THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ENTRIES IN THE SERIES
“Heaven's Feel III: Spring Song” is the final part of a trilogy adaptation of the Fate/Stay Night visual novel. Those who have been following these films will know the story so far: in the first film, we established our protagonist’s journey through the Holy Grail War while encountering fierce resistance. Yet in spite of these obstacles, Kotomine Kirei pushed through his struggles, and we as an audience start to believe that he may in fact have the courage necessary to be victorious. The crisis of the first film comes when Kirei’s servant dies upon encountering the evil
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Matou Sakura who transforms into a hideous cannibal and eats Lancer. Our hero is crippled by this devastating blow to his mission, but the first film ends on an optimistic note when the young Emiya Shirou’s servant is consumed; giving the audience hope that Kirei might find a way to rise from the ashes of his defeat. Nobody cares about what happened in the second film.
This third and concluding film has everything any Fate/Stay Night fan could ask for; and I daresay there will be much to enjoy even if you never liked this series before. With the Holy Grail War turning increasingly morbid and grotesque, many of the characters you’ve seen in other shows are pushed to their absolute limits here. Their resolve is tested in a way never seen before, and if you are not familiar with the source material, I imagine the direction the story takes will be incredibly shocking. In some ways, I envy the viewer who has never read the visual novel because they will experience this yuetsu for the first time.
In regards to specific characters, this movie is a welcome return to form for Kotomine Kirei. He unsurprisingly steals the show after being horribly misused and sidelined in the last film. I cannot stress this point enough: That Kirei fellow is beyond incredible. What a guy. His brilliance is in stark contrast with Emiya Shirou; whose character regresses from the last movie into his more familiar role as the village idiot. He spends most of his time gaping open-mouthed while smarter characters exposit around, then drag him from one place to another while he tries to remember where he is and how he got there. Sakura shows her true colors here; becoming a moody teenage hooligan who dyes her hair and gets tattoos all over herself to try and look edgy. Sakura spends most of the time in angst and taking drugs. As for Illya and my pupil Rin, I have seen the film, and I can confidently say that they are in it.
Animation – to no one’s surprise – is perfect. Ufotable knows this is their final movie in the last Fate/Stay Night route, and they make every effort to raise the bar once more. The final days of this route feature some of the most memorable scenes in the visual novel, and the way which these have been translated into animation will be enough to excite any fan. Even if you hate this movie, you will not be able to deny that there will be some great screenshots and desktop wallpapers from here.
To sum up my thoughts: there are a myriad of positives. You get some of the tensest fight scenes in animation today; well-developed characters; bombastic music; and surprising twists. Kinoko Nasu may be a shit writer, but Heaven’s Feel was his magnum opus. If nothing else, ufotable did his work justice.
This next section has spoilers. Please keep in mind that the remainder of this review is not for you if you haven’t read the visual novel. Come to think of it, I cannot guarantee the rest is for you even if you have read it.
During the production of the second movie in this trilogy, there were early script drafts that took us through Kirei’s redemption arc. The original plan was for him to do the Lord’s work, and save the lives of the meek and the useless. In the course of this, he would gain a renewed fighting spirit and grow as our protagonist. There were early production talks of spiritual visits from Kirei’s father, and character developing flashbacks. This would have culminated at the end of the second film with a final confrontation with Dark Sakura to set up the final movie. Truly it would have been a wonderful sequel had all this come to pass.
Unfortunately for those of us who are anti-MAP, the director Tomonori Sudou decided to focus the movie instead on high school children having sex and dabbling in vampirism. The prevailing logic seemed to be: why focus on developing complex characters, when we can have ahegao Sakura on the floor pleasuring herself to senpai? Clearly Sudou could not suppress his perverted nature, and much of my development ends up on the cutting room floor. I am demoted to a simple doctor who gets sidelined for the duration of the movie. The scope of the film narrowed to a pinhead directly on Matou Sakura’s “tragedy” - where we are meant to sympathise with her murdering innocent people because, apparently, she is the true victim. In my stead, Emiya Shirou assumes the reigns of the main lead character, and the natural consequence is the movie ending with the apocalypse on the horizon.
No more. This madness ends now. We are now on movie 3, and I will not allow this pitiful excuse for a director to ruin my moment of glory. I am forcefully taking back the reigns of this train wreck, and making sure it arrives at the final station before it bursts asunder. When this trilogy is over, I will send Sudou to answer for his sins directly to Lord Nakata - and there will be much rejoicing.
This is all water under the bridge, however. Getting back on topic, this movie begins with me having a restful nap, once more dreaming of a perfect world filled with endless suffering and mapo tofu. Suddenly, I was awoken once again – this time by a knock at the front door of the church. Remembering the last time someone disturbed my slumber, I immediately suspected that Berserker did not learn his lesson, and was back to his old schemes. Grabbing my black keys, I rushed towards the entrance. Whether the cause of the disturbance was a hulking servant or hooligan pranksters, their fate would be the same either way. Looking out the window, I chanced to see what seemed to be a visually impaired mother abandoning her children on the church steps. I naturally assumed she gave up on parenting and threw her children away – as many “modern” parents that dye their hair purple are likely to do in this disgraceful society. I decided right there to take these children in. After all, with the coming end of this Holy Grail War (not to mention any future ones that might take place), it was important to harvest as much mana as possible; and unfortunately, the orphans in the basement had begun running dry as of late. This, I thought, was Lord Nakata’s answer to my prayers. Upon examining them, I was surprised to find that the abandoned children were my student Tohsaka Rin and - less surprisingly - Emiya Shirou. The decision was made to spare them for now, since I may have needed human shields before the war was resolved.
Both were severely injured, and needed to be cared for. Apparently, Rider did not have enough common sense to know that Rin’s mana would recover best within her own home; or maybe she knew this, and just left me to take her home. Both possibilities greatly annoyed me. This church is not some animal shelter where I return lost pets. Nonetheless, I performed my duty as a good civilian by dragging Rin to my car, slowly driving by Tohsaka’s house, and chucking her at the front door like a newspaper.
To anyone familiar with my plan, you would know that it is preferable that Matou Zouken does not have the Einzbern Holy Grail. It was therefore disappointing, though far from unexpected, to learn that Shirou failed to prevent this. Dark Sakura had managed to take the LoliGrail, which meant an effort would need to be made to take it back. I pondered over this while waiting for Shirou to finally regain consciousness. After taking advantage of my hospitality yet again, it was difficult to resist the urge to throw him out the window. This church is not a hotel, and I should not be expected to provide shelter to a child that is too stupid to survive in his own house. Finally, he began to stir. After explaining to the dimwit how he ended up here and assuring him that Rin was safely delivered home, Shirou seemed to lose his nerve and broke down. He became a pile of rage and self-loathing, and kept raving about needing to save everyone he doomed. Never did he remind me more of Kiritsugu than at that moment.
After enduring this whinging for an ungodly amount of time, I finally had enough. If this insecure mess continued to be the main character, there was no guarantee that we would achieve my ultimate yuetsu. That destiny could not be trusted to someone who had failed in every way so badly that he had to abandon his own ideals. The time had come for me to reinstate myself as a main character.
The two of us entered the Einzburn forest, and began making our way to Illya’s Castle. With great enthusiasm, I took this opportunity to have a mighty good jog through the forest. We were making very good time, and I began thinking through the different scenarios of what might happen - while ignoring Shirou panting and heaving behind me as he tried to keep up. Eventually, we stopped running and I let Emiya have a quick break - to spare his dignity, if nothing else. It was then that I reminded him to not focus on Sakura at this moment, and just concentrate on bringing Illya back safely.
Shirou, once again, lost his nerve, and began advocating for the death of Sakura's unborn child. Worrying about her dying while giving birth, he threw a tantrum and accused me of allowing evil to come into the world. How dare he? The liberal education system has become monstrous indeed if a boy like Shirou is attempting to kill an unborn child without the consent of the mother. I then remembered how Kiritsugu wanted to use the power of the grail to force everyone into being "good" and eliminating all "evil". Between that and what Shirou was saying now, it suddenly dawned on me that the Emiya household was partial to fascism. It was not enough for them to allow people to make their own choices in life whether good or bad; these authoritarians wanted to make sure everyone did the right thing – and for them, the “right thing” seemed to be whatever they want at the moment. Take this shadow killer, for example. Up until recently, Shirou would have agreed that it was “right” to save innocent people by taking out the serial killer – but that was before he discovered the killer was his sexy housemaid. Oh yes, now that he knows the murderer is a big-tittied skank that he wants to bang – only now has he become “enlightened” enough to understand that, on second thought, keeping her alive is what’s “right”. This has now gotten to the point where he is preaching about the necessity of non-consensual abortions. It is truly a wonder how Shirou can believe his own dumb rationalizations enough to keep a straight face. Throughout Shirou’s rant, I tried to make the very reasonable point that a newborn should not be killed when it has not done anything. To be born is not an evil act.
Finally reaching the castle, I concluded that Illya would likely not be held near ground level where she could easily escape. The balance of probability laid in her being in an isolated room on the top floor. It was then a question of how to reach her as fast as possible and making a hasty retreat. I could sense Assassin was nearby, and would soon interrupt our rescue. I therefore asked Shirou if he had ever gone rock climbing up a building before. He replied to me that he had not - which was fine all the same, since my actual plan wouldn't be anything like rock climbing anyway. Grabbing the back of Shirou's stupid shirt, I lifted him up over my head and wound back my arm. Breathing steadily, I loaded as much mana as I could into my arm and launched the brat into the air using the Bajiquan technique: 扔白痴
This succeeded in catapulting Shirou 50 feet into the air and crashing through the top floor window. I stood there for a moment admiring how precise my accuracy was. I would have certainly made a great name for myself in the popular American sport called “Base Ball”.
In any case, the time to ponder such trivialities were fleeting. The best move I could make while Shirou located the LoliGrail was to intercept Assassin and make short work of him. I may even be able to catch him by surprise and gain the upper hand. It took a few moments for me to scout out his location, as it turned out that he was in hiding - the first resort for any cowardly servant. The two of us confronted each other, and it was only now that I was able to get a good look at him. He certainly did look very similar to previous servants I had in 1994, who were also given the name of Hassan-i-Sabbah. The most significant differences were this new one had a ridiculously proportioned arm that made him look like a badly sketched character from an artist that could not draw human anatomy. This impression was strengthened when combined with the man's lanky stature. My first reaction upon seeing him was a vicarious sense of embarrassment for Zouken, who seemed to have been dealt a bad hand if this was the servant he was stuck with. This ridiculous man made even the fake assassin with blue hair and a fetish for cutting birds seem dignified. If there was a return policy for servants, I would've strongly recommended that Zouken make another exchange. But this was just the first reason to pity this servant; and how idiotic he looked was nothing compared to the second reason. The fact remained that this mannequin-like servant had executed an innocent dog.
MY innocent dog.
He must be destroyed.
The table was set for his execution, but in the next instant, assassin had vanished without warning. He was no longer in the area. His escape puzzled me for a moment, but then the cause became obvious: Illya. That fool Emiya must have given away his location, and now the enemy knew we were there.
Returning back to the place where I made my great pitch, I leapt through the air, landing gracefully through the broken window. Shirou was still there, of course, and rather than carrying out the simple act of abducting a child, he instead was wasting time giving a soliloquy to Illyasviel about how much he loves jailbait. Fortunately, being a priest, abducting children swiftly is a talent that comes naturally. I saw my opportunity, and the time for netorare was at hand. I grabbed the small girl and jumped out the window with her in my arms.
Shirou, the tool, jumped out the window after me without using any magic to break his fall, and landed right on his face; I almost died from laughter right there. Afterwards, I started a brisk jog into the forest away from the castle. I didn’t run too fast, since I would need to pace myself to reach the end, and this gave an opportunity for the young Emiya Shirou to pick himself up and follow us. He eventually did catch up, and of course started complaining about how much his legs hurt, and asked us to slow down. This seriously was a pathetic excuse for a master. Here I was - a middle aged man jogging while carrying a child - and yet this youthful teenager still could not keep up.
In my peripheral vision, I caught Assassin frolicking next to us. The next moment after noticing this, daggers whizzed through the air barely missing me. It didn’t take long before Assassin was ready to throw more, but by then I was prepared. Having reached into my frock for black keys, I managed to deflect the daggers safely away. With me being armed now, Assassin must’ve realized I was not the vulnerable one amongst us. Soon he started taking aim at the defenseless ginger; who squealed like a pig while making embarrassing efforts to dodge the daggers. For my part, I assisted him whenever the projectiles were particularly accurate by planting my boot into Shirou from behind. This propelled him hundreds of meters ahead, out of the daggers’ path. I would have certainly made a great name for myself in the popular sport called “Foot Ball”.
Things were going well, until a most unexpected wildcard stormed the field. From the depths of the forest somewhere behind us, the mighty roar of Hercules Alter rang out. His feral viciousness seemed to echo all around us and shook the trees. That menacing growl reverberated with newly found heights of savagery. No one who heard that roar could doubt that he was ready to rip apart any human limb-from-limb if they were standing between him and his former master. At this point, I called for Shirou to stop, and handed him Illya to look after. I told them to escape by any means necessary while I bravely went to fight Assassin completely on my own. It was now on me to avenge my dear friend, my fallen canine, once and for all. I ran forward in the direction that I last saw Assassin. Behind me, I could hear the monstrous Berserker crashing through trees as he plowed passed my location. This was followed closely by ear-piercing squeals and cries for help; though I could not tell whether they came from Illyasviel or Shirou.
When Assassin and I finally met and battled, it began in close quarters with rapid exchanges of blows. I noticed that assassin was an appalling fighter. His attacks were so deliberate that I did not even need to use my "Hearing a Move" ability to be able to counter them. Even if a blow landed, it would have been so feeble that I probably would not even feel it. What this True Assassin really needed was a sandwich. Nonetheless, I followed my normal strategy, and aimed my blows at his eyes and groin; though honestly, I was not convinced he had eyes behind that mask, and even less confident about what he had between his legs. Suddenly, Assassin took out one of his daggers and lunged towards me. Unfortunately for him, his daggers were very small and did not have a hilt. I immediately drew out one of my black keys and parried assassin knife with so much force that I knocked the knife away and dealt a cut to the anorexic's hand. I saw my opening. Using the split second Assassin was entranced by brilliant combat ability, I performed my super Bajiquan technique ‘Six Grand Opening- Elbow Upthrust’ right at assassin’s ridiculous mask, sending him tumbling to the ground in a heap.
At this point, only two questions were on my mind: One, where was Matou Zouken? That old fool must have been watching his servant from somewhere close. Secondly, how did this "True Assassin" ever become a heroic spirit? From what I could see, this Hassan-i-Sabbah was nothing more than a coward. He had no combat experience whatsoever. He killed from the shadows, and then would run away with his tail between his legs. I do not believe this servant has ever saved anyone, so what made him so heroic? If this useless piece of life was what the Grail qualified to be a heroic spirit, then I should qualify to be one as well. I spent years hunting down and killing dangerous monsters for the church. I even won the 4th Holy Grail War, which is more than this loser could say. Isn't winning one of the greatest mage wars ever reason enough to become a heroic spirit for that stupid cup?
At that moment, my train of thought was very rudely interrupted by Assassin throwing one of his pathetic knives at me. He must have realized that he was no match for me hand-to-hand, so he was keeping his distance. This gave me an idea; I started throwing dozens of black keys at the scrawny servant. Before heading out earlier that day, I knew how violent this expedition to Illya’s castle might get, so I made sure to arm myself with enough black keys to survive a crusade before I left the church. This meant that I could throw a barrage of blades without ever worrying about running out. Assassin began leaping between trees and bushes evading my attacks; but when he landed in front of a particularly thick shrubbery, something changed. This time when I threw my projectiles, he deflected them away with a dagger. By this method, I then knew that Zouken must have been hiding in those bushes - a very typical hiding spot for a creepy old man like him. Zouken must have realized he was discovered, for Assassin immediately preformed his Noble Phantasm, Zabaniya. His deformed arm stretched out and shot towards me – pressing his fingers against my chest. Then something stirred inside of me – as if a creature was trying to burst out. I fell to the ground.
Surprisingly, as I lay there, I discovered that I was fine. Assassin’s Noble Phantasm did not hurt me at all. This made me start to chuckle. While standing back up, the chuckling turned into laughter - and then that turned into uncontrollable laughter. My body started to feel rejuvenated; I was growing full of magic! Full of might! Full of YUETSU!! Finally getting to my feet, I started conjuring as much strength and magic as I could. I looked over at Assassin while still laughing; I could see his dumbfounded expression behind his mask. My laughter finally subsided long enough to tell him, "If that was your best attack, then allow me show you what a real Noble Phantasm looks like. Rejoice!"
At that moment, I activated my ‘Hear a Move’ mindset. I knew Assassin was going to jump into my blind spot, but I just needed to know which direction he would go in order to intercept him. Sending a portion of magic to enhance my legs, I preformed the ‘Moving Stance’ technique at such blinding speed that Assassin had hardly taken half a step towards the shed beside us before I reached him. There was nothing he could do at this point. He was completely at my mercy. Channeling all the energy I could to my fists, I preformed Super Bajiquan ultimate technique ‘Hundred Postures of Death’ and sent both my fists careening into Assassin’s chest. That strike was so mighty that it ignited the hydrogen in the air and caused an explosion. The shockwave that resulted could be felt for miles and tore up the ground beneath us. The force of the attack rocketed Assassin into the air at Mach 3 speed. This also caused Zouken (who was no more than a few meters away from the attack) to be launched out of his hiding spot. It was over for the old kook. Having been exposed out in the open, he was completely helpless - and with assassin in the middle of his nonstop flight across Japan, the old man did not have anyone to hide behind.
I seized the cretin by the head and held him with one hand, as if holding an orange. I hope the reader of this can appreciate that up until that moment, I had not seen Zouken for 10 years. Seeing that disgusting face once more brought with it the wave of nausea I always felt whenever I was forced to perform the unenviable task of looking at him. Suddenly the sympathy I had earlier for him getting Assassin as a servant had vanished; these two were made for each other. Zouken likely summoned Hassan-i-Sabbah purposefully so they could trade beauty tips. I could not stand to look at him any longer, so with an anguished cry I pummeled him into the dirt. It was then that I saw his limbs begin to tingle, and dozens of those revolting insects began slithering out of his sleeves – but I knew this would happen. For a long time I had known about the undignified way which he stayed alive. Many evenings were spent in puzzled contemplation, or in the church archives researching about how a man like this could be definitively killed. Weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the magic used by the Matous’s, it took years just to pin down a theoretical method of cleansing him from the earth. It was only by the skin of my teeth that I had completed my ultimate weapon in time. Had the 5th Holy Grail War started a mere season earlier, I would not have been prepared. Zouken had, by this time, begun convulsing on the ground as his regular body lost its form by degrees. He was slowly dissolved into a colony of bugs. With little time to worry about strategy, I opened a secret pocket on the inside of my frock and withdrew “The Device” - there were many possible names that I thought of for it, but no single one could be decided on.
“The Device” was a 29 oz. can of Raid, ingeniously duct taped to a frag grenade. Never has the church collection plate money been used to fund an invention more worthy than this one. There was no time to admire my handy work, however. I pulled the pin out of the grenade, and shoved the devilish device down Matou Zouken’s pants. That done, I ran from the scene as fast as my legs could carry me – grinning all the while. An explosion rang out behind me soon after, and I knew that the Lord’s work had been done that day.
And then, just when I thought my day couldn’t get any better, out crawled Matou Sakura from whatever hole she was crying in. The murderer of Lancer had already been dealt swift revenge, and now the same would come to pass for Gilgamesh’s murderer. The sudden memory of that golden man made my stomach knot up. I turned away while attempting to keep the surge of emotions at bay. It felt like just yesterday that the two of us were going on our daily tandem bicycle rides around the neighbourhood, or kidnapping orphans and strapping them to tables in the church basement. It felt like the good times would never end; until one day when Gilgamesh said he was fed up with his mongrels being slaughtered throughout the city every night by Cousin Itt. He wished to put an end to it once and for all. In vain, I tried to stop him; In vain, I pleaded for him to let it go and not let it get between us – but in my non-heart I knew it was no use. There was a side of the King of Heroes which was too attached to his duty. The last time I saw him was when he walked out the church’s front door for the last time to face his enemy. And who was the one that killed him? This insecure and confused little wench, Sakura.
It goes without saying that I wished death on the fake Matou for what she did – not to mention that she had delusions of overthrowing me as best girl. On the other hand, I also must serve a higher calling and make sure she stayed alive to give birth. As a result, I did engage in battle with Sakura (to teach her a lesson), but I restrained myself from throwing her down the proverbial stairs. The battle didn’t last long since my Black Keys did little damage, and I was able to use “Hear A Move” to foresee anything she tried to attack me with. While I may have still been able to overcome this stalemate under any normal scenario, there were 2 critical factors which prevented that from happening here: One was that I was spent from having to fight off Zouken and Assassin, which meant I could not use my Noble Phantasm again. Secondly, that slimy cheater Sakura was able to control the Grail mud that was keeping me alive. She used this to her advantage hoping to instantly kill me; however, she did not understand that I was not just powered by the grail. I also had yuetsu coursing through my veins! As long as I had that, I could easily survive her measly attacks. Suddenly, the worm girl keeled over in a spasm of pain, and cried out for Saber before slithering away.
This sudden departure clearly meant that Emiya Shirou had finally succeeded in killing Berserker; it took him long enough. I would’ve already won several times over by now if I was in his place. Sakura almost certainly went after Shirou and Illya, and could be about to devour them at any moment. I rose to my feet once more, determined to save them yet again – but then I looked at my watch and saw how late it had gotten. The best move for me would be to go get some rest. I was sure some plot device would appear to save Shirou again for the 63rd thousandth time. I therefore went home.
The extremities of the day’s battles all bore down on me as I arrived home at the church. Perhaps my age had begun taking its toll, as I barely felt conscious while dressing my wounds. I turned on the radio to provide background noise during this painful work, but the sounds of the news that day barely registered. I recall hearing something about growing fears that extraterrestrial beings were responsible for the thousands of people disappearing. This seemed to be corroborated by hundreds of witnesses who swore that a newly discovered crater in southern Tokyo was caused by a UFO crashing into the ground just a few hours before the broadcast. Dozens of people who had run to the smoldering hole claimed to see a vaguely human creature laying in the center unconscious. It was described as being almost entirely black with a pale white face. Apparently, it had suddenly “disappeared” right before their eyes shortly after. I gave a scoff of contempt at these unhinged conspiracy nuts and the nonsense they spouted. Shortly thereafter, I drifted off to sleep.
Interlude
Time grows short, so I shall quickly recap what the lesser beings were up to during this time. Shirou did encounter Berserker Alter, but managed to prevail using his left arm. It appears as though years of sinfully masturbating had caused Emiya Shirou’s arm to swell into a mass of muscle and shame. He defeated Berserker through these means; however, this did come at a price. The wickedness of his immoral pastime had finally caught up to him, and he began losing his sense of consciousness and the ability to perceive time – just as I have threatened would happen to hormone charged teenagers for years at my church sermons. Afterwards, they went home, ate some bad food, came up with a stupid plan, and started marching out the next day to their deaths. Moving on.
Interlude out
I awoke late the next day in high spirits; for that night I would finally have my wish granted by the Holy Grail. After receiving a good 20 hour nap, I had gained back some of my strength. I did not have much time to make preparations, so I grabbed the few tools I needed, and set out for Ryuudou Temple. I was the first one there, but this did not bother me since I would need to ready myself for Angra Mainyu.
My first job as a representative of the Holy Church was to prevent any possible eye-witnesses from being exposed to the Grail war as it reached its peak. I put on my gas mask, and set to work flooding Ryuudou Temple with enough knock-out gas to subdue a large pride of African elephants. This done, I found the perfect spot to set up; a nice open area at the top of the temple that overlooked what would soon become the battleground. I opened up my picnic basket, took out my blanket, and laid it out over the ground. I then poured myself a glass of wine and lit a few candles while preparing a side meal of mapo tofu. I managed to find my groove and settle down just as the show started.
Even from a distance, it was easy to spot that demon Sakura as she entered the scene. She was just starting the grail summoning ritual. I also saw my student, Rin Tohsaka, being accompanied by that red headed fool, Emiya Shirou. Both were heading in the direction of the crazy worm lady. It would seem that their intentions were to prevent the birth of Avenger but - unfortunately for them – their path was obstructed by the little King of Knights.
Ah yes, Saber Alter. She was nothing more than a cheap attempt by the writers to make Artoria more dark and edgy; moving her away from the fan-service furry we all knew and loved. Despite the writers’ best efforts to take her seriously, she still had the body of a 15 year old girl, and engaged in combat while wearing a 5th century dress. This is not to say she doesn't deserve any respect – after all, she holds the title of being the first transgender King in history. Unfortunately, after claiming that title, (s)he went off and had sex with her/his cousin, which portrayed the transgender community as incestual whackos.
To me, the big problem with Artoria Pendragon was that she had no point in this Holy Grail War to begin with. Sometime before, the King of Heroes and I were sharing drinks and telling jokes. Gilgamesh told me that Artoria’s wish was to not become king in order to save Britain. After hearing this, we both exploded into laughter. What a stupid thing to wish for! I say this because I just visited London a month prior, and I can report that the country was doing fine, and did not need to be saved. This “complex and deep character” was really just a drama queen with a martyr complex. Either that, or maybe Artoria just realized that her place was in a kitchen and not on the throne; but I digress.
Getting back to the action, it turned out that Saber Alter allowed Rin to pass, but denied Shirou entry – a situation that I’m sure he was not unfamiliar with. My prize student made the right choice and left the village idiot behind to be vaporized. Sipping my wine and enjoying my mapo tofu, I watched as Saber Alter slapped Emiya around. Even with his jacking arm, he was useless; but right on cue, a plot device came in to save Shirou’s ass again. This time it was the visually impaired Rider grabbing the boy and pulling him out of harm’s way. It suddenly dawned on me that I was watching a fight between a girl in a dress, a masturbating fool, and a blind woman. This led me to consider the very real possibility that no one may emerge from this pack of freaks as the victor.
I turned my attention to the battle of the psycho sisters. It was a very entertaining fight; chiefly because as time went on, Rin slowly came to understand that she lacked the resolve to kill her own sister. Even with Sakura embodying pure evil, and no matter how hard she fought, Rin was doomed to lose before the battle began. As I think back now, Rin has never actually won a single battle in this war. Tohsaka Rin, who is supposedly so tough and powerful, was not even able to get a victory against that imbecile Emiya Shirou. I guess the years I spent misleading her as my naive student was not for nothing. It seems failure runs in her family. After all, Tokiomi did not put up much of a fight either when I stabbed him to death – hell, he gave me the weapon I killed him with. If the Emiyas are fascist simpletons, then the Tohsaka family is full of losers. There was no longer a point in watching this. Turning my attention back again to the Rider fight, it seemed that things were wrapping up. Rider was taken out, and Shirou had succeeded by stabbing Saber. Shirou watched as his old servant and friend died by his hand. It was an emotional moment for the young lad, and the surrounding atmosphere was so hushed that the only thing you could hear was me cackling from a distance. By the time my sides stopped splitting, I looked over to see Rin had lost too.
The fighting had finally ended, but it did not matter anymore. Sakura was already deep into labour, and we were all about to witness the miracle of birth. That certainly didn’t stop Shirou, however. He marched up to the helpless Sakura – who tried desperately to fight him off. The young Matou had become a strong independent single mother, and she didn’t want Shirou involved. Emiya Shrou didn’t care, of course. He was as determined to possess his “squeeze” as he was to abandon the responsibilities of parenthood. He projected a gruesome knife, and attempted to abort the baby right there. I was beyond horrified. Shirou had abandoned his ideals, and had now become what he hated most: the villain of the story. I thought all our struggles had come to nothing, but what happened next was nothing short of a miracle. Through God’s divine intervention, the child was still alive. His bond from Sakura had been severed, but the fetus remained viable. I praised the heavens and was overjoyed.
To my great sadness, the jubilation I felt did not last long. No, it did not last long at all… Shirou had already become a villain by that point, but in the next moment he became something much, much worse. Not satisfied his failure to execute the fetus struggling for life in front of him, Shirou took his wickedness one step further. He was no longer performing a late-term abortion; he was now going to commit infanticide. I could not fathom this. How could a boy – however moronic he may be – become so self-serving and sociopathic that he would kill an innocent newborn? This could not happen. This WILL NOT happen. If this sinner was to become the ultimate villain, then I would embrace my destiny as the protagonist and become the ultimate hero to stop him – and then finally I might become worthy enough for that grail/sky hole to be a heroic spirit.
I leapt down from where I was perched and landed between Shirou and the newborn. I threw my arm forward to point at Shirou defiantly, and cried, “Stop right there, evil-doer! I will not let you kill him!” I took a quick glance behind me to make sure that the baby was still doing well, and I noticed that this little miracle had already begun displaying those innocent mannerisms that mothers always find so adorable: such as staring into your soul venomously, and glowing demonically red. Emiya Shirou looked shocked to see me, but before I could begin to talk him down, the villain launched into a hateful and unhinged diatribe. He declared that the baby must be killed; that it is evil and would bring misery to everyone. Shirou said all this without the self-awareness to realize this could have easily been used as a reason to kill him when he was born. That decision to let him live was a mistake made long ago that I would make sure was corrected. Inevitably, the time came where I could not listen to his insane ravings any longer. I entered my fighting pose and cut off his vicious speech by yelling, “Enough of your woke left-wing bullshit, Shirou! Prepare to taste the FISTS OF JUDGEMENT!!”
Within a split second, desperation tightened every corner of Emiya’s face. He reached into his back pocket, and pulled out a weapon that I was more than familiar with: The Azoth Sword. “KOTOMINE KIREI!!” he cried out like a wounded animal, and charged holding the dagger pointing forward. I watched as the determined figure rushed at me closer and closer. The blade was now only a few feet away from meeting my chest, squarely where a heart would normally be located. There was great power in Shirou’s movements as he lunged forward thrusting the sword out to stab me. Then, I took one step to the side and dodged the blow. The young man now met empty air, and was falling forward off-balance. As his body sailed downwards where I was just standing, I calmly lifted my right arm high above my head, and then whipped it downwards to chop Shirou in the back of the neck. This strike greatly accelerated his fall, and his face collided with the ground, causing a loud “CRACK” to echo through the air. Did he really expect that to work? Who in their right mind would imagine that I – a martial arts specialist – would just stand there not moving and watch a 17 year old run up and stab me? I think it is safe to say that anyone who could imagine such a ridiculous death for me is a shitty writer and a hack. His body was now limp and motionless, and, as the hero, I seized this opportunity and began savagely kicking him in the ribs. After satisfying myself that his punctured lungs would keep him from attacking me again, I proceeded to phase 2, and started stomping down on the back of his head with the heel of my boot. Tremors shook the ground with each blow, and I could hear nearby trees snapping from the violent jolting. The ground burst outwards from the impact, and with each stomp we crashed deeper into a widening crater. It was in the midst of this fierce battle between good and evil that I think I finally understood Kiritsugu after all these years. Surely this was the sense of pride that made him wish to become a hero of justice. It was a moment of clarity that has stayed with me ever since. I finally felt your sense of justice, Kiritsugu. This one’s for you, old friend.
My stomping ceased. Shirou and I now found ourselves in a veritable canyon that stretched out hundreds of feet in both directions. I grabbed Emiya by his girly red hair, lifting him first to his feet, and then up off the ground. His body waved back and forth in the wind as if weightless, and I could feel a few strands of his hair breaking within the tight grip of my fist. My next attack was Super Bajiquan technique “10 Penances for a Fool”; I flung him upwards into the air by a few feet; which tore some of his hair off. Then, as he fell back down to my level and was about to hit the ground, I wound back my arm, and decked him in the chest cavity. Time seemed to freeze for a brief moment as Shirou’s body hung suspended in the air while registering the mighty blow and reacting appropriately. The next instant, all the dust around us was thrown up into the air in a massive cloud as Shirou was lauched back as if fired from a cannon.
The young man crashed into the wall of the crater on the far end, but actually managed to survive. He was slow to get up. It seemed he must have been equipped with Avalon, for that punch would have destroyed most people. No matter, with Saber dead, I only needed to overload Avalon to the point where I inflict so much damage that it ran out of juice. Shirou was shaking, as though the muscles that kept him standing were about to buckle. He started chanting some nonsense under his breath. The only words I was able to catch were some allusion to “boner swords”, but the distance between us made it difficult to hear clearly - I did send him flying pretty far, after all. I would have certainly made a name for myself setting dwarf-tossing records. Suddenly and without warning, I was surrounded by fire that teleported me to a strange land with giant gears meshing in the air, and a bunch of sword laying in dead, empty dirt. From the little I could hear, we were now in the reality marble ‘Unlimited Clock Works’.
With neither of us moving a muscle, two swords that appeared to materialize from nowhere were shot directly at me; they were met with a pair of my black keys. I then drew six more, and started parrying hundreds of swords that Shirou was somehow firing at me. From what I could tell, his attack was similar to Gilgamesh’s Gate of Babylon – but not as good. Therefore, I started charging right up to Shirou while swatting away the incoming weapons. I got within a few feet of him, then threw away my broken keys and commenced hand to hand combat. When dealing with someone who can fire an endless supply of projectiles, the best strategy is to be as close to the enemy as possible. That way, your opponent would more likely than not impale himself if he decided to use this attack.
After blocking a series of pathetic punches, I flicked Shirou on the forehead, which stunned the angry boy. I then preformed Super Bajiquan technique ‘50 Storms of Mercy’; which caused Shirou to be pummelled by a torrent of body blows thrown in rapid succession. The punches were so fast that my fists were not visible to the naked eye. Hopefully, this would be able to bring us back to the real world. The best way to stop a reality marble is to incapacitate the catalyst. I stopped my attack, leaving Shirou swaying on his feet for a second. I then preformed Super Bajiquan technique ‘88 Gifts from Nakata’; I clasped my hands together, and raised them above my head before hammering Shirou into the ground like he was a nail being hammered into a piece of wood. The resulting impact must have driven him a kilometer deep into the ground. At that point, the stupid gear world began to flicker, and then disappeared altogether.
It took some time for Emiya Shirou to heal and climb out of his hole. By this time, his flesh seemed to be pierced by dozens of metal shards; which jutted outwards from under his skin. It was as if his insides were actually made of swords, and they had decided it was time to bail. I was confident that Emiya did not have any fight left in him, but then the boy held out his sinful, jacking-off arm and whispered, “Trigger, off”. A moment later, a bright light exploded outwards with blinding intensity. The light slowly faded, and when it finally cleared away, there stood the young Emiya Shirou holding the divine sword Caliburn and Berserker’s axe sword in each of his hands. This kid certainly was something else. Between Avalon repairing his crippled body repeatedly, not to mention the several high level weapons being projected, I surmised that there could not have been much left of his brain that had not yet been fried away. The boy realized how outmatched he was, and decided to hold nothing back. He was now taking a massive gamble by trying to project the most powerful weapons in history. I barely had time to pull out 8 of my remaining blades to block the axe sword which had been swung at me. I channeled mana to my black keys, strengthening and enlarging them. The fact that this lad was duel-wielding a divine sword and a large axe surprised and impressed me. These bulky weapons were unwieldly given his style of combat, but Shirou has a lot of heart to make up for that. He used the axe sword and performed the Noble Phantasm “Nine Lives Blade Works”. I was amazed that he would attempt such an attack in his state, so in desperation I performed the Super Bajiquan technique “9 Times Faster than Nine Lives Blade Works” to move faster than sound and dodge his flurry of slashes. Even with this, I was unable to dodge all of them, and resorted to crossing all 8 of my keys to make a barrier to withstand Shirou’s final devastating slash. Even though I blocked only that last blow, the force from that single strike alone was so overwhelming it shattered 7 of my blades. A searing pain flared up on my left shoulder, but I was unable to see what happened clearly until the dust settled. I then saw my knuckles shaking as they held the remains of 7 broken black keys. Only a single one remained, which was able to meet the axe sword without breaking, but it could not deflect the force of the strike. As a result, the axe blade had slashed into my left shoulder, just above the bicep. Blood flowed from the deep cut and began pooling next to my feet. It was divine providence that my arm had not been severed entirely.
These were the results of Shirou’s savagely magnificent technique - then I stabbed him in the liver. He dropped the axe sword, and stumbled back while holding his side, but recovered enough to raise Caliburn into the air. Shirou started charging up another noble phantasm, with eyes that burned bright through tears of despair and desperation. The glowing sword came downward to point directly at my face. I parried it away as fast as I could, and the explosion of magical energy missed me and was fired up into the sky. I reached into my pocket and withdrew my final black key. With one in each hand now, I chopped off both of Shirou’s arms. Then I stabbed the unarmed man in the chest, and finally, the throat.
Shirou was still on his feet, but from what I could tell, he was one good push away from destruction. I grabbed him by the shoulders to hold him in place. Next, I wound back my right leg and preformed Super Bajiquan technique “96 Generations of Celibacy”; this brought the full, gargantuan force of my knee into Shirou’s manhood. The resulting impact caused a jet blast of wind so violent that it generated an F4 tornado. It was a good thing that I held him by the shoulders so securely, or he may have flown away and reached escape velocity. This was one of my favorite techniques, for it came with the curse that brings irreversible damage both to the victim’s body, as well as their soul. This meant that even if the soul was captured and put into another host, the family jewels would still not be operational. He would live for eternity as half a man, and every incarnation would make him wish for death; what YUETSU! That might be the timeline where Shirou eventually lost his mind and became that emo Archer. At last, the mystery of why that white-haired idiot had such a stick up his ass had been solved; decades of sexual frustration made him want to kill himself. It was difficult to explain what Shirou’s expression showed when the blow landed. That facial expression on the young eunuch will be something that I will always cherish. Shirou gave out such a high pitched shriek that all the dogs in Fuyuki City started howling uncontrollably. Then, he fell on the ground and began twitching. I did not need to do anymore. His death was inevitable, and I was not going to speed up the process for him.
Our battle caused so many thunderous roars and explosions that many residents the next day believed Earth was under attack. Coupled with the previous reports of UFOs crash landing, the city became hysterical and believed that aliens had made the first strike against our world. Riots broke out, countless cosplayers were assaulted, and rolls of tin foil vanished from store shelves. But this Holy Grail War was over at last. Now it was just a young man (?) on the ground with a hero standing over him. The deeply wooded area surrounding Ryuudou Temple, which had just seemed to be in the midst of cataclysm, was now strangely peaceful – were it not for the tornado that was barreling down the mountain. The heavily-wooded area that surrounded the temple was being ripped apart as trees were torn out from by their roots. I could have sworn that I had seen a white-haired girl dressed in some sort of religious wear being launched into the air towards the eye of the tornado.
It was in that serene setting that I was able to see the truth - I was going to die here. The grail mud that kept me alive for these 10 splendid years was finally about to give out. It was tragic for my life to end this way, moments away from the birth of Angra Mainyu. Ever since I accepted my twisted desires all those years ago, my life had been spent looking for someone to answer for them. My unrelenting need to see All the World's Evil given birth stemmed from the desperate wish to have my own existence justified. Even if Angra killed me, I would not die alone on this planet. My very soul hinged on the answer to a simple question: Am I supposed to exist, or am I not? If I was not, then that would mean God is not all powerful, and is not able to save me; but if somehow I was meant to live, then what does that say about our Lord? I suppose we all suspected the great answer to these questions, and there is no shame in voicing them right before I left the land of the living: I exist - and Angra Mainyu exists – precisely because God wants us to. We are here to cause evil, because God wants us to cause evil; because God IS evil. How much joy it must bring him to watch his little creations beg him for salvation from the evil he inflicts on them. Humankind is like a sheepishly loyal dog that does not understand the cruel beatings it receives from its wicked master, and instead of resisting, they meekly plead with the same master to save them. This is my truth, and I am living testament to God’s twisted nature. As I stood there motionless, my last breath left me, but it did not matter. Lord Nakata’s voice spoke through me because the meaning of life is the same for both of us: Yuetsu.
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Aug 14, 2020
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ENTRIES IN THE SERIES
“Heaven's Feel III: Spring Song” is the final part of a trilogy adaptation of the Fate/Stay Night visual novel. Those who have been following these films will know the story so far: in the first film, we established our protagonist’s journey through the Holy Grail War while encountering fierce resistance. Yet in spite of these obstacles, Kotomine Kirei pushed through his struggles, and we as an audience start to believe that he may in fact have the courage necessary to be victorious. The crisis of the first film comes when Kirei’s servant dies upon encountering the evil ... 
Oct 13, 2017
“Sublime” is an overused term of praise for too much in anime today. On any given day, you can easily find a vacuous voice on MAL claiming that a series involving a speech-impaired penguin or sexually-repressed swim team has saved anime. While I usually roll my eyes when reading such tripe, “Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel” may be the first Japanese cartoon that actually lives up to this standard.
For those of you unfamiliar with the series, the basic setting is a small city in Fuyuki. 7 historical figures are summoned by 7 “masters” in a fight to the death. Once a single servant and master are ... |
