August 2, 2008 – 10:38 pm
After the disappointment of Mnemosyne, it’s been a rather slow month as I rummage through the new season for something that will satisfy my craving for cool, strong female characters in a dark violent setting. Yeah, I know that sounds so wrong, but that’s what floats my boat. I love well-made anime such as Mushishi and Seirei no Moribito and Patlabor and Escaflowne etc etc, but I will always crave straightforward kickass female noir action.
With Kara no Kyoukai ep 3, it seems that I have found my new pick. I saw ep 1 about a month ago, and it was okay. I was more impressed with ep 2, which features Shiki’s back story (part of it anyway) and sets out the series as a mix of “monster of the week” coupled with non-linear plot advancement. Well, not so much plot, as the telling of the story of Shiki and Kokutou.
The only problem with ep 2 was that I still wasn’t terribly interested in Shiki nor her relationship with Kokotou. It appears that Shiki is a split personality and one of them is a killer who harbours a sort of affection, as far as a sociopath can, for Kokutou. We don’t know why Shiki kills, or who Shiki is, really, but the ep ends with Shiki about to stab Kokutou.
Ep 3, the one which I found the best of the lot, is set between ep 2 and ep 1. Now we see the connections lining up, and Shiki and Kokutou both start feeling more real, less 2-dimensional. The focus of this episode is a girl named Fujino who has been killing members of a gang. Shiki immediately identifies her as “of the same cloth” as herself, ie a killer with an unstable mind, and is quite vehement in her hatred of the girl as Fujino appears to be an indiscriminate murderer; as Touko says, Shiki herself still holds on to certain codes of morality.
This fleshing out of Shiki’s personality makes her more intriguing to me, and the revelation of how she got the puppet arm in ep 1 is also a nice tidbit that I eagerly devoured, as was the nature of her psychic abilities. However, perhaps the best part of this story is Fujino herself, who is a very interesting victim. Her actions are murder, and Kokutou, ever the idealist, still considers it wrong, but he adds that he feels nothing for the men she murdered. Fujino could have been a flat character acting out her brand of insanity, but we are made to feel both sympathy, in that her pain is caused by something out of her control, as well as condemnation, for she is a murderer who denies her own guilt. My favourite part was the very end, when she cries that she wants to live, a sequence which suddenly restores to her a modicum of humanity. Although there seems little chance, for me the ultimate fanservice would be Fujino appearing in later eps to seriously massively kick some bad guy ass, heh.
I liked this part also because I liked the character design for Fujino, and I was very very drawn to her voice. At the end, I noted with pleasant surprise that her VA was Noto Mamiko. That’s just ridiculously good casting :) And again, I had forgotten that Shiki was played by Sakamoto Maaya. Yes, she’s that good.
All in all, I’m very happy with this series, and hope the remaining parts will be as good or better. As long as there’s no romance between Shiki and Kokutou, I think I’ll be well satisfied.
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June 22, 2008 – 8:40 pm
Okay, it was a tossup between MacF 11 and Kara no Kyoukai. Didn’t know anything about Kara no Kyoukai except it was Type-Moon and hence very hype and probably undeliverable (I got burned by Fate/Stay Night anime), but it was Kajiura Yuki’s latest work and so I bit.
I’ll say off the bat that, still knowing nothing about the series other than what little backstory is miserly scattered to us in this first of seven episodes, I think I like it. It reminds me of Miyu; the obvious reasons are the supernatural horror flavour and the setup that we, the audience, are given little introduction to the situation and background, thus creating a mystery that is to be revealed in the following parts.
I like these types of mysteries because I like fantasy, dream-like worlds that are not our reality. The first key to making this succeed is to insert plenty of atmosphere and little details that keep you grounded even when you don’t know what the “real reasons” are. The other key is having at least one well-developed, sympathetic character so you, the viewer, can concentrate on their reactions and personality as the focal point, thus allowing you to view a world that may not make sense to you, via a character who is part of that world.
I think the Miyu OVAs are an excellent example of this. (Forgive the Miyu focus, I just watched ep 1 again the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it has stood the test of years and years and more than a bit of my own idolatry.) Anyway, Kara no Kyoukai isn’t quite as mysterious and otherworldly, lacks properly developed characters for us to sympathize with, and in the end wasn’t a terribly imaginative story, but it had enough to hook me.
First of all the animation and art is gorgeous. It is sophisticated spending and beautifully detailed in cases; for instance, my favourite parts are how Shiki’s shadow is blurred on the edges when she entered the building, and how when she walks inside they show her as a shadow and then as a brightly lit figure as she passes from window to window. Granted well-animated and directed action is always a joy, but nowadays I find myself being delighted by all these tiny little bits of care that the director lavishes on the show. In something which relies on atmosphere, all the more so.
Next, I am always partial to kick-ass female main characters. Shiki is kick-ass. She’s also pretty damn cold and empty and unfortunately seems to have a weakness for the nominal male romantic interest, but if she continues to kick ass I will continue to watch. Okay, so the puppeteer thing was like super piquing my interest as well. Human body augmentation, in all its various cybernetic and spiritual forms, is a fascination of mine.
Last, Kajiura is there. It may not be as overwhelming as say Yoko Kanno’s GitS soundtrack, but I like her stuff and it makes everything better. Hell, I ordered the limited box of this ep without even seeing the show, just to get the soundtrack. So there.
The bad part of Kara no Kyoukai was that too little was explained. Not enough background folks. Actually, rich background isn’t really needed. As I said before, what you do need is one character to ground you. We had something, with Shiki eating the ice cream, but we didn’t get inside her head at all so that may as well have been nothing.
Hopefully the next episode will give something, but actually I don’t want it to be Shiki. I like Shiki, and I like Shiki as the mystery, so I want Shiki to be revealed to me via someone else. This is what made Miyu good, and I think it would be a great way to handle this situation as well. Somehow I doubt it’s gonna be though, but hey one can hope.
Oh, and I was really surprised that it was Sakamoto Maaya who played Shiki. Wow… loks like she’s reviving her seiyuu career. This is another woman I highly respect for her abilities. Go Maaya!
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