Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly

The Fifth Holy Grail War continues, and the ensuing chaos results in higher stakes for all participants. Shirou Emiya continues to participate in the war, aspiring to be a hero of justice who saves everyone. He sets out in search of the truth behind a mysterious dark shadow and its murder spree, determined to defeat it.

Meanwhile, Shinji Matou sets his own plans into motion, threatening Shirou through his sister Sakura Matou. Shirou and Rin Toosaka battle Shinji, hoping to relieve Sakura from the abuses of her brother. But the ugly truth of the Matou siblings begins to surface, and many dark secrets are exposed.

Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly continues to focus on the remaining Masters and Servants as they fight each other in the hopes of obtaining the Holy Grail. However, as darkness arises within Fuyuki City, even the state of their sacred war could be in danger.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Toosaka, Rin Main

Ueda, Kana Japanese

Emiya, Shirou Main

Sugiyama, Noriaki Japanese

Matou, Sakura Main

Shitaya, Noriko Japanese

Saber Supporting

Kawasumi, Ayako Japanese

Emiya, Kiritsugu Supporting

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Gilgamesh Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Archer Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Kotomine, Kirei Supporting

Nakata, Jouji Japanese

von Einzbern, Illyasviel Supporting

Kadowaki, Mai Japanese

Rider Supporting

Asakawa, Yuu Japanese

Takeuchi, Takashi Producer, Original Character Design

Iwakami, Atsuhiro Producer

Kondou, Hikaru Producer, Sound Director

Kimura, Yoshitaka Assistant Producer

Reviews

Feb 6, 2025

Excalibaaaa

Recommended

If the ending of Presage Flower felt like getting kicked in the chest, then Lost Butterfly feels like getting curb-stomped, to death. Lost Butterfly takes all the tragic elements of the previous film, and layers atop it horror, and a story that leaves you sick to your stomach; and as much as it hurts to watch, it’s genuinely incredible. While the animation and soundtrack are the same as ever (godly as ever), Shirou’s character and path completely diverge from their course in the Unlimited Blade Works narrative. Similarly, we see different sides for characters like Illya, Rider, and Father Kotomine.

Sakura finally starts getting more screen ... time, and that’s both a blessing and a curse; Sakura is a genuinely compelling character in this film, displayed with much more nuance and feeling than ever before. Her tragic upbringing, and the abuse she suffered, make for truly haunting moments within the film, and some deeply complex, difficult interactions. And that becomes problematic because the film fails to honor both her suffering and her position as the heroine. Lost Butterfly trips over its own feet, trying to both communicate her trauma in a candid way and yet simultaneously sexualize her! A victim of sexual abuse! It’s demeaning and gross. And despite her being the heroine, she’s constantly treated as a damsel in distress.

Disappointing as that is, the film is so well written and executed in every other regard that is can overcome its bad moments and themes. Beyond Fate/Zero, this is the darkest and most interesting chapter of the Fate series. It’s undoubtedly a masterful work and something I recommend watching.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 27, 2021

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

A couple weeks back I looked at the first film in the Fate/Stay Heaven's Feel trilogy. It was okay. The main issue it suffered was one that seems common to a lot of these Fate anime, Shirou is rubbish. But let's take a look at the second film and see if it improves at all.

Story:

We open where Presage Flower left off. Saber has been absorbed by a strange red and black creature. Shirou is an entire toolbox. Zouken and Assassin are causing major problems. In Lost Butterfly, Shirou and Rin rescue Sakura from her brother, discover some uncomfortable truths about her past, go ... to Illya's rescue when the strange being comes after her and Berserker and the identity of the creature gets revealed.

There are a couple big story problems with the film. The first is that it contains some serious topics like physical, emotional and sexual abuse and it doesn't really bother to engage with or handle them in a mature, intelligent fashion. Rather, they seem to be here for shock value and as an easy motivation for a particular character. Maybe that changes in the last film and there's actually some proper exploration and handling of it, but I suspect that won't be the case. Another issue is that characters give up on their plans really easily for plot contrivance's sake. There are points where Rin and Shirou are both determined to take action and then give up on those plans very easily. The romance is also very banal.

Now, to the positives. I do think the film does an excellent job with building intrigue. The reveal of the creature's nature is very well executed and there is some strong foreshadowing to complement it. So, it is an interesting enough film when it's not focusing on the relationship betwixt Shirou and Sakura.

Characters:

Here's where the film really face plants into a pile of rusty razor blades. The two major characters it spends the most time with are Shirou & Sakura. Shirou is an absolute trash tier protagonist. Annoying, dumb as shit, wears thick plot armour so nothing bad can stick. And Sakura is boring. Here's the thing, giving a character a very canned tragic back story doesn't imbue them with a personality or interesting traits. No matter how much ufotable thinks it does. A well-defined back story can be good for enhancing a character and explaining certain facets of their personality but it won't make a character without depth interesting or complex by itself.

Art:
My biggest issue with the artwork is that the big action sequences have a lot of bright, bombastic flashing lights. I understand what they're going for. It's the Michael Bay method of going all out with bright, flashing effects. The problem with this method is that half the action sequence is just bright, flashing lights. It's not as interesting or as satisfying to look at as, say, an action sequence with a lot of weapon play, punches, kicks and very visceral impacts where you actually see the effects of every blow. A string of massive explosions that take up most or all of the screen just starts getting repetitive very quickly. That aside, the art is nicely detailed.

Sound:

Strong actors, nice music. It's no different from the first film in that regard.

Ho-yay:

There's none to be found.

Areas of Improvement:

1. Handle your mature content maturely. This is something I've talked about pretty extensively, but it continues to be a relevant point. Content like sexual abuse isn't mature by default just because it's very serious and you wouldn't find it in something for young audiences. You have to actually handle it well and engage with it in a meaningful way for it to be mature. And this film, like so many other supposedly mature works, doesn't bother to do that. It handles it like a fourteen year old trying to be edgy or Frank Miller by throwing it in there with seemingly no reason beyond easy shock value and a misconception that tragic back stories equate to depth.

2. Your lead characters need to be interesting. You can get by with some side characters being a bit of nothing. But it's a problem when one of your leads has all the personality of a dried up wad of gum and the other is very clichéd in an annoying way.

3. Use your explosions sparingly. It's fine to have some explosions to really punctuate an action sequence, for story reasons or in a major attack. The problem with the way ufotable uses them in this is that they really lose impact when they're just a consistent part of a very long action sequence. Especially when they fill the whole screen and you can't see anything else. This doesn't even take the Dragonball Z route where the explosions are very quick and then you see blurry figures throwing very quick punches and kicks. They're just long, dragged out explosions.

Final Thoughts:

This film isn't really any better than the first. There are still some intriguing ideas, strong visuals and very solid acting. But it continues to suffer from low quality leading characters, story aspects that aren't handled well and it definitely doesn't have as strong of action sequences because someone thought it would be a good idea to abuse explosions. I'll still give it a 6/10. Eventually I'll get to the last film and hope the pay off is actually worth it and we don't have the same problem as the last Fate work I looked at where there was some good build up but the ending was rubbish.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 7, 2021

ZillD

Not Recommended

This is the first time anything has made me want to write a review and ill just jump right into it ( minor spoilers ahead)


I love the fate franchise so far. This is a very unique story with so many well written characters whether you like them or hate them. But there's one reason i wanted to share my opinion on this movie. The constant need to show and tell about the dark side of Sakuras past and present. I understand what she is being used for and i have no qualms about that, i understand that fate was originally an eroge visual novel. But ... the constant need to show and talk about Sakura being abused sexually really stroke a nerve with me. The fate series has been changed to not be eroge or ecchi in any way in the ufotable anime adaptation. this is the first time we see actually sex scenes in the fate series since Zero, and i hated it. I personally feel like it halts the story to a fault. In this movie with amazing sound design, animation and fight scenes the sexual assault and consenting sex scenes fell like the almost dont belong. I was having a blast with this movie up untill the message became sex is the only was to convey a characters emotions. I know this review is probably bad and i dont get my point across well but i just cant shake of this disturbed feeling i have after watching this movie. A series that was so good with its story telling and actions scenes was halted for some horrible explanation of a characters inner most feelings in the most primitive human way possible. I wish i enjoyed this movie but i feel like i left it more uncomfortable that anything else. This was definitely not the way i wanted this amazing series to go in and i hope the next movie can bounce back and come back to what fate is actually about at least within the anime adaptation.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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