene, was "Your existence is my last job" correct? I like the implication that Kirei had something to do with Hakuno's awakening.

[RoydGolden]

Thanks for clarifying everything y'all. I didn't get the part about one kill = one pass, and I somehow misremembered the number of Master candidates as 150 instead of 256.

- - - Updated - - -

-If Hakuno is like in OG Extra, then he is a sentient NPC, meaning his consciousness maybe could occupy a new body after he dies, which could be the case with Hakunon -> Hakuno

I'm not sure if that backstory is still true here. In the scene at the incinerator, Hakuno saw visions of his past life on earth, which wouldn't make sense if he was an NPC.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

You do realize that s/he is an NPC with a history on Earth right

[RoydGolden]

You do realize that s/he is an NPC with a history on Earth right

If he's an NPC, then wouldn't he by definition have no history outside the Moon Cell? Unless he was an NPC in a computer on Earth that was then copied over into the Moon Cell...

- - - Updated - - -

Then again, with Sakura and maybe Kotomine (still not clear what his deal is) as examples we do know that NPCs can be based off of real people from earth. Never mind then, it was a silly objection.

[Lolly Battory]

NPCs are based on real people. Like Sakura, Kirei, Taiga, etc.

[fumei]

About Amari (the Tamamo-lookalike)... isn't she dead? Shinji told Hakuno she was hiding someplace safe, but since he'd already snapped and decided to kill everyone he could in the hopes of passing to the next round the most logical conclusion would be that he killed her too. Granted, she could still show up again like Hakuno did, and her character design is awfully distinctive for a one-episode minor character...

Unique character design unlike all the other nameless nobody's who got offed here and is literally listed next to all the other major characters on the website. I think it's safe to say she'll be back.

[RoydGolden]

NPCs are based on real people. Like Sakura, Kirei, Taiga, etc.

I just updated my comment upon remembering that. It does make me wonder why the Moon Cell chose those specific people to base its NPCs off of, however.

And if it's just sampling randomly, then picking a bunch of people from the same random city in Japan strikes me as quite the hefty coincidence...