Fate/Stay Night Heaven's Feel III: Spring Song, is a movie that i have been waiting for over a year and I was finally able to watch it, and all i can say is that this surpassed my expectations.
So, i am currently writing this review after quite some time after watching the movie, and that is because I wanted to read the Visual Novel, i had already read the whole Fate route and most of UBW so i decided to finish it before writing this review and tbh i think that the anime is better than the visual novel, don't get me wrong both are amazing but i enjoyed ufotable's adaptations much more but anyway i wont get into that right now since this is my review for HF3.
This review is completely spoiler free, so you can read it without being scared of spoilers, but there is spoilers for HF2, so if you have not watched that movie, please do, its also an amazing movie.
Story(10/10):
The story of HF3 starts exactly after HF2's devastating ending, we see how our protagonist Emiya Shirou is suffering since the beginning, it really does a perfect job of setting the tone for this movie and i feel that the direction team in this movie knew what they were doing because throughout the whole 2 hours i never felt that any time was wasted, they give us all the information we need to perfectly understand this story and give it the most satisfying ending possible for Fate/Stay Night, some VN readers may complain about how they decided to adapt certain scenes in the last 10 minutes of the movie but i personally think that these changes were something we needed and ends up making it much more emotional.
Now, i can understand how some people may not like the pacing in the ending but i think it was done perfectly because they only put what was vital and there was really is no need to extend the ending any more since you are able to see what happens after the end of the Holy Grail War, we see how certain characters grew and i found it beautiful on how they decided to end the movie, i was feeling emotional throughout the whole two hours in this movie.
The story is everything that a Fate fan can hope for and it actually gives it a nice closure that does not leave you craving for more, instead it makes you remember everything that happened in this trilogy and how it finally came to its end, I don't want to spoil anything so i will just say, the ending was really not predictable but it was perfect.
Art(10/10):
Its already known that ufotable is one of the best anime studios, from their work in Demon Slayer and the Fate franchise, they always keep improving upon themselves, i used to think that ufotable's animation cant get better after watching Demon Slayer episode 19 but their work in HF3 makes episode 19 look like child's play.
It does not matter if you are a Fate fan or not, because you are still gonna find the animation to be beautiful. It goes without a doubt that the fight between Saber Alter and Rider is easily one of the best animated scenes in anime, I personally consider it to be the best animated fight of all anime and if it would be my favorite fight of all time but interestingly enough i found one other fight to be better in this movie, which is currently my favorite fight of all time although it doesn't beet Saber alter vs Rider in animation. (I don't wanna mention which fight it is because i am trying to avoid spoilers)
I just talked about the animation in fights but in general every scene in this movie is animated perfectly an i would say that its the best animation in anime, but i cant really say that since i still haven't watched Demon Slayer Mugen Train.
Sound(10/10):
Ok i just want to address something very quick because there are some people who just wont shut up because they did not play one song in specific, and of course i am addressing this to the people who are complaining that they did not play Hikari to Yami (final fight ost in the VN), yes they did change it so what? If they would have played it in the last fight it wouldn't have fit in just because the feeling that the VN and the movie give you is completely different, so please stop complaining about ufotable not playing that song, the song that they decided to play instead of Hikari to Yami also slaps.
So, anyway this movie's soundtrack is composed by Yuki Kajiura which if you don't know her, she is the one in charge of the OST for Madoka Magica and Demon Slayer so basically she is an amazing composer that always makes bangers.
Since the beginning of the movie we know that the OST will be amazing because they couldn't have chosen a better song to start of with, i would also like to mention some that were amazing like Rider vs Saber alter theme, the final fight theme and obviously the best track in the OST which is EMIYA, now i will just start praising the EMIYA theme because i genuinely think that it is the best version of the song and trust me, there is a lot of versions of EMIYA and i mean a lot. So to just kind of explain how the song was just combine EMIYA from Unlimited Blade Works(2015) and combine it with EMIYA #LEGACY, which are both 2 of the best versions and combining them just turns it into a complete beauty that will make you feel hype af, i remember when the theme started playing everyone in the theatres were losing their mind and i was no exception, i was watching the movie with a friend and we were both surprised in how good this version turned out, sadly they only play it once for less than 2 minutes but it still was amazing and the scene that included this song was easily the best part of the whole movie.
Character(9.5/10)
You may ask yourself, why did you give the characters a 9.5, and don't worry i have the answer and i hope we can agree with this. I gave it a 9.5 because of a single character and i am obviously talking about Zouken, if i had to pin point one thing i did not like about the HF trilogy, it would easily be Zouken and its such a shame because every single character and i literaly mean everyone in this movie was perfect and it sucks that Zouken was the only bad thing, everything from his goal, personality and design, was horrible and i hate to say it but the only scenes that i felt the movie was wasting time was whenever Zouken appeared, but well whatever every other character is amazing so it does not affect the score that much.
Tl;Dr: Since the next section is going to be really long i will just write the most important parts here so you don't waste your time. So basically the characters in this movie were amazing, it was really interesting to see really different sides of some characters which we never really saw much about in previous movies, the one that surprised me the most was Kirei Kotomine, i knew he was going to do something big in this movie but it surprised me how important he was and how early they started to develop them, he is easily one of the most important character in the movie, second to Shirou and Sakura obviously, but interestingly enough even characters like Illya, Tohsaka, Rider, and Saber alter, all get quite a bit of screen time which is great because some of them really never had much screen time, especially Rider. So basically that's it for the tl;dr, if you want more read the larger character analysis which is this next section.
Character analysis(pretty damn long fyi):
I want to put a lot of focus for the main characters in this movie, cuz they were all just *chefs kiss* amazing. So lets begin!
-Shirou Emiya-: Oh Shirou, a character loved by many and also hated by many, now i want you to know that i loved Shirou ever since i first saw Fate/UBW(2015), because i always loved how they made him a ¨hero of justice¨ character who actually does have an interesting ideology and how he really isn't just like ¨i wanna be a hero¨ and that's it, i will always say that Shirou vs Emiya is an amazing fight and the best in UBW because of how much they develop Shirou and how it really helps for us the viewers to finally understand him, and wow, they made him and even better character in Heaven's Feel. If you used to be someone who thought that Shirou was a selfish idiot and hated him because of that, i can assure you that all of that will change when you watch this movie, because they turned him from a guy who was selfish, to a real man who was prepared to sacrifice himself for those he loves. There are some scenes in this movie that really made Shirou a better character, i would say that most of this movie's best scenes are as good as they are thanks to Shirou and its even better cuz it really makes you change your view of Shirou which is honestly impressive because as someone who already loved Shirou i found it amazing how we still hadn't seen everything about him, and its even better because in this movie we finally actually see Shirou suffer, some thing we did not see in previous routes so it makes us understand the man even better. And now with certainty i can say that Shirou is my favourite anime character of all time.
-Kotomine Kirei-: Damn, after watching this movie i realize that they kind of did Kirei dirty in UBW and in the Fate route, i first saw UBW and thought that Kirei was an alright character, but after UBW i watched Fate/Zero and i remember being shocked because he easily turned into one my favourite antagonists, and when i read the Fate route in the VN i thought he was definitely better than in UBW but he still was no where near as good as in Zero, so in all honesty i kind of had my hopes kind of low for HF's version of Kirei and i can only say one thing, he was much better than how he was in Zero, i did hear good things about Kirei before watching this movie, but i did not think he would be as good as he turned out to be, I was really impressed in how much focus they put on Kirei since the beginning of the movie, his interactions with Shirou were amazing, they were really funny at times and some times they were just badass. I also found it amazing how they decided to show us more of Kirei's way of thinking and it also had a huge focus in showing us why Kirei acts the way he is, it was breathtaking and he was a nice surprise whenever he appeared, i seriously hope people don't spoil themselves about stuff that happened in this movie because it had some amazing revelations and i am saying this because i sadly did spoil myself about some things, mostly about Kirei so it was kinda sad that i knew some of the things that was going to happen with his character.
-Rin Tohsaka-: Tohsaka has been my waifu for a long time, and she gets even better in this movie, there is not as much development for her character but we still saw her go through some epic things and one of her fights was badass and really emotional at the same time, I love how they managed to keep her in character throughout the whole movie since she also went through some hard moments but no matter what happened she stayed as best girl throughout the whole movie, so instead of Shirou and Kirei's interesting interactions, Tohsaka had some awesome interactions with Sakura that were really emotional and just beautiful, and yes my fellow Tohsaka fans, she still had the thighs.
-Sakura Matou-: Well, Sakura is really interesting, she was always a side character in the previous routes but in this route she played the role of the main heroine and we got to see why she was always kind of shy and kinda gloomy, now i love Sakura's character but out of the three main heroines she is easily my least favorite, mostly because i was never a fan of the kouhai characters, but her role in HF3 was huge and really interesting because we see her in her angsty teenager face, no but joking aside we see how she is going crazy and how she cant control herself anymore, she is not the same old cute Sakura but we can still see how even though she has gone mad she is still herself, we also get emotional moments with her and we as the viewers really feel bad for her, I think that we can all admit that Sakura has one hell of a tragic backstory but we also just want her suffering to end and for her to finally be happy.
-Illyasviel Von Einzbern- Illya, the 18 year old loli, this is one character that i have seen quite a bit of people criticise her in the HF trilogy, mostly because they say that they don't really give her as much development like in the VN but what did you expect, they had to cram a 30 hour route in to only 6 hours, but despite of that i feel really attached to her in this movie, because even though there never was a huge focus for her in the previous movie, I still felt attached because we definitely get much more focus in this last movie, and we could finally see a good version of Illya and one that we felt that must be protected no matter what.
-Rider-: Finally to close off the characters, i wanna talk about rider because Rider never had a big moment in the previous routes, but in this route they finally decided to giver her the spotlight she deserved, she had one of the best moments in the movie, i am obviously talking about Saber alter vs Rider, and she was just such a nice character, we see how even though Sakura had gone mad, she still wants to save her and will do anything to accomplish her goal, she is the definition of a loyal servant, and whenever Shirou and Rider interacted was just so damn good because they were just so cool together, she became one of my favorite servants in the whole fate franchise with this movie and i am glad that she finally had a big role to play because in the previous routes i was always like Damn, that servant looks cool, and then they just kill her but in this route she finally got what she deserved.
To finally close this off, i just want to say that the characters are probably the best part of the whole movie, and tbh i think that even you are not a fate fan you probably will still enjoy at least one of the many amazing characters.
Enjoyment:(10/10)
I came into this movie with high expectations considering how much i enjoyed the previous one which was easily my favorite anime and this one was even better than the second one and absolutely destroyed my expectations, i do think that almost anyone can enjoy this movie even though you did not enjoy the second one, and just if you are curious i do think that the only thing you need to watch to understand HF is UBW and Zero is optional but definitely recommended, there is also a scene that to understand it perfectly you should watch Kara no Kyoukai but even if you don't watch KnK you can still understand it perfectly fine so don't worry about it.
So i thoroughly enjoyed every last second of this movie, I was lucky enough to be able to watch the 3 movies on a single day in the cinema and i was shaking when the second one ended because i was finally about to witness HF3 and it was just beyond a masterpiece and its by far my favorite anime.
Before finally closing this off i just wanted to talk about some complaints about this movie which i have heard some people talk about, it mostly has to do with people complaining about it not being the same as the VN. It kind of makes me sad seeing how many VN readers hate this movie for some reasons that i find to be really stupid, for example people are really complaining on how they did not implement Shirou's monologues which is obvious that they wouldn't put them in because it is a movie not a VN, and as i said in the beginning of this review, i took my time to read the whole VN, i even did every ending because i wanted to see if the VN readers were correct, and look Shirou's monologues were awesome but it would not have been as good to have the monologues in the movie, the reason that I really wanted to talk about this was because i started seeing how people complained about how the movie was not understandable for people who did not read the Novel which is a complete lie, i read the novel after watching the movie and i can tell you with certainty that after i read the novel i understood it the same, which was perfect because after watching the movie it did not leave me with questions it gave me the conclusion i wanted and the VN did not add much to it, sure the movie does require you to put more thought in Shirou's character because they are obviously not going to add a monologue to explain how he feels, his feelings can be perfectly understood through his actions and with the way he speaks, I loved the VN but i enjoyed the Movie much more and i think that the movie did a perfect job in adapting 30 hours of full reading of the VN and turned it into 6 hours, its impressive how much they managed to fit in 3 movies and it was perfect because it did not leave me with any questions, so it all comes to preferences if you prefer the VN then good for you, if you prefer the movie then that's also ok, the VN is not ¨objectively¨ superior to the movie, they both have their charm and its not cool seeing how some people are considering the HF trilogy as an insult to the source material, i think that the movies were made with a lot of love and i'm sure that the creators had a hard time in fitting 30 hours into 3 movies. Anyways that was just something i wanted to mention, because its just something that i think that is really just unnecessary and seeing how certain people act in the Fate community is kind of annoying.
Overall:(10/10)
Fate/Stay Night Heavens feel III was a beautiful movie and one that will stay as my favourite for quite some time, its a movie that most people will enjoy, it had beautiful animation and a beautiful soundtrack that made it the best conclusion for the story.
Hope you enjoyed my review and that's it.
