Sorry about the green shit on the snapshots ;_;
I’ve heard about this movie from loads of bloggers. Sorry, guys, but it was actually the amount of glorious bloodied images on Setsuna-san’s post that enthused me to finally watch this. I felt that the very beginning may have started off rather weakly (strawberry ice-cream?), but then a suicide occured and from then on, things just got so much more interesting and I became completely engrossed. However, the ending left me unsatisfied and I became really excited by the preview — more character development from Shiki and Kokuto, and more blood! I really enjoyed the part when Shiki was fighting against those eight spirits because the action was just pure brilliant and it completely blew me away.
I also loved the part when Shiki’s hand became manipulated by Kirie, and my reaction to all the beautiful gruesome suicide scenes may be even scarier than the suicide scenes themselves. Plot-wise, I thought it was pretty interesting but it was no surprise that Kirie was actually unconcious and her “other” self was in the sky because it reminded me so much of Shigofumi and perhaps, most of those other horror supernatural films I’ve seen. This movie wasn’t scary — it was interesting and sometimes, maybe wonderfully disgusting. I liked the short tale at the end about the dragonflies and the butterfly being unable to float and only fly. The part when the dog was walking away and leaving behind blood footprints was too cool as well. Regarding the characters, they’re not exactly the best but Shiki became more awesome when she was slicing up those spirits. Kokuto was barely in it, Tohku was just so and so, and Kirie was just plain freakishly confusing.
A few bad things about this film is that I’m tired of “jumping off the tallest building” suicides — can’t someone please stab ten billion nails inside them and die like that instead? It’d be more interesting if the deaths were all different and yet the setting was the same, so that apart from all the victims being high school girls, the detectives won’t be able to figure out any other connection. I think the story could have went deeper, and perhaps a huge twist could have been inserted here and there, but I think the animator saved all the brilliant stuff for the next chapter. Also, the movie was less than fifty minutes, so that was not long at all and maybe that’s why when I finished watching this, I felt kind of empty or that I was given enough excitement, excluding the suicide scenes plus the blood.
AWESOME, MUAHAHAAHA!!
The artwork didn’t reach my standard, and I think Shiki’s lifeless eyes represent her containing no soul or something, but when it goes blue-ray mode, it may mean that she now has something to fight for, and in addition to that, the ability to see her enemy’s weaknesses. The music was compelling — it suited the movie extremely well and so watching the introduction with the butterflies and list of cast names didn’t bore me like the start of Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, which, by the way, I never got passed the intro at the start because it was that horrible. Overall, the voice-overs were decent — I never really bother mentioning them unless someone’s voice stands out really well like Ranka’s — but Maaya Sakamoto, who voices Shiki and Hitomi Kanzaki from The Vision of Escaflowne, did a good job sounding apathetic.
Hurry up and jump already
Verdict: Nice film to watch, it may leave you wanting more (especially after watching the preview), and I recommend it to people who love all the blood and gory in anime. So it’s not the best, but definitely worth your time. And I know, I’m ashamed that I did not take enough snapshots of all the dreamy squashed images of chicks that just fell off a hospital building, but as you can see, I still have no idea why that green crap along the right side of the images above are there (you may have to look closely in order to see it).
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Kara no Kyoukai - the Garden of Sinners 01: Now THAT?S What I?m Talking About
