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Feb 6, 2025
Spring Song isn't perfect, but it's a damn good final film for the Heaven's Feel trilogy. While maybe not as nuanced and subversive as Lost Butterfly, This movie does do a lot of things right; namely, giving Sakura independence and breaking her out of the role of damsel in distress. She's genuinely menacing and unpredictable, a welcome change for the character. Shirou rises to the mantle of hero (as is his fate) but it's different from UBW, his tragic path throughout the trilogy has shaped him differently, rather than stardust and the heroic ideal, HF Shirou accepts his mortality and fights to protect what he
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can; it's a fascinating take on the character. Father Kotomine and Matou Zouken serve as great competing antagonists.
Being that this is the finale, the fight scenes are outrageous, and the animation and soundtrack here are better than ever. The film comes to a satisfying climax, however, the epilogue is rushed, and an extra 15 minutes of runtime would've smoothed out the experience, preventing questions from being left unanswered.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 6, 2025
If the ending of Presage Flower felt like getting kicked in the chest, then Lost Butterfly feels like getting curb-stomped, to death. Lost Butterfly takes all the tragic elements of the previous film, and layers atop it horror, and a story that leaves you sick to your stomach; and as much as it hurts to watch, it’s genuinely incredible. While the animation and soundtrack are the same as ever (godly as ever), Shirou’s character and path completely diverge from their course in the Unlimited Blade Works narrative. Similarly, we see different sides for characters like Illya, Rider, and Father Kotomine.
Sakura finally starts getting more screen
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time, and that’s both a blessing and a curse; Sakura is a genuinely compelling character in this film, displayed with much more nuance and feeling than ever before. Her tragic upbringing, and the abuse she suffered, make for truly haunting moments within the film, and some deeply complex, difficult interactions. And that becomes problematic because the film fails to honor both her suffering and her position as the heroine. Lost Butterfly trips over its own feet, trying to both communicate her trauma in a candid way and yet simultaneously sexualize her! A victim of sexual abuse! It’s demeaning and gross. And despite her being the heroine, she’s constantly treated as a damsel in distress.
Disappointing as that is, the film is so well written and executed in every other regard that is can overcome its bad moments and themes. Beyond Fate/Zero, this is the darkest and most interesting chapter of the Fate series. It’s undoubtedly a masterful work and something I recommend watching.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 6, 2025
Honestly, I really liked this film! It does a great job reintroducing Fate/stay night’s plot, and swiftly moving forward into the Heaven’s Feel narrative, something a similar film, Evangelion: You Are (Not) Alone, failed to do, which subsequently left the first leg of that film feeling rushed and unnatural. The pacing is noticeably faster than Unlimited Blade Works, but that’s a compromise that must be made with the film trilogy format. HF handles it well, playing on implied events and prior knowledge to save time. The animation and soundtrack are godly and worthy of great praise. And the story is nothing if not tragic, and
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that’s to its benefit, the horror of HF is sufficient to keep it out of UBW’s shadow. However, Sakura is as poorly written as ever, for the main heroine of our story she sure is sidelined a lot and suffers greatly from her “notice me senpai” complex.
Being that this is the first film, I can’t confidently compare the two narrative routes, but If you like UBW, you’ll definitely enjoy this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 3, 2025
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is Ufotable’s most recognizable work even a decade after its debut, and that’s by no means an accident. UBW is amazing, a rare occasion for a film adaptation that surpasses the original work.
UBW adapts the prologue and second narrative route (Unlimited Blade Works) of the 2004 visual novel Fate/stay night by Kinoko Nasu. Nasu’s talent as a writer is what made FSN such a success; the original story is incredible: its portrayal of the heroic ideal, bombastic action, and timely comedy, mixed with Nasu’s characteristic character subtlety make for a truly entertaining story. The narrative structure of FSN (three diverging
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narrative routes) is also something to be lauded. However, FSN wasn’t perfect, looking back on it two decades after its release, it becomes clear that it was written by a man in the early 2000’s, and the medium itself, visual novels, is somewhat limited, and (in my personal opinion) kind of silly.
Ufotable’s adaption maintains the integrity of Nasu’s writing, while simultaneously up-ing the bombastic action to a level that would become the gold standard for all of anime. The show is more fluid in pacing than the VN, the long expositions fly by much faster, and the dialogue is less separated from the action. And the Ufotable's writing team takes it upon themselves to clean up the awkwardness and lurking misogyny from the VN, as a result, the story is just, better. The only thing that holds UWB back is that Ufotable has not yet adapted the first route (Fate), which would have made many of the moments in UBW much more impactful.
If you want to get into Fate, this is the place to start! I absolutely recommend you watch it. At this point, it’s a modern classic, and it's earned that spot!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 1, 2025
“Before the devil dropped an endless stream of money on his lap”.
Well here’s the source of that stream, and it fucking sucks. Kinoko Nasu’s skill as a writer is what made the Fate series such a massive success, spawning countless visual novels, light novels, video games, and subsequent anime and manga adaptations. However, somewhere along the line (cough… cough… Fate/Apocrypha) Nasu and Type-Moon seem to have realized where the real money comes from: “gooner games”. Fate/Grand Order is a shitty mobile game where you command around heroes of legend (who are all depicted as half-naked women) to fight evil villains who want to destroy humanity
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and create a new world, and naturally, all the sexy heroines fall in love with you.
Fate/Grand Order: First Order, is the tutorial of that shitty mobile game, turned into a movie. To give some credit, Fujimaru and Mash are a cute couple, Dr. Romani is an interesting enough character, and the retconned cast of Fate/stay night are portrayed in an interesting light. Unfortunately, that’s where the praise ends, Mash’s character design is clearly spawned from the fantasy of some degenerate, and her character is simply a transplant of Matou Sakura. The animation is abominable, unquestionably the worst of any Fate anime adaptation, the sound design is equally awful. There’s not much to say beyond that, this film is the corpse of the Fate series, in a way, it’s sort of mortifying.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jan 25, 2025
Fate/EXTRA: Last Encore, is a mess of an anime, and I truly wish it was given more care. At first glance, Last Encore, a show written by -the- Kinko Nasu and animated by SHAFT, should’ve had all the chance in the world to be a home run.
Nasu is undoubtedly a phenomenal writer, his ability for bombastic action, portrayal of the heroic ideal, and character subtlety have earned him much-deserved acclaim. Similarly, SHAFT has become instantly recognizable for Akiyuki Shinbo’s unique visual style and avant cinematography. Unfortunately, Last Encore, with a runtime of only 13 episodes, lacks the time necessary to build a world that
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Fate is so known for. Each antagonist and their respective arcs are relegated to two episodes (per duo) and thus turn into a blur. Akiyuki’s characteristic style appears only occasionally, most of the animation is artistically bankrupt, and many sequences in the anime seem rushed and low-budget. And then there’s the elephant in the room: gender-bending. Saber and Francis Drake are gender-bent characters, however, unlike Artoria in stay night, this isn’t a nuanced take on the character; instead, Saber is gender-bent so she can contrast with Artoria’s design and personality, it’s cheap. As for Francis, the show apparently needed a sexy pirate girl, to go breasting boobily around the battlefield, it’s cheap exploitation.
However, these faults can't snuff out all the latent potential. The ending visuals (which change every two episodes) are admittedly, absolutely beautiful. The soundtrack is exceptional, and so are many of the characters. The new take on Hakuno Kishinami’s character is really interesting, and all the returning characters from previous iterations are great. Despite some of the cheap creative choices made, I believe that a higher budget and more expansive runtime would’ve made Last Encore into something great. It could’ve truly served its purpose, as both a compelling entry to the Fate/EXTRA narrative as well as a great new iteration for those who’ve already played Fate/EXTRA & CCC.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 25, 2025
If the problem with Fate/EXTRA: Last Encore was that the show felt rushed and unpolished, thanks to its low budget and mere 13-episode runtime, then this latest iteration is a massive overcorrection. Fate/Apocrypha is twice the runtime, visually stunning, but with no substance.
In its 25-episode run, Apocrypha presents several beautifully choreographed fight scenes, a stellar (but slightly repetitive) soundtrack, and iconifies the femboy character archetype. However, most of the cast is forgettable, not due to lack of screen time, they’re simply poorly written. Not the least, Jeanne d’Arc, who by all means should be the heroine of our story, yet finds herself sidelined by our
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protagonist as he (a man who was literally born yesterday) surpasses her in fighting ability and show of virtue. And she falls hopelessly in love with him, it’s really pitiful. The main antagonist’s identity, objective, and backstory are delivered so poorly that you can hardly piece together who and what he is. But worst of all is Jack the Ripper, boasting the most appalling character design of all time, not to mention their story arc is painfully boring.
Don’t get me wrong—the writing isn’t all bad, and some episodes are truly phenomenal. The same goes for certain characters: Kairi and Mordred are a perfect master/servant pairing, Achilles and Chiron are a great rivalry, Astolfo delivers some great comic relief, and Karna has some great monologues. But beyond them, the cast is underwhelming at best. Poor writing and blatant misogyny take what the show has going for it and throw it all down the dumpster.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 6, 2024
I’ve some mixed feelings about Monster. It’s very good, that’s undeniable, so much so that I’d definitely buy it on Blu-ray (If only there was one). But I can’t honestly say it’s a “masterpiece”. The story is great, you’re on edge at all times, that’s an impressive feat for a 74-episode long run. But it’s not a piece of media that will change your life, there’s some moments that drag, silly plot holes, and the ending is a bit lackluster, but that’s really just me nitpicking. The main thing that holds Monster back, is the production. The animation is bland, painfully so, no visual in
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this show will impress you, it definitely takes away from the experience. And the Netflix subtitles suck! I mean they really, really suck. The translations are repetitive and lazy, there’s a number of grammatical errors, and it’s shameful. Not to mention, the episode titles aren’t translated!? It’s absurd, each episode has a clever name in Japanese, but the episodes are just labeled 1-74. Even when the Japanese characters pop up on screen, there’s no translation that comes with them, it’s just plain lazy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 28, 2024
Bunny Drop is an adorable slice-of-life story that beautifully captures fatherhood & family. From its animation straight out of a storybook, to its nurturing story and incredible characters, Bunny Drop is a fantastic entry into the anime medium (and void of much of the repetitive nonsense, that's plagued it since the late '90s). Bunny Drop excels in its runtime (11 episodes) displaying the growing father-daughter bond between Daikichi and Rin, their chemistry is both adorable and hilarious but never overly zany. A characteristic feeling, given just how human the cast feels, the humor in Bunny Drop comes from a place of relatability, rather than the
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absurdist humor typically associated with anime/manga. There's much presented here to learn from, for both children and parents. The animation is beautiful, the first minute or so of each episode genuinely looks as if it's from a children's book, and while that crayon-like aesthetic is only temporary, the animation and art style preserve the feeling throughout. The soundtrack while nothing spectacular, suits the show well. And unlike many other slice-of-life (cough cough Kaguya-sama) this series genuinely is a one-year snapshot and nothing more.
Whether or not you've enjoyed the anime medium at all, I'd recommend Bunny Drop, the show truly shines and delivers an emotional and heartfelt story that can be appreciated by anyone!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 18, 2024
Gurren Lagann: Childhood's End is an entertaining and novel recap of the first 13 episodes of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The movie is an amazing showcase of animation ability, every scene within the film is stunning, and the animation sequences (while sometimes repetitive) are gorgeous. Scenes that didn't make sense in TTGL are removed and replaced with ones that better explain the lore of the series which is a welcome change. However, the film covers 13 episodes worth of content in just over two hours, and so the pacing feels off, and the viewer isn't able to connect to the characters or watch them interact
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and grow like they did in the original series. To add to this TTGL was always somewhat repetitive and this is further exacerbated by the condensed format which only focuses on the many battle scenes that were the source of the repetitive nature.
If you're a huge fan of TTGL or this film is playing in theaters near you then it is definitely worth checking out. But if you haven't seen TTGL yet, or aren't a huge fan then there's no purpose in watching this film.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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