"Fate / stay night: Heaven's Feel - I. Presage Flower" is the first of three films, produced by the animation studio Ufotable, which aim to adapt the third route of the visual novel Fate / stay night by Type-Moon. I recently had the opportunity to view it via the platform Netflix and, almost three years after my premiere review on the film, I thought I'd go back and talk about it.
Technical Data
The director of the film is Tomonori Sudo, who has worked on many Type-Moon titles, while the subject of the film is obviously by Kinoko Nasu. Akira Hiyama took care of the script while the music and the soundtrack are a giant of the animation industry like Yuki Kajiura. The film lasts two hours flat and the first thing you notice is the noticeable difference in the speed of the film, the pacing of the scenes and the pace held by the story.
Synopsis
The film is in continuity with the anime Fate / Zero and Fate / stay night Unlimited Blade Works, requiring the vision in order to be understood. This may seem very strange, given that Unlimited Blade Works events belong to another route and therefore should be parallel narrative lines. The choice to take some fragments of history for granted, which are shown through very short frames or skipped altogether, allowed the production to focus on other aspects of the story and to spend time in long shots.
The story tells of Emiya Shirou, a Japanese high school student who finds himself involved in the war of the Holy Grail, a conflict between seven wizards and seven Servants. Having evoked, in an inexplicable way to him, the heroic spirit Arturia Pendragon, Shirou enters by right to be part of the competitors of the war and, thanks to his friend Rin, is able to understand the rules.
The main divergence with the Unlimited Blade Works timeline is notable in the figure in black that haunts the battlefields of the city of Fuyuki, absorbing the Servants on which it manages to place the dark tentacles. This unknown creature seems not only unstoppable but also methodical and precise in hunting down and engulfing heroic spirits.
Another notable difference is the girl "proposed" in the route. If the Fate was more focused on Arturia and Unlimited Blade Works saw Shirou approach Rin, Heaven's Feel will see the relationship between Sakura Matou and Emiya Shirou developed, an opportunity that will lead to much more mature themes.
Differences in themes with the anime
"Fate / stay night: Heaven's Feel" is a triptych of films presented as part of a multimedia project that includes all three routes, where Fate should have arrived on android and IOS, Unlimited Blade Works on animated series and Heaven's Feel in one film trilogy. Last year the project officially ended with the release of the third film, a journey that we will follow step by step in the next articles.
Artistic aspect
The Ufotable animation studio has established itself over the years as one of the best around. The latest of his efforts, the “Demon Slayer” anime, achieved unparalleled success and recently its second season was announced.
Unlike the animated series, the films enjoy a much more refined artistic sector, starting from an already very high base, and give the viewer genuine surprises.
