Fate Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel II. Lost Butterfly: Escalation into Madness

This shallow dive is going to be a bit different because to discuss this movie the way I want to, I have to get into major spoilers of the film itself and overall plot points of the main Fate timeline. So before the cut, I’m going to list off the main points that people will probably want to know about the flick, then get into more spoiler stuff afterward.

• This movie is absolutely amazing and Ufotable has done it again. Well worth the wait and is the payoff we needed.
• Yes, this movie has a “sex scene” in it and it is done in a tasteful way that strikes a perfect compromise between adaptation and tribute to the original visual novel. I expect a bit more skin in the blue-ray release. I applaud the director for having the courage to acknowledge the O.G Fate visual novel.
• Illya’s role in the route has been scaled back significantly so far. Obviously, the director wanted to have the entire focus be on Sakura and Shirou. I (and I’m a huge Illya fan) agree that this was probably the best way to go. I’ll have more to say on this once I’ve read the Heaven’s Feel route.
• There is only one real action scene and while it is animated BEAUTIFULLY, it is a bit hard to follow sometimes.
• This movie, along with Presage Flower is absolutely not for first time Fate Fans. I said that in the last review, but it goes double here. You need to have at least watched Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works to fully enjoy this film

Alright, after the cut let’s take a dive into the second movie of the Heaven’s Feel trilogy: Fate Stay Night Heaven’s Feel II. Lost Butterfly.

The only time we may ever hear Sasuke say he loves Sakura

Fate Stay Night: Fate Route: Kidnapping Fetish

A few months ago I took a deep, deep dive into the world of Fate Stay Night, covering almost every single series that has been published since the visual novel hit shelves in the late 2000s. What I didn’t cover, however, was the first route of that visual novel.

The reasons for that were quite simple: the anime adaptation of the Fate route sucks. Aside from a few clips, I have not watched it but from everything I’ve seen and heard I am not missing much. The Fate route anime, done by Studio Deen in 2006 was made in a time before Fate had really established itself, and before Studio Ufotable’s one-two punch of Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works blew everyone’s mind. It was a different era, and while that can be forgiven, the amount of effort put into the Ufotable adaptations make the 2006 anime look rushed, badly animated, and just…not good. While things have gotten better for Fate fans since then, the Fate Route remains an outlier among the fandom.

With that said, and knowing that I should really look at this vital piece of the franchise I decided to spend the last few weeks slowly reading the visual novel of the route. So after the cut let’s dive into the Fate Route of Fate Stay Night. 

Fatevember: Final Thoughts

This is the final post of Fatevember. It’s been a wild ride and I can’t believe I managed to pull it off. Fate Stay Night is a massive franchise and being able to blog about pretty much all of it, has been a great experience. With all the series done, most of the characters I wanted to examine looked at, and plenty of Illya fanboying, we have at least reached the end. So after a month, I want to wrap all of this up with my final thoughts on Fate Stay Night. Join me after the cut.

Still don’t know why it’s called that, even after 30 days.

Fatevember: I heard you liked lists: My best and worst of the Fate Franchise

Fatvember wraps up tomorrow! It’s been a wild ride, but all things must end. Before all is said and done though, I want to share with you some of my bests and worsts of everything that is Fate related, because I heard you liked lists.

So join me after the cut as we take a gander at my best of Fate…and my worst.

My Blog! My choices!

Fatevember: Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family

Anime’s ability to take any concept or idea and make it a piece of good entertainment is one of the hidden strengths of the art form. Unlike movies, TV, or even books, Anime has somehow cracked that magic formula of taking even the most mundane or insane idea and making it just…work. I said it before when I spoke about Girls und Panzer, but it bears repeating here. When other entertainment forms say “Why?” Anime is the only one that stands up and proudly says “Why not?”

For our final anime of Fatevember, we proudly continue that tradition of saying “Why not” with a cooking spinoff of the main Fate Stay Night universe. So after the cut, let’s dive into Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family.

We’ll just call it Fate/Cooking

Fatevember: Carnival Phantasm

Fatevember wraps up this week with a look at the two final animations that have been made as of 2018. We’ve gone through the main storylines, the prequel, the spinoffs that are great, and the spinoffs that suck. Now…things get weird and a bit shorter in terms of word count.

I like many others, love parodies of anime. The abridging boom that erupted in the early 2000s worked in many ways because it allowed fans to tell the stories, but also poke fun at all the anime bullshit. However, it is rare that the anime creators themselves get to poke fun at their own worlds. For Fate Stay Night, however, they have and after the cut let’s take a dive into the 2012 OVA Carnival Phantasm.

The other set of characters you see here are from Type-Moons other series. We’ll ignore them for now.

Fatevember: Fate/kalied liner Prisma Illya: Oath Under Snow

Hah! You thought I was done with Fate/Illya!

Honestly? I thought I was too. I have looked for an English subtitled of this movie for a while now, but it was only until yesterday that I was able to track one down, and considering the importance of this movie to the overall plot, I just had to watch it.

And watch it I did, so after the cut let’s take a dive back into the world of Fate/Illya with the 2018 anime film: Fate/kalied liner Prisma Illya: Oath Under Snow.

Took me long enough to find this, let me tell you.

Fatevember: Fate Grand Order: First Order

Just when I said that there are never any good video game adaptations, I go and forget this was based on one. Can you blame me though? Mobile games and mobile gaming is still a young part of the industry, and it is one that is still looked down upon here in the west. Just look at the recent insanity over the fact that Blizzard Entertainment is announcing a mobile version of Diablo? That alone should show you that the idea of gaming on your phone is still a work in progress.

In the east, however, it’s a different story, and the game Fate Grand Order has been nothing but a money printing machine for all of those involved. I play it myself, and while it is not as free to play friendly in comparison to say Fire Emblem Heroes or Final Fantasy Record Keeper, it has been extremely successful and remains a fun game to play, and I’m not saying that caused I managed to pull my anime waifu Illya for free.

Anyway, an anime adaptation of Grand Order’s story is in the works for 2019, but a preview movie has already come out. So after the cut let’s take a dive into the 2016 film Fate Grand Order: First Order

After Last Encore, we can only go up.

Fatevember: Fate/Extra Last Encore

Have anime adaptations of video games ever worked? I’m serious here, in the few that I have watched they never seem to be well received. They either adapt too much, or too little in their episode count, and often too much is left either on the cutting room floor or just ignored. We’ve seen it this Fall season with Conception, which feels like a bunch of cutscenes from the game edited together. Even Senran Kagura, which is enjoyable for…reasons, feels like it’s more concerned with delivering the goods than it’s with any coherent story.

I say this because the next entry in Fatevember is that weird red-headed stepchild of the entire family. So after the cut let’s dive into the 2018 anime Fate/Extra Last Encore

Ugh…..

Fatevember: Fate/Apocrypha

Now that the world of Fate/Illya has been thoroughly looked over, we continue our dive into the spinoff universe of Fate Stay Night with our second, and most interesting of the main spinoff titles, and out of all of them, this feels the most spin-offy of them all. Let’s not waste any more time, after the cut let’s dive into our second entry in the alternative universe of Fate with Fate/Apocrypha.

This poster has a severe lack of Astolfo