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All of those petals, cold and fallen. Scattering though this endless night. Almost like a snowstorm, dark and lifeless. Painful to see all of this white. All I wanted to do was just to hold you and shelter you from all the pain.
—Hana no Uta (The Song of Flowers), by Aimer, the ending song.
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A 2017 Anime movie, Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel - I. Presage Flower is a story about a boy, a girl, and her insect-like grandpa. It adapts the third route of the visual novel Fate stay night, Heaven's Feel, which revolves around the heroine Sakura Matou. It is the first instalment of a trilogy designed to adapt the whole route: the othet two moves are Lost Butterfly and Spring Song.
This page contains spoilers for the whole Fate Stay Night VN, especially the above mentioned Heaven's Feel route. Check at your own risk.
The movie opens with a prologue showing how Sakura became an acquaintance and later friend of Shirou Emiya, the adopted son of a mage, and how her older brother Shinji Matou grew distant from Shirou out of envy for his archery abilities that surpassed his own. In the present, Shirou has abandoned the archery club of his school for aesthetic reasons and lives a comfortable if monotone life with his sister-figure Taiga Fujimura, and Sakura.
One day, after escorting Sakura back to her house, he meets her grandpa, Zouken, who inquires Shirou about "the daughter of the Eiznbern", but Shirou has no idea what he is talking about. While going home, he briefly meets a mysterious little girl with white hair and red eyes, and later dreams of her telling him to "summon yours soon, or you will die".
The next day, Sakura suddenly drops a plate when she notices a red bruise on his hand, and Shirou has a hostile confrontation with Shinji on school. Shirou thinks she is ill, but Sakura says she is fine and instead urges Shirou to go back home after school as soon as possible. Shirou doesn't hear her and ends up witnessing two mysterious men wearing armour fighting on the school grounds. He is stabbed by one of them but is mysteriously cured.
After going home, he is followed by the same man who stabbed him, only for the "bruise" on his arm to change shape, shine and summon in front of him a girl in armor with incredible combat capabilities. Shirou discovers he has been forcibly enlisted by a magical artefact called the Holy Grail to summon the spirit of a hero of ages past in order to take part in a deadly tournament between seven mages. Whoever mage is the last one standing with his hero after six of the seven summoned spirits are eliminated, will get a wish from the Holy Grail.
Shirou wants to retire from the tournament early, finding himself out of his depth in such a kind of fight, only for Kirei Kotomine, the tournament's supervisor, to bring up that the Great Fuyuki Fire, the catastrophe that killed his biological parents, was a result of the last Holy Grail War. This convinces him to keep going if only to avoid another disaster like that of happening, plus he meets up with his other classmate Rin Tohsaka who also joins the tournament. . .
Though not a sequel to the Unlimited Blade Works anime, scenes that are common to both routes in the VN were excluded from the movie, so newcomers may be confused if they watch this before watching that, including finer details of how the Holy Grail War works. It also needs to be watched because the whole subplot involving Caster summoning an Assassin-class Servant is something the VN (and therefore the film) assumes the viewer already knows about it from UBW. For the sake of clarity, the one summoned by Zouken Matou will be called True Assassin in this article, to distinguish from the one summoned by Caster, since the latter is not a Servant in a real sense. . .
Directed by Tomonori Sudou. Animated by Ufotable. Produced by Aniplex, Notes and Kadokawa.
- Adaptation Expansion: Shirou's backstory with Sakura was greatly expanded from the novel on the movie's prologue, whereas in the original game, that story was only told in brief bits of narration.
- Advertised Extra: Berserker is prominent on the poster but his presence amounts to one battle scene early on, as Illya stays out of most battles. Inverted with True Assassin, who is The Dragon to Zouken but is barely visible on the poster at all.
- Subverted with Rider, which seems to die after an extremely short fight scene with Saber, despite being almost as big as her in the poster. Her death early on was faked, and her actions on the climax save Shirou from death.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Subverted. Zouken pretends to be afraid of the Shadow and says he is not in control of it, seeming making it an separate threat than himself, but it works together with the creature to confront Shirou and Saber in the climax.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Zouken tries to pass off as a harmless old man that was just trying to help Shinji before it's revealed he is the master of True Assassin.
- Buxom Is Better: Invoked in-universe, with Taiga trying to make the idea of dating Sakura attractive to Shirou by bringing up her large bust size.
- Curb Stomp Battle: Saber's fight with Rider barely lasts a few seconds before the latter is killed. Or so it seems.
- Downer Ending: Saber is swallowed by the Shadow and is confronted by what seems to be an evil version of herself, and Shirou falls into despair as his Command Spells disappear.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Though it does not help him a little, Shirou dreams of Illya telling him to "summon" his servant, despite having no knowledge about the Holy Grail War and servants at that point.
- Fan Disservice: Rider's Boobs of Steel jiggle as she is tortured by Shinji, in a failed attempt to make her stand up after she is heavily wounded by Saber.
- Female Gaze: When Kotomine lifts Shirou's shirt to check if his wounds from the fight with Berserker are really healed, the camera focuses on Shirou's incredibly chiselled abdomen.
- Gorn: The dying body of Assassin is shown in full detail after True Assassin emerges from his chest, with his bones and entrails exposed to the air.
- Not Quite Dead: Rider doesn't die easily by Saber as it seems so at first.
- Sequel Hook: Of course, since the fact it was a trilogy was announced way before its release. Shirou loses Saber, and what happens to her is not clear. Rider also saves Shirou from Assassin for unclear reasons, and a good amount of Servants are still left standing, with the Holy Grail war nowhere near over.
- This Cannot Be!: This is, basically, Archer and Rin's reaction when they go into the Matou residence and find out exactly what kind of Training From Hell Sakura had to endure at the hands of Zouken. Rin is particularly horrified as she's forced to face how no, her long-separated younger sister was NOT okay during the years they spent apart.