Gekijouban Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel - III. Spring Song

Let me begin off by saying I recently started watching Fate a few months ago with Fate Stay Night. I'm far from the most hardcore Fate fan, however I have enjoyed my experience lately...and plan to get into Fate Grand Order soon. With that said, here is my review.

• Sound: I did not come in expecting the most impactful portion of the movie being the sound. The sound effects were amazing throughout (a bit loud, but amazing nonetheless). The MUSIC was phenomenal!!! I'm talking about music throughout almost the ENTIRE film that perfectly captures the mood. When I say the ENTIRE film...I'm only slightly exaggerating...at least 80% of the scenes were accompanied by an OST.

• Animation: There isn't much to say here. We all knew what Ufotable would do with a movie budget and full production cycle. It's amazing. The fights were beautiful. There are a lot of flashes of rainbow colored light, but it doesn't take anything away from the choreography. If anything it only adds to the drama. Even when everyone was standing around talking it was beautiful.

• Story: This might be the weakest part of the movie to me...and this is why I emphasized before the review that I have limited experience in the Fate universe. I'm not fully engaged with the visual novel, so there were quite a few moments when I did not understand what was happening, and they didn't really explain it. The pacing here was breakneck. The movie is two hours long, but it doesn't feel like two hours at all. It felt more like an hour. I'm assuming they made this with visual novel readers in mind, and didn't want to over explain what that audience already knows...however that is a weak point if I judge this film strictly on its own merit.

• Waifus: All my waifus looked amazing out there. Rider, Sakura, Rin...the art style allowed them all to shine in their own ways. I feel like the movie did a good job touching of the relationship between the three. I wish I could have seen more of Saber, but I understand why I didn't. She wasn't the focus of the film.

• Overall I enjoyed the movie, and would definitely purchase the Blu Ray for it.

-intheweebcloset

Bite me again and again there's just no end to how good this anime is, unbelievable that an adaptation could be this awesome am just so into this like crazy every scene is at max out level of animation if you know what i mean, anime is everything %100.

So glad I won this trilogy on Blu-ray My God this movie was Beautiful!!! The animation of this movie was Top Notch, Ufotable definitely brought their A-Game with this film, & went even further than they did with the previous movie. The music was gorgeous to listen to, the Fight Scenes, & OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't give this movie anything less than a 10 out of 10, easily one of Ufotable's Best!!! I am happy to say that the Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel anime trilogy is literally the Anime equivalent to the Heisei Gamera Trilogy, Sakura is Best Girl for Shirou, & Rider is a Goddess.

Honestly, I feel that the critiques in some of these reviews are legitimately unjustified. Let me preface by saying that from a technical aspect, this movie is head and shoulders above the first two movies. There generally are no hard cuts for scenes, the storyboard for the film is much more straightforward and it naturally answers most questions(with the exception of the ending).

With that out of the way, I will say that this film cannot and should not be judged as just a single piece of work but as a culmination for ALL of Ufotable's Fate works. What this story tries to show and allude to can only ever be appreciated if looked as a sequel because that is the clear intention. If someone can't necessarily remember plot elements tied to previous works like Unlimited Blade Works or Fate/Zero, I don't think the fault is placed on this movie. It expects its viewers to know the story it tries to tell. It wants to treat them competently and read into subtext. As for people that simply want a highlight action reel, this movie also gives them what they want in spades. This is a sequel to end it all and it'll give a large spectrum of fans at least a few things to love. A masterpiece in my eyes.

What a satisfying conclusion to the HF series. Even though they left out a few things from VN, the fights were some of the best represented to date. This movie was a perfect reward coming from a VN fan.