Fortunately, no one I know actually thinks that Taiga is the best girl. I've heard more people rank Minorin above her. Hell, I've heard more people rank Ryuuji's mother above her. Which kind of makes sense, her story is a little tragic when you think about it, but she manages to handle it pretty well.
You are not going to like Heaven's Feel.
It's okay though. Heaven's Feel is still the best girl route.
I'm sorry that you're a girl and you can't possibly match up with the majesty of the Rin Tohsaka. Try harder, jealousboi.
In seriousness, I thought it was a fine solution to some of the issues that show up when you try to adapt a light novel into an anime. The first three Fate/Zero light novels are really, really slow. This impacts the pacing of the anime, and this episode addresses some of the things that were left out, poorly adapted, or were faults of direction/execution.
itt people who haven't read the light novel
It showcases Uryuu's complete incompetence, which couldn't really be fully explored without the section(s) in the light novel that talks about it.
It shows how much of a prodigy the Tohsaka lineage is by allowing Rin to overpower and defeat a Caster's master, which would only have made sense if you've read FSN. By showing it happen in FZ, it establishes the credibility of the line without having to see FSN.
It foreshadows Caster's secondary base. At the point that Waver and Rider discovered the sewer base and got attacked by Assassin, we had already been explicitly told that Caster was consuming souls in this manner, but this doesn't happen until halfway through season 2. Episode 10 is approximately the same time in the light novel that we first hear about it.
For whatever reason, they moved Kiritsugu's backstory out of novel 1 and into the second season. Something had to fill the gap to fix the pacing.
Even more importantly, it still matches the important events in the light novel. Rin does go into the city, but she doesn't really go on an adventure. She passes out and gets rescued by Kariya, and he and Aoi have another falling out.
Also, it shows us Kariya's new magecraft, which we should not have seen until he gets wrecked by Tokiomi. We would have had to wait six months before we actually see his inherited magecraft without this episode, and you couldn't expect people who haven't seen FSN to know that he uses familiars involving worms, insects, and flies to do stuff for him.
In a meta sense, it also confirmed ufotable adapting UBW and not Fate. There's some industry level stuff to go along with it, but might as well be another essay.
All signs point to it being butchered. ufotable only managed to get the rights to Fate adaptations by saying that they would adapt Realta Nua, the censored/PS2 patch version of Fate. DEEN still holds the rights to uncensored adaptations.
Based on previous Nasuverse adaptations (KnK, Zero, and UBW), their track record on faithfulness when it comes to dark theming is pretty poor.
There were also some false rumors that the future director of Heaven's Feel said that there would only be one movie. Unfortunately, even though the rumors are false, one thing is true: they actually considered it.
Yeah, Minorin was great too tbh. I liked all the characters, just Taiga the least.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
I never really bought in to the whole tsundere thing. It's just annoying. Now Yandere, there is a thriller.
Watch Mirai Nikki.