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A huge plot change by the anime adaptation from the original manga:

The quality of the animation itself of this season is excellent. I don't have much more to add regarding this point. However, there is one huge change that they did to the plot. I believe there could have been reasons for Silver Link to do so at that time, and I will share my guess below. However this change missed a huge point of the original story, and made it less coherent IMO, which is a shame. I will explain what I mean in detail.

If you're wary of spoilers (I wouldn't say this season ... in particular has a lot of plot twists though), you may want to proceed after you've finished the season.

The final and most major conflict of this season is the fact that Illya left the battlefield to have Miyu battle Berserker alone. The immediate trigger for this, in the anime, was Miyu lecturing Illya at the end of episode 7. However, just going by common sense, it was rather implausible that Miyu would be so harsh on Illya all of a sudden, especially considering that Illya used her ability to essentially save everybody.

The explanation in the anime is that, Miyu was able to see how Illya was afraid of the battles, and therefore said those things to drive Illya away and thus to protect her (by the way, please never communicate your intentions in such a convoluted way in real life lol). The later conversations between Illya and Rin (episode 8) and between Illya and Iris (episode 9) are all centered on whether battle was scary for her.

However, this premise doesn't hold any water under examination. Throughout the season, Illya has been through thick and thin in various battles and was never timid in any of them. Not to mention how valiant she is in the later seasons. From the beginning of the story, she has never been afraid of the battles themselves, and she is a totally capable and responsible "magical girl" in this sense.

So what was Illya afraid of, exactly? The original manga made it abundantly clear: She was afraid of *her own power*. This makes total sense. For readers of the original FSN, we all know Illya's identity. Of course Illya would have a reservoir of magic prowess unparalleled in the world. However, this Illya in the Priya timeline grew up with the very explicit understanding that she is just a normal girl, with nobody telling her the truth (in season 1 yet). Suddenly, she sees herself showing such great capabilities for destruction, not even just once (previously it was vs. Saber Alter). Anybody experiencing the same contrast on themselves would feel confused and totally lost, at least for a while.

In the original manga, after her power erupted when fighting Assassin and obliterated him, when everybody still stood there stunned, Illya flew away by herself, scared. Miyu never blamed her for this at all. The fundamental reason why Illya later submitted her resignation to Rin is also this uncertainty about her own power. In the end, the conversation between her and Iris was focused on this topic as well (sure, it also touched upon the friendship aspect). Exactly because Iris told her that, there is no good or bad to one's power, that she shouldn't be afraid of her power, but should wield it for the sake of things and people she believes in, and stride forward regardless, Illya regained her footing and went to find Miyu in the end. (She even asked Iris explicitly where her power comes from, but Iris played dumb.)

You may say that this sounds like some super-hero-story cliche. However, this conflict makes total sense in the context of Priya IMO. Hiroyama drew Priya because he wants to protect Illya, who after her route was cut is arguably the most tragic character in FSN. The Illya in this story is somebody who Kiritsugu and Iris protected with all their might, just so that she is able to live *a normal life*, which is actually more precious than anything else. Therefore, the contrast between "everyday" and "power" accentuates the theme very well. This also leads nicely to the later developments in the series, where Illya gradually masters her power and takes responsibility to save Miyu as well as the others. On the contrary, the emphasis on the contrast between "fear of battle itself" and "determination to protect friend" in the anime sounds cliched and stiff.

My guess is, Silver Link was afraid that some audience would not have any knowledge of the original FSN, and therefore they might feel confused if there is such an element in the story which went unexplained (it's actually explained in the second season anyways). Therefore they decided to delete this element altogether and turned it into a more traditional "magical girl" friendship story. However, the eruption of power of Illya is already an indispensable part in the plot of season 1 anyways, and cannot be simply worked around like this.

In summary, this part felt a really unnecessary addition, and a flaw in the anime adaptation. Of course, I'm still really thankful to the high-quality fighting scenes and some additional gags in the anime. Only for this part of the plot, I basically just ignore the changes made by the anime and stick to the interpretation and depiction in the original manga.

The story (adapted from the original novel) is fairly consistent in general. Some chapters in the middle are stronger than the start or the end IMO; they make you pause, sigh, think back on your own life, and maybe even shed some tears. The ending is somewhat more open and subject to interpretation than I'd have liked, but it's OK. I would have liked a different ending, and some plot developments can feel somewhat abrupt/forced/lack enough amount of convincing progression to me, but I can still rate it 9/10.

Unfortunately, the two extra chapters/番外編 (presumably conceived by the mangaka and not the original author) are quite ... superfluous and deviate from the central ideas considerably, and only add confusion to and detract from the story IMO (The way the story is interpreted in those two chapters is fundamentally at odds with a central premise of the original novel, as far as I see it). Therefore I would recommend skipping them altogether.