Kara no Kyoukai Movie 2: Satsujin Kousatsu (Zen)

In the winter of 1995, Mikiya Kokutou passes a young woman during a late night stroll in the snow. Clad in a striking white kimono and bearing an enigmatic gaze, Shiki Ryougi smiles at Mikiya who stares back with curiosity. Later that spring, Mikiya notices Shiki at his high school entrance ceremony, and they become acquaintances through lunchtime conversations. As Shiki begins opening up to him, Mikiya learns about her unique upbringing.

Meanwhile, a series of unprecedented murders takes place across Mifune City. Seemingly related, these murders are particularly brutal and warrant a large scale police investigation. Because of his cousin's work as a police investigator, Mikiya is given insight into the investigation. Concerned for Shiki's safety, Mikiya decides to monitor her actions, but in doing so, he stumbles upon a truly frightening discovery that changes his life forever.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ryougi, Shiki Main

Sakamoto, Maaya Japanese

Kokutou, Mikiya Main

Suzumura, Kenichi Japanese

Aozaki, Touko Supporting

Honda, Takako Japanese

Shirazumi, Lio Supporting

Hoshi, Souichirou Japanese

Gakuto Supporting

Takahashi, Kenji Japanese

Akimi, Daisuke Supporting

Touchi, Hiroki Japanese

Ryougi, Father Supporting

Sugisaki, Ryou Japanese

Iwakami, Atsuhiro Producer

Kondou, Hikaru Producer

Hariu, Masayuki Producer

Toba, Yousuke Assistant Producer

Reviews

Sep 26, 2023

TheScarletCutter

Recommended

Informative

Kara no Kyoukai is perhaps one of the most acquired tastes in anime, whether you're a TYPE-MOON fan or not. It has gotten a reputation for being a complicated mix bag, whether it's boring and/or pretentious, too hard to understand, or possibly a masterpiece. I've watched the entire movie series and while I barely understood what any of that means, at the same time, I've been amazed at how masterful its craft truly is. A series that yes, it's super complex, but doesn't take itself seriously while still being a serious work of art. All of this is thanks to the golden tickets that are ... Paradox Paradigm and Murder Speculation Part B. But... Those aren't what I'm talking about. What I want to talk about is Murder Speculation Part A, in my opinion, the most underrated installment of Kara no Kyoukai. My goal here isn't to talk about how the series works, it's more of me expressing my feelings with it and it resonates with me. With that being said, let's get started!

STORY: 9/10

Even though this is the second installation of the series, funnily enough, this is actually the beginning, especially if you watch the series in chronological order. It starts off with a boy named Mikiya walking through the snow and suddenly sees a mysterious girl named Shiki. Even since they briefly met, Mikiya begins to fall in love with her. That April, she started to attend the same school as he does. The Mifune City, on the other hand, is filled with unclear victims and the investigators have yet to find out who the culprit is. If I'm being honest, it's quite hard to understand. It has a lot of interesting ideas on the table but the story is heavily full of puzzles. I barely understood what it literally was supposed to be and at that point, I don't think I will.

That is... When it shouldn't be understood. Kara no Kyoukai doesn't have any literal meaning but is arguably more of emotional surrealism. This installation did a fantastic job of how Shiki is trapped in a virtual, non-linear prison. Shiki has a male personality gained from her family that is meant to show certain differences between her female one but is suddenly cursed to the extent that she's forced to commit a silent massacre. It's honestly scary personally. I still don't understand the whole situation but what I understand is that some of your human emotions may turn into a living nightmare. This series did an excellent job of how Mikiya encounters the complicated scenario. It gives more time for him to find hints on what went wrong with Shiki. Knowing TYPE-MOON, I would gladly watch the whole thing even if it means not knowing much.

CHARACTERS: 9/10

We have two main leads, one being Shiki, the maiden who has been invaded by her corrupted human emotions, and Mikiya, the clueless inspector. I really adore these 2 characters because of how much impact they brought to both their characterizations and the story. Shiki may be a mysterious figure herself but she really helped me explore the mystery surrounding the series. She may be quiet but she really shows a lot of expression in her writing. I find it very tragic how she's both the culprit and victim in one setting. Not to mention how she's nominated to gain her male personality in the first place.

As for Mikiya, yes, he may not fight back but what definitely makes up for that is how, again, explores certain hints regarding Shiki's murders. I really find it compelling how he investigates stuff on his own and encounters great danger, be it a mistake or on purpose. Even though he's inhuman for how he encounters said danger, at the same time, he's human for how he tries to act. Admittedly, I find it weird how even though he counters something threatening, he still forgives the culprit, even if they would be killed later on. But I really understand that. After all, he plays a major role in contrasting Shiki's grimdark emotions.

Both Shiki and Mikiya have amazing chemistry with one another. Even though Shiki has her own yin and yang, both portray separate elements incredibly well. Sure, it can be toxic at points but at the same time, they play well with each of their elements. The side characters are quite nothing to talk about but this is heavily protagonist-focused so it doesn't matter much.

ART: 9/10

Even though there isn't much action, the production is very fluid and doesn't have any of the slideshow nonsense. Shiki's fashion is very adequate. Cool jacket or not, her Kimonos are downright stylish and beautiful.

SOUND: 10/10

The music is haunting yet beautiful at the same time. The OST truly reflects both the atmosphere and the events very well. The voice acting is also superb, with my personal favorite being Maaya Sakamoto as Shiki for how portrays her stoic behavior very nicely.

PERSONAL ENJOYMENT: 9/10

Even though it's complicated when it comes to understanding what it literally is, I believe it to be one of the series' best chapters. It figuratively shows how corrupt your life can be and why you need to be aware of what's causing the world. I truly resonate with each of the 2 main leads for how they are constructed. Of course, not everyone is into complicated storytelling like Kara no Kyoukai and you know what? That's extremely fair. But if you're looking for a psychological series packed with beautiful action, this is the way to go. If you're watching the series in broadcast order, treat this as the second order. If you're watching (or preferably re-watching) chronologically, treat this as the first.

OVERALL: 9/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 6, 2022

mateoid

Mixed Feelings

Horrible pacing with anticlimatic twists and full of exposition, ultimately boring. The feeling of wasted potential started here, a distaste and disinterest that will loom in future entries, keeping me from fully enjoying this disconnected series. Probably my least favorite episode. The story was boring, it wasn't predictable, still I didn't enjoy it. The art style is fitting for the story, maintining the beauty from the first installment. The characters remained as half-baked messes, all of them are weird and confusing and frustrating. They didn't react to situations in a realistic way and I guess some people will enjoy it more than I did, ... that's why I'm feeling a light six on this one.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Apr 12, 2025

1stDecame4Danime

Not Recommended

Series review:
The 1st 4 movies were pointlessly rearranged out of chronological order in the same way as the source material (thereafter is chronological). You'll find online (much like with any series) fanboys blindly recommend watching it in the order it was released. They will give no actual valid justification for this achronology however. So allow me: The author published each individual chapter online coming up with it as they went and ended up writing prequel chapters and sequel chapters and such off the cuff merely because that's the order they came up with it. Achronology adds absolutely nothing to these movies beyond the pointless achronology ... itself: pointless convolution of simple linear storytelling, not even adding timeline mystery as it literally tells you the dates for each movie and it's readily apparent which comes before which. What it does do is detract from the story: It shows the chronological last of the 4 1st, thus spoiling your experience of the 3 movies thereafter because all of them are murder-oriented, removing all suspense of whether or not many of the exact same characters will die when we now already know that they won't, they have plot armor to live because they need to be there for the later chronology. They made a lame story slightly worse by recommending the release order. If you want to watch this in the release order, go ahead and watch the HP movies in a random order for the exact same result because achronology is just inherently better and aren't you special?

Each movie in this series follows the main cast involved in another supernatural murder mystery scenario of the week for them to investigate/resolve via exposition dump nonmystery rather than piecing together evidence alongside the audience and often just completely removing all suspense by showing us the murderer and their circumstances from the start.
Both each movie internally and all the movies taken as a whole can be described as a dumb series of random asspulls strung together. Every aspect of it is making itself up as it goes:
For example, intrigue: Why is the killer making swastikas, ying-yangs, and sewing hands and feet swapped on victims? No reason really, plot point dropped forever.
Why does she practically only drink water and seemingly blood? Surely she can't be human, is that blood-coffee? maybe she's a vampire, oh seems she's actually a doll, wait nevermind the author decided to go a different way, came up with the backstory for her arm and she's actually human and her inhuman diet will never be addressed again. wrighting 100.
You can pretty much watch the author coming up with the characters in real-time from blank edgy cardboard nothings to suddenly dumping exposition backstories and that's about as far as they get. Then after a few movies suddenly maguses and suddenly all puppet masters and nothing matters welcome to Fate (oh yeah, Nasu did write Fate, makes sense, wait is this just a Fate spinoff? Damn I've been tricked into watching Fate filler side stories haven't I?).

Despite being ostensibly 'dark fantasy', while it deals with dark/mature themes this isn't horror, just 20% violence/gore between 80% filler. Rather than horror it's mature action, and whatever attempts it makes to be dark come across as laughably edgy and usually conveyed through idiotic shonen villain monologuing (think Angels of Death taking itself completely seriously).

The dialogue is nearly 100% filler/exposition in addition to frequent poor translation/nonsense dialogue.

Barely any actual cinematography or even interesting shots. The best it manages is a bunch of superficial nothings like dead body with blood, oOoOo blood, spoOoOoky and 1 Elfen Lied gore ripoff character who the series just never has show up again? But I guess this shallow filler counts as deep to some people.

The MC is a noncharacter simp with almost no backstory and hardly any relevance to the series. most everyone else actually goes out and does stuff while he kinda just shows up to talk and occasionally participate by simping for girls almost certainly because he's been written as a generic MC self-insert for a VN nonromance harem builder with all the hentai scenes left out. He's a pencil-pushing desk warmer the girls immediately fall for who has been written out of the story with dumb excuses like being comatose and going off for weeks to learn to drive and the story taking place elsewhere only to briefly call him up on the phone to say hello. Let alone making a different character MC, you know your story is bad when your MC of all people would be better off cut from the entire series.

They frequently skip entire scenes that are actually part of the plot and just sort of act like they haven't, as if they were supposed to be there but simply cut for pointless ambiguity because it apparently just isn't interested in telling the story, as if it is rushing through the plot in order to cram in as much cost-saving filler as it can. The finale of the series retcons in an antagonist as if he has been their friend all along even though it fills the series with a 4 year gap of plot holes and is dumb on the face of it and pointlessly meaningless if one tries to look any deeper. This series is a low effort unrevised draft.

Extreme Haagen-dazs ice cream product placement ads.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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