Translation: The Garden of Sinners
Today here’s an anime (well series of anime movies) that most in the US have likely not seen. Known in Japan as Kara No Kyoukai but translated to The Garden of Sinners. It is based in the Nasu-verse the same universe that Fate Zero and Fate Stay Night happens in.
As always I’ll go through the premise, characters and story and then give you the conclusion.
Premise
The premise of this story is tricky because the movies are shown out of chronological order. For reasons that if you saw the first chronological story you would be bored out of your mind. So first you get an action story to entertain and then you get the essential introduction to all the characters.
The actual premise of the story is a supernatural detective agency that deals with supernatural things. The main characters have supernatural abilities that allow them to deal with these incidents. Yet the story is more character driven than action driven.
Characters
The main three characters are the ones I will focus on as others only get introduced after big plot points that I don’t want to spoil for anyone.
The main character is Shiki Ryougi, she possesses the ability to see the concept of death and sever it allowing her to permanently harm or kill someone for good which in anime is a real killer power, making sure bad guys stay dead.
All villains do everything to keep a distance from her for that very reason. Personality wise there isn’t a lot to her at first yet she grows over the course of the series due to her relationship with Kokuto.
Mikiya Kokuto is Shiki’s sidekick in the supernatural detective agency. He sees’ the best in her at all times regardless of what kind of situation it is, and does the same for the enemies they fight. This can make him naïve and a burden to Shiki at times.
Power wise he does not have power like Shiki does however when he wants to find something he will always find said thing regardless of what it is or what kind of situation it is making him an incredible detective.
His relationship with Shiki is the real driver of her character development and there is subtle romance in their relationship that does evolve over the series.
Touko Aosaki is Shiki and Kokuto’s boss at their detective agency. A mage that deals with supernatural activity and making sure the general public never finds out about these events. Her specialty is mage craft involving puppetry which she uses to fight and help repair herself and others when harm happens.
Story
The story as I said earlier is told out of chronological order. I recommend watching it that way anyway. If you watched the chronological first movie first you would be so bored you wouldn’t want to watch the other movies. So first you see the characters in action and then you learn their essential backstory so that the movie you just watched makes sense.
Each movie revolves around some supernatural event happening, usually involving murder. The theme of each movie though varies greatly. One is about your personal identity, another is about the nature of savagery and so on…there is a lot there to do deep thinking about.
Even if the deep philosophical thinking isn’t your thing the animation and fight scenes are very well done. Ufotable studios were given a very limited budget for these movies and they spent every penny of it very well.
Conclusion
If you’ve wanted to prove someone wrong when they say anime is just for kids and if you yourself want an action packed yet thought provoking experience then Kara no Kyoukai is definitely for you. There is something in there for every kind of anime lover.
On where to actually get the movies…that’s the tricky part. You can either stream them online but they won’t look that good. I recommend getting the hard copies. For those you can either look on amazon, or if you happen to be on a tight budget search for the complete series on eBay. The shipping time will be longer but the cost will be a lot lower.
Overall it is a truly engaging series to watch once you’re past the first two movies. It is hard to stop watching after that and before you know it you have to stop watching it because it’s the very next day and college starts in 30 minutes.