Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya Movie: Sekka no Chikai

Well, the story is the usual solid entry in the Fate Series. I can't however give a perfect score . Especially when i was robbed of a ufotable unlimited budget works masterpiece. Wish they'd keep all the entires in the series to themselves. But i guess they have their own circumstances. But those circumstances did lead to this tragedy . I recommend it as a story, the animation ain't bad but it's clearly not ufotable. It will never be .

That being said, normally it's a illiya route, but the illya route is actually the Miyu route. Honestly im not certain myself . But that's ... what it shaped out to be for the most part.

Reviewer's note: This movie is a prequel to the F/K Ilya series and it is my 3rd entry into the Fate/Kaled spin-off works (Ilya>Specials).


✪ Genre: action (swordplay), contemporary fantasy, drama, magic (metamorphosis, magic weapons), seinen, superpower (emotions awaken superpowers) with elements of a parallel world



✔Positive Aspects✔

◧ Animation: adequately distinct characters, based on colors of moderate to low saturation/medium to high lumination, with the urban environment and the urban landscapes being a little more muted in comparison. A good addition was the limited 'light' and 'spark' effects during the action sequences, where the main character is fighting against the various antagonists.
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◧ Character development: the movie does a decent job building up the relationship between its protagonistic characters, explaining some of their beliefs, intentions, thought processes, and, more importantly, personal histories. This last part is conspicuously lacking in the F/K Ilya series.

◧ Plot: this movie provides very crucial information regarding the personal history, motivations, and thought processes of one of the protagonists, while also filling up some major plot holes of the main series.


✘Negative Aspects✘

◧ Action scenes: incredibly unsatisfying action sequences that are escalating and de-escalating very quickly. Not only are they very brief in runtime, but they feel very rushed, even in the grander scheme of things, where the action itself is not the point in this movie. Stylistically, instead of playing around with different levels of the third-person perspective (as it does with the 1st Ilya season), Silver Link tries to emulate Ufotable in UBW by incorporating various camera angles (first-person, second-person, third-person), different 'camera' heights and quick zoom-ins/outs. Unfortunately, it does not succeed in its goal since the end result appears quite unstylish and obscure. On a final note, most of the early fights seem to suffer from incredibly low display contrast at times, making the sequences somewhat incomprehensible.

◧ Soundtrack: various pieces of music are used, ranging from j-pop and electronic music to new age piano and orchestral works, that are virtually unimpactful and unengaging.


Overall: Even though this movie does not offer much in terms of enjoyment or production values, it serves its purpose as a prequel by providing necessary information that is noticeably absent from the main series.


P.S. 1) In my view, for anyone looking to get into these spin-offs, starting with this movie, instead of the main series, might be the most prudent course of action.

2) For further reviews of the Fate franchise, please take a look at my profile.

This review is coming from the perspective of someone who is a Fate fan, who found this movie purely based on the franchise and relatively high rating. If that sounds like you, do not waste your time.

The reason that (at the time of writing) this is the sole negative review is presumably the only people that know this exists and seek to watch it know exactly what it is: a collection of nonsensical retcons with the sole purpose of setting up the lolicon anime Prisma Illya.

Impressively within the first few minutes, this movie manages to completely assassinate both Kiritsugu's and Shirou's character. I honestly can't ... remember much else. There is essentially nothing going on here except setup to the fanservice anime - and even that is basically unrelated until the last ~1 minute or so. (And it doesn't even need to happen since... all timelines already exist?) Additionally, the fact that this universe uses "cards" to modify the master's abilities instead of summoning heroic spirits really takes away the charm that got me into fate in the first place.

The best thing I can say about this is there was no egregious loli fanservice. That's where we're at! A pretty low bar.

Edit: Moments after posting that, I recieved a DM (longer than this review) explaining that my review is in fact wrong. However, I'd like to include a quote from the DM which I find quite revealing.

"You shouldn't expect it to be better, or even on par with the Main Story, as the rest of the franchise is merely Parodies and Spin-Offs tackling the lore to bring fans." There you have it folks! If you simply watch with the understanding that it's bad, you'll somehow find it's good. Or something.