Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel – III Spring Song Anime Review – 95/100

It’s taken years to reach this finale and it’s something I have been looking forward to for quite some time. The Heaven’s Feel movies so far have proved to be the best adaption of the Fate/Stay Night visual novel yet and it was up to the third one to make it a slam dunk. What are my feelings on it? Well, one particular thing I have with Ufotable adaptations is that their work often veers close to perfection yet misses the mark ever so slightly. Heaven’s Feel was close to being an exception to the rule but sadly this movie has a scene that fell short and thus stopped it from being flawless. That statement makes it seem as though I didn’t like this movie but believe me when I say that is most definitely not the case. It’s more the frustrating feeling of a fan who sees something reach for the stars only to fall right before it grasps them. This is the griping of a fan who saw something great and is complaining that it wasn’t a little greater. At the end of the day this is the best adaptation of the Fate franchise due to how it not only represents the source but elevates it. Of course whether it is the best anime the Fate Franchise has to offer will be down to who’s watching it but I have a fair feeling that most will be debating between this and Zero. I will take this moment to state that this review will not be taking the more usual approach of talking vaguely about the anime in order to not spoil things for those looking for an opinion on it before starting. Honestly if you are looking at a review of the third part of a trilogy of movies and haven’t watched the first two then I would say you are quite odd. I will be talking about scenes and spoilers from the movie so if you haven’t watched it I would advice you to not read this review. But if you want my opinion on whether you should watch this or not, well I am a Fate fanatic so of course I am going to tell you to watch it.

Let’s start with the negatives and in this regard it’s mainly how much Illya and Kirei’s moments in this story have been shafted. They tried to condense down or add some of it to the last movie but the end result certainly has a weaker effect. As an example, they interspersed Kirei’s story regarding his wife into the fight with Assassin which lead to a story which should have had more emotional impact was made confusing as we have Kirei explaining it haphazardly while dodging strikes from Assassin. There are a few moments of disconnected storytelling in this movie with that and Illya throwing out exposition about Avenger while the visuals show random shots of people around the town. In retrospect I feel it would have been better to show a visualisation of what Illya was talking about to better get the point across but instead we have a timely confused exposition scene. Then we have the big offender, the final fight of the story is an absolute personal favourite of mine and Ufotable’s execution of this scene was lesser with the omitting of my favourite part and making the finale anticlimactic with the sudden cut to the fate of Zouken. I have my nitpicks with the rest of the movie but I can easily brush those off, however how they dropped the ball on Heaven’s Feels biggest moment is something that frustrates me to no end. By god you were so close, even some minor edits to that fight could have made a world of difference. And maybe if Kajiura could get over herself for a moment and give that fight it’s signature OST “Light and Darkness” that could have been great.

On Kajiura, her OST here is excellent but I do lament the absence of the above track and the inclusion of a minute of “Emiya” honestly feels reluctantly obligatory from her. At least we got that I suppose but sometimes I wish she would indulge in a little more fanservice on the OST side. The highly praised of the OST is the Four rings track though in my opinion it sounds too similar to the track she used for the Saber Vs Berserker fight of the last movie. I blame the choir for that as it usually drowns out everything and makes songs sound too similar. I am more a fan of her more instrumental themes. Lastly the ending is likely going to be a confusing mess for anyone watching from an anime only perspective as even from the visual novel it was an odd conclusion. It’s the kind of finish from an author who essentially wrote himself to a dead end with only misery in sight but was determined to get a happy ending out of this no matter what. Thus we have a character from Kara no Kyoukai come out of nowhere to give Shirou a body so everyone can be happy in the end. Indeed the ending of the visual novel is so saccharine that it’s almost sickening and after all the darkness it’s odd for it to jump into an ending so sugarly sweet. Ufotable at least tried to make the ending more somber though may have accidentally given a mistaken impression with how they framed Shirou in particular as they made it seem like he was an emotionless doll brought back just to keep Sakura sane. In regards to the tonal shift of the ending of Heaven’s Feel you might be expecting me to deride it as generally one thing I hate in writing is when an author essentially negates the consequences of the story in favor of giving a happy ending through pure deus ex machina and robbing the emotional weight of the tragedy that came before (which is why I highly dislike Key works). However in the case of Heaven’s Feel I actually give this a pass and to explain why I will have to go on a bit of a tangent. There is this film called Life of Pi which is a story about a man who tells a reporter a fantastical story about him surviving a shipwreck with a bengal Tiger and details tons of impossible fantasy things that couldn’t possibly be true. When the reporter questions the man on this, the man then hints that within this fantasy story there would be clues to what truly happened to this man after the shipwreck and it being a far darker and harrowing tale of traumatic misery. The man then asks the reporter that out of these two tales, which one did he prefer and the reporter responded that he liked the one with the tiger better. I wouldn’t take this as an endorsement of that movie as honestly I found it to be a rather pretentious watch but I bring this up to highlight the choice that I was presented when it came to Heaven’s Feel as the visual novel does in fact have two endings to this route. One is the ending you saw in the movie and the other is a massively depressing ending where Shirou dies and Sakura spends the rest of her life denying it and waiting for him back at the Emiya estate. Now looking at these endings the second one is the more realistic take on the outcome of these events without negating the consequences but it is just such a horrible fate for a girl whose life was filled with misery. So like that movie I mentioned, I am asked about which of these endings I prefer and going against my logical side I chose the ending with the hefty amount of magical bullshit deus ex machina for I just don’t care how haphazard it is if it means that this poor girl finally gets a break.

So with those complaints out of the way I believe I can start gushing about what I liked in this movie and believe me, this may just end up an incoherent rant as I was absorbed in it from start to finish. The visuals of this movie (outside of some small awkward CGI) are absolutely beautiful with the spectacle fight centerpiece of the work belonging to Saber vs Rider for a goddamn explosion of quality that shounen anime can only dream of achieving. This is the kind of fight quality you see in the opening sequence of a show for a few seconds turned into a full eight minute fight scene. I do wonder why it is that both Saber Alter fights in this trilogy were given this much care when in the visual novel these fights were not this notable but it may be just giving the poster girl of the series extra effort due to her being shafted for the route. I might be somewhat salty as this may be part of the reason why less care was given to the most more important fight of Shirou vs Kirei as well as making the least important confrontation the show stealer. That said this strangely enough is not my favorite fight of the film as that honor goes to Rin vs Sakura as while it is not as explosive as the previously mentioned, I just prefer it due to the emotional core of the fight. See Saber vs Rider isn’t really all that plot driven as both combatants barely know each other and the most emotional charged part of the fight is Shirou jumping in for the finishing blow which was pretty excellent with Saber briefly breaking out of the spell only to have Shirou drive a knife into her chest. After going through the Fate and UBW routes this moment in particular is a heavy one as it is tinged with the feelings of Saber from the Fate route where she was central and now she is sacrificed for Shirou to finally grow as a person. In a way, this is the true moment that Shirou kills his dream of saving everyone as Saber in the Fate route was one of the very things that pushed him to pursue it seriously by that route’s end. Though everything leading up to this moment was visual flair because as I said, Saber and Rider had no point to interact so their fight is just a means to an end. Rin and Sakura on the other hand is a fight full of emotions, from Rin coldly demising Sakura’s misery to Sakura’s cockiness getting blasted away with jealousy over how Rin is still beating her despite obtaining so much power all leading up to the moment that Rin finally realises that she could never kill her. The small touch of showing the two playing cards with Rin hesitant to reveal that she had a full house because she didn’t want to disappoint Sakura almost being a perfect visualisation of her feelings in the moment. Carrying on a core aspect of Rin pointed out at the beginning of the series, namely that she always messes up the most important things in her life.

Carrying on from that the ending of Heaven’s Feel is not just a conclusion to the trilogy of movies but profoundly acts as a conclusion to the themes of the entire series as a whole. Going through UBW and Zero you can see motifs once left to the wayside reach a spiritual climax. From Shirou building from suicidal selflessness to wanting to live a normal life, Rin finally restoring her family relationship with Sakura, Kirei finishing the fight to the death he had in Zero, Illya tossing aside her childish act and honestly so many lines you could draw that we could be here dissecting it for weeks. Its part of the reason why when people make the comparison between Fate/Stay Night and Zero I feel it is unfair as people only compare Zero to the individual parts of Fate/Stay Night. Fate, Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven’s Feel are not meant to be standalone works but three parts of a cohesive whole. It is akin to comparing the Hobbit book with just one of the books of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy though in this case while the Fate/Stay Night routes are not direct continuations of each other, they are linked thematically. Each builds the characters to be more than what they were before and Heaven’s feel is supposed to be the climax to all of it. So what I am basically saying is that in order for Fate/Stay Night to be complete we need Ufotable to do the Fate Route. If not to finally have the series in all its glory, at least to end that infernal question of “So hey, where do I start with Fate?” I would like to think it’s an inevitability as they have made every other part so they are likely to finish it (provided that they don’t think that the Deen Adaption is good enough) but I do think that out of all the routes Fate is the one that would truly require some heavy alteration in order to work. Practically a complete rewrite in some cases but maybe we could get this director on it as his anime original additions were some truly inspired stuff. That would be all I would ask of you Ufotable, I don’t even need a Hollow Ataraxia adaption as that’s kind of a strange entry in itself (some call it a sequel but it really isn’t. More of a fandisc or a DLC in a way.) There is of course the Tsukihime remake which could deserve an adaption but looking at it it seems less of a remake and more a full reboot which could turn out going anywhere. So just Fate, Ufotable; as my shelf has a bare space that needs filling. I need my collection to be complete.

Armitage’s Review:

As you can see above, Aidan has just about covered all the plot points and moments worth talking about from the movie with much better insight than I ever could have, and I feel that it’s redundant to repeat what’s already been said. So, I am not gonna do that. Instead I am just gonna talk about what Ufotable have achieved here. For any fan of this franchise, it’s been a foregone conclusion that the Heaven’s Feel movies are the best adaptation of the origianl Visual Novel. Hell, we all knew that fact before even watching a single second of this climactic finale. But after having watched it, I am able to actually make a valid argument that this is the best adaptation of a Visual Novel into an anime. Period.

We can talk all day about the effectiveness of Kinoko Nasu’s abilities as a storyteller and that conversation is bound to turn into a head-on collision of polar opposites, but that’s not what I am getting at here. The point I am making is that Ufotable’s Heaven’s Feel is the adaptation all VNs dream of getting. If VNs could dream, that is. Ufotable’s adaptation of this route is better than any Key adaptations including the magnificent Planetarian, it’s better than Higurashi and for my money, it’s even better than Steins; Gate. Which I know sounds like way too gigantic a mountain to scale but here, Ufotable manage it and then some. And the reason I say this because they understand. They knew that they couldn’t possibly turn adapting Fate into a one-and-done deal. They knew that it was going to a gargartuan amount of effort to put to screen the fascinating world Nasu created with Fate, the mechanics of which even hardcore fans find difficult to explain at times. They knew it was going to take years. And years it’s taken. I had read the original VN long ago and have since proceeded to watch all Fate anime not called Prisma Illya over the course of the last 12 years or so. I remember watching Deen Stay Night while just getting into anime and actually thinking it was rather underwhelming for all the hype the franchise even back then. That’s why, Ufotable’s greatest achievement is making all this time feel well-spent, the payoff feel earned.

Because at the end of the day, Heaven’s Feel is Ufotable’s love letter. To the fans who care for this world so much that some of them go bankrupt playing Fate GO. It’s going to come off as a compilation of high-octane fights (though what glorious ones at that) and somewhat incoherent narrative explanations to the casual viewer, but for a fan of this franchise, it’s a fever dream. It’s everything we’ve ever hoped for. At every five minutes or so during the runtime of this movie, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how much I adored these characters. Aidan pointed out that Ufotable’s biggest strength is in mining out massive payoffs out of tiny confrontations in the story. But that’s only half-accurate. As for me, their biggest strength is in making the entire story feel significant. By making it not only be about Shirou or about Sakura or about Rin and even though some of the characters do end up getting the short end of the stick, it’s all done in service of presenting a more cohesive whole. Everyone’s important, however miniscule they all have got a part to play. It makes them all feel like people in their own stories with their own separate motivations. And with all my bitterness at Kirei being done dirty, I can respect that.

Now, dear reader, if you thought I was done gushing about how much I love this film, then you’re sorely mistaken. Because, now we come to what’s going to be the most talked about moment of the entire film for the common viewer, the pièce de résistance that serves as the centerpiece for the movie. And oh, boy. Where do I even begin??? See, at this point, I think that anime looks just about as good as Ufotable are willing to make it. Yes, you can always make an argument that they don’t use enough hand drawn frames, use a lot of post-effects and all that. But to the non-scholary eye of a girl who’s just been watching these Japanese cartoons for escapism and some casual entertainment, Medusa vs. Saber Alter is the single best animated fight I have seen in all of anime, ever. It actually serves as a massive contrast to the showstopping fights from Fate Apocrypha and Mob Pyscho 100 (both of which I also love), as here the power scaling does not lead to the screen turning into a mish-mash of hard-to-follow action. Instead, we get a sensory feast, which never becomes incoherent and yet, never lets up. It’s epic, it’s cathartic. It’s simply glorious.

And with that we come to the end of this review, though I am not so sure that you can call it that. I mean, I haven’t even recounted any of the flaws I feel this movie has. But I actually don’t want to do that. I started writing this review with the intention of doing that, yes. But before I realized it, I was waxing poetic about everything I loved about this adaptation Instead and I just didn’t want to stop myself. Because at the end of the day, I am just thankful that this thing exists. That the last 2 decades fans of this franchise had spent in wait, were actually worth it. If you want to read an actual proper analysis of the movie, you’re better off going back to Aidan’s review above.

Like I said before, Heaven’s Feel is Ufotable’s love letter. And this has been mine.

Thank you for reading.