Fate/Stay Night Heaven's Feel Trilogy Review
One liner: Possibly one of the best film trilogy to be released in recent memory - a classic in the making.
By this point, the fact that Fate has a gazillion different adaptations and is probably one of the hardest franchises to get into has become a meme. I am not even going to attempt to explain the Fate series timeline, because frankly, even though I have been there since the beginning, even I don't know which world each series begin and which timeline each series ends.
But let's start from the beginning - once there was a visual novel. An incredibly ambitious 100+ hours long visual novel that told the same story - but in three different ways, focusing on three different heroines. The three 'routes' - 'Fate', 'Unlimited Blade Works' and 'Heaven's Feel' - make up the main timeline of the Fate series. And that is the core of Fate - everything else is just extra.
But this is not a post about deciphering what the convoluted conglomeration known as Fate is - this is a review about one of the best anime trilogy that has been released in recent memory. So let's begin.
Heaven's Feel has been adapted into a film trilogy, titled 'presage flower', 'lost butterfly' and 'spring song' respectively. In this review, I will review the trilogy as a whole. In this review, I will attempt to omit all spoilers, however there may be minor spoilers involved.
Art and Animation
The studio responsible for majority of the Fate series - ufotable - has been known to create visually stunning masterpieces. Their Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night [UBW] production was already heads and shoulders above any of the competition, and despite being almost a decade old, remains the industry standard that has yet to be surpassed - earning them the title 'Unlimited Budget Works'. With a increased budget for a full movie production, ufotable has really outdone itself. The art and animation is immaculately beautiful and absolutely glorious. There are insufficient adjectives in English to describe the sheer beauty of the animation. Suffice it to say that it is the best looking work the industry has to offer - at least until their next production.
Plot
Considering it is an adaptation of the Heaven's Feel's route from the original visual novel, I would say that while it is mostly faithful to the original visual novel, it completely missed a couple of essential story beats. Although it is inevitable that they would to shave some elements off the narrative, some of the things they cut was central to the narrative. Some of the best scenes of the visual novel emanated from Shirou's monologue and his state of mind, as well as the explanations for some of the weapons and abilities - and while those are hard to animate - there is no excuse for omitting those things completely. Many of the scenes that were epic in the visual novel felt very lacking in comparison in the movie.
That said, the additions that they made - the movements, sparks and attack animations - more than made up for the shortfall in some of the scenes. And while non-visual novel readers may have absolutely no idea what was happening on screen, they would appreciate the pretty lights that blossomed on the screen, especially during the fight scenes.
Sound/Music
The movie trilogy hit it out of the park. Aimer's three theme songs for the three movies are perfectly fitting and are simply a joy to listen to. The music, directed by Yuki Kaijura, is epic and fits every scene impeccably. I have absolutely no complaints.
Verdict: 9/10
DEFINITELY WATCH IT.
If you consider yourself, even by the slimmest of definitions, to enjoy anime at any level, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie trilogy.
