Best Kara No Kyoukai (The Garden of Sinners) Characters

Shiki Ryougi is hands down the best character in the series. As one of Type-Moon's main heroines, many aspects of her stand out when you delve into her lore. As the heir to the Ryougi clan, a demon-hunting family, she was born with two distinct personalities, one male and one female, in one body. This condition is almost like having a split personality, yet it's not exactly the same.

However, her life takes a turn when she encounters Mikiya Kokutou, who eventually becomes her love interest. In the late 1990s, she was connected to several serial murders. During this period, Shiki lost her male personality, leaving her female personality to grapple with an existential identity crisis.

Shiki's story is filled with mystery and action. She dispatches supernatural enemies using her knife and her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, which allow her to kill any living thing, even gods. Throughout the series, Shiki maintains a cold and aloof facade, which she uses to mask the loss of her male personality. Despite this, she has a heart of gold and remains committed to Mikiya as she searches for her true purpose in the world.

In summary, there are three things I love about Shiki: her fight scenes, her relationship with Mikiya, and her role in the story. That is all.

While Mikiya Kokutou doesn't possess any mystic power in the same vein as those of characters like Shiki, Fujino, Lio, etc., Mikiya still manages to be a pretty interesting main character acting as the love interest for Shiki. Mikiya may be your average normal guy, but at heart, he's without a doubt a nice and kind-hearted fellow who wouldn't hurt a fly. No matter the danger, Mikiya always tries to show compassion and care for those he knows are innocent and pure of heart, even for those who have fallen into despair. While this does pose as a weakness for him sometimes such as when he nearly got himself killed by Lio despite the latter's warnings that he wouldn't be able to resist killing him, it also poses as a strength as well, as without this kind of benevolent nature, he wouldn't have been able to be there for characters like Shiki and Shizune. Again, while he's not someone you'd expect to see throwing fists in a fight, Mikiya's compassion and kindness in his interactions with others are what ultimately make him stand out in this supernatural murder mystery franchise.

You know a character is really clever when they're able to transfer their souls from one body duplicate to another on more than one occasion. And one of those characters just so happen to be the female detective of the paranormal agency, Touko Aozaki! A heavy smoker (well, it's the late 90's, so roll with it) and a laid-back agent, Touko always comes in handy whenever trouble's brewing for Shiki. From making prosthetic limbs to replace lost ones to gloriously gorging up one of her former friends with a nightmarish Phantasmal beast, Touko sure is one mean magus. In addition, she's also the same person who helped Shiki overcome her loss of her male personality and bestowing the trademark knife Shiki wields as well. Not to mention she even took in Azaka as her apprentice. All I can say Touko is truly an expert in the expertise she works in.

Of all the antagonists Shiki faces down, Fujino Asagami seems to be the most popular and well-loved of all of them. Almost essentially a prototype version of Sakura Matou of the Fate series, Fujino of the Asagami clan was born with appendicitis, which correlated with her Mystic Eyes of Distortion power being acquired since childhood. Bestowed with a deadly power and taught to avoid and not feel pain, Fujino went through a lot as a kid. To aid with Fujino's illness, her father had a doctor give her medicine that allowed her not to feel any pain. Come her older years, Fujino was subjected to frequent rape and torture by gangsters until one day, she was struck with a metal bat and regained her sense of pain, prompting her into getting revenge on the gangsters and unleashing her rage anywhere she can. With so much Fujino had to endure, it was hard not to feel sorry for a poor soul like her. Especially when she looked up to Mikiya since he took her in one night after her encounter with the gangsters and he served as a source of inspiration to her. While her actions eventually prompted Shiki to take action and stop her from committing more murders, Shiki was luckily able to save her by destroying her appendicitis. Come Extra Chorus, Fujino has lost her sight but has gained clairvoyance in exchange. And as of Extra Chorus, Fujino did a really good thing in helping prevent a female student who was a friend of one of the suicide victims from committing suicide herself. Fujino, you have my love and respect.

And now here's everyone favorite Shirou Emiya expy, Tomoe Enjou. If you've watched all of the movies or at least caught up with the 5th movie Paradox Paradigm, you should probably know his true nature as a fake copy of the real original Tomoe (it's complicated). Anyways, Tomoe's role in Paradox Paradigm was undoubtedly interesting to watch and played a major part in the plot and climax of the 5th movie. Stuck in an apparent time paradox where he relives experiencing death at the hands of either his own parents or himself in various outcomes, Tomoe seems to have found his savior after Shiki saves him from a band of gangsters chasing him down one night. Over the course of the movie, Tomoe develops a crush on Shiki. Eventually, he and Shiki get down to business when they storm the Ogawa Apartment Complex and begin to delve into the mysteries of the enigmatic building. After supposedly losing Shiki to a magic hand pulling her into an unknown void, learning about the tear-jerking history of his family and how much he and they meant to each other, and teaming up with Mikiya to storm the building again while Touko goes solo, Tomoe eventually learns his true nature as a duplicate puppet of the long dead real Tomoe at the hands of none other than Souren Araya. Before being eradicated by Souren in his attempt to attack him, Tomoe leaves his last words on the series with, "I was here..." A tragic character indeed. Especially for one who isn't the real thing...

Well, if it isn't the prototype Kirei Kotomine (and maybe prototype Amakusa Shirou Tokisada). An ancient magus hailing from an ancient period in Japan in which he failed to save his fallen ones, Souren Araya is the Badass Baritone Buddhist priest that acts as the main antagonist of Paradox Paradigm and the Big Bad of the entire series. Being one of the few characters who was able to overpower Shiki's Mystic Eyes of Death Perception up until the climax, Souren is not a villain to be underestimated. Having orchestrated many events that caused the entire plot to happen in the first place, Souren was the sole person responsible for encouraging and unleashing the mystic powers of many young antagonists and the man behind the construction of the sinister Ogawa Apartment Complex. While motivated by seeking true wisdom for himself, he only wished to try and save everyone since he failed to do so in his past time period. For someone who's committed so much atrocities, Souren really stands out as both an antagonist you love to hate and a sympathetic one as well. Alas, Poor Villain, indeed.

Ugh, did they really have to make her have an incestuous interest in her brother Mikiya? Incest aside, Azaka Kokutou is either the one Base-Breaking Character who annoys you the most in the entire series or an overall enjoyable character in the cast who got her own well-deserved movie. From my personal opinion, I like Azaka overall as a character. She's cute, outgoing, and always has her moments of funny from time to time. Like when she was shocked to see Shiki eating oranges with Mikiya or when she tried to punch Shiki after waking up and then having her head fall down on rock-solid concrete,. Anyways, Azaka really got her time to shine in the 6th movie Oblivion Recorder. In Azaka's Day in the Limelight, she really gets to show off what she can do as Touko's apprentice and as a character when she has to investigated a mystery surrounding fairies affecting the natures of the students at her school. While I know not a lot of people are too fond of the 6th movie, I still thought it was decent and gave Azaka some much needed screen time and development. Overall, I think Azaka is a decent character.

As one the three future seers in the Future Gospel movie, Shizune Seo is just a young girl who was born with the ability to see the future of potential dead victims. Considering Shizune's young age and how she first experienced it when she foresaw her dog's death and was unable to change the outcome of the future that would be her dog's death regardless of any change, Shizune was understandably scared and saddened by this supposedly cursed power. Things weren't much better when she foresaw a man getting run over by a dumpster truck, blood and all. But thanks to her meeting with Mikiya and learning to see her power as something to use to change her fate rather than see her fate as set in stone, Shizune's life changed for the better.

Speaking personally, I was kind of very reluctant to add Lio Shirazumi to the list since I really didn't like that moment of Squick he had with licking Shiki like a wild animal, but considering he's a major antagonist with at least some background that gives depth to him, I decided it wouldn't be so bad to add him to the list. While he becomes a major antagonist in the 7th movie, his fall into darkness was shown a few movies way beforehand prior to Murder Speculation (Part 2). He initially started out as a chill student who attended the same school as Shiki and Mikiya. One day, he developed a crush on Shiki and tried asking her out to a date, but was rejected. This would send him into a downward spiral as he tried to cope with his rejection by taking it out on some bar patrons at an arcade. In that event, he would accidentally kill one of the bar patrons and be forced to eat the corpse in order to cover up any evidence of the murder. But thanks to Souren's influence on him, the beast awakens within Lio and sends him on a path of serial killing that he never wanted in the first place. Now bent on making Shiki his love by force and straying from any chances of redemption, Lio commits many acts of atrocities in his wake, ranging from nearly killing Mikiya and practically raping Shiki by licking her like a wild animal. Regardless, Lio's actions were not without tragedy and from what Mikiya sees from his perspective, Lio never deserved to be thrust into all these horrible acts of atrocity that led up to his own demise.