Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz! is the third season that is based on the manga series. It is a spin-off from the Fate franchise and the season is ten episodes long. The key gimmick to this anime is that Illya is a magical girl, although as the seasons went on, it pivoted to more of a slice-of-life anime with magical girl elements on the side from time to time. The season starts right after the previous one where the characters were planning for a day out at the beach to celebrate Illya, Miyu and Kuro’s birthdays. They are all coincidentally on the same time, which raises some suspicions. The first half of the season is completely slice-of-life, with only several cursory mentions to the mysterious eighth class card that had been discovered.
Unfortunately, despite Bazett being such a big threat in the last season, since she was able to singlehandedly defeat Luvia, Rin, Miyu, Kuro and Illya, it’s a shame that she becomes such a joke when she makes her first appearance here. It’s such a big mood whiplast moment and while funny, it just feels that there are no serious characters left in the anime when you see Bazett become the butt of a joke again and again. Due to Kuro’s nature and how she has to constantly refill her mana from Illya, this gives rise to a lot of Kuro on Illya scenes, as well as Kuro on Miyu scenes. The fan service continues to be quite frequent and pushing the boundaries quite a bit considering the elementary age of the characters. It’s also used for humorous reasons with characters accidentally seeing what happened and then misunderstanding due to the lack of context.
On the other hand, Shirou continues to add to his harem. It’s extremely over the top and clichéd when all these characters are fawning over him. He still acts like a typical clueless and overly nice protagonist, which makes it all the worse. Going along with this is the running gag of Luvia and Rin randomly turning up wherever Illya is. The humor can be highly exaggerated at times, with the characters flailing around. Although Illya’s constant overstated reactions and remarks are usually great for a laugh.
Continuing what was started in the previous season, Illya’s school friends get more and more screen time. They go to the beach, the theme park, and festivals. We encounter their families, we learn about their hobbies and what they like. You might be surprised at what you find out and at times, it does feel this aspect of the anime tears too far away from Illya, Kuro and Miyu’s world.
It takes half a season of day to day normal events before the characters start to deal with the eighth class card. Even then, it takes a whole episode of talking and reflection before the ball gets rolling. Illya’s mother reveals a bit more about the Holy Grail War in this universe whether it relates to the class cards that Illay had been collection. It’s nothing mindblowing but gives context on her background and what her husband Kiritsugu is doing.
The way the episodes were structured means that this can be another slow season since there is not enough happening to fill all that time. Yes, there are certain scenes which are great, but a lot in between drags. When the exciting stuff happens in the second half of the season, it doesn’t feel like it was worth the wait since there was hardly any build up. All told though, the true nature of the eighth class card was a surprise and a neat reference too in terms of whom it was. It’s notable that Fate/kaleid takes that reference and produces its own version of the character with its own twist.
The season finale pretty much blows open all the mysteries so far and leaves nothing major unanswered. We learn about Miyu, we learn about the Holy Grail War and several characters’ roles in it, and we learn about the school nurse’s identity after all that teasing. Illya shows off an amazing power up to defeat the season’s villain (who is sadly underdeveloped) and it ends with a fuzzy image of two characters, promising their appearance in the next season.
Overall, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz! is between the first and second seasons in terms of quality. It suffers from a slow pace and aimless direction in the first half. By pushing a block of slice-of-life and then a block of magical girl action, it wasn’t the best way to space the season. The slice-of-life part felt too slow despite some good humor, and the magical girl action felt like it didn’t get a proper build up. It would have been better if the writers could have meshed them together a bit more evenly instead of discrete elements like the way it is now.
-----------------------------------------------
For other anime reviews, have a look at this page.