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First off, let's start with the recommendations:
- if you're a Fate fan, you should see this because, you know you will either way.
- If you've read the visual novels and like Sakura's route, you will love this movie.
- If you don't like the Sakura route, I doubt this movie will make you like her any better.
- If you've just come off of Fate Zero, and expect to get the same complexity and character development here that you did there... do not even bother with this movie. It is true that the Heaven's Feel rout from the novel is the most complex ... and the one dealing with the heaviest subject theme, but this is not a movie which showcases that complexity.
- If you've never had any tangency with the Fate franchise and expect this movie to stand on it's own and tell you everything you need to know... it will not. In fact I strongly recommend you do not make this your first Fate experience.

Now, a little bit of context before we get into my likes and dislikes about this movie.

I read the original novels in preparation for this movie. I like Sakura. She is my favorite Heroin, and I think the Heaven's Feel rout is the best one of the 3. So, I was really looking forward to this movie.

This for me is Shiro's best rout, because in my personal opinion, Shiro evolves as a character throughout all 3 of the routs, with the first one showing him at his most idealistic, and the last one showing a deconstruction of those ideals, a breaking down of his beliefs and a re-framing and re-prioritization of what is important to him and what he is willing to sacrifice in order to protect the people important to him. It's a truly fantastic story, and I am of the belief that if you want the full experience to Shiro's character, you have to experience the routs in the order they were written in. You can't just jump into Heaven's Feel and see all his ideals being tested to their limit, if you've never seen those ideals reinforced or save people before. You're essentially going to be seeing a flat scene which is supposed to pay of wonderfully, but not having that development will leave you entirely dissatisfied.

And the reason why I had that description of Shiro upstairs is because: he is only one of the complex themes and issues Heaven't Feel tackles. Archer, Rin, Saber, Sakura and Illya are all tackled in this very same rout and deconstructed as characters and re-framed for the audience into some of their most unpleasant counterparts. And none of this works if you haven't seen Unlimited Blade Works at least.

So, with all that being pointed out, this movie was unfortunately left with a tall order. To pack 1/3 of the most dens story from the Fate Novel into a 2 h movie. And it failed miserable.

Story and characters are dead to this movie, with only the most minimalistic dialogue. Everyone aside from Sakura and to some extent Shiro are shafted in order to make way for cool transitions which are meaningless, long and drawn out fight which are beautiful but meaningless, and only the most bare boned dialog extracted from the most dialogue heavy route of fate....

This movie is gorgeous to look at, and I mean stellar, no drops in animation quality ever. And the soundtrack is sublime... but the story and characters are heavy casualties in exchange for the pretty visuals.

As a person who has read the novel, I never felt lost throughout this movies, because even though they changed the order of events, I knew exactly where I was cause I was so familiar with the story. But, this amplified my frustration when I remembered all the important scenes of dialogue, foreshadowing and development they skipped over entirely in some cases and skimmed over in the best of cases, which help develop and explore the themes of this rout and it's characters later on. There is no world building here. There is no foundation on which a second movie could draw from. there are just some really pretty visuals.

This is a gorgeous movie, with a beautiful soundtrack, and as a person who has read the novels, I enjoyed it greatly, because I love Sakura, and I know what the scenes on screen are supposed to convey. But for someone who has never read the novels, I doubt they will be able to understand and look at this movie with anything but confusion. Which is why, my final scores for this movie are:

Story/Characters - 3
Art/Sound - 10
Enjoyment/Overall - 7

Let’s get the recommendations out of the way first, because I feel like that might be the most useful thing in a review and I don’t want people to search around for it:

- I would highly recommend this anime to any art lovers. Anyone who likes good animation is bound to be impressed by the beautiful routines and fantastic choice of music that accompany this anime.

- Sport lovers might not necessarily gain the kind of kick out of this show as from most sports anime, and that’s mostly because of the nature of the sport itself. Figure Skating is not the blood-pumping, adrenaline-rushing show that ... most other Sports anime are, not because the anime doesn't focus on the sport itself (it does, and portrays the sport rather well), but because Figure Skating is more like dancing on ice. So, unless you like those kinds of shows, I would not recommend this anime for the action junkies.

- Other people who might like it are adults looking for a mildly compelling story with not too much drama and decent character development.

- And of course, I would highly recommend this anime to all the shippers and romantic individuals out there who are just looking to see a well-developed love story.

My honest recommendation would be not to binge watch this anime, but rather take it in strides, otherwise the plethora of routines might end up wearing some people off, and it is a shame, because each of the routines are fantastic and memorable and they deserve to be enjoyed at a relaxed pace.

With recommendations out of the way let’s start the actual review.

1. Technical side – 8.4/10.

a) Animation – 10/10. I know the routines get repetitive (especially Yuuri’s Eros, which is a pity, because it’s a fantastic routine), but what the animation team does in the span of an episode, and the high quality of most of the routines as well as the consistency of facial expressions is enough to make me forgive any minor inconveniences or slack in animation at less than pivotal scenes. Plus, I was truly blown away by the fact that they could keep the trend up consistently for so many episodes back-to-back. So even though I don’t think the animation is perfect, I think the effort and love for the show shines though, and, because of it, the routines are a wonder to behold every episode.

b) Soundtrack – 10/10. I love most of the songs used for all the routines, and even the songs that are not particularly flattering, manage to become captivating because of the beautiful animation on screen. Most of the background songs are nice, and there never was a song that I felt was too distracting or out of place, so this is an easy 10.

c) Opening/Ending – 8/10. I think History Maker has the most consistent and fluid animation in the whole show and is one of the most amazing opening sequences I have ever seen (the animators deserve every praise thrown at them, because it is masterfully done). I am not however that fond of the song itself. It has it’s moments of levity, but it did not manage to stay memorable for long, and I found myself skipping it some of the times. The ending however had a song I truly enjoyed and only skipped once while rewatching some episodes. However, the images used during the ending are static and generic.

d) Story – 7/10. I was hoping it would stay at an 8 or rise up to a 9, but it managed to stumble on episode 8 for me, and it never quite picked back up until the final episode, which kept its grade from falling lower.

The stumble was fake drama. I am not a fan of making fake conflict just to have conflict in your story and then not delivering on it (those who have already seen the anime will know of what scene in episode 8 I am talking about). That scene was particularly vexing because in my opinion, there were very few episodes of this anime I truly loved.

As of right now only episodes 3 and 12 are the ones that left a genuine and lasting impression on me. The rest of the show was okay to good, with only two horrible episodes that I struggled with.

Episode 4 was incredibly dull for me, even if it was good character development, but that episode dragged like I could not believe. And the upper mentioned development for 8 not only ruined what I, up until those last few minutes, consider to be an episode on part with 3, but it plummeted it to the list of episodes I would never want to rewatch ever.

That’s the reason why I have a disdain for episode 8, because, for me, 7 was okay. I know that was the one that had the fandome exploding, but nothing had come close to episode 3 for me, but 8 almost did. And 8 almost surpassed it because of the amazing synergy and fluidity of everything else in that episode except for that 1 final damn scene… which ruined episode 9 as well.

That’s why fake drama is the worse for me, because it has the potential to truly throw me off a show, and most shows barely recover in time to remain good (a 7 grade for me), let alone great (an 8 grade for me).

e) Characters – 7/10. That grade was majorly influenced by the ending, because I thought the show was going in 1 direction, due to the opening narration and Yuuri’s internal monologues throughout the series, and while I did not hate the fact that it changed direction in episode 12, I was not okay with how that left the characters (mainly our main trio).

I don’t love Victor, like most of the fandome does, I mostly consider him an okay character, but I truly feel like he is the only one out of the trio that has room for development considering the events of the final episode, so ironically, his is the character I have the most hope out of them for any future seasons.

Yuri (or Yurio) is the breakout character for me. He’s the brat I was not fond of in episode 1, and the adorable kitten I came to love and admire by the end of the season. The only problem with him is… I see no possible interesting future development from him. He feels fleshed out and complete, so much so that I don’t think they can bring his character to any further heights than this in any subsequent season. But for this season alone, he is outstanding.

The break out side character for me was JJ, because I am biased towards Mamoru Miano, and his eccentric characters, and because he had an impressive development for a character who was introduced halfway throughout the season (and he has plenty of promise for any subsequent season).

Yuuri is the character that actually ended up lowering the grade for this show, because, he started off as an amazing MC, who unfortunately got sidelined by the figure skating and plethora of other characters that the second half tried to cram into 6 episodes, that by the end of it… I only cared about him because of the shipping.

This is of course not his fault, but rather the fault of the show being so short and so ambitious in its scope (it has way too many side characters).

Once the competitions started, even though he managed to hold on to the title of MC… he failed to leave as much of an impression as some of the other characters in the second half, and the ending of the show is the thing that kind of stabs him in the back, because he narrates one thing in episode 1, and then ends up in a completely different spot by the end of 12.

I don’t feel satisfied with the way the show just kind of screwed him over like that, mostly because I feel like there was no conclusion for his character which we were promised all the way back in episode 1.

I don’t hate the direction they are going with his character, but I do feel cheated.

2. Enjoyment – 8/10.

I enjoyed this sow very much because of the overly enthusiastic fandome which made ridiculous, amusing, amazing and bizarre theories about the show every episode.

Other very enjoyable aspects were the ship, which is one of the most touching and well developed romances I have ever seen in Anime or TV/Movies, and the amazing animation and soundtrack.

The ending made me feel cheated, mostly because of Yuuri and the lack of conclusion to his arc. But, at the same time I am excited for the possibilities that such an ending may bring for future seasons.

Overall impression – 8/10

My overall impression of a show depends on the Technical score and the Enjoyment I got out of it, which would be about an 8.2, so an 8. It was a great anime.

I had a lot of fun being part of the community and following the show week by week, and for a short period of time, there was something smack in the middle of the week to make the time pass at a less then sluggish pace, which I appreciate.

Thank you for taking the time to read this review, and have a great day!