Primer for Heaven’s Feel Posts

Hey guys.

Yesterday was the Japanese release of the second part of the Heaven’s Feel trilogy: Lost Butterfly. So far reviews have been stellar, with praise to the masterful animation, amazing action and surprising twists and dedication to the original publication of the Fate Stay Night visual novel (you know what I mean)

Anyway, it’ll be months until I am able to have a viewing of it but to celebrate the release, I’m giving out this post with links to my previous previews of the trailers, and my review of the first movie. Take a look if you are so interested!

Fatevember: Fate Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel: Presage Flower

Tune of the Week(ish) Heaven’s Feel – II. Lost Butterfly’s 『Aimer – I beg you』

Fatevember: Quick Thoughts on Heaven’s Feel: Lost Butterfly Trailer 2

Quick Thoughts on Heaven’s Feel: Lost Butterfly Trailer 3

 

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/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 Stay Night’s Saber: A Symbol without a Soul.

Her popularity is massive, her design is iconic. She’s an example of gender-flipping done right. Unlike the rest of the cast, her influence can be felt in almost every single Fate anime that has been created. She has countless lines of merchandise that have made millions. She has inspired several knock-off characters within her own universe and, she has two excellent voice actors. Quite frankly, she is the type of character that comes around only once in a generation, and whatever you think of Fate Stay Night as a franchise, you cannot deny that this character is a big reason it worked.

Let’s not waste any time, after the cut let’s take a dive into the mascot of Fate, the heroine of the first route, the legendary King Arthur: Saber.

Swordfu is here!

Fatevember: Fate Stay Night’s Shirou Emiya: The dreams of Youth.

He is not the most popular character in the franchise, nor is he the reason it is popular. If you were to have a list of the top characters among every installment of Fate, I don’t think he would even make the top 10. Hell, if you were to just have a poll using the characters from the Fate Stay Night visual itself, he might not even make the top 5. The franchise has already proven multiple times that it can create a successful anime without him in it at all.

However, despite all of that, the main lead of Fate Stay Night is an integral part of the series and serves as the vessel in which many of the themes and ideas of Fate are explored, and the dream he holds and believes in is something that is fun to discuss and explore in depth, especially because of Fate’s separate route storytelling. So after the cut let’s take a character dive into the main male lead of Fate Stay Night, Shirou Emiya.

(SPOILERS FOR FATE ZERO, HEAVENS’ FEEL, AND UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS)

Loved by few, Important to all.

Fatevember: Fate Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel: Presage Flower

The great thing about the original Fate Stay Night is the fact that it has three different routes. Once you have the ability to choose all three, you can pick what story you prefer and ignore the others. Don’t like Saber and Shirou as a couple? Go read or watch Unlimited Blade Works. Think Rin is just a glorified Tsundere and prefer to have your sword waifu? The Fate Route is waiting for you. And if you don’t care for both of them, you can go through door number three, and pick the final route.

This ability to choose the direction the story goes is the hidden strength of the OG Fate visual novel, and adapting each of those routes into their own series has allowed fans to have three separate servings of the characters, stories, and world that they love, and each is different enough to be its own complete entry. However, the anime journey remains incomplete, as the final route’s story has yet to be fully told. We only have a piece of it now, so after cut let’s take a dive into the first installment of Fate Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel. Presage Flower.

Too many Colons, and not enough Plot.