Anime / Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel

Foreground, counterclockwise from top right: Illyasviel von Einzbern, Rider, Sakura Matou, Aŋra Mainiiu, Shirou Emiya, Rin Tohsoka, Saber Alter, and Dark Berserker; Background: Kirei Kotomine, Shinji Matou, and Zouken Matou

"If I become a monster, would you be able to forgive me?"

— Sakura Matou

Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel is a 2017 - 2020 trilogy of anime movies adapting the third and final route of the visual novel Fate/stay night, directed by Tomonori Sudou and produced by studio ufotable. First announced in 2014, Heaven's Feel was originally going to be released as a single film, but was split into a trilogy so as to include all - or at least most - of the vast amount of story contained in that story arc of the visual novel, which is by far the longest one in the game.

The story starts off more or less the same as the previous two routes: at the end of the Fourth Holy Grail War, Kiritsugu Emiya rescues and adopts a young boy named Shirou, but passes away a few years later, leaving young Shirou trying to leave up to his adopted father's ideal of becoming a "Hero of Justice" who can save all people, despite having learned only some basic magecraft to do so.

Ten years later, the Fifth Holy Grail War starts, and Shirou, now in his late teens, gets dragged into the conflict by accident, including inadvertently summoning his own servant: Saber, the same servant who served his own father in the previous war. He also forms an alliance with fellow classmate and secret mage Rin Tohsaka, who also participates in the war, and her mysterious servant, Archer. From there on, the story completely deviates from what was seen in the previous two routes.

This trilogy presents an alternate take on the Fifth Holy Grail War from that seen in Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]. This time, the story focuses on Shirou's budding romance with his junior schoolmate Sakura Matou, but in the process, he uncovers a dark secret about her and her family that threatens to destroy the world. In this situation, Shirou will have to choose between upholding his ideal of "Hero of Justice who can save everyone" and his desire to protect the girl he loves over everything else.

The story of Heaven's Feel is, by far, the darkest in all of Fate/stay night, both in tone, themes and imagery, being often akin to a horror story. Expect Anyone Can Die, even for characters who seemed to have Plot Armor in previous routes. And since, this being a movie, the creators didn't have to hold back on the graphic material like in previous adaptations, you can also expect those deaths to NOT be pretty and the movie to show every excruciating detail. This also applies to the sexual content (particularly in the second movie), which in previous adaptations was infamously tip-toed around, partly because in previous routes, the sex scenes were a bit tacked-on due to the visual novel having originally been an eroge. However, Shirou and Sakura's relationship has a strong sexual component that is much more central to both the plot and their character development, so it would have been much more difficult to adapt out. Although the films never get as graphic as the visual novel in this respect, they don't shy away from showing it either.

The first preview can be viewed here, the second preview here and third preview here.

The first film, titled Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel I. presage flower, was released on October 14, 2017. Aniplex USA has, naturally, picked up the movies and screened the first film in U.S. theatres, with the L.A. debut on November 3, 2017, with wider limited release beginning on November 18th. The English dubbed version was screened in theatres on June 5 and 7, 2018.

Madman Entertainment has picked up the movies for Australian & New Zealand release and premiered the first film at their MadFest Melbourne convention on November 4, 2017, with a wider release following after on November 16.

The second film, titled Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel II. lost butterfly released in Japanese theaters on January 12, 2019. A premier screening took place in Los Angeles on February 23, followed up with a wider release in North American theaters on March 14.

The final film, titled Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel III. spring song was initially scheduled for release on March 28th, 2020, but was then delayed to April 25th due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic before finally being released on August 15th. French screenings for the movie occurred on September 5th and the 18th-20th and in Australia & New Zealand, Madman's cinematic release was on November 19th. Screenings in the United States and Canada occurred from November 18th-24th.

This page assumes that you watched Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay Night and Unlimited Blade Works anime, so there'll be unmarked spoilers.

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The anime provides examples of:

• Adaptational Context Change: In spring song, Shirou and Kotomine retrieving Illya from her castle take place in the middle of the night to sunrise, as opposed to during the day in the visual novel.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Sakura gets a case of this in lost butterfly. The movie appears to have set aside the fact that each time Sakura has sex with Shirou, it is slowly killing him. In the visual novel as it was originally written, each instance of sex results in Shirou losing a significant amount of mana to Sakura, which is a serious problem because this causes Archer's transplanted arm to take over more of his body and mind, which a human cannot handle. He wakes up after each session feeling weakened and as if something was taken from him, but cannot remember because of the brain damage accumulating within him. Sakura is fully aware of how much she is hurting him but is too selfish to stop. The movie doesn't imply any of this and opts instead to portray it as a loving couple enjoying themselves, with no ill effects upon Shirou. Even as Dark Sakura, she still has a few shades of this: While in the visual novel, she has no qualms siccing Saber Alter at Illya and having her apparently ransack Shirou's home, here not only does she not do that, instead spawning Saber Alter when Rider attempts to attack her and even then not having her finish Rider off, but she even ends her fight with Rin in an instant specifically because it would have damaged the house when Rin tries to cast a spell at her with multiple jewels, compared to the VN where she sadistically toyed with Rin and kept ranting about how much she'd always resented her.
  • Also another instance in the same movie, Rin is much less snippy and antagonistic towards Sakura than she was in the visual novel.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • Dark Sakura is noticeably more sympathetic here, compared to the Psychopathic Manchild she was in the visual novel. She's more of a true Tragic Villain, displaying much more inner conflict with her actions. She hesitates briefly before attempting to kill Rin, appears somewhat ashamed by Shirou's arrival, and seems genuinely anguished about the suffering she'll have to put him through before trying to consume him. Upon meeting Kirei, Dark Sakura snaps much more quickly when Kirei provokes her and doesn't even compose herself, remaining clearly enraged and emotionally torn, her smile as she crushes Kirei's heart being more of a hollow smile rather than a sadistic one. She also noticeably shows more remorse about killing Zouken and the fact she'll have to kill Rin and actually appears agonized when Saber Alter asks her about Shirou, whereas she explicitly was stated to have asked Saber Alter to kill and bring Shirou to her, indicating here she didn't actually ask much less wish to have Saber Alter kill Shirou.
  • Saber Alter shows more of the original Saber's feelings, such as a degree of remaining attachment to Shirou and some genuine empathy towards Dark Sakura that she struggles with, giving genuine advice to Shirou about the kind of situation Sakura is in, being sensitive towards Rider's comments of Shirou liking her more, and even showing hints of a Death Seeker by smiling melancholically when Shirou threatens to kill her if he gets in the way.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • In the first movie, a lot of scenes were either changed or removed from the original VN to fit into the time slot. These scenes were either scenes that were already in other routes or stuff that wasn't essential to the plot.
  • In the second film, the part where Illya sings Die Lorelei along with other parts of the VN are cut and put in a montage. And all of these cut scenes are very essential to the plot, among others that also weren’t included in the film.
• Adaptation Expansion: The films add some scenes that were not present in the VN.
  • The beginning of the first film shows Shirou's First Year, how he met Sakura, and how his relationship with Sakura grew. All of these were either just flashbacks or briefly mentioned in the VN.
  • The fight between Lancer and True Assassin, is a lot more elaborate in the film then it was in the VN, where it was mostly a Curb-Stomp Battle. As opposed to meeting True Assassin at the Ryuudou Temple and quickly pressuring him near the lake, the movie goes out of its way to showcase what Lancer is capable of when he's out to kill his opponent. True Assassin is no slouch in this regard either, as both run, jump and attack each other in the city's highway and skyscrapers. One can tell that the most of the budget for this movie went into this battle.
  • The film shows us more about how the Shadow corrupts Saber by having her be confronted by Saber Alter. With the implications being that it's all taking place inside her mind, this explains more about how the corruption works for Servants, and how Saber's beliefs do get twisted. For that matter, Saber Alter comes across as more of a character with personality and agency, albeit very stoical and emotionless, unlike the game where she was mostly a killing machine who's humanizing moments could only be triggered under very specific circumstances.
  • While it's implied in the original novel, Berserker's final battle against Saber, after she becomes blackened, showcases the hero's last stand against her overwhelming might and all of his desperate attempts to kill her before he falls to her sword and then consumed by the Shadow.
  • The Shadow stabs Archer and then blows up like a balloon; the resultant explosion leading to Shirou losing his arm and Archer's death. The film goes further as it shows Archer actually resisting corruption from the Shadow's touch and using the last of his strength in a futile attempt to protect everyone from the boom: generating Rho Aias and holding back the explosion before it overwhelms him.
  • Gilgamesh gets one when facing off against Sakura. He is furious at her for almost making him kneel before her and stands his ground, whereas in the visual novel he felt fear and even considered fleeing.
  • When Shirou views the ancestral memories of the Einzbern thanks to Illya, we get to see the initial ritual that led to the creation of the Greater Grail, in full detail as Justeaze is sacrificed to become the core, while Zelretch supervises everything.
  • The final fight between Shirou and Kotomine in the novel was a Curb-Stomp Battle, Shirou being utterly unable to hit Kotomine except for the brief moment when he caught him off-guard but the film makes it a Curb Stomp Cushion as Shirou is actually able to deliver decent hits on Kotomine and even tackle him once.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Shinji pathetically begs Zouken for another chance after he loses his first battle as a Master. Zouken hears none of it and practically admits that he never expected anything from his grandson.
• Always Save the Girl: Shirou's main conflict in the trilogy in a nutshell. Shirou realizes his feelings for Sakura and becomes determined to protect her even as it becomes obvious that Sakura living will kill countless innocent people thus conflicting with his singular desire to become a hero. This is even shown as Shirou changes his goal of becoming a hero, to becoming only Sakura's hero no matter the cost.
• And Show It to You: True Assassin's Noble Phantasm.
• An Arm and a Leg: Several times in this trilogy.
  • Archer saves Saber by cutting off Caster's arm, which held Rule Breaker.
  • Berserker loses his limbs several times against Saber Alter before God Hand restores him back to normal. His final death has him broken and limbless before the Shadow devours him.
  • Sakura loses her left arm to Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon. She gets it back though, courtesy of the Shadow...
  • On the receiving end, Gilgamesh loses his left leg as he walks towards Sakura, underestimating the Shadow's threat.
  • Shirou loses his left arm to the Shadow.
  • Archer willingly gives up his left arm in order to attach it to Shirou and save his life.
  • Berserker gets one of his arms slashed off when Shirou mauls him with a copy of his own sword.
• Awful Truth: Shirou slowly over the course of Lost Butterfly sees that Sakura resembles the Shadow and desperately tries not to acknowledge the truth. When Zouken points out the same thing, Shirou actually screams at him to stop.
• Back from the Dead: The second movie showcases Berserker's God Hand several times as he keeps willing himself back to life again and again when battling Saber Alter. His luck runs out in the end.
• Badass Transplant: Shirou's left arm, which is wrapped in red cloth on the poster, belongs to Archer, his Heroic Spirit future self. It lets him use Unlimited Blade Works' full potential (with the exception of the Reality Marble itself), but is slowly killing him by turning his body into swords.^note As seen in his nightmare in Unlimited Blade Works.
• Big Bad: Zouken Matou upstages Kirei Kotomine and Gilgamesh as the main villain of this route. He himself is upstaged by Sakura once she succumbs to Aŋra Mainiiu's corruption and backstabs him, and Kirei, like in the VN, outlasts the rest of the antagonists to become the Final Boss.
• Big Brother Bully: Poor Sakura is subjected to Shinji's abuse several times throughout the first movie. This is not lost on Shirou, who looked ready to beat the ever living shit out of Shinji for this action. Gets even worse in the second movie, where Shinji is perfectly willing to kill Sakura to get what he wants. This reaches a fever pitch when he tries to rape Sakura, who is fighting back against his advances for the first time, and ends up dying as a result.
• Big Brother Instinct: Shirou goes to great lengths to keep Illya safe from harm during the second movie, despite her trying to kill him in the first. Even Archer makes sure that not one scratch befalls Illya, which makes sense since he is literally a future Shirou.
• Big Brother Worship: One thing the movie changes from the Visual Novel is it removed literally every single bonding scene between Shirou and Illya, so there should no reason for her to actually view Shirou as a brother. The third movie addresses this by Illya revealing that she knows exactly who Shirou is and his relationship with Kiritsugu. So combining this with the conversation Illya overheard in the second movie, justifies her acting more affectionate to Shirou in the second movie and properly sets up her taking up the mantle of Shirou's older sibling to protect him during the climax.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Zouken's entire fighting style and background revolves around this trope. At one point in the movie, from Sakura's point of view from the "training' room, the audience can see not only thousands of insects crawling everywhere, but insects the size of cars and buses moving around on the walls with chitinous spider legs and seemingly made piece by piece from red, pulsating cocoons.
• Black Knight: Saber Alter is clad in black and red armor, and wields a dark version of Excalibur. She is also far more powerful than in her standard form.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Like with the other adaptations made by Ufotable, a lot of the deaths are more gruesome than in the VN, but taken even further because they're not restricted to TV guidelines.
  • When Shirou comes to the rescue of Saber, we get to see Shirou's intestines flying out from his stomach after Berserker strikes him.
  • We also get to see True Assassin bursting out from inside Kojirou, and his smashed chest cavity afterward.
  • When Zouken summons Caster she appears as a corpse showing where her injuries were when in the VN she was just a black void.
  • While the movie skips over the gruesome and horrifying first-hand account of the random woman being eaten by Zouken's worm familiars, it does show for a brief moment a purse and a shoe covered in blood on the ground...
• Blown Across the Room:
  • In presage flower, a weakened and exhausted Saber casually curb-stomps Rider by hitting a home run using her as the ball and her sword as the bat. Shinji — who was in the middle of bragging about his imminent victory over Shirou — is left utterly speechless.
  • The second movie has Berserker enforce this trope several times against Saber Alter with his kicks.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: Rider makes it no secret that she despises being under the thrall of Shinji and seeks every opportunity to screw him over in favor of her true Master, Sakura. During the second movie, she encourages Shirou to "hold on" as she's "beating" him and positions him in a way for Sakura to be saved from Shinji's grasp. Once back under Sakura, she hints that if Shinji does anything to hurt Sakura again, she will kill him. Rin had to spell that out loud for him to get it.
• Body Horror: Several examples:
  • Assassin (Sasaki Kojiro) dies when True Assassin bursts forth from his chest for his "summoning". The camera lingers a bit on his corpse before it's devoured by the Shadow.
  • Caster is killed by True Assassin and then has her corpse paraded and infested by Zouken's worms. In one shot, insects can be seen scuttling around in Caster's mouth. Throughout the fight with both Saber and Archer, Caster's body starts falling apart.
  • Zouken telling Illya why he's seeking the Holy Grail. He wants immortality for himself and a way to escape the pain of his current existence; a walking mass of insects holding itself together through willpower and hunger. As he explains this, his body dissolves into rotting flesh and slimy bugs, looking like something out of a horror movie, before reforming himself. Illya only expresses pity and disgust for the mage.
  • Berserker's state after being killed several times by Saber Alter. He's cut in half, burned alive, has his head disintegrated, pieces of skin and muscle sheared off, etc. God Hand allows him to come back every time but the experience can't have been pleasant for the hero.
  • What happens to Shirou in the third movie after using Archer's arm. He turns into a literal sword pincushion as he is corrupted by Archer's world remaking his body with swords.
• Bowdlerise: Very notably averted; this is the first adaptation of Fate/stay night in any medium to not cut out almost all the sexual elements; even the manga adaptations had previously dropped them. Justified in that, while the sex scenes in the "Fate" and "Unlimited Blade Works" routes of the game were crow-barred into the original game because it was an eroge, making them easy to replace without really affecting the story, the sexual elements are more integral to the plot of the much Darker and Edgier "Heaven's Feel" route, as Sakura's loss of control is tied to a magically-induced over-stimulation of her lust which Shirou can relieve by making love to her. ^note  Although they do go with the "blood drinking" alternate option from the all-ages Realta Nua version first. It would also be very hard to cut out Shinji's scene of attempting another rape on Sakura, given that he's been doing this to her for years in her backstory and trying to do it again after she became Shirou's lover is the last straw that causes Sakura to kill him.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Shinji is utterly pathetic throughout the route. From being told he's a failure of magus by his Grandfather, to losing his status of Master over Rider to Sakura, twice, to being rejected by everyone around him, and finally to being killed by Sakura after she refuses to be his "toy" anymore.
  • Despite being a dangerous Servant, True Assassin cannot catch a break when fighting on his own. Lancer manhandles him several times and would have killed him if not for the assistance of the Shadow. Saber slices his arm to prevent his use of Noble Phantasm: Zabaniya, despite being restrained by the Shadow. Rider beats the living crap out of him when she returns as Sakura's Servant. During the second movie, Archer easily repels the ghoul, with the killer getting his eyes slashed across for his trouble at the end of their battle, choosing to retreat. Archer even calls him a failure of an Assassin, stating that he needs to mount a sneak attack on Shirou of all people just to kill him and calls him "third-rate". Similar to Lancer's battle, the Shadow bails True Assassin out of danger, though the Shadow is the one that finishes off an opposing Servant this time.
• The Cameo:
  • In the 'Einzbern' memories sequence, Nagato Tohsaka, Rin's ancestor, is actually shown together with Justeaze von Einzbern and Zouken Matou—whereas he was only shown from behind and hooded in other materials. His mentor, Zelretch, is also part of the sequence..
  • In the climax of spring song as Illya enters the Greater Grail to shut it down, she sees someone in the distance and begins running - into the waiting arms of her mother, Irisviel.
  • At the end of spring song during the scene where Rin and Sakura are trying to revive Shirou; when they travel to a back-alley magic shop to acquire an artificial puppet body for him that has just been delivered, they pass by a certain red-headed mage known for creating puppet bodies so flawless they're indistinguishable from real humans.
• Car Fu: True Assassin tries throwing a car at Lancer. He simply destroys it with Gae Bolg.
• Chain Pain: Rider's primary fighting style.
• Conflict Killer: As far as Archer is concerned, the Shadow is this. Following their first encounter with an unknown, highly dangerous entity, he quickly decides that his own personal matters will have to wait until the Shadow can be dealt with.
• Continuity Nod: This film's remix of EMIYA is prefaced by a reprise of the main chorus from the first ending of the anime adaptation of the ''Unlimited Blade Works route, which focused heavily on Archer. The track What he has believed which plays after Shirou decisively sides with Sakura also has a call-back to this leitmotif which plays over his confrontation with Archer in the park.
• The Corruption:
  • Saber's corruption into Saber Alter by Aŋra Mainiiu's cursed black mud is treated as a Late-Arrival Spoiler by the poster. Towards the end of the first movie, Saber is grabbed by the Shadow's tentacles during her battle with True Assassin. She initially attempts to use her Magic Resistance to avoid being blackened, but allows the Shadow to consume her rather than have her heart ripped out by True Assassin. She wakes up sinking as though underwater, sees the "Holy Grail" above her head, and tries to swim towards it in her excitement to finally obtain her prize; but a cold voice tells her that she can't have it. As she turns around to tell the voice off, she's in shock as she looks upon Saber Alter, her corrupted version.
  • Following his battle with Saber Alter, Berserker is consumed by the Shadow and partially blackened into Dark Berserker. His corrupted state is briefly shown in the third movie teaser.
  • By the end of the second movie Sakura succumbs to the Shadow/Aŋra Mainiiu and begins her transformation into Dark Sakura.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Rider's first battle with Saber goes so poorly for her that the latter doesn't even need to exert much effort and takes her down with one strike of her sword. This was a given, considering she was the Servant of Shinji at the time.
  • The battle between Saber and Berserker is this. Unlike the UBW anime in which Saber and Archer manage to put up a good battle against Berserker and even end one of his lives, Berserker effortlessly beats the ever living stamina out of Saber when Archer isn't around to provide support.
  • Rider saving Shirou from True Assassin and then painfully giving the ghoul the beatdown to end all beatdowns. She is shown to be a lot more powerful and efficient, not surprising considering Sakura is her true Master.
  • Archer easily cutting down Rider to stop her unwilling rampage under Shinji's orders. This becomes reversed when Rider is under Sakura's control again, as she easily overpowers Archer with her Monstrous Strength, and then nearly kills Archer, Rin and Shirou with her Mystic Eyes of Petrification alone.
  • The situation becomes reversed in the second movie, as despite Berserker's best efforts, he falls against Saber Alter. He manages to get a few good blows in, but these fail to so much as scratch her; while she continuously spams Vortigern to shave off his extra lives before dealing the finishing blow with a full-power Excalibur Morgan.
  • Archer almost killing True Assassin, twice. Both times, the ghoul is saved by the Shadow.
• Cute and Psycho: Illya shows off her crazy side during the fight between Saber and Berserker, gleefully dancing while telling her Servant to decapitate and rape Saber.
• Cutting Back to Reality: The second movie adds a hallucination/dream sequence of Sakura walking through a city-like setting, dressed like a princess and encountering living stuffed animals. She's amazed and actually shown being happy by interacting with the animals, who explode into candies when touched by her. She picks up the candy and goes to eat it...before we cut to real life and find that the "candy" is actually human limbs, the stuffed animals being humans trying to run from her...
• Death Seeker:
  • In the 2nd movie, Sakura reveals to Shirou, after the revelation that she is Rider's true Master and a mage, that she at one point tried to commit suicide but couldn't go through with it. Sakura has enough self loathing that she is torn between wanting to die and wanting to live and be with Shirou.
  • In the 3rd movie, Sakura first pretends she is this in front of Rin, before she points out the flaws in her reasoning, given she refuses to let go of Aŋra Mainiiu. Then, when she retrieves her sanity, she has a My God, What Have I Done? moment and sincerely tries to persuade Shirou to run away while she finds a way to die taking Aŋra Mainiiu with her.
• Declaration of Protection: In Lost Butterfly Shirou vows to Sakura that he will protect her from all threat, both internal and external, and serve as a Hero of Justice for her. Unfortunately this becomes harder to do once he realizes that Sakura is The Shadow and therefore the ultimate enemy for a Hero of Justice.
• Defiant to the End:
  • Lancer refuses to give his enemies the satisfaction of seeing him show weakness. Even after losing his heart to True Assassin's Zabaniya, he remains standing until he's dragged underwater by the Shadow, and keeps his stoic, resigned expression throughout.
  • Both Berserker and Archer go down swinging against their enemies.
• Depending on the Artist: Sakura Matou's Command Spells appear on the back of their right hand in the second movie, despite the visual novel explicitly pointing out that it was the left one, which is something of a rarity among Masters.
• Determinator:
  • The second movie shows us the determination of the greatest Greek Hero against a corrupted Servant. With the help of God Hand, Berserker does all he can to take Saber Alter down. He strikes at her with his sword, kicks her across the air, throws sections of Ilya's castle at her, slams her against the ground, etc. Each and every attempt is shrugged off by Saber Alter and for his trouble, Berserker is obliterated by her attacks. And yet, the hero continues to stand... Unfortunately, he fails.
  • In the third movie, Shirou shows this in spades. He goes through untold pain, trauma, loss and the threat of his mind being crushed by Archer's body, but he never stops or falters until Sakura is saved.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In her dream about a fairy tale castle, Sakura is surrounded by four pink stuffed animals with rather malicious grins, she then causes them to explode into candy. We cut back to reality to see that this was taking place in a dark alley and Sakura is in a nightgown. This is actually a creatively censored adaptation of a scene from the original PC version of Fate/stay night where four guys mistook her for an intoxicated girl walking alone at night and tried to gang rape her and the Shadow messily killed them when they surrounded her.
• Do Not Go Gentle:
  • Lancer goes out trying to kill the Shadow and True Assassin with one last Gae Bolg, releasing an explosion of crimson energy in the process that erupts through the lake. Sadly, it doesn't work.
  • Berserker uses the last of his energy to put all his strength into punching Saber Alter in the chest, mirroring what he did in the first movie. Unfortunately for Berserker, Saber Alter barely feels the blow and finishes off Berserker with an Excalibur blast.
  • Archer puts up a Rho Aias to protect his loved ones from the Shadow's explosion. While it keeps everyone alive, Archer's life energy is spent and Shirou loses his arm.
• Downer Ending:
  • The ending to the first movie. Shirou loses Saber to the Shadow, and is out of the war as a result. Saber is corrupted by the Shadow. Lancer, Assassin, and Caster are killed by True Assassin and then their bodies are eaten by the Shadow. Zouken and True Assassin are still alive and are determined to cause as much grief for our heroes as possible. People are collapsing mysteriously in Fuyuki City en masse. The only "good" thing is that Rider turns on Zouken and True Assassin to protect Shirou. Given everything to come, it gets much worse.
  • And it does. Oh, it does. The ending of the second movie. Saber comes back as an evil Servant of the Shadow, even more dangerous than before now that she has abandoned restraint with her destructiveness. Rin and Illya both lose their prized Servants at the hands of the Shadow and its cohorts; Berserker to Saber Alter and Archer to the Shadow itself. Zouken and True Assassin are still causing trouble for our heroes. A Servant as powerful as Gilgamesh is taken out quickly and easily by the Shadow. People are now being eaten by the droves thanks to the Shadow itself, which turns out to be Sakura. Finally, Sakura ends up giving in to her inner evil, no thanks to that bastard Shinji, and she's about to unleash years of pent up rage and despair on the world that's shunned her...
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: When Shirou first meets Sakura, this was her default expression. Over the course of the year in which both get to know one another better, Sakura gets a bit of life back in her eyes.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: It's a modern film trilogy based on the original visual novel. Those who got into Fate-verse via the mobile game might be surprised at some of the characterizations of some Servants if they were not aware of the origins. This can be attributed to the fact that these Servants are under the control of unambiguously evil Masters in this continuity, whereas Grand Order's protagonist keeps their more amoral sides in check.
  • Saber Alter is a pure cold, terrifying swordswoman that can decimate anything without any second thoughts, not a mostly cold, serious swordswoman with addiction to junk foods, especially hamburgers.
  • True Assassin (Hassan-i-Sabbah of the Cursed Arm) is a cold murderer that will commit every dirty tricks available to assassinate his target, different from his amiable and honorable self seen in the Camelot Singularity. Additionally, him being defeated by Rider would've resulted the other way around in the mobile game, likewise with how he disposed Caster.^note And exclusively for him, his method of summoning was different that he was summoned without a brain and had to devour others to use as his new brain, one of them being Medea, who is definitely not above dirty tricks. Add that and his master being Zouken means that there is no way he could retain his saner original brain and personality as seen in Camelot Singularity.
• Eaten Alive: Gilgamesh's final fate in the second movie, as not even the strongest hero in existence could stand up to the Shadow, though to be fair, he was underestimating his opponent, like he always does in every battle he's in.
• Eldritch Abomination: Aŋra Mainiiu, the corrupted Avenger-class Servant summoned by the Einzberns in the Third Grail War, was transformed into the embodiment of All the World's Evil by the Fuyuki Grail and seeks to be reborn as a God of Evil. As a result of Zouken's machinations, it has imperfectly manifested as an entity dubbed the Shadow; devoured countless humans, Caster, Lancer, and Assassin; and blackened Saber into Saber Alter.
• Enemy Mine: Kirei Kotomine allies with Shirou and Rin in order to stop Zouken and Dark Sakura. Not for any altruistic reasons, but because he wants to be the one who unleashes Aŋra Mainiiu, as he personally identifies with its inability to be anything but evil, and sees its existence as a referendum on whether he should exist.
• Enhanced on DVD: Zig-zagged. The DVD releases fix some of the animation goofs of the theatrical version, but at the same time downgrade the visual effects such as falling snow and mana blasts.
• Erotic Dream: Shirou has a dream where Rin actually Rider in disguise jumps onto him and suggests erotically that she's willing to go all the way with Shirou, even allowing the lucky guy to fondle her breast. Mid-cut, Rin suddenly becomes Sakura, which then finally ends with Shirou waking up, his hand outstretched, grabbing air...
• Every Car Is a Pinto: Cars explode when Lancer stabs or slashes them with Gae Bolg.
• Eye Scream: Archer slashes True Assassin across the eyes, forcing him to retreat.
• Fighting from the Inside: After Caster is killed by True Assassin, Zouken reanimates her corpse using his worms and summons her to kill Rin, Shirou, and Saber using a miniature sun. When the Shadow shows up, Caster resists Zouken's control and lobs the fireball at it... doing absolutely nothing.
• Flower Motifs: One of the promotional posters depicts a colorful greenhouse with blackness seeping into it. In accordance with the trope, it is foreshadow-licious.
• Gainax Ending: Compared to some of the Adaptation Expansion examples, the ending is actually rather compressed compared to the Visual Novel, leaving quite some things vague and left unexplained. Chiefly the status of Shirou. While he is brought back, the scenes leading up to it are left with few narration and rushed, so it left viewers who never read the visual novel confused by whether it was the "real" Shirou or not.
• Go Out with a Smile: Although it's a bit after his actual death, the last time we see Archer he has a genuine smile on his face, giving his power over to a Shirou who has abandoned Kiritsugu's self-destructive ideal in order to protect the person he loves at any cost.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Rider goes from targeting Shirou's life to protecting and even trying to seduce him.
  • Illya goes from telling Berserker to rape and kill Saber to helping Shirou and Rin after Berserker is killed by Saber Alter and absorbed by the Shadow.
• Heroic BSoD: Shirou goes through a long one after finding out that Sakura is the host of The Shadow and that to fulfill his ideals he would have to kill the girl he loves. Shirou comes close to killing Sakura, even holding a knife over her heart, but remembering the memories and love he has for her causes Shirou to break down into tears and he can't do it. In the end Shirou decided to betray his ideals to keep Sakura safe.
• Hope Spot:
  • Saber gets one, and the audience for that matter, when she pours all of her magic into resisting the Shadow's corrupting influence when it grabs a hold of her. For a while it looked like she was about to escape when the corrupting veins and tentacles on her body starts to recede. Then True Assassin attacks Saber and it all goes to hell...
  • The audience is rooting for Berserker to win against Saber Alter, despite being at a major disadvantage, and even manages to land a few blows against her. Then Saber Alter shows why she's so much more dangerous than her regular form...
  • Archer actually manages to halt the Shadow's corruption and resist its influence with Rho Aias. Then he's overwhelmed, leading to his death.
  • Gilgamesh gets really furious at Sakura and looks like he's about to unleash all his power on her, except it's to no avail as the Shadow promptly devours him like a chicken tender.
• Hotter and Sexier: The franchise wasn't exactly shy about sexuality, but without the content restrictions placed on television programs, the content here is certainly more explicit though not to the extent of the original visual novel.
• Human Hammer-Throw: Rider pulls this on True Assassin after snaring him with her chain. She swings him into pillars and furniture before throwing him out of Ryuudou Temple.
• I Lied: Caster tries to save Souichirou's life by offering to release True Assassin from her thrall by stabbing herself with Rule Breaker. She implores the ghoul to leave her Master alone since True Assassin insinuated that he would stop if she did so. For her trouble, Caster is quickly killed by True Assassin, who then follow up this callousness by murdering the helpless Souichirou without a backward glance.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Several times:
  • Lancer is impaled with True Assassin's bare hands and has his heart ripped out.
  • Sakura's powers are forced out of control by Shinji, with it exploding outwards in the form of magical "sea urchins", impaling anything nearby. It ends up stabbing Shirou as he moves to protect Rin and then it ends up impaling poor Sakura herself as she witnesses this and screams in anguish.
  • Archer is run through several times by the Shadow.
• It's All About Me: Shinji's mindset in a nutshell. He starts losing traces of his sanity when he's told point blank by nearly everyone in the cast that he's not important as he thinks he is, whether as a proper Master, a worthwhile Magus, and even a decent human being. He even believes that Sakura is his "property" and that a "toy" such as her doesn't deserve to fight back against him. Shinji finally loses it completely when Sakura fights back and tells him that she belongs to Shirou, not him.
• Karmic Death: Shinji ends up paying for all his years of abuse to Sakura when the Shadow grants Sakura's wish to make Shinji "disappear" after pushing her too far.
• Kick the Dog: Shinji and Zouken love doing this to our heroes:
  • Shinji trying to force Rider to get up after she is too wounded by Saber.
  • Shinji hitting Sakura whenever he's upset.
  • Zouken violating Caster's corpse with his insects to fight for him. Even Saber is disgusted by this action.
  • Zouken taunting Shirou during their fight at the temple with the knowledge that Saber was killed in action.
  • Shinji threatening poor Sakura with a knife and having Rider beat up Shirou, intending to hurt Sakura if he does anything to resist. As soon as Sakura is rescued, Shinji causes her powers to rampage out of control out of sheer pettiness.
  • At the end of the second movie Shinji beating Sakura, demanding that she let Shinji rape her and threatening to tell Shirou all about how he's raped Sakura in the past. Thankfully, the prick loses his life after pushing her too far.
• Large Ham: Illya demonstrates this as Berserker attacks Saber, getting overly excited and telling Berserker to not only behead Saber, but violate her as well.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Saber Alter, Dark Berserker, Aŋra Mainiiu, and Sakura being connected to Rider are four major spoilers from the visual novel that the poster blatantly reveals.
• Laughing Mad: Shinji completely loses it when everyone abandons him during the second movie, due to him no longer being a Master, Rin, Shirou and even Sakura regarding him as a pathetic "Master", and overall being a sad, sad, sad excuse for a human being. He ends up blaming all of his woes on Shirou. One scene in the movie shows him going on a temper tantrum, screaming Shirou's name and throwing and destroying objects in his room before laughing insanely. He invokes this trope again as he tries to rape poor Sakura and threatens to tell Shirou about it. He ends up dying for it, the frozen grimace of his mad laughter etched on his face...
• Let's Get Dangerous!: After spending the previous two routes being the first Servant to be killed, including having her neck broken offscreen anticlimactically in the previous route, Rider finally gets to show off how dangerous she is once she is empowered by her true Master Sakura in this trilogy. In presage flower she arrives in a Big Damn Heroes moment and saves Shirou's life from True Assassin and proceeds to throw him around like a rag doll. In lost butterfly she goes up against Shirou, Rin and Archer and almost kills them all when she activates her Gorgon's Eyes and would have done so if not for Sakura's intervention.
• Luminescent Blush:
  • Shirou has this happen to him several times in the movie whenever he's staring at an attractive girl and notices their bodies. He even blushed as a child whenever Taiga was teaching him how to properly hold a bokutou (by hugging him from behind)!
  • Several girls in this movie (Sakura, Rin and Mitsuzuri) aren't immune to this either, as the object of their affection, Shirou, causes them to get hot and bothered at times.
  • Both Shirou and Sakura are like this with one another during their love scene. The next morning, looking at each other invokes blushing from both parties.
• Magic Skirt: Despite wearing a tiny minidress with a loose-flapping skirt and moving around at speeds literally too fast to see, we never get even a glimpse of what Rider wears under it. Particularly egregious in her final battle against Saber Alter where she spends a lot of it flying around at incredible speeds feet-first, yet her skirt never moves above her thighs. Given the setting, it's probably safe to assume A Wizard Did It.
  • Happens also with Rin when she faces corrupted Sakura, keeping her Absolute Territory intact.
• Major Injury Underreaction: In the second movie, this is Gilgamesh's reaction to his left leg being torn off and eaten by the Shadow. He soon gets pissed, not because he lost his leg, but because the action of losing it caused his momentum to stumble his body a bit forward, nearly making him kneel in front of Sakura, which he finds a greater offense.
• Make Way for the New Villains: After spending the previous two routes as the background chessmasters, manipulating all sides before taking over as the main threat the heroes face, Kirei and Gilgamesh are pushed aside in this movie in order to make way for Zouken and True Assassin as the new Evil Duo with the Shadow as the new Hero Killer. In fact Gilgamesh, who was the Big Bad in the previous route is eaten by the Shadow without any of the heroes (except for Shirou) finding out he existed just to demonstrate just how dangerous the Shadow really is.
• Metronomic Man Mashing: Berserker invokes this against Saber Alter during their match. It barely slows Saber Alter down...
• Mood Whiplash: The hilarious "mapo tofu" scene from the game is preserved in all its wacky glory, with Kotomine delivering shocking plot revelations while eating Chinese food so hot it causes steam to escape when he opens his collar. Because of the movie's condensed pace, it's even weirder than it was in the game.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Several times:
  • Sakura feels like this due to thinking that she doesn't deserve to be saved and that her powers are inadvertently causing Shirou grief. This is seen most clearly when, in a bout of madness, she briefly thinks that if Shirou was injured just enough to drop out of the war, he would be "okay" afterwards. Cue his arm's obliteration from the Shadow bursting. The guilt from her then on is palpable.
  • Illya is implied to feel this after learning the truth that Kiritsugu always loved her and never wanted to abandon her, causing her to feel guilt that she ended up hating her father for nothing and tried to take out her anger on his son, Shirou.
  • Shirou feels this HARD after realizing that he was about to stab and kill Sakura in her sleep, in a desperate attempt to put an end to her involuntary rampages as the Shadow. This causes him to cry and reaffirm his conviction to abandon his ideals.
• Mythology Gag: While propositioning Shirou, Sakura nuzzles against his back, much like her sister does after accepting his confession in the Unlimited Blade Works anime.
• Near-Villain Victory: This is clearer in the novels, but Kotomine has the upper hand in his final fight against a tired Shirou, whose body is now skewered with swords except for his head, but his heart's destruction 24 hours back stopped him before he can land a deadly hit on Shirou's head.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • Saber has heavy focus in the 2nd trailer, not revealing the fact that in this route she doesn't survive a quarter of the scenario and then gets transformed into Saber Alter.
  • The after credits trailer for Lost Butterfly teases some heavy focus on Gilgamesh even though his actual role in the story is minimal and he gets taken out very quickly.
• Nightmare Sequence: When Shirou eventually realizes the risks Sakura poses as her role as the Shadow is revealed, he begins dreaming about how he will have to be the one to kill her. This is further compounded by his dream voice mocking him for hesitating, with even Kiritsugu and Archer dismissively walking past him. Finally, he sees a future version of himself executing Sakura. Noticeably, his hair color is white (much like Archer), but his gold-tinted eyes have remained, in darker hue^note The only other version of Shirou to look like this, unsettlingly enough, is the darkened EMIYA Alter of Fate/Grand Order.
• No-Sell:
  • Lancer has "Protection From Arrows", which makes projectiles useless against him as he'll either instinctively dodge or deflect them if he doesn't just flat-out let them hit him to no effect. True Assassin ambushes him and throws dozens of daggers at him from every direction. They just bounce off.
  • The Shadow and its "fights" with other Servants. Lancer and Caster learn the hard way that magic is essentially useless against it. Caster charges up a miniature sun that threatens power outage in the city. It gives Archer and even the magic-resistant Saber pause. She fires it at the Shadow... which proceeds to more or less eat the attack using its Power of the Void.
  • When Saber tries to use Invisible Air to hit True Assassin with razor wind, he harmlessly flies through it and remarks that he has "Protection from Wind" due to living in the desert.
  • No matter what Berserker does against Saber Alter, she doesn't register any of the hero's mightiest efforts and attacks. His last attack, a giant uppercut, is blocked by Saber Alter, who returns her own uppercut with gusto and then finishes off the stunned hero with her Excalibur.
• Not So Stoic:
  • Issei's reaction when he learns that Souichirou was killed. The camera doesn't show his face, but he starts to shake with grief.
  • Saber Alter reacts with uncharacteristic anger when Rider teases her in the third movie, implying she and Shirou share a bond of trust she never reached, since Shirou reins in his Leeroy Jenkins tendencies to stick to the plan.
• Oh, Crap!: Quite a few throughout the trilogy:
  • The "battle" between Saber and Rider ending with Saber effortlessly taking down Rider with a bored expression on her face, even showing severe disappointment a few seconds later. Shinji's reaction after boasting he's a great master is a sight to behold.
  • Caster is horrified when she sees her Assassin (Sasaki Kojiro) is gone and his sword is dissolving, meaning he's dead.
  • Lancer's reaction when he's fighting off both True Assassin and the Shadow. He ends up getting killed despite his best efforts.
  • Saber's reaction when she underestimates True Assassin's ability to resist her wind magic. She then reacts with horror when the Shadow gets a hold of her and ends up eating her. She has a final one when she comes face to face with her corrupted version at the center of her mind.
  • True Assassin gets hit hard with this when he runs into a powered-up Rider, who demonstrates that she is not to be messed with when she's serious.
  • Rin and Archer react with horror when they find Zouken's "training" room and what this meant for Sakura...
  • Shirou's reaction when he sees Saber's state after her corruption.
  • Rin reacts with disbelief and horror when she sees what the Shadow does to Archer.
  • Gilgamesh of all people has one of these when he fights the Shadow.
  • True Assassin has one upon realizing he did not get Kirei's heart, and that because of that Kirei is now free to counterattack and make a beeline for his very vulnerable Master.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: In Lost Butterfly the area around Sakura's shadow distorts and becomes pixelized numerous times throughout the movie signifying the Shadow's growing presence as its bond with Sakura becomes stronger.
• One Curse Limit: Kirei is immune to True Assassin's Noble Phantasm, his heart being literally made of living curses.
• Opening Monologue: Spring Song has Kotomine giving a short monologue about the corrupted grail and his role in the story while shadows artfully recap events from the past movies before Shirou bursts in with Rider holding an injured Rin in his arms.
• Pensieve Flashback: Ilya shares the memories of the creation of the Greater Grail to Shirou this way in order for him to project the Jeweled Blade of Zelretch needed to fight Sakura.
• Pet the Dog: Several times.
  • Shirou and Taiga giving Sakura a reason to keep on living and restoring some life in her eyes due to their kindness and company.
  • Rin saving Shirou from death after he's attacked by Lancer.
  • Saber interacting kindly with Sakura and wishing to learn how to cook. Taiga encourages this from the background.
  • Saber carrying Shirou home after their encounter with the Shadow.
  • Shirou saving Sakura from Shinji and not blaming her at all for her out of control powers harming him.
  • Shirou and Sakura encouraging Rider to relax and enjoy breakfast. Considering her backstory and status during other routes, this is a breath of fresh air.
  • Shirou comforting Sakura during their love scene, stating how much he loves her and reassuring her that she is in no way "filthy".
  • Archer saving Shirou and Illya from one of Saber Alter's blasts. Becomes briefly humorous when Archer just tosses Shirou to the ground roughly but then becomes heartwarming again when he gently puts Illya on her feet, hinting at his true identity. Later becomes tragic when during Archer's final moments, he acts like Emiya Shirou again and strokes Rin's head gently, wishing her luck in the trials to come.
  • Taiga comforting Sakura while she lays in bed sick, telling her that she is loved and that Shirou will always be her personal "Hero of Justice".
  • In the third movie, as Shirou is about to use Archer's arm, the latter appears as an image in Shirou's mind, spurs him to fight on, and sends him off with the gentlest stare he has ever given his younger self.
• The Power of Blood:
  • Type AB. When Archer cuts Caster's arm off, she flails it around a bit and turns the blood thrown into the air into a bunch of powerful explosions.
  • The second movie animates the scene where Shirou offers his blood to Sakura for energy.
• Precision F-Strike: In the dub, when Shinji threatens to tell Shirou that he's been raping Sakura.
  Shinji: I have to tell Emiya about this. About how you begged, pleaded for me to have my way with you over and over. I'll tell him about everything! About every single time we fucked!
• Psycho Supporter: Rider, unfortunately, falls under this trope towards her Master, Sakura. Despite Sakura's wishes not to fight and harm her loved ones, Rider will do everything in her power to keep her Master safe, even if the world burns. This is seen twice in the second movie, where Rider unleashes her Mystic Eyes in an effort to kill Shirou, Rin and Archer when they "threatened" to stop Sakura's out of control powers and when Rider seriously considered murdering Shirou if he went through with stabbing Sakura in her sleep to put an end to her involuntary rampages as the Shadow. However, Rider downplays this trope somewhat as she herself is not a bad person and she only goes through with such actions because she and Sakura are so similar; Rider sympathizes with her Master due to both having such tragic backstories and Rider grows to love Sakura as a person, treating her Master like a younger sibling in need of protection.
• Punched Across the Room: Shirou and Shinji charge at each other to land this type of punch. Shirou wins.
• Race Against the Clock: Ilya states that they only have half a day to stop Sakura before she completes her transformation and Avenger is born, dooming humanity if it did enter the world.
• Rage Breaking Point: At the end of the second movie, Shinji pushes Sakura past hers by trying to rape her and threatening to tell Shirou about how he's raped her in the past, causing her to lash out and kill him.
• Rape as Backstory: The second movie does not gloss over the fact that Sakura was raped by her adoptive brother Shinji several times growing up, or that Zouken's grotesque experiments — which started when she was a child — involved violating her with Crest Worms.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Shadow is a black jellyfish-like entity with red-trimmed ribbon-like tentacles. Saber Alter's armor and sword turn black with red markings, while Dark Berserker turns black with exposed red veins. As Aŋra Mainiiu's avatar, Dark Sakura retains the Shadow's red-trimmed black color scheme.
• Scenery Porn: The backgrounds of the film look so detailed and full of color. Most noticeably, the overview of Fuyuki looks beautiful that you can look at it for hours.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: The scene of Shiro and Sakura's lovemaking consists of the camera focusing away from the action while the two go at it, with Sakura's light moaning being the only indication as to what's actually going on. We do see the two of them nude during the afterglow (though we still don't see everything). The scene of Shinji's Attempted Rape on Sakura as well, as the camera obscures what he's doing (the most we see of Sakura is her legs).
• Shipper on Deck: Both Taiga and Issei (and even Rin) think Shirou and Sakura would make a good couple.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Taiga is noticeably missing during the rest of the story. Given the amount of violence and darkness our characters go through, this is a given. However, in a refreshing turn of events, the second movie adds in an original scene where she visits Shirou's house to cheer Sakura up during one of her sick spells. As Sakura is going through major self-depreciation, Taiga reassures her that she is loved by those around her (Shirou, Rin, herself, etc) and that it's okay to rely on others, especially Shirou, since he is emulating his father, Kiritsugu, as a "Hero of Justice"; this conversation also inadvertently causes Illya to finally forgive her father for "abandoning" her.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Unlike in the visual novel, Rin actually tries to attack Dark Sakura with a spell fuelled by dozens of jewels simultaneously, but this irritates Dark Sakura, who doesn't want to tear down Shirou's house, so she doesn't play around like she did in the visual novel and immediately traps her sister in a huge cage of her dark energy and crushes her with it before she can finish her spell.
• Slasher Smile: Zouken is a master of this trope, gleefully smiling like the lunatic he is whenever he confronts his enemies. He only loses the smile when something unexpected happens. Sakura at times demonstrates this throughout the second movie due to her inner darkness. She shows a chilling one at the end when she finally becomes one with the Shadow after Shinji's death.
• Small Role, Big Impact: An original scene in the second movie shows Taiga cheering Sakura up by comparing Shirou to Kiritsugu and how both men strive to keep their loved ones happy and safe as a "Hero of Justice". She even goes into more detail regarding Kiritsugu's "business trips" and how he, despite being in failing health, never missed an opportunity to travel in search of his precious person. That person was Illya, who was eavesdropping on their conversation, making her realize that her father never stopped loving her and was always trying to reunite with her. This causes her grudge against Kiritsugu to immediately disappear.
• Snow Means Death: Saber is turned into Saber Alter on a snowy night.
• Summon to Hand: When Lancer throws his spear Gae Bolg and misses, he simply calls to it and it flies back into his hand.
• Superpowered Evil Side:
  • After being consumed by the Shadow, Saber is blackened by Aŋra Mainiiu into Saber Alter, a callous, tyrannical version of herself who hates weakness, has a limitless supply of mana due to her connection to the Grail, doesn't hold back when fighting, is physically stronger and more durable, has a Healing Factor, and fully embraces her Dragon Ancestry.
  • After accepting her pact with Aŋra Mainiiu, Sakura Matou merges with the Shadow and becomes Dark Sakura, an Omnicidal Maniac with white hair who desires nothing less than the destruction of humanity and to bring Avenger into the world as a God of Evil.
• Taken for Granite: During the second movie, Rider, who becomes Sakura's proper Servant again, reveals that she is the infamous Medusa from Greek Mythology, and unleashes her Mystic Eyes on Shirou, Rin and Archer. Slowly, they start to turn to stone, starting with their hands and working its curse upwards...Thankfully, it ends up being stopped and the process is reversed.
• That Poor Plant: Whenever the Shadow or Saber Alter materializes near plant life, be it trees, flowers or even grass, the flora in question automatically withers and die due to the sheer energy and malice given off.
• Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack:
  • The soundtrack contains various pieces that are based on Aimer's "Hana no Uta" and "I beg you".
  • The piece that plays during Sakura's dream is based on Aimer's "pluie", though it also sounds similar to Fate/Zero's "All the World's Evil".
• This Cannot Be!: Rin and Archer discovering what sort of training Sakura went through when they investigate the Matou manor. Even Archer, as battle-hardened and stoic as he is, is freaked out by what he sees. Rin falls to her knees since she now knows what sort of "training" her little sister was forced to endure since childhood and her inability to save her.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: The scene in the second movie where Sakura thinks she is playing with cute animals in a fairy tale land, when in reality she is killing people en masse as the Shadow.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Shinji enforces this trope full force with Shirou at the beginning of this route. As the movies progress, Shinji loses Shirou's friendship and they become bitter enemies.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Sakura subjects Saber to this when she sees Shirou coming home covered in wounds. Saber can only look on, feeling guilty for not protecting Shirou and ashamed that she made someone as sweet as Sakura become disappointed in her.
  • Rin is oozing this when she finds out that Shinji threatened Sakura's life for something as petty as settling his grudge with Shirou. She lets Shinji know that he made a very dangerous enemy of her as a result.
  • After dealing the killing blow to Saber Alter, Shirou straightens his clothes and tells Rider to regroup with him once she can walk, with a seemingly composed manner. But the GLARE in his eyes as he proceeds to the Greater Grail's chamber gives us insight on his mental state.
• Unexplained Recovery: Unlike in the original game, the movie isn't very clear about why Shirou is still alive at the end. It offers some hints, such as Ilya asking Shirou if he wants to live on "no matter what form you take", Rin specifying that "Shirou's body has disappeared from this world" and shots of Rin and Sakura examining a human-sized mannequin in a magic store and Rin holding a cage containing some kind of glowing light, but if you haven't played the original it's hard to put all that together to work out that Ilya saved Shirou's soul for Rin and Sakura, who were able to house it in a new artificial body to let him live on.
• Use Your Head: Shinji headbutts Shirou away when Shirou angrily confronts him about abusing Sakura.
• When She Smiles: When he sees Sakura smile for the first time when they run into each other at school, Shirou can only stare in awe and become mildly flustered.
• Who Are You?: When Saber comes face-to-face with Saber Alter, she asks her corrupted self who she is. Saber Alter merely smirks and says that the answer should be obvious.
• You Don't Look Like You: In spring song, Shirou tracing Berserker's Nine Lives gives flashes of Heracles' Twelve Labours, one of them showing Cerberus that doesn't look like how the mass-produced Cerberus were depicted in Fate/Grand Order. According to Sinjiro, he designed Cerberus before it popped up in Fate/Grand Order, leading to a situation where neither of them look like one another.

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