Right off the bat you get a feeling this isn't going to be an uplifting story

Kara no Kyoukai is an anime series consisting of 7 movies and based on the novels of the same name by Type Moon. To me KnK has always seemed like sort of an underground series that was never really talked about, however this series caught my eye over the summer when the 5th movie was released and received a great deal of praise. This past week the 7th and final movie finally hit the states via subs and I figured it was about high time I checked this thing out (this blog totally hasn’t been a work in progress for a month…totally).  Last weekend I  marathoned Kara no Kyoukai in its entirety and let me tell you, it was one hell of a weekend. This series simply put, is brilliant. The animation is unparalleled and possibly the best I’ve ever seen. The OST is amazing and totally sets a great atmosphere for the series. The storytelling is top notch consisting of great characterization, a complex dark story with numerous twists in turns that is presented in a non-linear way, which makes the viewing all the more gripping as each movie reveals a little more of the overall picture. Yes as a whole I have nothing but praise for this series, but before I get too carried away here let’s  take a step back to the first movie.

Side Note: This series likes rain a lot...and you've never seen it look so beautiful

This first movie, bluntly put, is a very odd place to start the series off. It pretty much starts you off in the middle of a story, a story in which you don’t know the characters or their motives, the fictional universe it takes place in, nor any of the terminology that they constantly sling at you. This obviously gets cleared up as the series progresses, but its still kind of discouraging to watch a movie, in which most of the time you have no idea what the hell is really going on. So for the most part what really will carry you through this short 45 minute movie, are the amazing graphics, the fantastic soundtrack, and the mystery of trying to piece out wtf is going on presently and in the bigger picture.

The movie starts off with a the male lead, Kokuto going over to (presumably) his friend, Shiki’s, house  The two then precede to talk about strawberry ice cream for a couple minutes. Thrilling start to the movie, I know. The scene then shifts to a girl on a rooftop looking over the edge (as pictured above). The movie than quickly to cuts to the opening credits. The credits come to a close and now we have a lovely suicide scene on our hands. It appears like the girl from the opening credits did indeed take a dive.

Ice cream to brutal suicide...I like it

development tiemu!

The next morning Shiki goes to work. When she gets there she notices a TV news report about the girl who committed suicide. Shiki’s boss(?), Touko, notices that Shiki seems to be intrigued by the report and begins to explain some of the details of the suicide. We learn that this is the 4th case in a string of suicides involving high school girls jumping off the Fujyou buildings in a deserted section of town. The girls in each of the cases showed no connection to each other. They were all from different schools and had led a happy life and had no reason for taking their lives. The only real linking factor between them was the fact that none of them left a suicide note, which leads Touko to the conclusion that they didn’t mean to die. Touko says that Shiki’s friend Kokuto helped her reach this conclusion and then looks in his direction and asks “when will you come back to us?”.  After a rather boring beginning the movie then quickly kicks everything into gear, skipping any sort of introduction and jumping right into the meat of the story. There were a few things I took out of this scene. Based on the size and look of the room Shiki and Kokuto seems to work for some sort of private detective or journalist agency thats owned by Touko. The fact that Touko was very knowledgeable about the case also led me to this conclusion. Also for some reason or another Kokuto seems to be soulless or something like that.

The deserted Fujyou district

After listening to Touko’s take on the cases Shiki decides to go investigate things for herself that night. After walking around for about in the Fujyou district she quickly locates the 5th victim and looks like she had died recently. Shiki also notices several ghostly figures floating above the building that the victim jumped off of…and now we a supernatural story on our hands.

Shiki checking out the scene of the 5th victim's death

Fast forward to the next day. Kokuto is still as lifeless as a carrot and we still have no idea what the hell is going on. Shiki tells Touko that she senses something sinister and abnormal about the situation and predicts that 8 girls in total will die…I think this is due to the number of ghosts she saw last night, even  though there appears to be more than 8, but that’s the best guess I got.  Upon hearing this Touko suggests that the figures are actually a recollection of memories of the girls that have died but for some reason haven’t disappeared yet.

I think this one is pretty self explanatory

Shiki then decides to go investigate the Fujyou district again. Only this time while she’s walking around the victim actually falls in front of her. Shiki finally decides to do something about this and return to the scene at sunset where she is confronted by a hostile ghost which has the ability to control Shiki’s arm and Shiki gets beat on pretty badly for a bit. Shiki then activates her sharingan, cuts off her arm, which actually was a puppet arm, and flees back to Touko’s place.

*insert joke about The Ring*

Shiki retreats back to a special room at Touko’s place. It is revealed that Touko is actually a sort of professional doll maker, specifically being able to use doll parts to replace people’s real limbs. The first thing that came to my mind was Ghost in the Shell. The second thing that came to mind was that we now have yet another supernatural/magical element to the story. At this point in the story I gave up trying to piece together all the supernatural parts of the show and just decided to go along with whatever was presented since it appeared as if this fantasy world was going to be rather vast and fleshed out along the way. Touko tells Shiki that she’ll have a replacement arm ready for her by tomorrow, so Shiki goes home and decides to eat that strawberry ice cream from that first scene.

It was at this point that I gave up trying to figure out all the supernatural elements of this story and just rolled with it

The next day comes, Shiki gets her new arm and heads back to the Fujyou district for revenge where she is met by her ghostly adversary from yesterday who is accompanied by a plethora of ghostly friends, which are more than likely the girls that have committed suicide. Shiki activates her sharingan (mystic eyes) again and in a spectacular action sequence begins to shank everything in sight.

Let the showdown Commence!

Shiki activates her Sharingan

What the world looks like through Shiki's eyes

Shiki in beast mode

At the risk of a picture overload I’ll leave the fight pictures with that, and stills really don’t do it justice and the music during this fight is amazing. Anyways  Shiki shreds through all of the ghosts escorts and then follows the main “boss” ghost over to the next building where they have their finally showdown.

The final showdown

The ghost  tries to get Shiki to jump off the building by suggestion (like how she took control of Shiki’s arm in their earlier confrontation), but Shiki has a stronger will this time (or something) and fights it off. Shiki then uses some sort of weird force power to drag the ghost close to her as the ghost frantically tries to get control over her and make Shiki take a spill. Shiki remains unaffacted brings the ghost close and stabs it right in the gut and tells the ghost “You fall.”

OWNED BICTH!

The ghost falling and disappating

After the ghost dissipates we are whisked over to a hospital room where a girl, Kirie Fujyou, that looks just like the ghost awakes. A few moments after Kirie wakes up, Touko walks into the room and and asks Kirie if she can ask her a few questions. Kirie agrees and explains her situation to Touko. Kirie has an incurable disease for as long as she could remember, so she had been confined in a hospital room only able to entertain herself by looking at the view outside her window (no one visited her). She then says that before she knew it her eyes were in the sky.  She was controlling two bodies with one mind, a spiritual one and her real body (or as Kirie calls it, the me in the sky and the me in the box). Touko suggests that Kirie had only started with her human body (obviously) but then was given another one, a container, by someone else. Kirie replies, “double existence is what he called it” (you’ll find out who he is much later down the line…at the time I think I blew right over that line…). Anyways Kirie goes on to explain that she never meant for the girls to fall, she was merely trying to get their attention and make them aware that she was here (here being the hospital room)…I still have no idea how that leads to making those girls commit suicide tho, but I digress…Touko then finally asks if Kirie was taking Kokuto with him, Kirie says no and explains that she would met Kokuto in a hospital corridor weekly and that she’d see him bringing flowers to someone and wished that he would take her away (bum chika bow wow. Also more foreshadowing. This really was worth going back and rewatching…). This leads me to believe that all the girls were probably also somehow related to the hospital in some way, but I still have no idea as to how she was actually able to control people. Like I said at this point I just kinda went with the flow.

big revelation scene...etc etc

After confession hour is over Touko leaves and Kirie begins to confront herself and her feelings. She can’t stand to be stuck in a hospital bed again and claimed that the most alive she’s ever felt was when her heart was pierced by Shiki’s blade and her other half died. So she precedes to wheel chair her way up to the roof and jump of the building to recreate that feeling again and to leave this world in a magnificent way.

Upon Kirie’s death Kokuto is freed from her grasp and wakes up the next morning…HURRAY!

The movie then reflects on the case in general through Kokuto, mainly rehashing the entirety of the events that took place with his opinions on the matter…I’ve already written a novel here so I don’t feel like getting into that, just watch the movie >_>. The movie closes with Kokuto going back to Shiki’s apartment and Shiki ordering Kokuto to stay the night so he can finish his strawberry ice cream that he left there…Which I guess is supposed to try and show that some character development was accomplished in this movie and not just…well whatever the hell it was we just watched XD

you can't say no to that face...you can't

Overall the first movie excels in parts but doesn’t come off impressive as a whole. As said numerous times before the animation and music are top notch as well as the action sequences, but the characters are rather empty and really don’t develop much, and all you can take out of the story is what they tell you at the end, but you still have no idea how or really why this whole thing happened.However, by no means is it bad or even mediocre, but its nothing more than merely good. Luckily for us, from the second movie onwards all the flaws of the first movie are addressed (the character development in particular for the second movie) and the series moves from good, to great, to a classic.

overall I give KnK1 a 7/10

On a closing note I haz a favor to ask of the readers. For the most part I’ve stuck to a pretty similar style through out the blogs I’ve done so far, in which I tend to mix in my thoughts and comments in with the summary rather then having an entire paragraph of summary and then following that paragraph with my analysis on it. So my question to you guys would be, is the current syle easy and enjoyable to read or would you prefer something different?