If you're not into the Fate franchise or TYPE MOON anime stuff, just stop reading now. This show isn't for you. The entire Prisma☆Illya franchise is one big Fate fanservice dump to satisfy the otaku die-hard fan theorycrafting like "What if Saber and Caster fought but Saber somehow could use Shirou's Unlimited Blade Works and they were also both CUTE LITTLE GIRLS???". It's also sort of like a new-age Lyrical Nanoha, where it's own storyline tries to be a darker, more "mature" but not quite Madoka sort of deal and is a series made for a more general or male audience rather than the strictly young girl demographic targeted magical girl show. This series is also notorious for ridiculous lolicon pandering fanservice that caused me to originally go against my 'NoDrop' mantra and actually drop the series. Once I finally picked it back up and muscled through it all, I found a pretty satisfying Fate-joke and action fanservice romp that at the very least kept me laughing at the series' own ridiculousness.

In the first two seasons, nothing really happens plotwise other than various vehicles to get us into fights with different servants and create jokes, all for the purpose of stringing along Fate series fans. 3rei!! throws that formula out the window and decides that Prisma☆Illya really actually had its shit together all along and cracks down with appears to be an actual plot. Needless to say, I was stunned, but not unwelcoming. It got off to a bit of a rocky start, basically throwing us into a new universe to make it clear that this season is really its own story-driven package. There's also noticeably less awkward loli fanservice, which is a welcome change, but still with a large amount of best-girl Kuro screentime. The yank right out from the normal formula into something new and more driven felt almost like a slightly less effective version of what The World God Only Knows pulled over its 3 season run, only using the base and the characters from 2 seasons of formulaic so-so content to tell an actually compelling story in the last season.

The art and animation style of Prisma☆Illya can be summed up as Silver Link doing its very best ufotable impression while "moe-fying" everything it can. The designs are notably more cutesy than anything you'd see in a core Fate title, but have that noticeably Fate flair that we've come to expect from ufotable's amazing adaptations. The "budget" for the series can definitely fluctuate, but outside of some major letdowns in the most recent big fight episode, Silver Link has really cranked it up for the fight scenes and really does a good job of hyping up the fights. Nothing is ever unwatchable though, just not as good as it could be, which is honestly to be expected from a series that doesn't really have much money behind it despite getting 3 seasons of adaptation. This is actually the first season that's been a full 12 episodes; the other two have only been 10 each.

Overall, this is a Fate-fan only deal, but if you meet that criteria and have gone through the first two seasons, this is definitely something that you'll want to check out.