The seventh and final Kara no Kyoukai Movie is another long one, clocking in at two whole hours. This really gives more than enough time to properly give attention to the story that explains the rest of the mysteries that the previous six movies have left behind. And really, these past seven movies have been a real treat. They’re all different and don’t try to rip off each other, contrary to what you might expect. They’re a great recommendation for any mystery-fan, though do note that the seventh movie isn’t the best.

I’m pretty surprised with some of the flaws that actually managed to slip by in the second part of A Study In Murder. The focus this time is the shock-factor: there is a lot of gore, even more disturbing than in the previous movies, and it also touches upon a big taboo in anime: drugs. While I applaud this series for actually going there, I do think that they could have spent a bit more time making them work out right. Bluntly said: this is the most unrealistic of all the Kara no Kyoukai movies.

The gore really is gruesome, but there are times when it’s overdone a bit too much. Characters who are badly wounded (even those without any sort of supernatural powers) just walk away without even flinching (or bleeding, for that matter), and not to mention Shiki’s ingenious “handcuff-escape-trick”. hello? You have a mechanical arm! What was the point of giving her that anyway? The effects of drugs on people also didn’t seem too well portrayed. Especially for a movie of this caliber, I expected a lot more detail. This also was the only movie in which the CG didn’t blend in well with the other graphics. While most of the movie looks as gorgeous as ever, the CG saliva just looked way off, and some of the goreish flesh-wounds had this as well. Really, what happened?

But despite these, does it have enough to make up for it? Plenty. The interplay between Shiki and Mikiya in this movie adds a lot of depth to their characters and it provides a satisfying closure to the questions that were asked throughout this series of movies, mainly in the second one. It’s pretty unpredictable as well: before starting this movie, I had a completely different image of the true culprit.

The direction is also as solid as ever, and the double length really allows the story to play out like it should have. It’s just a shame of the above-mentioned flaws though. In the end, my favourite movie of the seven remains the fifth one, closely followed by the fourth. This one hovers somewhere in the middle: still very good, but hampered by strange flaws and a story that just isn’t as strong as some of the others.

At this point, it’s pretty clear what the general message is that this series wants to convey: nobody is perfect, not even your role models. So instead of trying to be perfect, you should try to live with who and what you are. Overall, these past nine episodes did a good job in showing the ins and outs of this: from the more extreme to the less extreme ones: you should just accept what you have to live with your entire life. overall, pretty well done, if I say so myself.

The general message that I got out of this particular episode however, is something completely different: Japanese TV-shows are weird. To think that people are actually willing to put morons on the screen who do nothing but smile cheesily over and over. And I thought Dutch TV was bad…

I’m surprised how little crossovers this episode had, though. Where the previous episodes threw references with heaps at the time, I don’t think that I spotted any reference to a past episode in this episode other than the usual bucket of syringes. I think that because of that, and how I had absolutely no interest in the subject material this time (child stars and variety-shows… *yuch*) that it disappointed a bit compared to the previous ones.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Well, there’s no denying that this episode had cheese, but it’s of the good kind. After all of the badly written episodes in this series, it’s at least good to see a heart-warming bitchfight between Anne and Edna that works reasonably well as long as you suspend your disbelief. Thank god Edna wasn’t another one of those stereotypical side-characters, but instead got a bit of depth to her. Even though her mother is the umpth mother who suffers from the “useless and sick mother”-syndrome.

Thinking back, it’s definitely been interesting to blog such a flawed series as this, mostly because while there were plenty of cringe-worthy moments, it never derailed completely: there always was something interesting going on that gave me plenty of inspiration to write about, compared to other rather one-sided shows as 07-Ghost, Valkyria Chronicles and some of the other shows that were a pain to blog for me. It’s really been a joy to blog Konnichiwa Anne throughout the past three seasons, despite it’s large share of problems. In the end, where this series truly shined was right after Henderson left, up to the point where Anne arrived at the Hammonds: these episodes were absolutely amazing, and the rest of the show really was hit or miss. I’d really say: crew Anne, Bert is the best character in this series. It’s not like Anne is the Anne of Anne of Green Gables anyway. Try saying that three times.

But yeah: there still is that matter of the two final episodes. The final episode will be fine. I’m not worrying about that one. My biggest worry is about the next one: the Amy Thompson episode. The creators have been hinting towards her quite a while now, but she never had her own episode yet, so there’s no doubt what next episode’s going to be about and that has me worried a lot. This show has a really nasty tendency to ruin perfectly fine characters with one-sided and shallow development.
Rating: * (Good)