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Kara no Kyoukai Remix: Gate of Seventh Heaven (Sub) Status: COMPLETE
Movie
At last, the final Kara no Kyoukai movie.
Shut up. I said LAST. This is going to be the LAST.
Anyway, I was actually relieved to discover that Gate to Seventh Heaven isn't yet another story, but simply a complied montage of all the previous movies (save Murder Speculation Part 2 for some reason) in chronological order.
In some ways it's great because it single-handedly manages to sidestep two of my prevailing complaints about the entire series so far: the scarcity of backing music and action sequences.
Sure I've seen it all before, but here we have a very quickly edited, heavily condensed, portrait of the Kara no Kyoukai series which manages to be both a collection of the most visually impressive sequences from the movies as well as the musical themes explored throughout them.
If you were interested in Kara no Kyoukai for no other reason than to see some impressive animation, look no further than this, because it features the best of all of them as well some new sequences which look great as well.
In other ways, Gate of Seventh Heaven demonstrates perfectly my biggest problem with Kara no Kyoukai as a whole: the aimless pseudo-psychological ramblings and incoherent plot.
If you were hoping for Gate of Seventh Heaven to somehow connect all the pieces together and blend together a fulfilling story of all the movies, you'd be sorely mistaken. It's a montage in the most literal way: a lot of fast cuts of scenes from the movies set to music with meaningfully ambiguous trailer dialog talking over it.
For an hour.
Even this movie felt too long, but maybe I'm simply sick of it all by this point.
I watched these movies on the strong recommendation that they "represented everything there is to like about anime", but the movies came away even more pretentious than that quote might lead you to believe.
There's a lot of ideas and psychological concepts that are mentioned, not thought out, poorly thought out, over-analyzed, or under-analyzed in the spirit of making something deep and provoking, but Kara no Kyoukai loses itself in it's own world and characters to tell any consistent message.
Oblivion Recording is probably the worst for all of the reasons I point out in my review for that movie. It's a perfect example of losing the forest through the trees.
Overlooking View is the most pretentious with it's excessive riddlespeak and nonsense. It's too self-indulgent to concern itself with the viewer and telling a coherent story.
Paradox Spiral comes the closest to what Kara no Kyoukai seemed to be trying to accomplish by presenting the major characters with a unique scenario involving intriguing new themes and ideas while also exercising the fight sequences the animation team was probably begging for.
But Remaining Sense of Pain is still easily the best. It's simple to understand while not insulting our intelligence, it presents serious drama alongside interesting concepts, and it offers a mystery to solve without skimping on the action.
Honestly, one of the best reasons to watch Remaining Sense of Pain is easily the fact that you don't need to see any other Kara no Kyoukai movies to follow along with it. Later movies in the series are heavily dependent of prior events, but Remaining Sense of Pain is largely self-contained.
It's a shame that the movies couldn't all have been that way or else Gate of Seventh Heaven may well have been a decent anthology of short movies, rather than a 60-minute supercut that appears to serve little purpose beyond advertising for a Kara no Kyoukai boxset.
Oh-ho, I see you there, LF, you Maylasian bootleggin' bastards.
Final Verdict: [Friggen' Awesome][Pretty Good][Meh...][Just... Bad][Irredeemably Awful]
I really did like Shiki's character design. Too bad she didn't have any character besides.
Movie
At last, the final Kara no Kyoukai movie.
Shut up. I said LAST. This is going to be the LAST.
Anyway, I was actually relieved to discover that Gate to Seventh Heaven isn't yet another story, but simply a complied montage of all the previous movies (save Murder Speculation Part 2 for some reason) in chronological order.
In some ways it's great because it single-handedly manages to sidestep two of my prevailing complaints about the entire series so far: the scarcity of backing music and action sequences.
Sure I've seen it all before, but here we have a very quickly edited, heavily condensed, portrait of the Kara no Kyoukai series which manages to be both a collection of the most visually impressive sequences from the movies as well as the musical themes explored throughout them.
If you were interested in Kara no Kyoukai for no other reason than to see some impressive animation, look no further than this, because it features the best of all of them as well some new sequences which look great as well.
In other ways, Gate of Seventh Heaven demonstrates perfectly my biggest problem with Kara no Kyoukai as a whole: the aimless pseudo-psychological ramblings and incoherent plot.
If you were hoping for Gate of Seventh Heaven to somehow connect all the pieces together and blend together a fulfilling story of all the movies, you'd be sorely mistaken. It's a montage in the most literal way: a lot of fast cuts of scenes from the movies set to music with meaningfully ambiguous trailer dialog talking over it.
For an hour.
Even this movie felt too long, but maybe I'm simply sick of it all by this point.
I watched these movies on the strong recommendation that they "represented everything there is to like about anime", but the movies came away even more pretentious than that quote might lead you to believe.
There's a lot of ideas and psychological concepts that are mentioned, not thought out, poorly thought out, over-analyzed, or under-analyzed in the spirit of making something deep and provoking, but Kara no Kyoukai loses itself in it's own world and characters to tell any consistent message.
Oblivion Recording is probably the worst for all of the reasons I point out in my review for that movie. It's a perfect example of losing the forest through the trees.
Overlooking View is the most pretentious with it's excessive riddlespeak and nonsense. It's too self-indulgent to concern itself with the viewer and telling a coherent story.
Paradox Spiral comes the closest to what Kara no Kyoukai seemed to be trying to accomplish by presenting the major characters with a unique scenario involving intriguing new themes and ideas while also exercising the fight sequences the animation team was probably begging for.
But Remaining Sense of Pain is still easily the best. It's simple to understand while not insulting our intelligence, it presents serious drama alongside interesting concepts, and it offers a mystery to solve without skimping on the action.
Honestly, one of the best reasons to watch Remaining Sense of Pain is easily the fact that you don't need to see any other Kara no Kyoukai movies to follow along with it. Later movies in the series are heavily dependent of prior events, but Remaining Sense of Pain is largely self-contained.
It's a shame that the movies couldn't all have been that way or else Gate of Seventh Heaven may well have been a decent anthology of short movies, rather than a 60-minute supercut that appears to serve little purpose beyond advertising for a Kara no Kyoukai boxset.
Oh-ho, I see you there, LF, you Maylasian bootleggin' bastards.
Final Verdict: [Friggen' Awesome][Pretty Good][Meh...][Just... Bad][Irredeemably Awful]
I really did like Shiki's character design. Too bad she didn't have any character besides.