Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - III. Spring Song

If you want a movie with a lot of good animation, go for it, this one is full of that, but as an adaptation it fails in a lot of ways, this is not just an "ok" adaptation, it's essentially a 20 lines essay about a 200 pages book, so the plot might be confusing, the characters be much less interesting than what they actually are, and yes, even the fights mostly lack in comparisson to the original material, so for the true experience i recommend to check out the Visual Novel.
Aside from that, if you don't actually know the source material, you might have ... a pretty good time, visually it's great, soundtrack is cool as well, the plot is still pretty good since the original material is amazing, but it's still like comparing a casual breakfest to a complete Christmas meal, it still has a great taste, but far from the real deal.

Where do I start...
This as the privelage to be the first fate where I was very bored loking at the hours and wanting the film to finish. I was so hyped cause I had finished UBW 2 or 3 months ago and I wanted to wait for the subtitles for this movie and then see all the 3 movies.
The notes I gave were:
Heaven’s Feel I. Presage Flower- 7
Heaven's Feel II. Lost Butterfly-10( archer was unbeliveble)
The final movie was a 5

STORY( I will try to not give spoilers):
I had the feeling it was to rushed there were a lot of shirou scenes and fights I ... didin't like, they also give me the feeling of a Rin part in the final minutes of the movie where it gived me the impression that they were inventing stuff, it was to rushed and why just appering or even talk about it now. Oh and the final scenes... no emotion, rushed ,boring... Not going to say anything else about the story because its hard to not spoil.

ART:
As usual the art style and animation is amazing. 10/10

SOUND:
Really good, unfortunately the fights are horrible, always giving the feeling of inventing and almost no explanation.

CHARACTER:
Really bad, sakura is just boring, zouken is just disgusting, saber and especially Rider dissapointed me a lot. I like Rin a Lot but in Heaven's feel especially in this movie is like another character, boring.

Enjoyment(5 or 6/10):
Good animation but the rush and a horrible final fight just was simply too bad.

Overall(5/10)

A review for the whole Heaven's Feel trilogy adaptation. SPOILERS WOULD BE INCLUDED.

Note: I will try my best not to turn this into a rant.

As I watch the trilogy a while ago, it was very full of complete opposite feelings.

The animation is peak movie quality production, it's so amazing. I like the artstyle as it fits to Takeuchi's current artstyle(his old art style still better in some aspects tho). And the visuals are very amazing. The only thing to nitpick on this part is that some parts of Dark Berserker gives me PTSD to Berserk CGI. The voice acting were top notch as well it ... has the most emotion possible to every character.

But that's just it. Everything else were infuriating to me.

Let's start with the soundtracks.

Honestly, the best one in the trilogy is that very short "EMIYA" part in "Why I fight" Literally the others on the trilogy are either the ones from the highlight fight scenes which sounded the same one way or another, and a remix Kaijura have always used since Kara no Kyoukai. It's very tiring of hearing the same old tune again and again. There are very good OSTs from the VN that could've been used in the movie. All the Evils in the World, Church on the Hill, Die Lorelei, A piano version of Disillusion, and even Light and Darkness especially.

The next and the BIGGEST PROBLEM of Heaven's Feel trilogy is adaptation. It's so bad even Deen Stay Night 2006 is better in terms of adaptation.

Seriously. Heaven's Feel is the longest route in the VN. Why adapt it into the shortest one in the anime compared to the shorter routes that got 25 eps?
Because of this, a lot of scenes felt weird, character arcs, ESPECIALLY ILLYA in the 2nd movie was skimmed and didn't even take 10 seconds in it, fight scenes like Nine Lives Blade Works wasn't done justice by letting play EMIYA till Berserker got defeated or at least a short monologue throughout the 3-second battle, the history of the Grail War, like did y'all even realized it that one guy was Zouken when he was hot? Did y'all even know who Zelretch is? And Illya's sacrifice that also would've been emotional had they used Die Lorelei in the scene, and last but very much not the least is the climax of not just Heaven's Feel but the WHOLE Fate/Stay Night itself: Shirou vs Kirei.

This fight is so terrible even Kirei's Kyrie Eleison scene was 10x better. They could've added at least a 2 minute dialogue, they could've just kept Kirei still using Bajiquan, they could've atleast kept Shirou's "I like Kotomine Kirei" but no, they just went and have Kirei punch Shirou in the head about 10x even though the VN said he'll die if he got hit once. Seriously, this is nothing but a major disappintment to me. Thank them Camelot duology and UBW movie exists.

**SPOILERS (FOR BOTH THE MOVIE AND THE VISUAL NOVEL)**


This is a honest review by someone who's read the visual novel, so I won't pretend that I have an unbiased view of this film. However, I still believe this movie has some genuine issues. In a sentence, this movie is essentially an adaptation for those who have read the visual novel. It's definitely an enjoyable film...just there are a lot of unanswered things and the characters do not have the weight they should. Of course, you can't expect a film to adapt a visual novel down to the last detail. But the Unlimited Blade Works anime ... succeeded where this movie fails. And that is simply because this movie is rushed.

The sound and the visuals need no review, anyone who knows ufotable should expect 10/10 in both categories. And I'll give the credit that they did a much better job portraying the action scenes than the visual novel could ever hope to accomplish.

My main problems lie with the story and the characters. The Heaven's Feel trilogy itself tried to adapt the longest route in the visual novel in the shortest time frame of just three movies. And this movie tried to adapt the most lore and plot points in the whole visual novel in one movie. I would even go so far to say that almost half the plot points in the Heaven's feel route in the visual novel have been crammed in here. Avenger's backstory, the corruption of the Grail, the true functioning of the Third Magic, all of this are glossed over in one sentence. The Second Magic is completely omitted, which really brought down the significance of the Jeweled Sword of Zeldretch. They didn't explain how much effort and preparation was actually needed for Shirou to project such a weapon. The biggest problem though is the ending. Unless you've read the visual novel, there is no way you'll understand what happens with Shirou's soul except some vague guesses. The fact that it was an incomplete Third Magic, Illya's connection to it, how it affects Shirou's new body, all omitted.

The characters bore the worst of it though. The only characters who were done justice were Rin and Kotomine. Illya's significance in the last scene is really underplayed. The previous movies skipped some of her dialogue with Shirou, which gives the audience less of an attachment to her. It's not even properly explained what she's trying to do, which really lowers the significance of her actions. If I'd gone into this movie blind, my thoughts would be "She destroyed the grail and somehow saved Shirou in the process but sacrificed herself." The weight of her choice is really gone.

Shirou himself was really really underplayed. They never revealed how Shirou's brain was literally getting destroyed by swords the more projection he used, how he could slowly feel his mind losing itself and losing more and more of his memories. The fact that Archer's mindset was taking over Shirou through the arm, how the current Shirou is incompatible with Archer's Reality Marble, the tragic sacrifice Shirou was making just by trying to save Sakura, all these things were just barely there instead of fleshed out like they should have been.

Sakura had the worst characterization. Dark Sakura is a very interesting character. The visual novel made it clear that the mental and physical pain she was going through was unbearable, and the act of taking in the souls of so many heroic spirits was causing her mind to break. However, in this movie, she was just your standard obsessive yandere girl, just with magic powers and who would occasionally clutch her stomach in pain. I'm a huge Sakura fan myself. She's my favorite heroine in the fate series. Yet in this movie, even I found her whiny and annoying half of the times. The fight between her and Rin was grossly underplayed because we knew that Rin as a mage is stronger, when in the visual novel it was stated that Sakura has innate talent at the same level of Rin, and would've been a mage prodigy had she been a Tohsaka.

The movie was enjoyable, I'll give it that. But if anyone's reading this, I would strongly recommend, hell almost beg, them to read the visual novel. Like I said at the start, this movie is essentially an adaptation for the visual novel readers, because otherwise there are too many things left unanswered or half done. Any question you could possibly have about the plot or characters of this movie or series, the visual novel will answer those and much more.

Oh boy, Heaven's Feel 3. As someone who has actually read the visual novel, I'm gonna sound biased and mean, but I think that these films were supposed to adapt the source material into a bite-sized packaged that could be enjoyed by everyone. So did the finale of the trilogy deliver? Well...

**SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIES AND THE VISUAL NOVEL AHEAD**

The first two movies while pretty and all, didn't have that same feel the VN did. In the VN, every character had a purpose, a reason for everything they did while in the movie, every character feels like a shell of their former self, and this ... goes especially well for HF3. This movie was supposed to make you love Illya, Kirei, and Sakura, but they really didn't. So much was cut out for the sake of either making Shirou look badass or for meaningless cameos like Touko from Kara no Kyoukai appearing in the end. And speaking of the ending, if you didn't read the VN, good luck making sense of it, because nothing gets explained. No really, NOTHING gets explained.

Ufotable's animation as always is top notch and Yuki Kaijura's score is phenomenal, but that doesn't make up for how rushed NLBW and Shirou vs. Kirei was. NLBW, fine, in the VN it happens over the span of 3 seconds, but in the movie, it actually takes 3 seconds. Where's the testicle aiming, dammit? As for the latter fight, Jesus, Kirei literally punches Shirou in the head and doesn't use the bajiquan. In the VN, it wasn't a fair fight, Shirou's body was on its last legs and he did everything in his power to not get hit in the head. Also, that fight is loved in the VN for the OST of "Yami to Hikari", a song that perfectly incapsulates the struggle between Shirou and Kirei. That song isn't in the film. Oof.

Fate anime are nice to watch, but with the knowledge of the source material, typically fail to deliver. HF3 is no different. It'll leave an anime watcher with more questions than answers even though they likely have so many questions already. If you want a true, definitive Fate experience, I implore you, read the original visual novel of Fate/Stay Night. Yes, its over 70 hours, but if you tackle it slowly, it'll go by quickly. I can't even recommend anime watchers to watch this movie since I know it'll make them confused just like the other Fate anime. If the directors knew what to keep and what to cut out, things could've been different, but in this timeline, Heaven's Feel 3 gets a 5/10 from me.

Heavens Feel, the visual novel, is my favorite part in the entire Fate series.
But sadly, they decided to adapt it as just three movies, which definitely were not
enough to fully develop the story.
I knew there was literally no way three movies would be able to adapt well over 30 hours of text. And at first I was fine with that.
What really disappointed me about this is that Ufotable decided to swing their animation dick WAY TOO MUCH this time. They went and spend more time on epic fight scenes instead of developing the plot further.
A lot of story and dialogue was sacrificed for the sake ... of cool flashing battles that were never even like that in the original visual novel.
I admit that the visuals and animation were beautifully done, but Fate is not just fight scenes. Sadly Ufotable did not respect that, therefore this was a disappointing adaptation.

Fate/Stay night heavens feel was a good piece of anime. it had a decent story amazing animation and some good sound tracks. even though some sound tracks are the usual fate sound tracks they are still good. i had a little less enjoyment out of this since some choices in the story were not optimal in my opinion but overall it was quite decent. I would say this is an optional movie trilogy if you are bored but i wouldn't call it a must watch or anything. it is more of a different route like what if this happened then a real extension to the ... story. but overall i would say it was half decent but by far not the greatest piece Type Moon has made.

I enjoyed the movie but expected better. I think Fate/Zero is the bee's knees but every other Fate has been a disappointment and this is unfortunately not an exception.

Sound - The sound is good.

Art - Action scenes are fluid and look good, but less care is shown towards environments. Much of the movie involves two characters standings in the middle of a barren / sterile space and talking. The art style here is also very CGI heavy. The CGI is well done just not my cup of tea.

Story (Spoilers) - Super dense with background information but little happens in the main story ... and it still doesn't make sense. Some holes are filled in by watching /Unlimited Blade Works or /Zero, but other things, like how is Kirei moving around without a heart, how does Shirou's soul get reincarnated in a puppet, or what the heck is a heaven's feel are left unexplained.

Characters (Spoilers) - Heaven's Feel sticks its fingers in some super heavy themes but doesn't have much to say and ultimately the story resolves with minimal consequence. Characters in Part 3 mostly just follow through on decisions made in Part 2. Shirou's decision to abandon his dream of being an "ally of justice" to defend his psychotic mass-murdering domestic abuse / rape victim girlfriend is an interesting setup, but the film fails to actually challenge or build on that decision. Sakura never evolves beyond someone to whom bad shit happens. Matou Zouken gets killed three times for no reason. Kirei is cool as always but his philosophy here is half-baked and his fist fight with Shirou is kinda weak sauce.

Conclusion - The film's mythology and themes are neat but ultimately hollow. The movie is like an edgy teenager trying too hard for a seat at the big boy table.

6/10

I generally like the Fate franchise, but this instalment was poor.

I have seen Fate Stay/Night, Fate Zero, Unlimited Blade Works, Grand Carnival and Fate Apocrypha, but I still found this trilogy hard to follow.

The story jumps around and explains very little to the audience. To newcomers of the Fate franchise, this is nothing but a fireworks show, just some pretty colours and fluid animation but with no coherent meaning. However, given the plethora of good reviews, it seems these movies relied on visual novels to fill in the narrative gaps, making the Heaven's Feel route coherent only to the most invested of Fate fans.

Regardless, I ... still feel that the overall story was pathetically weak, awkwardly paced and soul-crushingly anticlimactic, it was as if it were written by amateur fanfiction writers. The Fate franchise boasts some of the most iconic and well-loved anime characters, but this trilogy completely underutilized them, removing most of the series' best-liked characters in favour of developing some of their more neglected ones. The Heaven's Feel route does a good job at answering many of the questions left behind from Fate Zero; however, it accomplished this at too much narrative expense and hence forfeited much of the potential of these films.

Now, the series definitely had the best-animated fights I have ever witnessed, were the story even mediocre, I would've given this movie an 8 or 9 overall, but the narrative was just so weak that it dragged down my overall review to a 6.

If you just like epic fights and pretty colours, this is a good pick for you. If you love the Fate franchise with your heart and soul, perhaps this is for you too. But if you come as a fan of good story-telling, looking for well-rounded good anime content to watch, don't waste your time on this trilogy.

*Will contain spoilers.*

Now, where do i start and how? Its nearly impossible to review anything in the fate series as far as i see because there's both an amazing amount of depth to it, and possibly things lost in translation and not properly explained and adapted into the shows, but also a certain shallowness to a lot of the writing, near limitless amount of freedoms the writer takes with magic, timelines and universes as well as their intersections, dubious mechanisms that work differently at every turn, and nearly inexistent moral and philosophical compass... Which is a HORRIBLE thing because its unrestrained by logic, fact, internal ... logic, or any kind of common sense you could apply to it to analyze, make any sort of sense out of, nor learn any lesson from.

Examples? Sakura somehow feels sorry for her brother and grandpa that she killed, and somehow tries to make it sound as a bad thing, which makes NO sense after all the shit they've put her through. Those monologs make absolutely no sense. Shirou who wants to protect everyone and be a hero of justice or some shit but bends like a wet noodle at Sakura's (the love interest of this 'what if' universe/setting) murders and seemingly ignores it, goes along with it at some point without any hesitation or moral judgment, tells her to atone for it at some point... How do you atone for murdering thousands, if not more? By living on as a normal useless girl/woman? Cuz that's all she seems to do at the end. Show her do some charity and volunteer work at least, jeez.

Another thing is how the ally of justice Shirou keeps ignoring clear signs of abuse and mental trauma on Sakura, hit marks like both a complete idiot, a weakling, and being about as moral about it as a cockroach. Same goes for Rin, Sakura's sister, who seems to be fully aware what her sister is going through but DOES. NOT. DO. ANYTHING. "Oh, hey, my sister's being used as some sacrificial pawn, tortured, getting infused with and EATEN BY BUGS, raped... I should WORK HARDER~!"... Because that'll help her, yes-yes. It doesn't fall in line with her behavior either, because even as a KID in fate zero she goes to try and help and save people, now she's more stupid and/or cowardly? Does any of this make ANY sense? No. And if you can and SHOULD ignore most, or all various world building, mechanics and plot devices that make no sense and work through magic because this is what the sci fi and magic genre is all about, how, HOW on earth does this kind of idiotic logic and monologues/dialogues make sense by any sort of standard? There's not a single setting where the phrase "My sister is getting eaten and raped by bugs so i should work harder" sounds anything but idiotically and morbidly comical.

The original fate, and UBW made SOME sense, it was somewhat consistent, and even if the logic, plot and morals might have been shaky at times (which i wouldn't say is the case really, it doesn't seem more nonsensical than most anime), Heaven's feel comes across as one of the epitomes of moral relativism and esoteric, post modernist nonsensical nightmare messes i've come across. "Can we rid the world of evil if we blame/channel all the evil into one person and seal it away?" ... What is this 'evil' anyway, aren't people just acting on their free will..? And if you really can 'extract' evil out of them and change their behavior, well, there goes people's agency and free will as a fucking concept, GJ! "I wanna be a hero/ally of justice! I want to save EVERYONE!" says the guy that does nothing but fix old electronical shit and bend over backwards to fulfil other people's requests, doesn't see nor do anything about abuse right in front of him.

It all makes NO sense. It CAN'T make sense. Nor is it even supposed to, its supposed to SOUND nice, and hook your FEELINGS instead with what's, in its root cheap and shitty writing with nothing behind it. And hey, guess it does for people that are lost enough, of which, sadly there is plenty these days, if not to say the majority. So to put it simply, everything that includes the plot and dialogues is pretty damn bad.

What about other things? Well, the art is good, or even great, as expected of unlimited budget works. The sound is great too. Delving a bit into Shirou's relationship or thoughts about his adoptive dad was interesting i guess... Same for Sakura and Rin's relationship, although both of those themes don't seem too well explored. The ONE thing i can say is really good about this anime is the rider vs corrupted saber fight. But sadly i have to say everything else in this movie set is weak or mediocre at best. There's very few proper and lasting fights, and the few that there is, aside the one i mentioned, are very non impressive, and well, aren't the epic fights supposed to be one of, if not THE major selling point/visit card of this series? The protagonist's role in the fights in this one is also extremely weak, unlike UBW. Illiya and saber seem to be pretty much just there as plot devices and have nearly no character nor use.

Final thoughts - total 5.6/10, would not recommend anyone to watch this. Would however recommend to see a clip of the rider vs saber fight.