Kara no Kyoukai 5: Yee-hah!

Finally, sleep after a hard night's murder.

You won’t find many done better than this installment of KnK. Perhaps it was the realisation that all the words contained in the books could have a better use than simply confusing conversation and weird terms (though lots of it still comes up).

Kara no Kyoukai 5 brings much glory to the sparkling but soulless series prior to its release. It’s nice seeing some guts and willing to attempt something progressive from the people behind the scenes, especially with the knives of corporate expectations held against their necks all the time… or perhaps it was the fear of sinking that made them do it. Either way, your’s truly is both thankful and impressed.

While the effort to use mix and repeat scenes to illustrate the discourse in the show is commendable, the show’s length would probably have been shortened considerably if they were used more efficiently. We certainly do not need to see a door knob being turned 400 times to guess it is the same door knob. The time could have been spent animating more interesting things like Shiki assembling her sword as she and Tomoe talked—I’m sure many, Japanese or otherwise, would be interested in how it’s done. I was also lightly stung by how Shiki explained that ‘a report hadn’t been broadcast’ after all the time was used to repeat the urban scenes and suggest a passing of time (we aren’t stupid). And did anyone think the energetic violin music was out of place for short ride in the orange ‘Harley’?

Tasty!

I think a really good scene is the static camera portrayal of domestic violence. We watch as the drunk Endou dad throws stuff at his wife and then later brings her to the floor and stomps on her from a single undramatic angle. Had it been done otherwise, the ugliness and message of its commonality behind closed doors would probably have been lost. The puppet art displays were pretty. There was also considerable growth for Shiki as a character other than just a crazed knife-wielding chick obsessed with stabbing and Touko as the chain-smoker who talks too much. Proof that almost everyone in the show has inferential skills and instincts sharper than a single micrometer width blade is revealed. Kokutou is again put in an insignificant position by the gods of good measure.

I do wonder what exactly the dude in the top hat was doing in the show. He seemed to be there simply to pop an eyeball and scream like a whacko. A graduate of the school Akaya and Touko attended should probably have been played a special role other than simply being supper. Could he have been added for the sake of having a caucasian with a top hat in the show? For his face to be on the cover art? Perhaps simply to fill the role of the person who would converse with Touko and expound some random things since Akaya couldn’t leave the apartment complex. Regardless, a character like him is pointless; connections with Touko could have been achieved in countless other creative (and magical) ways. When you have a mechahead in 20th century Tokyo, pretty much anything goes.

Not everyone's very good at it by the age of 25.

To end off, I’d like to discuss Azaka and Kokutou’s little fit about the latter ‘liking Shiki as a man or woman’ and than being disgusted when Kokutou seems open to either. Azaka seems to have forgotten that however Shiki acts, she is still a woman physically. It seems safe to assume that even if Shiki had the psychological programming of a man would still be equally attractive to Kokutou as long as she has the required sexual organs and hormones so Azaka’s disgust seems unwarranted. Even if Touko’s words do not confirm that the present Shiki is a girl, a man-Shiki which thinks himself a man both phyically and mentally would have a lot of trouble handling responses from his female body and wouldn’t behave too ‘normally’ (imagine how he’d handle his period). Either Azaka is a confused little girl, or the common sense present in our lives isn’t so common in the show.

Alright, time for bed.