Back to Veldazik's Profile Veldazik's Profile

A bit of spoilers ahead

I'll start off by saying, I don't think this version deserves all the hate that it gets. Literally anyone going into the series will see everyone say "don't watch the original because it's crap, just skip it and only watch the Ufotable adaptations. Never watch the original." They make a fair point, Ufotable did amazingly with their adaptations for sure. Fans even dubbing UBW as "unlimited budget works" due to the god-tier high quality animation. But overall I think it's being unfair to the original DEEN adaptation.
Going into the entire Fate series, I too heard this over and over, and even ... also scoffed at the idea of watching "DEEN/Stay Night". Which caused me to go through the 30+ hours it took to go through the Saber route of the VN this one covers just so I could experience it. And I fell in love with the Saber route. Saber is best girl, change my mind. But anyway, with the looming release of Heaven's Feel 3, I decided "screw it" and binge watched the original series. And I was pleasantly surprised. This was not as bad as I thought it would be.

Art-
We'll get this out of the way, yes the animation/design is a bit bad and dated, but remember this is 2006, and I'm almost certain it was very difficult back then to apply for a big budget to make an adaptation of a Visual Novel at the time. And also of note, honestly some of the CG in the visual novel was even worse, so count your blessings if you watched the anime instead. But seeing as they did use some of the major CGs (such as Saber bloodied by Berserker and leaning on her sword exhausted) directly from the visual novel, I would argue they also tried their best to stay true to the visual style of the VN. Serious props. Action shots do hold up, some of it I would argue is impressive. Obviously Ufotable did it better, whoop-de-doo, who cares. Still pretty good overall.

Sound/VA-
Kicking the elephant in the room, do not watch this English dubbed. Just don't. American voice acting back then wasn't taken all too seriously for anime, and it shows. Watch it subbed, or you will never want to hear the word "Senpai" ever again. Japanese VA is pretty good though. Probably because I don't speak Japanese though, so can't confirm. :) Music is good. Action sounds are good.

Story-
A point of contention for many. I will say that, even if it does add stuff like making it sort of obvious that Archer is Shirou from the future, I don't think it really detracts from the story, and as a matter of fact might add some context and hint at his intentions. It almost kinda hypes me up for Unlimited Blade Works when his arc is fully fleshed out. And this could have even been done because they didn't think the series would get another shot at an adaptation of any other route, so throw that bit of lore in there and people will be like "wait what? I wanna know more about this". And I'm not sure what was added from Heaven's Feel, since I've been relying on the movies thus far. Overall, I think the story followed the VN just fine. Shirou is just as awkward and dumb as he is in the VN so don't listen to the haters. The story basically plays out just the same as the Fate (Saber) route, without a lot of unnecessary details.
This story made me feel feelings. I may have cried harder at the end of the VN route, but I still cried at the end of this too. A beautiful story and I think well executed.

All in all, if you love the fate series, and don't wanna spend 30+ hours of your life but still want to see the Saber romance (which is arguably pretty great) then I totally recommend you give the original Fate/Stay Night anime a second chance. Saber deserves love guys. ;w;

I really don't understand why there's so many reviews praising this to high heavens. But I will chip in for the first time to share my thoughts on why I don't think this is an amazing "final" installment in the saga.

I'll get this out of the way as everyone else does: I've been a fan of Digimon since I was a smol boi. Though granted, I didn't get to see them until about 2005. And certainly well after I became a fan of Pokemon.~
But that's beside the point. Basically, I love the heck out of Digimon despite its failures and faults, and have been for ... a long time. (Can't even help but have some merch and games, including the actual V-pet)
So let's dive into it

Digimon: Last Evolution Kizuna feels like a dead horse we've already beat once or twice before. The main driving force of the plot (the point of contention/villain/dark force) ironically feels like it was an idea stolen from Summer Wars, but with a twist. In fact, the movie from the start felt like it was trying to be the climax of Summer Wars' original inspiration, Digimon: Our War Game, while also mildly trying to keep the feel of Digimon tri. (as in, the characters we know being grown up and trying to find themselves). While overall an interesting enough idea, it doesn't feel too epic or like the villain is that big a threat since we know exactly what's going to happen. There's too much plot armor and predictability, and it is revealed/resolved too quickly. (Funny enough too, while I didn't particularly like Summer Wars, at least this aspect was handled better in that movie)
As far as the message and making Digimon go away because you grow up...well, it seems a bit contrived just so there'd be a sense of finality. It's understandable for them to do this, but it feels like they didn't make it feel very impactful.

And actually, that's my main problem with the movie. There's not enough buildup and payoff. At least in Digimon tri., I actually felt something. That series somehow hammered in the finality of losing the Digimon pretty dang hard. Say what you will about tri., but there was more to it than there was here. Certainly more development and heart. At the end of tri. (and in fact, even once or twice more in the earlier parts because of certain Digimon probably dying) I bawled so hard I thought my eyes would fall out. But not here. I'm so baffled at how anti-climactic and lacking in feels the ending was. Taichi and Yamato did have a bit of a cute moment, but there wasn't much to it. They cried, but there wasn't any room for us to cry with them. Maybe because we're supposed to understand the nature of the parting and say "well it's understandable, now you can go make your life and live, you're all grown up now. *pats on head*"
*sigh*

Overall, the animation is good, the action is cool as always, there's some nice callbacks to earlier memorable Digimon moments of the past to pull it all full-circle. Even showing the digidestined as their younger selves and all. (And there's digimon! Though to be honest, they didn't focus all too heavily on them compared to tri. /sadface) I do like that you really get to see the original cast all grown up and doing adult things like drinking and having their porn stashes, etc. (yeah that happened, haha) We're not quite sure what path the main two, Taichi and Yamato are headed in, but we know they'll figure it out now they aren't stuck in the past. It's just a shame that didn't feel too impactful, we just kind of accept that it happened.
Maybe the way you take this movie depends on you. Perhaps I am stuck in the past and unwilling to let go, which is why I expected it to make an effort to pull at my heartstrings like it should. But that's not quite what happened. It was final for sure, but not final *enough*. But, in a way I feel at the very least content that some of my childhood heroes I grew up with found themselves in this crazy world in the end.