Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - I. Presage Flower

Seeing the anime score of this shows, people can't review beloved franchises objectively. I'm gonna make two reviews 1 objective and another personal bias.

I say bias wise its not bad if you have seen the other series beforehand as background "lore" I think you definitely have a better experience. The visuals are actually amazing, like one sequence in particular with Lancer will leave you breathless and that composed some excellent music. As a Fate Fan i would say 6/10 but still has fundamental problems as a film, like characters hahaha what is that, plot, its has a strange pace either too fast or ... slow.....

But objectively its lacks any explanation whatsoever, doesn't have a middle nor end just beginning it's understandable its a 3 parter film trilogy but characters do not change. I wouldn't say there are characters, the problem with this film it's not a film, its a side story OVA, this film should have just been a long OVA series like Hellsing ultimate as narratively its fails hard. The only characters with some development i wouldn't say good but some are Shirou and Sakura ( plus Shinji). I understood that cramming this route into 3 films will be a tough job but not still this feels less a film but more complimentary. at least for Zero or Unlimited Blade Works, they are can be presented standalone piece, whereas this it basically forces you to remember prior knowledge. I would say the directing is well done, i think the script still poor but the direction was really well choreographed but the emotional sequence pales in comparison to something like Zero that had a strong script. Characters just die that's not a spoiler, but you don't know them whatsoever or atleast without prior knowledge. I mean look, my friend, watched One piece gold and is has not watched any one piece prior whatsoever and he had a blast due to the good script, personalities that easily attached to and give vague ideas to know the superficial reasons for characters. Fate as a series besides Zero, biggest weakness is the characters, and this is extremely apparent for this film. The problem is that characters don't act like people, even though Shirou is much more fleshed out in this film than his own series he's still a really unengaging protagonist and contains a love story that feels more like siblings than lovers. Plus having really dry humor e.g. person a has.... size bra of ...? Really this is how low they can get.


Objectively they are some good in this movie, firstly the overall aesthetic its a pretty film, with some amazing fight choreography that must have taken months to animate key scenes for that small sequence. The art design is outstanding legit look at the food, the music does the work even with hardly any character development the music basically makes to feel some emotion. Seeing this on the big screen was a big treat and some stuff they have done kinda wants me to see the other films but I will be hesitant to watch it in the cinemas as the first film was really boring despite being pretty. Even if i never watch Game no life, I would rather watch that movie with no knowledge about the series than this film, I being harsh because no one like criticising this property properly.

Bias - 6.1/10
Objectively- 3/10- 4.5/10
So I'm gonna go straight in the middle and say overall 5 mediocre.

Also no you should need to read a visual novel, to understand whats going on. If you are a fate fan you should watch it but don't need to rush, tbh I probably suggest you waiting for the 3 films to binge it as narratively it might be better. If you never watched the property don't watch this film or only see Zero don't you'll be too confused on whats going on. It's kinda funny how Shinji has more development than most of the characters the person who's basically useless in the other routes and I would say more fun to watch than the MC.

The beginning of Presage Flower is quite a mess. It throws random elements and characters in such a ludicrous pace that viewing this work as a standalone adaptation is impossible. We have recycled scenes from earlier works, copy-pasted character introductions and fights which are the down-graded versions of what we have already seen. At least the boob fondling scene was still present. I would have cried if they removed it. Perhaps this is exactly what I was expecting, I am just saying that it is not very pretty to watch. For example, the problem with the dark streets scene is how random it is. Our ... characters quite literally teleport to this location just so we could see yet another character introduction in the back alley. It feels quite cheap and there is little to no build up behind it. The main focus in the beginning of this movie seems to be in rushing from scene to another, making the pacing so hideous it is hard to care about anything that is going on. At the very least, hard to get into the work. The second half of this movie is better by a landslide, and obviously this can only be properly judged when all three movies are out -- still the first hour will always be remembered for how bad it is.

In Fate/stay night by ufotable, we see Saber wearing a yellow raincoat in the rain and looking like a curious little girl while doing this. In Fate/zero we have Saber standing in the middle of a meadow, giving her hand --not towards any characters-- but towards the camera and saying "join me". Without a doubt, the bar was set ridiculously high for Heaven's Feel characters to top this. So how did they overcome this challenge then? By making Saber basically mute and giving the main waifu role to Sakura. Fantastic. Now, I am not sure what type of excuses people typically give for liking this show, but the reason why I like it at all this one right here. The characters. I especially like how mad our Senpai is when someone hurts the real canon pairing. It's pretty cute romance thus far. There are still some problems with the characters, such as Senpai committing a heroic sacrifice TWICE. The rest of the characters are practically identical to what we have already seen.

When it comes to the art, I was blown away by how mediocre it looks in the beginning. Especially the character design stands out for the wrong reasons. Basically all shadows on characters and their clothes are of the same shade. This makes them look kinda weird. Sakura's hair is super pretty, tho. Animation is based ufotable but not exactly their most detailed work. Especially some running scenes are (I assume) tributing the source material... by making them look like 7fps slide shows. I guess some people like this, I didn't especially appreciate it myself. It all goes better on the 2nd half. The two major fights are glorious to watch, and make the movie look like it's really Fate by ufotable.

The OP and ED songs on the other hand are good stuff. The voice acting is the same as always so no need to talk about that. The BGM is surprisingly bland outside the battle scenes.

When it comes to enjoyment, I can safely say this work and the choices ufotable made fascinate me more than the movie entertained me. Personally I still liked the relationship and the fights much enough to look past most of the huge problems.

I'll try to be as fair as possible in this review and try to read what I have to say before just dismissed it because of the Overall score. This review will contain SPOILERS.

Fate Zero is my favorite anime of all time and showed what anime were really capable of, it is my new storytelling standard anime and for its time it was my animation standard too.

Fate Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, while it had some problems, some really out of place fanservice and some characters, mostly Kirei and Gilgamesh had unsastified ends due to their out of character motivations and attitudes. I wouldn't ... say it's one of my favorite of all time, but it was a really good anime.

Now, Fate Stay Night Heaven's Feel: Presage Flower has some problems too, but it's pacing is all over the place and it is likely its worse aspect. I know this movie is made for fans, I mean you clearly need to see UBW first before this one just for the fact that its entire opening skip not only what happened to Shirou in its first death, but also Saber, Archer and Rin introductions. I understand this route is about Sakura in the VN, but in this movie it feels so rushed.

A problem I had with UBW was that some characters didn't have enough screen time when I wanted something along the lines of Zero, where all characters (Or almost) have an important part to play. UBW's Rider has more screentime than most servants in this one. Lacking character motivations and personalities. I may work in a VN since it's about the player choices, but it doesn't work in a movie when Shirou and not you (the player) is the one interacting with the story. Caster, Assassin and Archer might as not be in the story at all. Lancer serves only as an action sequence stunt and Rider is dead, but no dead? Oh by the way, you don't see Archer until over one hour into the movie.

The Story is convoluted, as a fan I didn't understand much without having played the VN, which I shouldn't be required to have played to understand movie. Some actions sequences like the extremely cool looking highway chase scene are out of context until later when it is explained why it happened in the first place, taking out all importance that chase scene should've had. I love the Fate Zero Soundtrack bits with backstory of Kirei towards Shirou, even if he doesn't even react to it. I still have the same problem with Ilya as in UBW, she doesn't have much more of a personality like she did in Zero. I also like the fact that Kariya's father have much more presence in this "route.

Overall, Fate fans are overreacting a bit much in my opinion, this should've been better than it is actually on a storytelling perspective. Less senpai to each sentence Sakura's saying and more great writing like Ufotable did with Fate Zero. The Fate Series deserves to be a top model of anime, a high standard to show other anime how it's done. Instead, we got this mess of a film which is at part enjoyable, but unfortunately convoluted and badly written. It's not bad, it's just not great, which makes me sad. Hopefully part 2 is better.

This anime is the representation of a good style but a pitiful substance. This review will be kept spoiler free.

Do you know how very often an anime adaptation can't give what a novel or a manga deserve? There are plenty of examples like that, but this anime is the opposite. A story like that doesn't deserve an adaptation this good. The quality of the anime is top notch but the story doesn't follow, it's pretty bad. This probably aimed at hardcore fan of the fate series, but after only watching the mere surface of it (Fate zero, Fate Stay Night UBW and Fate Apocrypha in ... my case) this show just feels empty. And it's real pity as this show had a lot of potential just like the rest of the Fate Franchise.

Story (3/10): One of the main drawbacks of the show. It's unclear of when and how it's going, you don't know if it's Fate Stay Night but from a different point of view or if it's an alternative phase of the history until the middle of the show. It's very confusing (even more than the other shows of the series). Furthermore, the story is not really interesting, no clear objective is given (nobody even seems to care about the Grail) and the fight scenes are okay but well below what the fate series used to be. The main objective doesn't seem to be the Holy War anyway, as it must be the most pitiful I've seen so far, I don't want to spoil you but it seems like it was rushed AF. The main aim of this movie seems to be the character development but the problem here takes us to the next category.

Character (2/10): This part will be the most subjective out of the review. The fact is the characters are horribly boring. If you've watched Fate Stay Night (FSN), you may already know (unless you think otherwise, but then I don't understand you) that the main character, Emiya Shiro, is super irritating, he's always making dumb decisions that will make you want to slap him over and over again. Although I gotta hand this to the movie, I think it got better in this movie than what we had previously. I couldn't give any less fucks about Sakura, which is supposed to be a big focus in the film! All of the scenes she appears in are meaningless and can be easily skipped, she is the most useless character in the Fate franchise, which is a shame for a main character. I don't really like the direction Saber is going since FSN but it doesn't seem to be the case of most people, so I'm not gonna elaborate on this. Rin Tohsaka, who single-handedly made FSN enjoyable is only present a few times and we barely see any other Servant or Master, which btw, all seem to have lost their charism (especially Kirei). The only exception is the brother of Sakura who got some welcomed development.

Art (10/10): Now on to the big strength of this movie. Ufotable made some awesome work as always, but this gotta be their masterpiece in term of animation (at least from what I've seen). The few fights are beautifully animated and the mix between CGI and 2D is really impressing. The CGI is well used and only bugged me a few times. The rest of the art is really impressing and beautiful, in my opinion, it rivals some of the best looking movies out there.

Sound (9/10): Nothing much to say there, if you know the fate series, you should know what to expect. It's the same style of epic and emotional music. The sound during the fight is also on point, but the saturation to make you feel the impact of each blow is still a bit too much sometimes. The voice acting is normal, nothing particularly exceptional.

Enjoyment (6/10): The movie is fairly enjoyable, it has its moments, but it didn't give me any particular emotion, chills or whatever. I'm not gonna lie, I was on my phone for a lot of those really boring and cliché discussion.

Overall (6/10): Despite its big flaws, ufotable saved this movie. However this is an adaptation of a light novel, and you can't change the story, no matter how bad it is. As at said at the beginning, the style (Art and Sound) is very high quality but the substance (Story and Character) is disastrous. It gives us a mediocre movie which is enjoyable and I would only recommend it to you if you are a very big fan of the Fate Series or if you have some time to waste.

I've always been a huge fangirl of ufotable and I've loved fate/zero so much.
So much, that I began to wonder why didn't I rewatch that instead of wasting my time on this?

It's so boring and underwhelming af. I've lost count of how many times Sakura has said, "sEnpAI". Sakura and Shirou are the most boring af characters in this anime lmao. Sakura is just there for the male gaze; emphasized E cups, no personality at all whatsoever other than playing the housewife.

And wtf is Shirou for? He's like a wet carpet, there's nothing appealing to him at all and all he's done is ... whine about his past and go on about being the hero of justice.

The pacing is so weird; everyone is just dying randomly. Less epic fights, more szEnpai. I miss my Gilgamesh and Saber.

Compared to previous premises, this one is just utterly disappointing. But the last bit with Saber is the one that'll definitely keep me watching the rest, apparently.

While playing the visual novel I can honestly say that Heaven's Feel was the route that played out the best out of the 3 available paths in the legendary Fate/Stay Night Visual novel. In this route you find out the most about the background characters and not just this war but the previous war as well, also the side characters have the most fulfilling endings. Attempting to condense what should have been at least 2, preferably 3, full seasons of anime into 3 movies resulted in a complete trainwreck. So much important content was left out of this first movie I don't see how the ... final 2 movies could possibly fill in the gaps.

Overall I give it a 5/10. Perhaps if you haven't played the Heaven's Feel route of the vn you won't know what you are missing but the feelings I'm left with are best summed up as: Disgust, disappointment, and sadness.

Not great for newbies to the Fate series. I want to explain my scores to help anyone like me who has not played the games or watched Unlimited Blade Works anime or beyond. I LOVED the anime prequel Fate/Zero with a big pounding heart and was psyched this movie was coming out. I had started Unlimited Bladeworks when I heard the movie was coming so I stopped after a few episodes. Having seen those was key though I didn't know it. The movie has a very long set up of Shirou then when it's about to get exciting with him discovering things about himself the ... movie cuts to a title credit sequence that runs through great stuff I saw in the anime in stills but DOES NOT EXPLAIN. My friend who had only seen Fate/Zero was completely confused. It's hard to understand some of the servants we see or be curious who their masters are and while the few battle scenes look very cool, the passion for the Holy Grail is not adequately explained in a way that makes these characters feel like they're fighting for something, anything. Motivation is not well established. And it felt like we would jump from one sequence to another with completely different characters with just cuts to black in between. I didn't feel the flow-through of story. The audience laughed when a character was eating and my friend and I were just mystified. The art is beautiful and I especially loved the sound design but for someone newer to the franchise character motivation was not well established, neither was the relationship between mages and servants and story is just downright confusing. I did not feel emotional stakes in ANY of the fights and there was no meaningful dialogue interplay between the servants which I loved in the Fate/Zero anime series. I wish there had been a warning like this before I bought tickets.

It should also be noted that this review is for just the first movie. Being merely the first part of an overall trilogy, I can see why separating it would seem weird. But having written three separate reviews, I think gauging the interest level across 6 hours ended up being worthwhile.

If you want my thoughts on the trilogy as a whole, I came to the conclusion that I would skip it. The caveat is that I imagine people who have already gone through Heaven’s Feel in the visual novel will get a kick out of it being in movie form. I wouldn’t be surprised if ... my lack of enjoyment here merely came from details being cut to fit the movie format.

But as it stands, I’m keeping my initial thoughts and ratings for each individual part intact. With that said, here’s my review of Heaven’s Feel I:



There are three important things to know about Heaven’s Feel before going into it:
1. As mentioned, this movie is merely the first part of three. The other two Heaven’s Feel movies being the next two parts.
2. This is an alternate telling of the story from Fate stay/night and Unlimited Blade Works.
3. Despite that, you’re expected to have watched Fate stay/night or Unlimited Blade Works first (and Fate/Zero while you’re at it). I recommend Unlimited Blade Works.

The problem with Heaven’s Feel I is that it accelerates and decelerates very quickly very often. For example, it starts by carefully showing you Shirou’s life and goings on, then shows scenes from Fate stay/night to skim past him meeting Saber since that’s all the same, then goes back to slowing down to show things that differ this go around, then speeds through a fight. My recommendation is to watch this ASAP after watching Fate stay/night so you retain as much of the skipped scenes as possible. I waited quite a while and, while I still generally remember what happened, not remembering everything made Shirou’s relationships with Saber and Rin feel shallow here.

Speaking of relationships, several chunks of the movie focus on Shirou’s new, deeper relationship with Sakura. Rin isn’t nearly as much of a deal this time. The problem is that Unlimited Blade Works showed A LOT more of Shirou and Rin’s relationship developing into something that seemed real. Shirou obviously has less time with Sakura thanks to the movie format. Yet at the same time, scenes with Sakura felt sluggish. I think the big issue is that most of the scenes devoted to her and Shirou didn’t spend their time effectively. Perhaps it’s explored to a much greater extent in the second and third movies, but for the first third I simply can’t help but think of Sakura as a worse alternative to Rin.

As for the fights, all of them were very curt. It felt as if they had to make space for the story sections, so speeding to the results of the fights was prioritized over making them interesting. While the story sections aren’t bad, I do miss the much more grandiose Servant-on-Servant fights from the episodic anime.

I want to say that Heaven’s Feel I felt like a movie to setup the other two and not much more, but I can’t entirely. Without spoiling anything, a lot of things do still happen. The Holy Grail War does make some serious progress within the first movie. But some of that progress is too fast — so fast that I was believing each movie was going to be its own separate route until the end!

I think Heaven’s Feel I is still a competent start to a movie trilogy, but it’s rough. I would temper your expectations for these starting two hours.

This review comes from the heart: the Heaven's Feel VN is one of my favorite pieces of Japanese media of all time. The writing is amazing, the characters are absolutely spectacular and the action is gripping and exciting in almost every way that something of its medium can give. It's the reason to read Fate/Stay Night, the reason to get to know all of these characters, and one of the reasons why I think this franchise stands out above all others.

The first Heaven's Feel movie has none of that.

Sure, you can say that the animation is intense and dramatic, some scenes in this movie are ... amazingly animated and the voice acting is stellar as always, with sounds and feelings that have you on the edge of your seat. However, that's not the reason why this story is good at all. Most of all, it's a story about characters and how they deal with everything going wrong and their entire world's falling apart. This is more in what would be the future movies, but the groundwork has to be here, or else the rest of the story will feel weaker and less impactful.

Let's talk characters, or more so the lack of the characters I feel are strongest to the plot. Kotomine Kirei has his impactful scenes in the movie, as you get the most infamous scene in the story (you'll see it) and snippets of scenes that are done in the VN. However, the reasons why those scenes are good EXCEPT for that infamous scene are mostly removed. There is many scenes in particular with a legitimate emotional impact that would hit hard, especially to Fate/Zero fans in one specific part. The fact that the reasons why these scenes are good are removed is beyond me.

Then there's Illya. She's not here.

She shows up for a good 5 minutes and never appears again, while in the VN she would have an active and important role in the story. She is the heart of the story and allows for a more wholesome side to shine through. Removing that and only having her appear at two not super significant times makes this story seem a lot more depressing than it does, and removes the opportunity to make some aspects of it endearing. You also lose on a large reveal in the story that makes things very, very odd as it plays on the back of your mind.

The Matous, with both our main heroine and main antagonist, are also under-represented within the story, and it all is about Shirou's prologue. Different from all routes, there are two specific scenes in the moments before our hero summons Saber. One scene with Sakura loses a lot of its particular beauty and impact at the start, and another scene is butchered all together, while Matou Zouken's reveal takes away his old grandpa type and only does his most ominous line without any good buildup, causing him to just seem like a generic, creepy villain. This was possibly my favorite part of the route, and it is basically ruined and squished was part of the reasons I heavily disliked this movie.

To touch on the story quickly, because it doesn't take much to realize my point now, I feel the story is squished together and is more a "best moment" compilation that takes away the reasons why the action and story are greater in the VN. There is two scenes I feel do it kinda right: Shirou's first meeting with Shinji and Shirou's first fight against Zouken. To add, there is one positive addition with the story that I feel is worthwhile: there is a good five minutes at the start of the movie that speaks to how Sakura became accustomed to the Emiya household. This is something that should've been in the VN, and I feel that it was my favorite part of a movie that I could not love.

To conclude, Heaven's Feel: Presage Flower strips what I feel is one of the greatest and most epic stories in all of media to a barebones and almost laughable level. The action is fine, but that is far from the reason this route is good in the end. Some characters are weakened, some don't even make an impact at all when they should. The story is ripped and spliced and it should ripple for any person who is anime-only to have a worse perception of this route.

TL;DR - Read the VN for all that is good and holy.

Please be warned, there are some spoilers here. It is an in-depth review, but I will not be too intimate in my exploitation of certain plot elements and only discuss their contribution to my thoughts on the film.
This film is an interesting addition to the franchise; I won’t deny that I felt it was incomplete in terms of characterization and plot, but fairly entertaining. There is little excuse for the hurrying and sloppy montage that is the exposition of the story; this movie is truly for those who are experienced with the Fate franchise—specifically, the base of the Fate/Stay Night storyline; considering that the ... beginning of the story and Shirou’s introduction into the war is not fleshed out even to a minimal extent. Shirou himself is underdeveloped considering the rush of the beginning and the focus on his relationship with other characters in moving the plot along rather than the focus on who he is as an individual. He certainly is bland and purposeless in his characterization here, which has seldom excuse aside for the hope for characterization within later films. He is not particularly entertaining, as he needs to rely on the presence and “hype” of other characters to carry his lack of presence within the story—which is painful for someone who is supposed to be a main character. To be accurate, he seems more like the net in a ping-pong battle of servants fighting intensely throughout the story.
Sakura herself is someone that does not possess many character qualities or anything that is particularly likeable, though I will say that I do not completely resent her, but she does express herself as a rather passive and emotionless entity. The withdrawn characterization is not something that appeals to me, as I find her rather incapable as she blunders through the story with the expectation that she is to be liked and something of a tragic heroine—let alone a heroine in general. She is incredibly similar to Shirou in the fact that she is supposed to be relevant but is expressed as so in name only; carried only by the expectation and expression that she is the “love interest” of this route. Instead, the story seems to be revolving around other events of the plot—such as the major villains of this first film, which are Assassin and Zouken; and I have to say, I am not overtly impressed. I do not really care for characters that cling to creepiness and strangeness as their ultimate qualities, and they do little to showcase anything outside of these characteristics.
The animation, as always, is stellar: the backgrounds are amazingly well done, the characters look clean and polished, and the music is a decent flair. Whilst it is usually secondary in my experiences, I will present something that captivated my attention more than the lackluster plot and underwhelming characters: the fight sequences. The action is phenomenal; there is a particular chase-and-fight sequence between Lancer and Assassin that is absolutely gripping and beautifully done in its choreography, intensity, and animation that truly showcases why Lancer is the epitome of an ideal warrior in this battle for the Holy Grail. Rider’s action sequences are all stellar as well, and while I am biased because Lancer is my favorite Fate character, her scenes are articulated, interesting, and captivating in their nuance and animation and deserve such praise. Saber, as always, shows up and proves herself an interesting and likeable character, although the minimal character development is painful for the plot. However, her action sequences are enjoyable and should not be completely put away as anything less than fairly entertaining.
If anyone in this first film truly suffers (beyond the two leads of Shirou and Sakura), it is Rin and Archer. Despite being pivotal characters and integral to the development of others within the story, they are used only for the plot and are not truly utilized to the expression and potential that they deserve—not simply as fan-favorites, but as characters that are keenly associated with the importance of the Fate plots. I will say that I did enjoy seeing Rin in this film, with her intent, liveliness, charm, and surprising femininity, but I will say that there is an expectation for a role that is sorely stunted here. There are some other mediocre appearances of servants that do little more than express the desire to tighten the drama of this film to make way for the next. Caster in particular is done away very quickly and brutally, with little impact on the story and her own character despite being one of the seven main servants and someone pivotal to the storyline. Gilgamesh himself is not truly in this—perhaps it would have been best if his cameo was removed completely, since it is never brought to relevance or even referenced within this film. Lancer, as always, is an awesome yet completely underused entity who never gets his time to shine before being cut off from whatever potential he may hold—literally.
There is another issue I have in terms of the relationship between Shirou and Sakura; unfortunately, this is a relationship that fails to work for my own entertainment value from the beginning: it always has and always will appear more of a brother-sister relationship than that of potential romance; and in truth, there is a weak presence of a budding romantic route within this film itself. Granted, the romance is sweet and relationship is nicely portrayed, but there is certainly something that does not fit within this storyline. This relationship was underwhelming and rather empty to say the least. These two characters have nothing in common and do not have considerate conversation that would lead toward a deep or romantic relationship. It feels more like a blossoming crush or two characters finally noticing each other than a tangible or realistic relationship to put it in mild terms; with both characters appearing as though they have read the script for their romance beforehand and are attempting to skirt the topic as long as they can in order to draw out the drama which fails to truly exist between them. Unlike some of the other routes (particularly Unlimited Blade Works) in which the romance serves to propel and enhance characters and their development, this feels somewhat forced and unnatural to the war that is occurring within the story. As such, Shirou does not possess the drive or purpose he does in other routes, and seems to only join the war because the plot demands that he should. It is not that he is hesitant, but that the storyline forces him to make decisions that are ill explained and showcase a rather indecisive look into the story which they have selected to tell.
If there is something that bothers me in this film aside from the weak characterization, development, and hurried plots, it is the dream sequence. There is a very strange, unnecessary, and uncomfortable scene which Shirou has that takes place during the evening in school and features a very gratuitous and sexually adamant Rin that transforms into Sakura; featuring intent fanservice and explicitly erotic undertones; while it never amounts to anything and is completely unwarranted and pointless, it is not graphic. It seems as though it was almost a nod to some other iterations of Fate that include more explicit and, strangely enough, vampiric tendencies, but it is very out of place and strange nonetheless. It is truly disgusting and something completely unexpected for a character like Shirou (or, really, any Fate character within this story…) and seems to be nothing more than a perverse fantasy and a sign that Fate is starting to play to the beat of the world rather than raising interesting questions about morality and identity. Perhaps the most degrading part of this (aside from the fact that this sequence exists within the film at all) is Shirou’s unfazed nature at having this dream. I certainly did not come to Fate for erotica or pornographic themes, and I am disappointed that a film that has content irrelevant to such a story is features such.
I will say that when the film is graphic, it pulls few punches. Assassin is a disgusting character who performs some revoltingly gruesome acts within the story that only cultivates the graphic violence of the drama. As a result, the impact of his threat is prevalent mainly and truly only within his merciless violence rather than someone with real power and merit. The inclusion of his consuming the hearts of other servants is absolutely revolting and personally turns the appeal of this film away from me even further if based upon that factor alone—specifically because there is no reason nor explanation for it. Assassin is a character who is not really explained in his nature, and, in comparison to the other servants, may actually be one of the most underdeveloped and frustrating of those portrayed: as he is a fairly weak servant that becomes powerful and relevant when the story demands it for the sake of drama and violence. I feel as though he is an odd villain amongst major players from other routes such as Kirei, Gilgamesh, and even Zouken. But this may very well be a setup for later expressions of the character, but it would appear that though Assassin is a strange amalgamation of an underling, plot device, and sly adversary that is not necessarily the most polished in presentation. I do understand that he is not meant to be likable, but I feel like throwing out a warning for anyone who may not want to see him consume a human heart.
I do feel like this is a starting film and is entertaining in its own right, but it does not deserve the praise and adoration that seems to be thrust upon it. A story that must ride upon the coattails of content of previous iterations in order to regurgitate nothing but plain fanservice for its audience is not worthy or time nor praise; I will not suggest that this story is completely without entertainment value, but the gratuitous sexuality and weak characterization seems to indicate that this director was not ready to take on this project—or the adaptation itself was a sloppy iteration of a story that is not worthwhile to adapt. Of all the Fate routes, it does not prove itself the most “mature”, being very half-baked, underwhelming, and juvenile in its writing and plot; rather, I would suggest that it is the weakest of what has been shown thus far in terms of pacing and characterization that was better left alone than whatever cultivation of a plot this is.

I've talked about the Fate franchise a few times. It hasn't always been positive. I like the concept, but then you get rubbish main characters like Shirou and plot problems. Let's hope these films are a bit better than Unlimited Blade Works. We'll start with the first and go from there.

Story:

The narrative opens basically the same way as Fate/Stay Night or Unlimited Blade Works. Rubbish protagonist, Emiya Shirou, encounters a servant at school, ends up summoning Saber and has to have the situation explained in monosyllabic words as he is very stupid. The film basically covers the first part of this version of ... the Holy Grail war with the situation getting complicated by a shadowy creature that kind of looks like The Web from Reboot.

The biggest issue with the film is that the build up really drags. We spend almost twenty minutes with nothing of value happening. It's all about Garbage boy and his banal relationships that no one cares about.

On the positive side, it does gloss over some of the story beats that you've seen already if you're familiar with the franchise. The mystery surrounding the shadow creature is also pretty compelling. I can also appreciate this franchise's ability to take the same scenario and characters and do something different with it even if they can't seem to make Shirou a decent character.

Characters:

Honestly, the characters are a weakness of this film. Just because we have less of the characters who are any degree of interesting and more of Shirou and Sakura both of whom are pretty dull and underwritten. The best thing you can say about Sakura is that she doesn't have Shirou's annoyance factor.

Art:

The artwork still looks good. It's always been one of ufotable's strengths. There are some really nice action sequences. The character designs are nice. The backgrounds are nicely detailed.

Sound:

The acting is well done. Kawasumi Ayako, Ueda Kana, Shitaya Noriko and the rest are a capable bunch. Even the actors who don't get much to work with on the characterisation front are perfectly capable in terms of their performances. The music is pretty good.

Ho-yay:

There isn't any.

Areas of Improvement:

1. Get a decent protagonist. Shirou is a trash character. Has been in every single one of these anime that puts him in the forefront. Always will be. He's a standard character with an obnoxious obsession with being heroic who does incredibly stupid things as a result.

2. If you're going to spend a full sixth of your film on build up, make it count. Showing mundane parts in the life of a shitty character along with their banal relationships is not a constructive use of time. You might as well show wet paint slowly drying and it would be just as interesting. Possibly even more entertaining because it's not as actively annoying as dealing with Shirou.

3. If you have a cast of characters this large, don't focus on the blandest ones. What is this, Shingeki no Kyojin?

Final Thoughts:

I think this first film shows some potential. It has strong action, some interesting elements with promise. The problem is that we spend so much time with Rubbish and the ever dull Sakura. So, the good concept, strong ideas and epic action sequences end up getting brought down by the focus characters. It's like if Marvel had done the Secret Wars with Squirrel Girl and The The Invisible Woman as the focus characters. I have to give it a 6/10. It's okay but it could have been amazing. Eventually I'll get to the other two films in the trilogy and we'll see if it improves, but it's a disappointing start.

If you are an anime only kind of person and don't read manga, light novels or visual novels, don't bother watching this if you haven't at least seen Unlimited Blade Works anime first. But even then, you might still struggle to understand what's going on. Heaven's Feel part 1 had amazing visuals, animation, and music, but the story telling was not up to par. The pacing of story related scenes seemed fast and some of the dialogue disjointed. Transitions between scenes were often abrupt and had little explanation for why did they suddenly visit the temple or why were they just strolling around town. I ... had originally thought about going into the movie "blind" in that I had only seen fate/zero and Unlimited Blade Works anime up that point, but decided to read the visual novel first. I'm glad I did as I'd probable wouldn't have understood anything other than bare bones gist of things. In some cases it is better to show not tell story when it comes to movies or anime, but when the things they are showing are just so fantastical and foreign to anything you can relate to it's not going to have any meaning to viewer.

Overall the movie is a good if you already read the novels and know all the lore around it, but as a standalone movie with minimal background knowledge from Unlimited Blade Works or Fate/Zero it's fine.

Fate/Stay Night is a visual novel from 2004, with the main storyline being adapted into and anime in 2006, a much better prequel series being released in 2011 and another anime adaptation of the original visual novel, this time of a different route, being released in 2015, by the same studio that made the prequel series. I’m sorry if this sudden bombardment of information confuses anyone that might be new to the Fate franchise but I bring this up because quite honestly, all of this information is necessary.

Heaven’s feel is the third major storyline from the original visual novel, and seeing as how by the ... time the first film was released, the second storyline’s adaptation, Unlimited Budget Works, had basically just finished. Heaven’s Feel assumes that you at least have that basic knowledge of the franchise when going into this film, and it does very little to guide any newcomer.

Character’s will die without having been introduced, so any context into who these people are, and why you should care, needs to come from the other instalments. Instead of rehashing old material to help newcomers catch up, Heaven’s feel instead chooses to use its time showing what about this storyline is different from the last, to the point where the film completely glosses over the introduction of Saber, which is arguably where the plot actually begins.

If anyone is wondering weather or not they should watch this movie, the answer is simple.; if you’re a Fate fan, yes, if not stay the fuck away, at least until you’ve seen one of the 2 20+ episode anime that tells the other storyline’s so you can at least have some basic concept of what the fuck is going on.

That being said, as somebody who has seen those shows, was this good. Eeeeehhhhh, kind of. Heaven’s feel spends a lot of time developing the relationship of Sakura and Shinji with Emiya, but my only problem with that is I don’t particularly like either character. Shinji is an edgy faggot, and Sakura is such a visual novel waifu that I found how perfect she was more repulsive than endearing. They can lead to the occasional fun moment, and despite those harsh descriptions, I never actually hated the characters, but I also didn’t particularly like them in any way.

The biggest problem with Heaven’s Feel is that it wastes too much time trying to convince me to care about something I don’t care about, and virtually no time at all developing the moment’s that are actually interesting (assassin vs lancer). I had a pleasant enough time and I’m kind of curious to find out more, but I don’t think I’ll ever be bored enough to actually finish this trilogy.

6/10

This Review is actually the script to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvnLkGfo0S4

Check that out and subscribe to the channel if you want to see more reviews like it.

How do you compress a well written episodic series into a few short films? You can't!
The original series had very little fillers or fan-service, and it made for a fantastic well paced story.
Having watched all the Fate series, these movies lacks the character development and therefore fails to explain why characters are the way they way. Naturally, a season series has more time to build characters which is impossible in a compressed movies. For example, it's obvious why our protagonist wants to be the Hero of Justice and why Archer so wants to demolish and demoralize him. In the movies, not so much. As ... a result, the movie feels slower paced, and a few mindless deaths, mindless servants and mages who just want to win a trophy.
Personally, I would have been happier if they simply removed all the start and ending credits and left it practically as is. That said, these movie versions make for delicious Ufotable production eye-candy.

Look at you! You ended up here in a round about way after starting the Fate series anime. You probably took some time to research how you should even start this anime since there are probably 5 ways to go about it.

Let me help you! Do not start here first. You will get some spoilers, but start at Zero. Really.

The best way to look at this would be like a series of games you enjoyed. You played the first one, and want to keep going with the other 4 to follow some sort of linear path forward. Unfortunately for you, it's more like a ... "choose your ending" storybook type game that you can play from different angles with the same main character.

Stay Night, UBW movie, UBW series, and these movies are all about the 5th Holy Grail war. Each one is different in its own way, and has a lot of what the other ones have. Some side characters get much more screen time. Animation gets updated. Some characters die instantly or change how they get to the end. Honestly, it is a bit of a time investment and I can't recommend that anyone watch every part of this series, let alone these movies.

BUT

If you have made it this far, then you are like the main character Shirou and there isn't anything that is going to stop you. You will appreciate the changes they made, the very stylish and updated animation, and the fact that it's 2 more movies after this one. Go into it with an open mind if you are binging it like I am. Think of it like the same game you enjoyed at the start, with a different side quests and endings depending on choices made.