Source
r/anime•
CaptainCrunch

Hey r/Anime/ has anyone else seen Kara no Kyoukai (The Garden of Sinners)?

This show has some of the the best fight scene animation I've ever laid eyes on. It's a great series and I would recommend it to anyone who has not yet seen it, but has a pretty tough stomach. It's got a lot of "philosophical" elements, so if you don't like reading a lot of subs, you may want to pass, but I'll leave you with a few clips you should take a look at. (ANN) (AniDB)

If you can't watch them all, just watch episode 5. It probably won't be too hard to follow if you missed the first 4, and it's the best of the bunch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBrWcKIteAo&fmt=22

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWClr4Zghk8&fmt=22

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgJbJtulgCY&fmt=18

Enjoy. That second one is beyond anything i've ever even imagined possible in an anime.

Posted Jan 14, 2010, 6:15 PM UTC · edited

2035
Epycre•

I thought the anime was very enjoyable. The story was pretty good and the action (when it happened) was well done. However the thing that I found best about KnK was the music. Kajiura Yuki is such a good composer, and KnK was probably my favorite of her works.

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plus•

I certainly wouldn't say it has "the best" animation of anything I've seen. Both the character design and the story are very typical of Nasu. The fight scenes are over-the-top and unrealistic, with a generous amount of CGI to make things "pretty". The story is one of those where the author feels free to make up supernatural phenomena as he goes along, with no attempt to unify it into a cogent whole.

I'm not saying I didn't like it, because I did. It was entertaining. But it was a very typical soft fantasy with no real innovation and little creativity involved. In fact, Kara no Kyoukai (the novel) was a sort of prototype for the visual novel Tsukihime, which was earlier adapted into an anime (which was not well received). Many of the characters in Kara no Kyoukai have an equivalent in Tsukihime. I have played through part of the Tsukihime visual novel, and personally I find it to be more entertaining than Kara no Kyoukai.

You mention that it has "a lot of philosophical elements," and I'd have to disagree. It has a lot of talking that could be construed as philosophical, but in reality it's nothing but a bunch of intellectual masturbation. Kara no Kyoukai is "deep" in the same way that Evangelion is "deep," which is to say that it isn't.

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squidwalk•

Evangelion had some light existentialism and a good deal of Sea Scrolls name dropping, I agree it wasn't very deep. Since you've seen Kara no Kyoukai, can you say what sort of philosophy it tries to go for if it similarly fails to achieve any depth?

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plus•

I am not comfortable with pigeonholing like that. I wouldn't say Evangelion talks about existentialism, because that gives it more credit than it is due and makes it sound like it actually had something deep and important to say. Again, I liked Evangelion too, but don't make it out to be some kind of exposition of human psychology.

Possible spoilers:

Kara no Kyoukai spends a lot of time talking about "the mind of a killer." That is to say, Shiki is a "natural killer" (despite never having actually killed anyone), and shies away from human contact. Kokutou is the well-meaning normal fellow who tries to open her up. Everything else is episodic and only matters in the context of the particular movie it is in.

All I'm saying is that assigning deep philosophical meaning to anime - any anime - is foolish. I don't see people going around talking about the deep philosophical meaning of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Why should anime be any different?

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squidwalk•

I wasn't suggesting anything like pigeonholing, I just wanted you to touch on what the OP might have meant by philosophy. Which you did admirably.

Buffy isn't about philosophy, it's about parallel narrative and super-naturalism as a metaphor for the mundane. Like proper zombie stories. Until the 5th season or so.

Anyway, there's no reason someone couldn't put philosophy into anime. There's lots of psychology anime like Kuuchuu Buranko and FLCL. That said, it does seem like every anime that tries to incorporate philosophy fails pretty hard. Ergo Proxy comes to mind, as a series with no real philosophic value that drops names like a bad 90's rap song.

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CaptainCrunchOPhttp://www.anime-planet.com/users/captaincrunch•

I wasn't trying to say that the anime is philosophical, I was just mentioning that there is a lot of eastern philosophy (Yin/Yang, re-incarnation, etc), that can be hard to follow unless you are really paying attention to the subs. It's not really vital to the show, and the show isn't trying to make it to be, but I had to rewind a few times during my watching to understand what the hell they were talking about. Thats all I meant, you shouldn't be scared off because of it.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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hampusl•

Well, the anime is not philosophical in the sense of an academic lecture. But it does get really interesting when you try to get into the head of author. (Evangelion should then be considered a psychological and not a philosophical work (Evangelion then gets very intellectual and stimulating)).

I considered the entire movie series to be an exploration of the concept of existence and the worth of human life. I believe that Kara no Kyoukai should, as a series of movies, be felt and not analyzed as a pseudo lecture. (where it would fail)

But do yourself a favor and try to get into the head of the author. He is a genius, no question about it. Without his obvious understanding of the concept, he would not have been able to make the story so heartbreakingly beautiful.

It's easy to write something off as "intellectual masturbation" or something similar when you do not understand something. Then a lot of buzz-words could point to "star trek magic". But I would not consider these movies to be overloaded with them. I would only consider the mysticism in the series to be a vessel to explore the issue at hand. (Shikis special eyes being far too obvious)

The interesting thing happening is not Shiki opening up, it is the argument of the author being neatly closed. Without this "episodic" gruesomeness, the point could not have been communicated.

The love story and the gradual opening of Shiki is in itself not the soul of these movies, it's the celebration of the human soul.

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CaptainCrunchOPhttp://www.anime-planet.com/users/captaincrunch•

I mean't the fighting scenes... I guess I should have been more specific and a show doesn't have to be oscar-worthy to be great.

I'll give you that a few of the movies were nothing spectacular, but episodes 2,3 and 5 I thought were top notch.

BTW, why does someone always have to mention "The manga was so much better", or "the visual novel was so much better"? We're discussing anime here.

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plus•

Well, I've never read the Kara no Kyoukai novels. I was simply stating that Tsukihime is a bit like a more refined Kara no Kyoukai. However, the Tsukihime anime was terrible. I merely suggested playing the Tsukihime visual novel.

If you want to limit yourself to a single medium, be my guest. In this case, however, novels and visual novels are very much related to the anime, and it is perfectly justified in talking about them.

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CaptainCrunchOPhttp://www.anime-planet.com/users/captaincrunch•

Fair enough. I am happy that we both agree that the "deepness" of Eva was just for show and to make it seem intelligent and edgy. I especially liked the phrase "nothing but a bunch of intellectual masturbation". :)

I was mostly referring to that fact that it can be hard to follow due to the inclusion of these things, rather than the fact that they make any better/worse.

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rhedwolf•

The general consensus is that Tsukihime was never adapted into an anime, just fyi.

Tsukihime really has a fantastic story though; if only a talented studio would make an anime out of it...

0
bekeleven•

It's not the animation. It's the animation, music, and sound.

Music is the best Yuki Kajiura's done with a -possible- exception for hack//SIGN. The mastering of sounds and the VA is spectacular. I would watch this if it had no plot.

Which is good, since a lot of the philosophy wank makes it feel that way sometimes.

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Samus_•

show looks great, thanks for sharing!

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nickpick•

I have and it's probably very high up on my list of series I'd show to someone who wanted to get into the genre. Episode 5 is just a marvel.

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CJCox•

Actually, it's next on my list of things to watch.

Two questions: Is the 7th movie the really the last one? The reason I ask is because of the erratic release schedule (2007-12-01 - 2009-08-08). And should I watch Shingetsutan Tsukihime first?

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plus•

Initially there were plans for only 7 movies. I have heard from unreliable sources that an eighth movie is planned, though it will not be in the same time frame.

Do not watch Tsukihime ever. It is a terrible anime. The story isn't bad but the presentation was horrendous. The visual novel is good - it is an h-game, but if I recall correctly one can omit the erotic scenes upon installation.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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CJCox•

I haven't checked out the Tsukihime visual novel, but I have played Melty Blood.

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Epycre•

There is supposed to be an epilogue movie, but if you ask me I think the ending was good. Having an epilogue would just ruin it.

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[deleted]•

I watched Tsukihime. I've seen so much worse. I did it in one really bored 5 hour Saturday afternoon showing though with a lot of delicious snacks, so I might be biased.

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nickpick•

it is an h-game, but if I recall correctly one can omit the erotic scenes upon installation.

Does that kind of miss the point?

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plus•

No, of course not. It's still a visual novel. There are plenty of non-pornographic visual novels (e.g. Clannad), and visual novels that are pornographic but still have a decent story (e.g. Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night).

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nickpick•

That's true, but having watched Fate/Stay Night (the series) I must admit that, at times, you really felt like something was cut off. The scene where the protagonist has to "recharge Saber's energy" comes to mind. Point being, I'd probably feel a little odd removing the sex scenes from it, as they too are a part of the narrative.

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NovaProspekt•

I thought it was above average but I didn't get the "wow" factor that most other viewers seem to get from it. I found the plots and characters to be rather underdeveloped and I couldn't get very emotionally attached to any of the films. Good animation can't really make a series for me.

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CaptainCrunchOPhttp://www.anime-planet.com/users/captaincrunch•

Maybe you've been exposed to a bit more than me. This was my first experience with this type of animation, and probably for a lot of others. I agree that the only character that "developed" was Shiki, none of the others' backgrounds were explored too much.

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whitterquick•

This looks to be a good anime and i will def be checking it out asap. However the fight scenes made me cringe a bit. I watched 5 or 6 of them on youtube and they all seemed to fall into one of two generic categories (though i must say beautifully done):

  1. slash slash dodge, slash slash dodge, slash slash dodge, slash slash BIG SLASH win. Can't stand these type of fights, 0% imagination, 100% choreograph

  2. aaahhhh makenai, AAAAAAHHH makenai, AAAHHHH MAKENAI, ZETAINI MAKENAI!!!!! win. 0% imagination, 100% screaming.

(i apologise if my romanji sucks, doing it from memory/guess work)

So yeah, seems worth checking out, but if the story is of the same level of imagination as the fight scenes then i'm gunna be majorly disappointed.

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CaptainCrunchOPhttp://www.anime-planet.com/users/captaincrunch•

The fights are only about 5% (maybe less?) of the show and it's still rated 8.8 on ANN and 9.0 on AniDB... if that's any indication :)

It's not some cliche shonen power-up-filled brawler, it's probably best described as an episodic supernatural thriller with a murder mystery and psychological aspects, although there is an over-arching plot that moves forward throughout the series. It's definitely seinen too, not shonen.

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BlitzMonk3y•

Uh it was ok...you have quite low standards. For fight scenes...no its not the best.

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CaptainCrunchOPhttp://www.anime-planet.com/users/captaincrunch•

What is your favorite?

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BlitzMonk3y•

I dont remember the name but where the chick is getting raped and she tears all the people apart.

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CaptainCrunchOPhttp://www.anime-planet.com/users/captaincrunch•

That was the third one, "Remaining sense of pain". That was probably the best out of the bunch in terms of quality of the plot and script. But I was asking what fight scenes are better than are in this series?

We/someone should start a thread where we can post our favorite fight scenes... maybe I'll start one.

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