Part of the Fate Franchise – Sequel to Fate/Stay Night [Unlimited Blade Works]

Genre(s): Action, Fantasy, Magic, Supernatural
Age-Appropriatness: 16+ (Violence, gore, profanity)
Platforms: None
Episodes: One 2 hr. movie
TheAwersome Rating: 8.3 / 10 (Quality Fate Content)
Premise: Shirou Emiya, a survivor of the devastation brought by the Fourth Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City 10 years ago, aspires to become a Hero of Justice and fulfill the dream of his adoptive father. He is thrown into the Fifth War upon accidentally seeing a battle between servants and summons his own servant, Saber. When a mysterious shadow begins a murderous spree in the city, he aligns himself with Rin Tohsaka, a fellow student and participant in the War, in order to stop the deaths of countless people. His feelings for his close friend Sakura Matou, however, lead him deeper into the dark secrets surrounding the war and the feuding families involved.
TheAwersome’s Thoughts: First off, do NOT watch this if you haven’t watched UBW and Fate/Zero, you will be so very very lost. Without going into too much spoilery detail, Presage Flower explores many of the questions that didn’t get addressed in UBW that I wish had. It explores a few more relationship issues and dangling plotlines that UBW didn’t explore, which is quite satisfying for my hungry mind. Due to it being a movie trilogy and not a full series, it really clips along a lot of the “repeat” events from the UBW route, so don’t wait too long to watch this after watching UBW, because what took like, 6 episodes in UBW is literally a two minute montage in this. Presage Flower has a much darker, heavier feel than UBW, much closer to that of Fate/Zero, with a bit more desperation. The animation quality is also of the highest caliber for Fate as of yet, what with it being a movie and all.
TLDR: Favorite in the Fate/Stay Night series, but you do need to watch Fate/Zero and UBW first.
The second movie has already been released in Japan and had it’s NA screening which I missed, so once it’s out on Bluray/DVD in November I’ll follow up on Heaven’s Feel II.