Best Kara No Kyoukai (The Garden of Sinners) Movies

Chapter 5 and 7 were the two best movies by a long shot.

I now present to you arguably the most climactic and perhaps most popular installment in the Kara no Kyoukai film series. The fifth movie is both confusing and suspenseful in its presentation as two separate stories unfold before leading up to the final climax.

The fifth movie starts with a boy named Tomoe experiencing a horrifying vision of killing his mother and cutting her guts out after she killed his father. This mesmerizing experience is only further enhanced in mystery when a bystander sees the father dead. However, when he calls on a police officer to investigate, the father seems to be alive and well.

Back to the plot, Tomoe is seen running from some street gangsters and is eventually cornered by them until Shiki confronts them and scares them off. Shiki then takes Tomoe to her residence. However, all seems not normal when Tomoe appears to be experiencing the same day repeatedly with different outcomes, even seeing his apparently dead mother walking healthily in Mifune City!

Things then get down to business when Tomoe pleads with Shiki to investigate the apartment he once lived in, the Ogawa Apartment Complex. Things seem oddly off for Tomoe, even though Shiki sees everything as normal until they stumble upon some puppet zombies and eventually the Big Bad, Souren Araya. Shiki is then pulled into an unknown void as the story shifts to Mikiya leaving Shiki's residence for a while as Touko confronts her former friend Cornelius Alba and is prompted to go down to the Ogawa Apartment Complex as well.

Things look bad when it seems Souren and Cornelius have killed off Touko for good. But when the two stories begin to intertwine, everything starts to unfold and make sense. Mikiya helps Tomoe learn what his family was like and what sacrifices his parents went through for him before going back to the Ogawa Apartment Complex.

The climactic moments to follow are Touko's soul being transported to a perfect duplicate body, Tomoe... more

In the first movie, Mifune City is left heartbroken by repeated incidents of school girls committing suicide by jumping off the abandoned Fujou building. However, matters get more pressing once Mikiya is affected by this incident and is left unconscious, leaving it up to Shiki to investigate the supernatural entity instigating the suicides.

The supposed supernatural entity happens to be a second spiritual body possessed by the terminally ill Kirie Fujou, who killed the school girls in the first place to socialize with them in their ghostly forms, but to no avail. Eventually, after losing an arm and replacing it with a prosthetic one, Shiki kicks it into overdrive and slices all the souls of the girls into oblivion, including Kirie's second body.

With Kirie calmly confronted by Touko and the suicide incident resolved, the movie ends with Kirie finally ending her own life by jumping off the same building she had the other girls jump off of to experience the same feeling she had when Shiki took out her second body. What I have to say for Kirie is pretty much the same thing the rest of the main cast has to say for her.

The second movie takes us to Shiki's origin story, exploring how she first met Mikiya and got caught up in a series of serial killings that took place in the late 1990s. Additionally, we get an idea of what Shiki's two split personalities in one body are like and how they contribute to her role in the story.

Caught red-handed covering herself in the blood of the supposed murder victims despite not being the true culprit, Shiki becomes more isolated from Mikiya. Despite this, Mikiya maintains a strong resolve and tries to look out for her, even going as far as to camp outside her home every night, whether in falling snow or stormy rain.

Eventually, Shiki has had enough of it and decides to kill Mikiya to put him out of any further danger she may cause him. Thankfully, Shiki restrains herself at the last minute and is supposedly run over by a truck, losing her male personality in the process, but miraculously surviving the accident, which puts her into a two-year coma.

The third movie introduces us to the fan-favorite antagonist, Fujino Asagami. The film starts by showing Fujino being mercilessly tortured by a group of street gangsters. After being hit with a metal bat, she finally snaps and takes her revenge by literally snapping most of the gangsters to death. Or should I say bending? (No, not that kind of bending.)

That same night, Fujino is left stranded in the dark until Mikiya stumbles upon her. He treats her kindly, allowing her to stay at his residence and take a shower. In the following days, it becomes clear that Fujino is now at large, taking out her inner pain on those who have hurt her and anyone who stands in her way. With her attraction to Mikiya and her dark purple hair, one could almost say she's a prototype of Sakura Matou.

Unsurprisingly, Shiki is sent to confront Fujino. The showdown pits Mystic Eyes of Death Perception against Mystic Eyes of Distortion. The two fight to the death with astounding animation and choreography. Shiki skillfully dodges Fujino's bending spells under a large suspension bridge. The fight reaches its climax when Shiki cuts through the bending spells and pins Fujino down.

Then, in one of the series' most iconic scenes, Fujino bends the entire suspension bridge they are on, demolishing it in heavy rain, vehicles and all. Despite all the chaos, Fujino is left barely alive. Miraculously, she is given a chance to continue living when Shiki removes the true source of her pain - appendicitis. Thus, for the time being, all's well that ends well as Mikiya sees Shiki smile for the first time in a long while.

Continuing from where the second movie left off, the fourth movie takes us to right after Shiki's accident as she is transported to a hospital. Left in almost critical condition, Mikiya worries deeply for her as she recovers from her coma for almost two years.

Over the course of those two years to the end, Shiki has both lost and gained something as a result of her accident. Due to the severe blow dealt to her head by the incoming truck, Shiki has now lost her male personality, leaving only her female personality. She copes with this by putting on a cold facade. On the other hand, Shiki has mysteriously awakened an unknown power later known as the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.

Unfortunately, Shiki is not excited about this newfound ability, as she initially sees it as a curse. She can now see how people can die just by detecting their weak spots. Thus, Touko introduces herself to Shiki for the first time as a magus posing as a newly hired medical counselor. Through philosophy and a sudden ambush by a supernatural zombie, Shiki learns to embrace her new power.

With Touko bestowing the trademark knife Shiki now wields, Shiki manages to kill the zombie and finally learns how to hone her ability properly. This gives her a position at Touko's independent paranormal agency to deal with more supernatural incidents like this one.

Well, here goes. The sixth movie in the film series, and apparently the most divisive one as well. Here, Mikiya's sister Azaka finally gets a movie to herself as we get to see her be an apprentice of Touko and take on a mystery of her own when her school is caught in a series of incidents involving fairies mesmerizing female students and subjecting them to danger.

While Shiki does tag along for the ride, it's mostly Azaka's time to shine as her Day in the Limelight gives us insight into how she came to develop her... incestuous attraction to her brother Mikiya and how she wishes to impress him, especially since she's not very fond of Shiki. While Shiki is off doing her own thing when she confronts a man named Satsuki Kurogiri, sent by Souren Araya to help her remember her male personality and memories, Azaka manages to break down with her dancing fists of fury as she confronts the true culprit of the incidents: the chairwoman of the student committee, Misaya Ouji.

Eventually, when the fairies turn on Misaya, Azaka manages to defeat them and save Misaya, resolving the conflict. Meanwhile, Shiki finishes her encounter with Satsuki as he disappears, having dodged her attacks perfectly with his God's Word origin. While the chapter this movie adapts doesn't cover everything the light novels revealed about Shiki's memories being restored and what happens to Satsuki, I still found it decent since it gave Azaka some time to shine. Of course, I can see why many view the sixth movie as the weakest of all the main seven, but nonetheless, it was still a good watch.

The second best movie after the fifth one. This one was the hardest to understand, but the ending was just too amazing, and the Mikiya x Shiki moment was heartwarming! Loved it.

Excluding the epilogue and the extra movies, the seventh movie is the last release order installment in the film series. In this final installment, the seventh movie catches up on the events of the second and fourth movies as the same murders that happened in 1995 are happening again four years later in 1999.

This draws both Shiki's and Mikiya's attention, especially Shiki's, as she manages to find the true culprit of both murders in the form of a student-turned-serial-killer, Lio Shirazumi. With Lio's taunts and murderous intent, Shiki has only one thing on her mind: to kill him. Despite Lio's nature and atrocities, Mikiya comes to understand Lio in a personal conversation with him. He learns how one single rejection by Shiki sent Lio into a downward spiral of darkness as he took out his rage on some bar patrons at an arcade and accidentally killed one of them prior to having to eat the corpse.

Souren has a part in this and encourages Lio to embrace his bestial hunger and bloodlust. It then comes down to Shiki finally confronting him in an empty warehouse where marijuana or something else is being grown and harvested. The fight between the two is both suspenseful and terrifying, with Lio's taunts finally breaking Shiki, allowing her to be disgustingly licked by Lio and essentially raped by him (that's 10 good character points off for you, Lio). Things only get worse when Mikiya comes to the same warehouse they're in, and Lio almost kills him with a strike to the eye and forehead.

While Mikiya miraculously survives this casualty, Lio is led to believe he really did kill Mikiya, his only real friend. As Lio fully gives in to his carnal instincts, Shiki somehow manages to burn and eradicate her chains and free herself, finally going in for the kill as she slices and dices Lio to death. Following the deadly encounter and Shiki and Mikiya reuniting, the two manage to recover in the end, albeit with Mikiya losing the eyesight in one eye for good, as... more

As this is the epilogue, I'll keep things short. After the events of the seventh and final movie, Mikiya, with a non-functioning eye, is seen walking down the road on a snowy day, just like the same snowy day when he first met Shiki, who is wearing the same white kimono.

Most of the epilogue treats us to some philosophical conversation, leaving the audience either thought-provoked or entirely bored. Regardless, the falling snow makes the epilogue beautiful enough to watch through. Eventually, Shiki tells Mikiya about a third personality she harbored, one that transcends her male and female personalities. This third personality is essentially an incarnation of a goddess of the void.

After supposedly healing Mikiya's leg or something else, Shiki, in her third personality, says farewell to him, expecting to meet him again tomorrow after that snowy night.

As a tie-in, Mirai Fukuin (also known as Future Gospel in English) consists of two short stories, Mobius Ring and Mobius Link, told from the perspectives of three future seers. Mobius Ring introduces us to Azaka's classmate, Shizune Seo, who was born with the ability to see the future but is unable to change it. However, her perspective shifts after meeting Mikiya, who helps her realize that she can alter the future. In one instance, Shizune saves a bystander from being run over by a truck. During a conversation in a cafe, Shizune learns to embrace her ability, seeing it as a power that can change the future for the better, rather than believing it to be fixed.

Meanwhile, a bomber named Mitsuru Kamekura wreaks havoc in Mifune City. He has the ability to see the future and alter it, unlike Shizune. Eventually, Shiki confronts and outsmarts him, breaking through his premonition powers and rendering them useless. The final showdown takes place in a parking deck, where Shiki disables Mitsuru's ability to see the future, leading to his defeat.

Mobius Link takes place a decade after the events of Kara no Kyoukai's main story. Shiki now has a daughter named Mana, and Mitsuru works at the agency Shiki is affiliated with, repaying a massive debt. Mitsuru and Mana investigate the Mother of Mifune, a fortune teller who could once predict the future with complete accuracy. Although the Mother of Mifune has lost her ability over the years, she still provides a meaningful fortune for the pair.

Later, Shiki meets the Mother of Mifune herself, who predicts Shiki's inevitable death. However, the fortune teller also tells Shiki that her dreams will live on, leaving Shiki feeling optimistic. In the final scene, Shiki walks down a sidewalk in the rain, humming a song she once shared with Mikiya.