Fate/Stay Night [Heaven’s Feel] III. spring song is a 2020 theatrical anime film based on Type-Moon and Kinoko Nasu’s visual novel Fate/Stay Night and its third story route ‘Heaven’s Feel’. The anime was produced by studio Ufotable with director Tomonori Sudō, writer Akira Hiyama and published by Aniplex. It was released in Japanese theaters in August 2020.
This unboxing will contain text and visual spoilers for both Heaven’s Feel I. presage flower and Heaven’s Feel II. lost butterfly so reader discretion is advised.
Background:
“To save the girl, to enact the justice he’s chosen…The young man will no longer turn a blind eye to the truth. Mages (Masters) and Heroic Spirits (Servants) work together in the battles of the Holy Grail War, a fight for an omnipotent wish-granting container called the Holy Grail. However, this war has become horribly twisted. A young woman named Sakura Matou, with the sins she has committed, drowns in the murky darkness. A young man named Shirou Emiya, who vowed to protect Sakura, works together with Rin Tohsaka and throws himself into the raging battle to put a stop to the Holy Grail War. Illyasviel von Einzbern, as one of the few who knows the truth behind the conflict, confronts her own fate, while Zouken Matou uses Sakura to try to fulfill his own desires. Will the young man’s wish reach her even as he challenges fate itself, battling against the rising tide? The Holy Grail War is coming to an end… The final battle is about to begin.”
Plot Synopsis via Aniplex of America (for North American Blu-ray release), August 2021
Fate/Stay Night – if you have yet to know what this franchise is and why its very popular, chances are you just discovered anime for the first time but that’s not a bad thing at all. The Fate franchise is really intriguing because it takes historical figures from all over the world and puts them in a tournament with a “battle to the death” mentality which also comes with some very interesting twists and turns.
What many tend to ignore or not bring up is that Fate/Stay Night is actually an eroge visual novel i.e. a visual novel with 18+ hentai scenes sprinkled throughout. A lot of big anime adaptations, especially during the mid-00s were based on these sorts of games, and the best examples include Air, Kanon, Muv-Luv Alternative and Utawarerumono. In defence of the developers and the staff who made these games, the H-scenes were necessary to sell these works at the time. As these titles slowly grew in popularity, the developers were able to re-release them on other platforms without those scenes (or have them tweaked so that the story part of those moments are still in-tact). Fate/Stay Night was one of those that got the ‘safe for work’ treatment under the subtitle Realta Nua on PlayStation 2 as well as the PlayStation Vita. Despite its growing popularity overseas, the visual novel has yet to be officially translated into English.
I wanted to bring that part up because we have pretty much reached full circle when it comes to the anime side of the series. Fate/Stay Night has had many different anime projects and the ones that have had the most respect were from studio Ufotable with their adaptation for two of the three story routes. The first being Unlimited Blade Works with their 2014 anime series, and then Heaven’s Feel as a three-part film trilogy.
What I have here today is the third and final part of the Heaven’s Feel film trilogy, called ‘spring song‘. Heaven’s Feel is much darker than the previous two story routes and as such the usual television anime adaptation approach might not bring the route’s full potential due to potential censorship on the sex, violence or both throughout for Japanese broadcast. Either way, having them presented on the big screen does offer its own benefits like the animation and battle scenes receiving more time (hopefully) for the movie going experience.
Aniplex of America acquired the English-speaking rights for the Fate/Stay Night Ufotable adaptations including Heaven’s Feel, with English dubs produced also. The UK and Australian releases will be distributed by MVM and Madman respectively. The US release for ‘spring song‘ was released on August 2021 and is modelled similarly to this Japanese release, which Aniplex has done the same with the previous two films.
If you have reached this point and had yet to check out the previous two films, you really should since I will have to go into spoilers on the visual parts of the set that I have here.
Limited Edition Contents:
So the version I own for this film is the Japanese release, and as mentioned, the US just received theirs in English. Basically to summarise the situation, I chose to import the Japanese releases because it was cheaper to acquire and faster to receive (though I ordered this film later than initially planned was due to other factors). I have unboxing posts for presage flower and lost butterfly if you are curious about the Japanese releases for them.
There are slight differences between the Aniplex Japan and Aniplex of America releases. Like I have done with the second film, I ordered the regular Limited Edition release instead of any shop exclusive variation so there’s no Amazon exclusive items here either.
The limited edition is packaged as a clamshell box with a digipack that houses the three discs included in this set. One of the discs is actually a CD, which is the film’s original soundtrack composed by Yuki Kajiura. Like the previous two films, the box also includes two books; a 102-page Hardcover Illustration Artbook for the film, and a 58-page Animation Material Booklet that goes over interviews, production and Q&A from the Ufotable staff.
The bonus DVD disc contained the following extras (not subtitled in English, so knowledge & understanding of the Japanese language is highly recommended); Staff & Cast First Day Stage Greeting & Blockbuster Thank You Stage Greeting Video Recording, and Movie Version “Fate/stay night [Heaven’s Feel]” III. spring song Blu-ray & DVD Release Special Edition ~ Return to Spring ~ Recording.
The limited edition Blu-ray retailed for 9,500 Yen (Tax not included for Japanese owners) while the standard Blu-ray which is also available retailed for 5,800 Yen (Tax not included). I ordered it for 8,807 Yen (£58.49, which I recently discovered has the 20% UK VAT included in the price as Amazon tends to swap the VAT around for international customers) with the overall cost being 10,856 Yen (£72.10, with £13.61 going towards the shipping) as of September 2021. The GBP value has improved throughout 2021 surprisingly considering the events of the past few years.
Physical Contents:
- Rigid Clamshell Box with digipack packaging and clean artwork
- Card sheet for specification and logos
- Original Soundtrack CD from Yuki Kajiura
- Bonus DVD disc with additional featurettes
- 58-page Animation Material Booklet
- 102-page Hardcover Illustration Artbook
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Aniplex Japan
Released: 31st March 2021
The Japanese limited edition release for Fate/Stay Night [Heaven’s Feel] III. spring song contains the film on a single Blu-ray disc plus an additional DVD disc with added on-disc bonus features. The discs were authored and encoded in Japan. Audio options for the Blu-ray disc include Japanese with English & Japanese subtitles only for the main feature film. An English dub does exist but wasn’t prepared for this release at the time.
The white subtitles are unlockable during playback, and the Blu-ray disc are playable on Region A, B & C for Blu-ray players. Anime released on Blu-ray in Japan don’t have any form of region locking, despite the country using Region A for their live-action titles.
The DVD bonus features disc will require viewers to understand the Japanese language beforehand. In addition it is also region restricted to Region 2 for DVD players.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | Japanese |
| Audio | Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Native format 1.78:1 aspect ratio |
| Region | A B C |
| Subtitles | English, Japanese |
| Locked Subtitles | No |
| Discs | 1 BD-50 |
DVD Specs (Bonus Disc):
| Languages | Japanese |
| Audio | Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 |
| Video | Standard Definition in NTSC format 16:9 Aspect Ratio |
| Region | 2 |
| Subtitles | No |
| Locked Subtitles | No |
| Discs | 1 |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
- Japanese Trailers 1 & 2
- Japanese PV 1 & 2
- Japanese Commercials (CM) 1, 2 & 3
DVD On-Disc Extra Features:
- 初日舞台挨拶
(Stage Greeting) - 大ヒット御礼舞台挨拶映像収録
(Blockbuster Thank You Stage Greeting Video Recording) - Blu-ray&DVD発売記念特番「春に帰る」
(Blu-ray & DVD Release Special Edition ~ Return to Spring ~)
Unboxing Photos:
And a bonus note, here’s the three Japanese Blu-ray Disc Box limited edition releases together.
Final Notes:
Fate/Stay Night [Heaven’s Feel] III. spring song was licensed and released on home video by Aniplex Japan and Aniplex of America. The limited and standard edition Blu-ray Disc Box is available to import from retailers like Amazon Japan, but for a cheaper option there is the MVM Entertainment release coming early 2022 and Aniplex of America limited edition Blu-ray release on Rightstuf.
The Normanic Vault 
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