Kara no Kyoukai, Garden of Sinners: Movie 4

Well, as I’m sure you’ve all realised by now, I’m quite the TYPE-MOON fan, so I was looking forward to seeing some more Kara no Kyoukai animated.

In case you’re not aware, Kara no Kyokai was a set of novels written by Kinoko Nasu before he went on to co-create TYPE MOON and write Tsukihime, and eventually Fate/Stay Night. Tsukihime is, in fact, a heavily modified version of Kara no Kyokai’s story, and this work forms a prototype for alot of what happens in the Nasu-verse.

It also stars the original female version of Shiki, Ryogi Shiki, upon whom the male Tohno Shiki of Tsukihime is based. She too has the Mystic eyes of Death Perception, and generally shows greater control over them than her male counterpart (though that probably has something to do with the fact that male Shiki gets Mystic Eye Inhibitor glasses from Aoko, where Ryogi Shiki has no such luck).

This episode/movie (they are technically 50 minute episodes, but were originally shown in Cinemas, so I consider them to be short movies) is technically the fourth in the series, but chronologically is actually the second, showing how Shiki obtained her Mystic Eyes after the car accident and coma of two years. My Synopsis of this will be fairly brief, or else I’ll be here all day!

Technically, I believe this follows after episode 2. (That episode is actually the first one in the chronology, and shows Shiki struggling with her dual personality disorder and getting irritated after meeting Kokutou the first time and finding that he is the only one to show interest in her)

Death is bleak in the Nasuverse. No pretty angels for you, no siree…

As she wakes up, she immediately gets her first manifestation of the Mystic Eyes; which is of course a pretty horrifying experience, seeing the lines and points of death everywhere. She touches the lines she can see on the roses Kokutou has left her, and they immediately wilt away. She then passes out.

As a nurse arrives, she is shocked Shiki has awoken. Apparently she’s been out for two years.

Whew, these lines of death are scarier than the Tsukihime ones.

Shiki struggles for a little while, then immediately tries to put out her eyes.

The doctors put it down to confusion. And they call in a speech therapist, since she cannot seem to talk. (though in truth, she’s just too scared to do so.)

Touko happens to blag her way in as the speech therapist, however, probably with some Mystic eyes of her own, if I remember rightly. (hers are just ones of suggestion gained from using magic, though).

Hmm…thats troublesome, huh…

We also learn that Shiki’s mysterious eyes are likely to attract the evil spirits of the hospital; and that whilst in her coma, she has become ‘lonely’ because she has lost her alternate personality.

Kokutou starts doing a rendition of ‘Singing in the Rain’ for some reason. That manniquin of Shiki on the right is pretty creepy. At least I believe its supposed to be her… (but then, its expected to be there, since Touko is considered to be the dollmistress)

Shiki is attacked in the night by the evil spirits possessing a body. She struggles with whether or not to fight back or whether to just die quietly, but eventually decides on the former, leaping out of a 4th floor window, throwing the zombie into the electrical generator, and landing like a cat. Apparently, two years under hasn’t diminished her martial capacity.

Touko is there again, waiting in the rain. She says she didn’t expect this to happen; and uses her cigarette as a wand to cast a gout of green fire at the zombie.

However, being a zombie, (one of the ‘Dead’ to use the Nasuverse term) it doesn’t much care. It can’t be killed, since it is already dead.

Not that this matters to the Shiki. She finally realises some modicum of control for her power. And as we all know, the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception can even kill the dead, for they focus on destroying the very concept and existence of an object/being.

The zombie is annihilated, but the spirit possesses Shiki herself, making her turn the knife against herself.

However, in stabbing herself, she percieves the death of the wicked spirit inhabiting her, and kills it instead.

Kokutou finally visits again to help her leave the hospital. And the episode ends there.

And in the next episode preview, we see Proto-Shirou!!