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The Garden of Sinners - Chapter 2: …and nothing heart. (Murder Speculation Part A)
in
Kara no Kyoukai/Garden of Sinners:
Murder Speculation (First Half)
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
n/a
WHAT'D I THINK?
While Shiki is obviously our main character, Kokutou is unfortunately our viewer surrogate. I say 'unfortunately', because he's completely identical to any other given lovestruck dumb everyman character who winds up in these kinds of anime. If he appeared to have any kind of personality or interests outside of Shiki, I might have cared about his character more, but her interest literally extends to the plot and no further.
Anyway, yeah, Kokutou has taken a weird romantic interest in the introverted Shiki who largely just ignores everyone, but it doesn't take long to draw some genre savvy conclusions considering the ongoing murder spree going on in the streets.
If you saw it coming, then you too will be subject to this movie's biggest fault which is simply that it takes Kokutou too long to realize what the viewer is already lead to suspect. Obviously Shiki is the one killing people, the movie doesn't shy away in the slightest from showing one particularly creepy scene of her using blood for lipstick VERY early on in the movie, but the effort is clearly there to emphasize that the mystery isn't the purpose of the movie.
The movie wants to endear us to Shiki, who reveals that she has split personality disorder.
This is perhaps the movie's biggest lapse in judgment by simply having Shiki explain her circumstances in such a lucid matter-of-fact way. Split personality, or "dissociative identity" is usually characterized by lapses in memory or attention which compartmentalizes the person's personalities. It's not "dissociative" otherwise if the subject is fully aware of their association.
This probably would have been pulled off significantly better if instead of using a well-known clinical term, it simply stating that she was possessed of two different spirits or something. Unlike the first movie, there are no supernatural elements here, but it could have used them to explain away this stumbling point.
Actually, Murder Speculation serves as a prime example of the psychological concept of Anima and Animus, with Anima representing Shiki's emotionally expressive and peaceful side, while Animus represents her cold and repressive violent side. I think it's kind of strange that as a sequel to Overlooking View, it never even attempts anything as analytical as this.
In fact, Murder Speculation is surprisingly simple by comparison.
There's no message,
there's no waxing philosophical,
there doesn't even seem to be any sort of underlying subtext.
It's just a short story about a guy who meets a girl who he soon learns has a violent side and he does what little he can to wedge himself into her little world.
It's honestly not bad.
It could be a hell of a lot better though.
For one, after Overlooking View, I was hoping for MORE action, not less, and was disappointed by how many more static shots there were of just locations. I get it, your locations are pretty, DO SOMETHING with them.
Actually, for the most part, for what little the movie does, it's just very slow and... boring.
If the movie withheld it's reveals and presented it's narrative as a more heavily edited slow burn in the style of Blood: The Last Vampire, it would be a FAR more watchable movie.
As it is now, it's just a boring prologue for world-building.
We come away from this knowing only a few select things:
Kokutou has a crush on Shiki, Shiki has a violent alter ego, she comes from a wealthy family who teaches her combat, and she's the sole heir to her family name because she was the only one of her siblings to be born with "the attribute" which is probably in reference to her ability to see ghosts from the first movie which is never shown or explained in this movie.
Final Verdict: [Meh...]
Kara no Kyoukai/Garden of Sinners:
Murder Speculation (First Half)
Drama / 2007
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
n/a
WHAT'D I THINK?
After the obtuse riddlespeak and pretentious diatribes of the first movie, where do we go from here? A completely coherent crime drama, apparently.
We rewind time to a sort of origin story set several years prior to the events of the first movie to find Shiki still attending school alongside the soulless male character of the first movie, who we can now remember was named Kokutou.
We rewind time to a sort of origin story set several years prior to the events of the first movie to find Shiki still attending school alongside the soulless male character of the first movie, who we can now remember was named Kokutou.
While Shiki is obviously our main character, Kokutou is unfortunately our viewer surrogate. I say 'unfortunately', because he's completely identical to any other given lovestruck dumb everyman character who winds up in these kinds of anime. If he appeared to have any kind of personality or interests outside of Shiki, I might have cared about his character more, but her interest literally extends to the plot and no further.
Anyway, yeah, Kokutou has taken a weird romantic interest in the introverted Shiki who largely just ignores everyone, but it doesn't take long to draw some genre savvy conclusions considering the ongoing murder spree going on in the streets.
If you saw it coming, then you too will be subject to this movie's biggest fault which is simply that it takes Kokutou too long to realize what the viewer is already lead to suspect. Obviously Shiki is the one killing people, the movie doesn't shy away in the slightest from showing one particularly creepy scene of her using blood for lipstick VERY early on in the movie, but the effort is clearly there to emphasize that the mystery isn't the purpose of the movie.
The movie wants to endear us to Shiki, who reveals that she has split personality disorder.
This is perhaps the movie's biggest lapse in judgment by simply having Shiki explain her circumstances in such a lucid matter-of-fact way. Split personality, or "dissociative identity" is usually characterized by lapses in memory or attention which compartmentalizes the person's personalities. It's not "dissociative" otherwise if the subject is fully aware of their association.
This probably would have been pulled off significantly better if instead of using a well-known clinical term, it simply stating that she was possessed of two different spirits or something. Unlike the first movie, there are no supernatural elements here, but it could have used them to explain away this stumbling point.
Actually, Murder Speculation serves as a prime example of the psychological concept of Anima and Animus, with Anima representing Shiki's emotionally expressive and peaceful side, while Animus represents her cold and repressive violent side. I think it's kind of strange that as a sequel to Overlooking View, it never even attempts anything as analytical as this.
In fact, Murder Speculation is surprisingly simple by comparison.
There's no message,
there's no waxing philosophical,
there doesn't even seem to be any sort of underlying subtext.
It's just a short story about a guy who meets a girl who he soon learns has a violent side and he does what little he can to wedge himself into her little world.
It's honestly not bad.
It could be a hell of a lot better though.
For one, after Overlooking View, I was hoping for MORE action, not less, and was disappointed by how many more static shots there were of just locations. I get it, your locations are pretty, DO SOMETHING with them.
Actually, for the most part, for what little the movie does, it's just very slow and... boring.
If the movie withheld it's reveals and presented it's narrative as a more heavily edited slow burn in the style of Blood: The Last Vampire, it would be a FAR more watchable movie.
As it is now, it's just a boring prologue for world-building.
We come away from this knowing only a few select things:
Kokutou has a crush on Shiki, Shiki has a violent alter ego, she comes from a wealthy family who teaches her combat, and she's the sole heir to her family name because she was the only one of her siblings to be born with "the attribute" which is probably in reference to her ability to see ghosts from the first movie which is never shown or explained in this movie.
Final Verdict: [Meh...]