The finale of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei, the second season to adapt the 2wei manga series, aired today, and attached to the end was a not-all-that-unexpected announcement that they will be adapting the 3rei manga series next.
In one sense, this is great news. 3rei is awesome sauce. It contains things that make the whole middling plot of the original series and 2wei totally worth sitting through, and then takes it a bit further with moments that make episode f***ing 6 seem lame by comparison. And, best of all, due to its premise, there is basically no practical way that they will be able to do the thing that would make it all the things I'm about to mention about the previous series.
In another sense, however, the possibility that they might actually have a good show to watch is horrible for everyone who has to make it through 2wei to get caught up. Let me break it down to you in simplified terms. The 2wei anime seasons are crap. They easily could have fit the entire actual plot of 2wei into a single 10-episode season instead of two. But they didn't. Why? "Fanservice." Or what qualifies as that for people with very low standards for it, I suppose. And, to add insult to injury, they completely left out the parts from the manga that were the favorites of actual fans of the franchise overall (that is, for example, everything involving Shirou that isn't "fanservice" comic relief [it was still fanservice by definition, just not "fanservice"]). No guys, we do not need a completely random episode exploring the mindset of yaoi fangirls for its infinite comic potential more than we need well thought out references to the original that actually expand on its lore.
So, to make things easier on someone who might want to prepare for the fields of epic that will inevitably fill 3rei and don't want to have to suffer to do so, I have prepared a list of the episodes you ACTUALLY NEED TO WATCH to do so. And no, this is nothing like my Detective Conan list. This is not a list of important episodes with the qualifier that the rest of the episodes are still good, just unnecessary. The episodes I'm saying here you do not need to watch are horrible, terrible garbage that does not deserve to be compared to the final droppings of a squashed bug on the side of the road, and I am making this list to spare others from having to suffer through them.
Season 1: All of it. The real episodes anyway. Just avoid the OVA, if that's even a thing you need to be told.
2wei: 1, 2, maybe the first scene or two of 3, maybe 5 if you have strong fortitude (it has a couple interesting moments, but otherwise pointless and extremely grating to watch), 6, 8-10.
2wei Herz: 7-10. Yes, seriously, most of the season is meaningless BS. You might also get a tiny bit of something out of the latter half and only the latter half of 6, but it contributes nothing to the actual story, so you needn't bother if trying to only watch the second half of an episodes is too difficult for you.
And there you have it. See you whenever 3rei starts (probably next summer, knowing their current patterns). Until then, here's a taste of 3rei awesomeness to hold you over.
