Garden of Sinners - Kara no Kyoukai

Ryougi Shiki is one of the most stylish action heroines. Actually, it might not be right to call her a heroine as there is a man residing within her, either way, women with a masculine side is cool, and most importantly, characters voiced by Maaya Sakamoto could do no wrong.

Set in a dystopic, futuristic world, Kara no Kyoukai shows the other side of Tsukihime. The vampire princess deals with the socialites, Shiki deals with paranormal and violent activities hidden in the darkest crevices in the city. There's nothing more fun to watch than a girl beat thugs up in a kimono!

Of course there are peaceful moments, but the movie series is hardly pure light and fun, it explores fully the darkside of humanity. Sometimes the killed deserves what happened to them and the killers are the true victims, this is especially true with Fujino in the third movie.

There's quite a bit of blood gore and graphic scenes, and many more excitement. The animations are beautiful, the soundtrack is haunting, although there are confusing plotlines, Ryougi Shiki alone makes up for everything.

Or let's say, Maaya Sakamoto makes up for everything.



We get a glimpse of the power of Ryougi Shiki and her powers in the first movie, we get to know how Shiki and Mikiya met in highschool in the second. We fall deeper into the darker depths of the society in the third movie. From then onwards, everything gets darker.

The fourth movie is about Shiki's recovery from her fatal accident and her discovery of her powers. Aosaki Tohko shows us her stuff here. She is another one of my personal favourites, not only is she a powerful magician, she is two faced. When she wears her glasses, she is like an office lady, although quite a bit more forceful than the rest, when she took her glasses off, she is the reincarnation of a demon lord.

The fifth movie was a complete confusion to me. Others might have better luck, but the amount of high speed action that involves Shiki and Tohko is enough to make me a happy watcher. Blood and gore level goes pretty high in this installment too.

The sixth movie is the last one I have seen and is perhaps one of the lighter and sweeter movies in the whole series. Kokuto Mikiya's sister Asaka steals the show in this one. Shiki and Asaka, rivals for Mikiya's affections, teamed together to solve the mystery in the all girls catholic school. The whole of class of 2-D gets amnesia, fairies are robbing people of their memories. Fairies are very much in vogue these days, let's see them crushed.


Shiki is too cool, Nendoroid makers decide to make her cuter, softer. Although shortened and rounded the kimono clad girl still shows that she is not to be messed with, especially when her package comes with her dagger and her lighted up eyes. Those who are more interested in quirky comedy, though, could put her cat ears on her and have her pose with cat Arcuied.