Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly

I am the tool of the Matous Violated is my body, and corrupted is my blood I have been infested by over 1000 worms Craving death, yet clinging to life Have withstood pain to be with my Senpai Yet his hands hold other women So as I pray Stay by my side forever…Senpai Heaven’s Feel: Lost Butterfly is probably the most sinister and vulgar representation of a survival game that I’ve seen yet. Its structure is completely different from the other two Fate routes. Instead of showcasing that fantastical and epic feeling that the other arcs so expertly portray, the tone of Heaven’s Feel is much more despair inducing and grounded in reality.Characters don’t give grand speeches about their beliefs among other things and don’t always get moments of grandeur, and instead often find themselves dying in abrupt and grisly ways. Primal human emotions like lust and envy are amplified in this adaptation, showing off the impurities of the characters. Despite being a movie embedded with magic and mythological heroes, it never felt wondrous or magical. It instead instilled feelings of misery and dread into me, like a world devoid of the warm caress of light from the heavens. Which is exactly how a death battle royale featuring broken characters should make me feel. And I loved every second of it. I find it appropriate to start with what I found to be a big highlight of this movie, which would be Sakura Matou, the female protagonist. Heaven’s Feel completely deflowers the typical depiction of an anime heroine. Saber from Stay Night and Rin from UBW are prime examples of ideal heroines. They’re strong, attractive, kind, yet still have some issues that they get over with the help of everyone’s favorite idealistic protagonist Shirou. Plus they’re pretty excellent waifu material if you ask me. Heaven’s Feel takes an entirely different approach with Sakura. She’s much more realistic in that she’s far from perfect and pure. We actually see her masterbate on screen and express her desire to have sex with Shirou, while being disgusted with herself for having such impure cravings. She’s incredibly possessive of Shirou and is clearly agitated at the thought of him being with another girl, most specifically Rin. Her yandere tendencies led me to compare her with the famous yandere from a different survival game that I’m sure every anime fan knows: Yuno Gasai. And although Sakura is like at least 10 times less popular than Yuno, I’d say that she’s also a well made yandere. And that’s all thanks to the excellent portrayal of Sakura’s character. Sakura’s story is hella depressing. I’ve always felt bad for her, especially after watching Fate/Zero. Yet my empathy towards her was highly amplified in Heaven’s Feel thanks to her finally taking the spotlight. Her relationship with Shirou was done excellently. It was one of the most legitimate relationships that I’ve seen in an anime. Both characters are broken in their own way, and they rely on each other to keep going. Shirou even gives up on his hero of justice ideal just for Sakura, which I found to be some great development on his part. Though what I find to be the best part of Sakura is her underlying dark nature. I think it was made pretty apparent from the previous movie, but in order to avoid spoilers, I’ll just say that she isn’t as innocent as she seems. Though it’s not really her fault. In fact, my absolute favorite moment of the anime would be Sakura’s dream sequence and the aftermath that immediately followed. Using some creative visuals that rivaled the unique animation techniques of Studio Shaft, Ufotable presents a happy dream that Sakura is having where she’s a lovely fairytale princess in a kingdom of wondrous creatures. Yet the entire sequence is quite eerie, and kept me on edge. It culminates with her turning some of the creatures into candy after they were being naughty, and she happily unwraps a piece and eats it. Pretty harmless, right? But the scene that follows is simply chilling. And it was absolutely brilliant. It’s moments like these that made me really appreciate Sakura as a character. In fact, she was excellent in every scene she was in, and I could go on and on talking about her role in Heaven’s Feel. I had honestly never really given Sakura much thought since she was always outshone by the rest of the amazing Fate cast in my opinion, but my views immediately changed after watching this movie. Sakura is a criminally underrated heroine, and she deserves more love. Most of the Fate cast hardly get any screen time, especially when compared to previous instillations, and like I said previously, usually just end up dying in gruesome or epic ways after going down fighting, as true heroes should. Since Heaven’s Feel is a group of movies and not a two season anime, I’m perfectly content with this approach. This way the movie can focus more strongly on its core cast of characters. So Saber, Gilgamesh, and others, I love ya, but you need to move over. You’ve already had your time to shine. Aside from Sakura and Shirou, the other character who gets a decent portion of focus would be muh fav loli in all anime (no I am not joking), Illyasviel von Einzbern. Illya has a funny, and now that I think about it, only, comedic moment in the anime before everything goes completely crazy. She just never fails to make me smile. I love her relationship with Shirou in this film, and the two of them holding hands was pretty frickin kawaii. There’s also a really great moment where she overhears Taiga talking about how Kiritsugu would constantly go oversees in a desperate attempt to find someone who he dearly cherished, who would of course be his daughter Illya. It’s pretty heart-wrenching because Illya was led to believe that her father had abandoned her, but that was not the case at all. Dem unlimited feels tho. I don’t think I need to discuss how amazing the visuals and sound quality are. Ufotable’s animation is the cream of the crop. Fight scenes are done beautifully. The slow motion hugging scene in the rain was one of the most visually appealing things I’ve ever seen. Everything just looks so damn good. And Yuki Kajiura once again composed a heavenly soundtrack. Plus the ending theme song by Aimer is pure epicness. The voice actors are amazing as always. Fate has always been one of the most entertaining and well made franchises for me. Yet out of all of the Fate media I’ve watched, none have been quite like Heaven’s Feel. It’s a different experience from what I’m used to, but I absolutely love it. It tells a truly compelling yet tragic tale, and my eyes were glued to the screen while watching. After it ended, I found myself staring at my blank computer screen with unblinking eyes, an accelerated heartbeat, and numerous emotions flowing through me for a minute or two. Yeah, I know that sounds cringy af, but it’s true. I don’t believe that I’ve ever felt the same way after completing another anime then I did with Heaven’s Feel: Lost Butterfly. And let me tell you, I enjoyed every second of it. Can't wait for movie three!

I want to start off by saying that I've seen all the other type-moon series before watching this. I'm going to have to say that by far, in my opinion, this is ufotable's best work to date. I saw this in theatres and it was absolutely amazing, it destroyed F/Z and was way better than Part I of Heaven's feel. Sound Design was amazing, battle animations were amazing, I'm not going to touch up too much on the story because they merely adapted it out of the visual novel but overall I really enjoyed watching this. Really good start to 2019. Can't wait to see this onBlu-ray, I'd love to support it. OVERALL: 9

Once again Ufotable x Type-Moon did not disappoint. Watching it in the cinema (in Japan) with proper loudspeakers can enable me to experience the thrill of this fantastic display of animation choreography. The amount of time and effort by Ufotable once again demonstrates its class in perfecting high-quality animation and its visual arts. The unlimited budget work studio took time off from anime series and dedicate all their resources into this project and came out in fruition, and I could not be prouder for them. The movie itself was breathtaking, astonishing and spectacular to watch. I was lost in words walking out of the cinemaas this was one amazing movie adaption to its visual novel source. Despite cutting out, or twisting the moments from its origin was well dealt with to make it as original as possible. The amount of detail dedicated to the colourisation of the background scenery was aesthetic and blends well into the climate of the moment. Regarding the fight scenes, the amount of detail to each moment and time-lapse of the fight was well constructed to demonstrate the fluidity of the animation. Not to mention the sounds and background music incorporated fantastically to illustrate the intensity of the battle. I enjoyed the fight scene more compared to all moments. The story building near the end was speechless as the unexpected happened, and demonstrated that Ufotable is willing to go beyond and adapted to the essential character development moment in this movie. Providing us with a much darker twist to the story than the previous routes. My view on Sakura for the past two routes changed entirely after this movie and will play a much more significant role in the final movie. Finally, Ufotable did well with the changed in the tone of the last part of the movie from very lively/family oriented moments, and turns into dark/suspense moments, giving us a rollercoaster of feels. But by far, Heaven Feels is now regarded as my most favourite route compared to all routes. Hope this convince you to watch the movie. Feel free to watch my review on YouTube: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whNYufamwNU&t=1167s)

I just wanna say, this was a complete and utter waste of my time. Because I had watched Fate/Stay Night and UBW, I had foolishly thought that Heaven's Feel would be a lot like them, albeit darker. I should've noticed when the first movie didn't meet up to expectations. It really feels like the people behind Heaven's Feel asked, "Hey, so poetic cinema consists of pretty lighting and people staring at each other without saying anything, right?" and no one corrected them. Of course there were some good moments in the movie! But overall, as several reviews have pointed out, this was ultimately an animebased on a porn game. I have not played this game, nor do I ever intend to, but I really just wonder. Why? Here's Heaven's Feel, going all out with the hyper-sexualization of some high schoolers. In my opinion, this absolutely did not add to the plot or the characters at all in a meaningful manner. In fact, I think it destroyed my respect for certain characters, even though it's very clear that that's not what it was supposed to do. It was unnecessary and unwelcome for such a person as I, who expected something more along the lines of UBW or Fate/Zero. Good points: Music, still as awesome as always. Aimer must be my favorite singer at this point! And a lot of the music reminded me of Garden of Sinners, which suits the dark tone of this route. The animation, of course, is also very pretty. I really like some of the sunsets. Lots of nice colors. I also like the tone, which almost felt more like horror as opposed to a fantasy battle royale. Bad points: Everything else. The pacing felt okay while watching, but looking back on it, I feel like I didn't really gain anything in the end. What's going on? What was the plot? Why should I care about these characters? Everything falls apart. I couldn't stop sighing and rolling my eyes throughout the movie as I yelled at characters to stop doing stupid things. I respect Rin, Saber, Rider, and Ilya. Shirou is okay, but he's still as bland as always, which makes sense considering he was the perspective from which people played in the original game. If he weren't bland, it would be harder for people to project themselves onto him. But Sakura, who's pretty much the main focus? I liked her well enough, but I simply couldn't bring myself to stay interested in the development of her role in the plot. So many people also disappeared for the sake of the plot, too. Obviously, in Heaven's Feel, we're focusing a lot more on Shirou and Sakura, and yet, two movies down, I really couldn't tell you how these two characters have developed, or how they are interesting. To conclude, this was such a massive waste of my time that I decided to write a review for the first time in my life in order to say how much I hated this movie. I came in with what I thought were reasonable expectations, and I have a pretty low bar for anime in general. I like to be generous when rating things I have watched or read. But this movie went so far below the bar that it dug straight into the ground. I feel bad for Sakura, that she had to be written this way. I really believe she deserved better. Thanks for reading this amateur review written by a severely, irreparably disappointed Fate fan.

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