Yeah, the visuals that reoccur are supposed to represent Shirou activating his magic circuits, putting mana through them
2019-03-04 13:10:20 +0000 UTC
The glowing lines are basically a visual shorthand for magic circuits, or to show that magic is being passed through something :) Great reactions as always.
2019-03-04 10:10:59 +0000 UTC
Love your discussion about magic circuits and your theory. I wannna clarify some things but I’m not sure how much to say.
Zero
2019-03-04 05:26:59 +0000 UTC
Magic circuits are physical, like nerves. Their function is to transform life energy into magical energy. They can be reinforced through eugenics throughout the generations (as mage families like the Tohsaka do it), or can appear via random mutation (Shirou). They can also theoretically be artificially implanted into a person but it's very dangerous to do to a natural human. As Kiritsugu never properly trained Shirou, he has been transforming his nervous system temporarily into magic circuits this whole time, which is dangerous, inefficient and extremely painful. Shirou being the obstinate fucker he is just doesn't register the pain that much anymore. What Archer did was basically unlock his real circuits which Shirou was unaware of (but used against Kuzuki without realizing it). So casting magic shouldn't be painful to him anymore and he should be able to achieve more, although he is still limited by his almost nonexistent training and poor quality circuits.