Review of Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly
FInally, the second Heaven's Feel movie came out. A little context here: I played through half of this route in the original Fate game (the source material). So I knew the entire story of HF1 when I watched the movie a year ago. This first movie really felt like a summary of what the game offered, so I really didn't enjoy it. Because of that, I was a bit afraid I wouldn't like the rest of the movies. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised! STORY This is obviously the sequel of the first movie. Shirou and Sakura's love relationship deepens, and the fight against Zouken goes on whilethe actual stakes of the Holy Grail War are put aside. The characters fight for their ambitions, and the mysteries of the story get more clouded.
This "route" (as fans like to call it) is known for being the darkest part of Fate Stay Night. And indeed, it is so mature! There's nudity and there's violence, and overall it just feels so much less "anime-like" than the other stories.
However it does have one major flaw: it definitely feels like a summary of a much bigger story.
I said earlier that I played through half of the source material. This second movie goes past the point where I stopped, so I discovered new stuff in this movie. But even this part (that was new to me) felt like it was cut short!
Dialogues are clearly cut, the movie tries to give detail that seem meaningful to the background but suddenly cut off the explanations, and many scenes seem out of their context or come out of the blue.
I'll be blunt, overall it is a bad adaptation. Let's be frank: a movie trilogy is just too short to adapt the source material.
Now, while it did bother me in the first movie, it wasn't that troubling in this one. The events don't unfold as smoothly as I was hoping, but it's no big deal, really.
ART
It is outstanding. People who don't like CGI will be disappointed though (especially in one certain scene where there's an overuse of it). Personally, the only thing that disappointed me was the laser effects. They just didn't feel like lasers, more like 5-year old drawings. But I forgive it: the rest is great!
SOUND
Kajiura Yuki at her best. Do I need to say more?
CHARACTERS
So, let me talk again about the fact that it is too short for an adaptation. While the main characters are faithfully developped, many secondary characters are left aside while they could (sometimes should) have more importance.
In this movie, Matou Shinji is just plain ridiculous, whereas the original character actually has much more to offer!
Gilgamesh and Kirei don't appear much. They're among my favourites since Fate/Zero, but in this route it seems like they're not as important (for now at least).
But this movie focuses on Shirou, Sakura and Rin, and these three characters are great.
Rin and Sakura finally face the fact that they are sisters, while Shirou and Sakura's love finally happen... in a really twisted scenario. While Sakura seems close to losing her mind, Shirou swears she'll protect her, even if he has to give up on his dream of becoming a hero. This was just soooo interesting to follow, and I can't wait to see how it all ends!
ENJOYMENT
I am really fond of this movie. Heaven's Feel is by far the best route of Fate Stay Night. Maybe, just maybe, it could surpass Fate/Zero in my opinion. It is as mature as it, that's for sure.
The music and animation are undeniably good, and the only issue is the fact that it's too short for the story it's telling. Now I just want to play through the end of this route, but I don't want to know the story before the third movie comes out... I'll just have to be patient then.