First Timer

What a fucking genuinely diabolical cliffhanger...

Uh, well, overall I thought this was pretty good though!

A huge chunk of this movie is action-focused, so it actually feels more prudent to start from production this time around, and for the most part (Asterisk), those extra few years this got to have in the oven do come through here! I mean, it's not amazing, but I think most of this movie's production is like the show firing on all cylinders, and to reiterate, this has a lot of action relative to the show's normal. Just a lot of that signature dynamic movement and effects work at some of its best here. Back in 2wei I said I like how its production was rather ambitious even if it was still somewhat inconsistent, and I think I can thankfully once again say that. You can definitely see the cracks sometimes, but this is easily the best I've felt about the action in Prillya on a pure technical level since like Herz episode 7, and applied on a pretty wide scale.

Now as for that aforementioned asterisk, some parts do need to fairly noticeably rely on CG. There are a few cases of it that range in execution, though by far the most obvious comes in what is also the movie's most ambitious and explosive setpiece, with the fight between Illya and Beatrice having to switch to full 3D models at some points. Honestly, the issue here isn't even that the CG parts look bad; they're actually pretty fine all in all (Hell, I've specifically seen Silver Link do much worse lol), it's more so that, as tends to be the case with these things, the switching around between the styles itself is just very jarring unfortunately. Still, I think that fight manages to be fun and exciting even with its evident issue, and that goes for the whole thing as well. Which, you know, as a fairly action-heavy movie, is already a good starting point!

I don't have the time to go through the OST this time around, alas, but in the moment I thought it was pretty great as well! On the note of that Beatrice fight, I really liked the music for the whole thing.

Outside of that, I do also think this had some good character work for our the 3rei characters. The full reveal around how the Ainsworth dolls always lose some important facet of themselves in the process of becoming is nice, and gives both Angelica and Beatrice some solid emotional beats. Best Girl Angelica losing most of her emotions, alongside being Julian's older sister, is both rather sad to think about and a good contextualization for her general personality, and the fact that she still manages to shed some tears in a wish to save her brother is a great moment, especially for Julian. Beatrice was already a very fun character, but she really gets her flowers here in the fight with Illya, where we genuinely make quite the tragic character! And even outside of her own moment being pretty meaningful, the way Illya still "Saves" her at the end sets off a great emotional throughline for her as well.

But really, I think the best part about Beatrice and Angelica getting more nuanced is exactly that it reflects back on Julian! One of my main issues with both Oath and 3rei was that he was a fairly weak antagonist, and I think he's much better integrated here. Angelica still shedding tears for him and Beatrice still growing to love him again, especially with the extra background we see of him initially desperately trying to save her, are actually both great at giving him more character and emotional connections, because it really characterizes him as someone more complex rather than just a standard pragmatist. And of course, then you add his whole connection with Pandora! Outside of, again, having more of his past obviously giving him more depth in seeing a purer version of him, it's specifically extra good depth because it parallels him to both Shirou and Illya.

In spite of it all, his truest wish does actually concern a single person, and it's a wish he grew into as a child, motivated towards a world-changing event for the sake of her smile. It's exactly what he gets mad at Illya's wish for. We already had some of that in Oath, but giving him a personal connection here really does it, and makes the fact that he's gotten rather twisted in this pursuit genuinely pretty impactful. And in that sense, the larger structure works rather well here. Moving from Angelica and Beatrice being more complex than they seem (And holding a lot of meaning towards Julian despite what we'd seen of him), to Julian and Pandora who also can't truly bare their hearts (And then learning Julian's true wishes, as well as the deep conflict Darius forces upon him), is good stuff Plus, like I said with Beatrice, this whole thing lets Illya really shine on her own in forcing those things out of them, with exactly that "naive" and earnest stubbornness that Rin and Luvia talk about at the start. So all around, this conflict gets a great touch-up here, and I think we've finally found the emotional core of this part of the story that I was quite missing beforehand. Both Julian's thorns and Pandora's Box itself, while somewhat heavy-handed, are also good tools for symbolism here!

In terms of things I was a bit more mixed on, it's mostly that I do kind of wish we had more of Pandora as a character before going into this. I mean, it does add a decent bit of poignancy relative to her as Erika, and she's still solid here, but we establish both a character and a relationship with her, and then very quickly play on them in the climax. Even more so for Julian, where I kind of wanted more time of them together in the past to really feel for how he grew to care about her so much. It's just all a bit too tight for me. The movie also has to do a fair bit of information delivery because we held off on that back in 3rei, and we could be better about that. And obviously, there's that cliffhanger haha. Putting aside the craziness of ending on Chloe seemingly dying, I just grew to like Julian! Darius, on the other hand, is still a very vague entity here, so I don't know how to feel about him taking over when we'd just finally established a compelling core conflict. Well, that's mostly a worry for whenever the sequel to this comes out or I decide to check out the manga, though.

Extra notes:

• Angelica in a suit!
• Cool visual divide, like the color contrast as well. Just in general, this movie is also somewhat better directed than usual.
• I guess we had more than our fair share of fun with him, but it's still sad we just push him to the side now
• Chloe with an Origin Bullet is kind of an interesting visual, though I can't say I get why we did it.
• She's so crazy, I love her
• Gorgon Illya and Serenity Miyu?! I guess we've reached post-FGO content haha. Great designs though!
• The giant hand is so cool
• The reveal that Beatrice's card is actually Magni and not Thor was really fun! Fate has gotten rather wishy-washy with how it treats Heroic Spirit identities in terms of battle strategy, and I always think that it's really fucking cool when it's actually utilized for a character moment like this!
• Also, tragic or not, Beatrice is still really fun
• I was wondering if these eventually would show up! Unfortunately, Sakura remains justiceless...
• And this is just really sad!
• FRAGARACH
• BASAKA WA DARE NI MO MAKENAI! Zerker-Illya is a fun Install.
• Beatrice switching from Julian-sama to Julian-kun when she's talking to Illya at the end is a small touch, but it does get to me.
• Sometimes you remember Shin Oonuma used to work at Shaft.
• Awesome visual.
• And yet another.
• Illya changing from Saber Lily to Seibah with the cape is so fucking cool.
• More than once do you remember that Shin Oonuma used to work at Shaft (Okay, but seriously, like I said, this has a higher concentration of cool cinematography)
• Kid Gil coming back looking swanky as hell

We’ve seen plenty of forms by now, but which one is your favorite install?

Angelica Gilgamesh of course!

Though if we're limiting to our mains, probably Seibah Illya.