DESCRIPTION

CAST

MOVIE ActionFate/stay night [Heaven's Feel] II. lost butterfly
MANGA ActionFate/stay night [Heaven's Feel]

REVIEWS

• 

  Sigsig

  100/100
  Heaven's Feel is the arc where everyone reaches their max potential.

  That moment Shirou decided to use Archer's arm. That was where the non-stop action started. Connecting his present self to Archer in the future, he saw a mirage of Archer challenging him, "Can you keep up with me?", to which he refuted, "No, can YOU keep up with me?", followed up by the powered-up green Trace On coursing through all his magic circuits.

  Story: 9.5/10
  I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing and the prose. While not nearly non-stop action as I'd have hoped, the slow paced moments were like the silence before the storm. It keeps you on your toes, and many a time I had expected Tohsaka to cower and die then and there - what a brave girl! - but she didn't. There were so many touching moments, such as the entire Shirou vs Heracles scene, where he traced all the way back to Illya's and his past; the trust between Shirou and Rider, leading to the combination of Rho Aias + Rider's Noble Phantasm, which I'll leave it up to you to discover, and Illya's reveal at the end.

  The ending did feel a bit rushed though, and slightly anti-climatic, but other than that it was perfect.

  Art: 10/10
  No qualms here. I wish I could draw well enough to illustrate what I saw, so that everyone else can appreciate just how epic it was. I was blown away by how a simple exorcism(?) of Zouken could look so peaceful yet so cool.

  Sound: 10/10
  Every bgm fit and nothing felt out of place. I particularly appreciated how the sfx illustrated how deadly each attack was, and yet act as a fitting backdrop for those scenes where a character expresses shock or sadness.

  Character: 10/10
  Heaven's Feel is the arc where everyone reaches their max potential. We're given development for every character, including Kotomine Kirei. During the fist fight with Shirou, he revealed his true motives that he has been reiterating for ages. Not only did they mutually accept each other - something which Kiritsugu couldn't do in Zero - no dirty tricks were used, which was very unlike the Kirei we have been shown.

  The same goes for Tohsaka. We're shown how she is unwavering, seemingly uncaring and knowing the right thing to do, as well as fully committing to it. But yet in the end, at the crucial moment, she couldn't.

  Similar for Shirou - he was willing to give up everything just to save Sakura. But yet, his wavered before he was about to conjure his final projection, instead choosing "I want to live on",

  Enjoyment: 9.5/10
  It was a rollercoaster of emotions. What dies might not say dead, and people do not simply die when they are killed. No matter how dead they may look. The final master did his job thoroughly and skipped past the True End into the Good End. All's well that ends well, and we're even given the cameo of some characters from the Clock Tower. There were no plotholes, but maybe just a tad too much plot armour.

  Overall: 10/10
  I'd recommend everyone to watch this movie. There was also a present at the live screening, which is related to the upcoming FGO movie - stay tuned for the trailer which should be released soon!

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• 

  Struggler

  60/100
  UBW has the worst journey, but the best destination and Heaven's Feel has the best journey, but the worst destination

  Intro

  I just saw this in theaters, and never before has an anime left me feeling so unbelievably blue balled. I’ll preface this with that there are spoilers that aren’t marked, so don’t read if you’d like to be spoiler free.

  Jaw-dropping Visuals

  I’ll start out with this movie’s strongest point: the animation. Never in my life have I seen animation, fights, just everything with such a jaw-dropping quality. I will never forget the battle between Black Saber, Rider, and Shirou. Each slash, the choreography, Rider’s triumphant horse charge, it was amazing from start to finish. My mere words cannot do justice to how beautiful this movie is. To see it in a theater experience is something that will never leave me, it is easily the best animated work I’ve seen at the time of this writing.
  It’s not even that fight specifically either, each and every moment of this movie is eye candy so sweet it will make you pass out in a proverbial sugar coma. Really, it’s worth watching it just for the visuals alone. So why did I negatively preface this review saying I got blue balled? Let’s get into it.

  I Paid to be Blue Balled

  Going from the previous movies, we’re all here to see how Sakura ended up as this dark figure draped in shadow, we’re all here to see what happened to Saber, and most of all, we’re all here to see how it wraps up.

  Picture this: it’s the last 10 minutes of the movie. We just saw that amazingly animated fight I mentioned above and in a last moment of clarity, Saber returns to herself before blissfully dying. Rin and Sakura duked it out and then embraced in a way that pulled my heart strings more than anything else in this series. Longfinger Kirk Shirou just resoundingly pummeled Kotomie in a way that crushed everything he stood for, so now what? There’s still the task of taking care of an evil fetus, a supposed “eighth servant” that is supposedly the purest concentration of evil to ever grace the face of the Earth, but Shirou’s a bit messed up. What’s going to happen next?

  At this point, Shirou literally has swords coming out everywhere all over his body (a mechanic not well explained either) and looks pretty close to death himself. To seemingly save Shirou, Illyasviel comes out of nowhere draped in white, looking exactly like the angelic Einzbern founding member seen earlier in the movie, and next all we see is a bright column of white and the eighth servant disintegrating. I don’t know about you, but I was on the edge of my seat. I was unbelievably excited to see what happens next, but the last ten minutes just drop the ball so hard it made my heart just sink equally low in my chest.

  We are then greeted by Sakura and Rin being siblings together and growing up, making up for all the lost time during their 11-year separation. They then walk around and gradually grow older as they do until they open a crate with a manikin inside, and get this, this manikin eventually becomes Shirou. That’s it, that’s the ending. Shirou died and he’s just a fucking manikin love doll for Sakura. We see over 8 hours of beautiful movies, fantastic artwork, and the most enthralling fights to have ever been witnessed by my eyes, and the end result? Shirou’s a fucking manikin. No loving family moment, we don’t see Shirou become Archer, and Rin is just…doing something? I see Shirou and Sakura hold hands, waiting to see some kind of explanation, some resolution, but no, that’s it. I waited five minutes watching the credits roll, desperately hoping to see some kind of post-credits epilogue, but no, there’s nothing. The lights come on, everyone starts to shuffle out of the theater, and I am left stunned. I have never felt more blue balled by an anime ever before in my life. I was on a roller coaster, the incline started, I heard the click click click as I slowly went up the incline, I just reached the summit, I braced for the dramatic fall down, but then the roller coaster just ends. No loops, no anything, just incline…and then it’s over. That’s what this movie is.

  There was so much wrong with Unlimited Blade Works that Heaven’s Feel did right that I could write a full review on it. There’s no annoyingly overpowered Gilgamesh wielding an instant-death stick, the serial rapist Shinji isn’t saved (not to mention that Shinji who raped Sakura for a whole decade is pictured holding hands with Sakura at the end of UBW), and Sakura, the girl who was staying with Shirou for years making him meals, isn’t just suddenly out of the picture. But you know what? UBW honestly has a better ending than Heaven’s Feel. To put it simply, Heaven’s Feel has the best journey, but the worst destination, and UBW has the worst journey, but the best destination. The ending of UBW completely wraps of everything, I was left disappointed by it, but it was a semi-well written and complete ending. But Heaven’s Feel? You are left with nothing but questions at the end and you’ll never get resolution unless you read the light novels or whatever else has the original story for this. I came to Heaven’s Feel to get an ending more satisfying, and I left feeling that Fate/Stay Night is a fundamentally flawed work. Both versions have unexplained mechanics, both versions have an ending where one is left disappointed in some regard, and both versions just off characters with no explanation.

  My advice? Only watch Fate/Zero. I cannot think of a single legitimate flaw with Fate/Zero, it has amazing writing from start to finish.
  You see:

  • Waver grow from a timid boy to proud man with honor (honestly has the best character development in the series)
  • The pompous El Melloi gets his just desserts along with his equally horrid wife
  • The tragedy of Lancer wishing for an honorable fight, yet dying by his own hand in the most ironic way possible, cursing his enemies with his dying breath
  • Kotomie going from undecided man with a lack of empathy to full blown psychopath
  • The tragedy of Kariya, who selfishly inflicted unbelievable suffering on himself in order to achieve a narcissistic fantasy with a woman he later murdered with his own hands; The tragedy of Kariya is very Shakespearean in this regard
  • Tokiomi, a Machiavellian mage who so pompously thought he had Kotomie under control, is murdered with the dagger he just gifted Kotomie. The way you can see the dream he strived for his entire life slip away from him in only a few moments while his eyes go black in an amazingly subtle way
  • Kiritsugu sees the results of his equally Machiavellian pursuits and witnesses his entire life of sacrificing for the greater good be for naught

  The list goes on, Fate/Zero is just that good.

  Closing Remarks

  Ultimately, Fate Stay/Night is a fundamentally flawed work seemingly limited in scope by its source material. There’s no other reason I can think of for the writing quality between Zero and Stay/Night being as painfully apparent as it is. Should you watch this movie? Sure, the visuals alone are worth it, but if you care about plot resolution and quality writing, prepare to be given balls a darker shade of blue than possibly imaginable.

  Disagree with me? See that I misunderstood something? Don't hesitate to let me know, I would love to be wrong about this work.

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• 

  MankoMan

  95/100
  An incomplete masterpiece

  IMPORTANT INFO: The order at which I've watched/read fate: route 1 of the VN-> UBW anime-> Heavens feel 1 and 2-> Zero-> Heaven's feel 3. I have not read the VN for the 2nd and 3rd routes or gotten into the other series in nasuverse.

  Heaven's feel III picks up right where the second movie left off, and I'm not talking simply about the plot. The visual spectacle that ufotable was able to construct, the epic score by Yuki Kajiura, the beautiful ending song by Aimer, it's all here. I don't think anyone wants to read a review of me going off about how much of a genius key animator Nozomu Abe is or how good the digital effects and compositing staff is at complimenting their animators. So I'll skip to the thing I didn't like as much. The storytelling.

  This movie is the climax. The previous movie was the beginning of the end and this is the end. But of course, a 6 hour adaptation of a 20+ hour visual novel will come with pacing issues. Movie 1 was good but felt like there wasn't a good pay off as it was mostly used for build up. Movie 2 blew me away and is still one of the best movies I've ever watched and one of my favourites; everything was handled perfectly even if some content was skipped from the VN. The issue with the 3rd movie is that there is so much narrative dropped onto you that it gets really hard to follow sometimes. Especially the ending (mild spoiler) which ties to the garden of sinners franchise. There is no explanation to how anything happens in the last few minutes of the movie. This movie is less of an animated show, more of a movie that's made for fans of the VN and nasuverse. Is that a bad thing? Depends on the viewer. Personally, I'd say yes. I had no clue what the hell happened at the end because I haven't watched the garden of sinners series. I am a keen observer so I understood the "materialization of the soul" segment, which also had zero explanation whatsoever, so I'm sure there'll be people lost there as well. Ultimately if an anime-only watcher wants the full experience, they'll have to depend on forums for explanations. I did that, and was really satisfied when I got some closure, but I'd rather have gotten that from the movie itself. I'm not talking about a naruto-like 20 minute backstory or explanation, but a brief cut to the previous scene to explain what's currently happening would have made the movie perfect. I hate it when shows mother you and hold your hand to explain every single detail. But Heaven's feel 3 is no mother. It's the dad that went out to buy milk without explaining anything and assumes that you know all the details. This situation would have been even worse had I not watched zero already, because if I hadn't then Kotomine's segment wouldn't have made sense to me either.

  The plot itself is great however. This is the route where every loose end and character arc is perfectly tied up. Calling this "Sakura's route" would simply not do it justice. This route does Rin better than her own route. This route has Shirou choosing love over ideals. It's where Kotomine is perfectly fleshed out (assuming you've already watched zero). Rider's character was done beautifully. I just wish the story could be handled better. Also I know the most common response that I'll get to that is- "read the VN, you filthy casual normie".
  I judge anime as anime. Not as adaptations. When I rated promised neverland S2 a 3, It wasn't because it's a dog shit adaptation. It's because it's dogshit. Period.

  So... after all that, why the high score? Because I fucking love heaven's feel. I love the story. I love Sakura, and with this movie I love all the characters including Rin who I didn't care much for before. I love the art and animation. I love the music. If the movie does not do anything wrong, lost butterfly for example, I will give it a perfect score. But for a movie that unfortunately isn't objectively or subjectively perfect, I gave it the score right below perfection.

  That's pretty much it.

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