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Not the best movie IMO (I liked 3 the most, very closely followed by 5).

Glad to see that Kokuto is still alive, and Shiki didn't commit the murders in the 2nd movie (altough I was quite positive she did).
Anyway, Shiki should just have cut his limbs off and let him suffer for the rest of his life, instead of killing him and giving him what he wants; that's a so much better revenge then just killing him.

I really was not impressed with this one, visually and sound wise, yes it was quite a treat but I found some of the dialogue laughable. The fact that Mikiya might really be dead never had an effect on me, so that tells me a lot about how this series managed to develop its characters, also I found Mikiya to be so naive at times that it borders stupidity, even so, I liked some of the interaction between him and Shiki.

So overall, the producers were quite ambitious with this one but in the end everything was kinda hit and miss, they tried too much to shock us, and so I felt that logic and realism were forgotten.

Hmmm not too sure about that one. Depends on what you were watching. The fansubs done for Movie 7 is almost laughable to point that some characters almost seemed to have mood swings or incoherent, not to mention they even mistranslated some parts whereas the retail subs actually did a really great job. This surprised me as the fansubs did a pretty good job with the past couple of films yet the quality went down so much for the final film (which pisses me off as it gives the wrong impression to people about the film).

Regarding logic and realism. Logic-wise everything should've made sense, even Mikiya's decisions. This is partly the fault of the fansubs (if it was the version you watched) as it actually screwed up some of the key conversations and ended up making Mikiya look like the idiot of the story (whereas the one at fault is actually meant to be Shiki and the retail subs make it far more obvious). As for realism, I'm curious which aspects bothered you about it? Lio shouldn't count because the guy was practically influenced by the supernatural....

One example of dialogue that I found bad:
Mikiya finds Shirazumi's apartment and even if Shirazumi is into drugs and has clearly just lost an arm, Mikiya says:
"Shirazumi, are you all right? You're not acting normal."

Also, I don't remember drugs being a major theme in any anime so I do congratulate them from trying something that is kinda taboo even for anime, but I think they could have worked a lot more on the scene with Mikiya in the alleys looking for that special drug, I think they intended that scene to be disturbing but for me it wasn't anything.

Then there's the effect of drugs, on Mikiya, supposedly he ingested a fatal dose, also his leg suffered quite an injury before being stabbed in the eye, yet he only remembered it hurts once he got over those stairs.

btw, I know one of the reasons why I did not think much of this last part, it's been quite some time since I watched the other 6 parts but even so, I still find this 7th part to be quite flawed compared to most of the other parts.

Ah ok cool. I can give you a few explanations for those ones.

Fair enough about that segment, and yes Mikiya does indeed say:
"Shirazumi, are you all right? You're not acting normal."

Just to explain the idea behind this line of dialogue (mind you, not necessarily to defend it), this is actually in part due to the director's choice to omit Mikiya's thoughts. The novel basically has him actually being nervous and cautious about Lio, to the point that he actually wanted to leave but couldn't due to Lio being closer to the door that led outside. Mikiya asking that stupidly obvious question was his way of faking/stalling the situation as he himself was quite aware how dangerous it was to be around Lio. So yeah, that was a bad move on the director's part for pretty much removing Mikiya's thoughts. In fact, the whole movie chose to omit much of the various characters' inner thoughts which while I didn't mind for most parts, can definitely lead to a lot of confusion in some scenes. Admittedly it's worded much better in the retail subs as he says something closer to: "Shirazumi, are you all right? You're acting strange."

The drug thing.... I can definitely see what you mean. While I don't have the novel in hand, making the drug-alley-scenes less cryptic could've elevated its significance. Admittedly I'm not too sure about the shock factor though, as some have argued that it wasn't really the point or maybe it was. So even for me that's sort of up in the air (personally I just took it as stylish cinematography and I myself honestly liked it)

Finally there's the Mikiya-ingesting-drugs-finale-scene. This has been point of contention among many viewers. I will say that both the movie and novel don’t make it very clear if Lio was actually being truthful (or if he even knew about the full extent of the effect of the drugs) so it’s really left ambiguous which is fine by me. I guess it’s left to suspension of disbelief at this point, since by the logic of the narrative (both in the movie and the novel) it indicates that despite the "fatal" nature of the drugs, since both Mikiya and Shiki endured as best as they could anyway, that meant they were able to get some help in time before anything truly bad happened. As for Mikiya not reacting to his injuries that much? Haha that’s just his heart of steel, though if you’re referring to him forgetting about his injuries you can easily attribute it to his loss of consciousness thus his memory about the situation going hazy.

Well I hope that my explanations cleared some stuff and helped you understand and maybe even see the film in a better light. :)

@ronri: thanks, that was quite an informative post, really helpful, especially explaining that scene in Shirazumi's apartment and how it was in the novel. The director definitely should have tried to show us that Mikiya was nervous and cautious in that scene, maybe through body language if he decided to leave inner thoughts out of that scene, since as it is, that scene was really awkward to watch.

Loved this movie ^_^

This movie was a delicious end to a delicious series, although Mujun Rasen still remains my favorite. I'm also glad that I had the Epilogue to watch immediately following this, or I might have gone mad in wait for it... Although I'm still pretty upset there's no more.

Before this, I had only watched Fate/Stay Night (which I also loved), but this series has definitely turned me on to Type-Moon productions and the Nasuverse, and I will definitely be delving deep into the rest of their works very soon.

The first half of the movie was quite enjoyable, normal mystery for this series. But the second half made me think that this is the first time the pacing of the movie was really off as they spent too much time on introspection and making things clear. It's actually a huge contrast as the entire second half takes place in one warehouse with only three characters when the first half had changing scenery and more characters. I didn't have problem with the way they established Shirazumi's madness as the revelation of his origin was interesting. While the concept was influenced by Buddhism, the fact that the origin was consumption (or for other people, something else) made it seem like people have as origin negative feelings which then get repeated. That was actually closer to Christianity with the idea of Original Sin. While philosophically speaking it was a mishmash, inside the movie the theme was used consistently.

Here are my main complaints:

1. Why did they spend so much time going on about how Shiki must not have her first kill? Firstly, she already killed Araya in the fifth movie. Secondly, I think they made too big a deal out of the symbolic value of that abhorred first killing. She was never a stable young woman and even if she had never killed before, the intent had been there, particularly in the first movie when she killed that spirit manifestation. In the third movie there was Asagami, who in the end wasn't worth killing anymore. But Shiki wasn't fighting just to wound her. Yet they went on and on about it as if Shiki could only become crazy after killing someone.

2. So, Shiki originally had a split personality, one side of which was killed four years ago, and now she's had to build up something to replace that. In part she has discovered some of those traits in herself, in part she's relying on Mikiya. While psychologically this is rubbish, it was consistently told so I can accept that. However, that situation leaves too many questions. Why did not Mikiya run at any point when she revealed her murderous desires? The whole series made it look like Mikiya, upon finding out about her madness, decided to keep on hoping that if he loves her and believes in her, she will not act on murderous impulses, and he chose not to do the sensible thing and convince her to seek help. If she herself tried to struggle with it, why did she not seek professional help? Why did nobody else have her committed? Is there no mental health care in Japan?

3. The drooling. Of course it wasn't meant to be pleasant to watch. My problem with it is that I've seen it before in anime when there's a villain who needs to be absolutely evil. At one point Shirazumi licks his hand. It's probably meant to express some kind of perversion as well. It's not exactly a subtle way to make someone look crazy.

4. The fake death. Particularly after they already did it in the fifth movie. As I recall, Mikiya didn't even scream when he was stabbed in the eye, and the blade was covered in blood, implying the knife went in quite deep. So there was no reason to believe he just went unconscious. And yet a few minutes later it's obvious the knife didn't enter his brains. This kind of thing makes me think that the viewer is just being manipulated to feel grief and then relief. And if you can see manipulation from a mile away, it has no effect.

5. Why did Shiki bite her thumb off? It didn't look like she was tied to anything, she was just handcuffed. So technically she could have just stood up and left the place. At that point Shizuka hadn't told her he finished off Mikiya so it did look like she was intending to just leave without killing him. I can't see the reason for such self-mutilation.

While I found many problems with the movie, it was a fine conclusion to the series. All the movies were enjoyable enough to watch and I even managed to like the mystery parts, unlike normally.

Movie 7 is the one out of the whole that I've pretty much dissected into pieces, so I think I can actually answer your questions much more easily.



Actually that's where the subtitle "The Garden of Sinners" comes from. Specifically this is highlighted in the novel, as Lio actually describes the warehouse as his "garden of sin". Now as for your issues with the film:

1. I gave an answer about this to someone else before:
The idea behind Shiki's murderous urge and her connection to Mikiya wasn't so much about morality (it was completely justified to kill Lio, even the movie says so on many occasions), it was one of self-denial and acceptance of what Shiki truly wanted (which is to simply have a normal life with somebody.)

Shiki was on the brink of becoming a true killer (and willingly so) when she decided to hunt down Lio. If anything, it was her time with Mikiya and his words of concern that saved her from becoming a killer. With that realization in mind, she was able to kill Lio with a sound mind whereas back then, by all means she should've become a murderer given her mental state.

To be fair, the multiple reiteration of "Shiki will go crazy if she kills" felt a bit necessary. This is because A) it provides context if you were to watch the film separately from the rest of the series after a long time B) Not many people actually got the fact that Shiki was truly insane and murderous, which actually still surprises me even to this day.

2. This isn't so much about Mikiya hoping that Shiki would truly change (well he did), rather he originally simply recognized her inner loneliness. Mikiya wanted to be the one to protect her from hurting herself, and over time he grew to love her and thus, hoped that he could change her (which he did.)

Also Shiki is actually insane (author even approves) and going by traditionalist mentality I'm not even sure if she'd actually seek any medical help about it.

3. This was only semi-obvious in the film, but the novel describes that at that point, Lio couldn't actually control himself and it was his Origin that was slowly taking over his mind as he was becoming more of a beast than a man. In other words, it wasn't so much out of perversion/fan-service as he really he wanted to eat her, but didn't because he believes that he had already conquered his impulses (or so he thinks.) The same could be said about Lio force-feeding Mikiya with his mouth, it wasn't so much that it was done as some sort of twisted fan-service as he was really losing all forms of human reasoning.

The author actually seemed to like his character a lot, describing him to be both sympathetic and someone you could still hate. Essentially a tragic villain but a villain nonetheless. Having read many mixed reactions about his character (along with yours), I think the film succeeds in achieving just that.

4. I always thought that Mikiya's wounds weren't that bad (except for the eye) and the movie would've actually felt more like a cop-out had Mikiya died then and there. Now the main thing is I wouldn't exactly say that particular scene was used to play on the viewer's grief, rather I always thought that it primarily highlighted Lio's breakdown more than anything else (after checking the novel it seemed like that was the point behind it as well.) In particular it was at that moment that Lio's role in the film becomes truly established as a main character in the film, with that scene acting as the finality of what was left of his sane mind.

Now mind you, the novel does explain that Mikiya had actually coughed out the drug when he woke up, and the bleeding was hinted to have sort of helped in pushing out the chemicals so there's that.

5. To be fair, it's her artificial hand. Also because she probably did it so she can move herself more easily. You have to remember that she still couldn't move well enough since her body was drugged with a muscle relaxant, so having both of her hands free would've been a good precaution.

Regarding Movie 7 as a whole, I think a common issue is how viewers might approach as it's actually more the kind of thing where you're supposed take it all in as a spectator. You're essentially just watching these three individuals (Shiki, Lio, and Mikiya) act out based on conscious decisions/impulses, and that's part of the beauty of Movie 7. Where the film stands in terms of moral ground is rather obvious, so if anything it's the characters' interactions and the way they carry out their desires that makes Movie 7 quite different from the other films. Basically it plays out very similarly to a theatre play. Well I'm glad you enjoyed this movie even with those issues. I hope my answers cleared up some of your questions or at least provided you with a new perspective of the film. ^_^

Thanks for the reply. It did clear up some things, even if I still think most of those issues exist. It also made me think that my main complaint with the movie isn't the writing as such but the direction. So I can understand why certain things were done, but I didn't like the way the scenes were presented or the amount of time used on them.

1. The problem is not the fact that they were making clear that Shiki was at crossroads between normal life and insanity. The problem is that since it was clear to me from the very first movie that she was unhinged, this movie spent an awful lot of time driving that point home. Because I didn't need that explained to me, those scenes seemed too long and contributed the most to my judgment of poor pacing.

2. Mikiya's actions still seem illogical. In a way it's funny that it's easier to accept the unrealistic split personality thing than how Mikiya behaved. It just seems too incredible that anyone would react the way he did to Shiki's madness.

3. Lio wasn't a bad villain, rather I was disturbed by the visuals (and not only in the sense I was supposed to be). I just thought that the way they visually showed his madness was clichéd and too blatant. There's a villain/opponent in Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger who did the same thing with licking his hand, and the whole gesture just seems too obvious in showing someone is crazy.

Issues 4 and 5 are the same in that those too could have been resolved by showing things a bit differently. I agree that it is quite similar to a theatre play towards the end and the interaction between the three characters is quite complex in the way their thought processes reflect on each other and how they change. That complexity also makes Shiki's transformation to "normal" girl seem credible enough even though it was not realistic (someone with a long history of such severe mental health problems doesn't get well that easily).

Regarding Lio's drooling, like I said it wasn't meant to be the traditional crazy slasher kind of vibe with all the licking. He was truly becoming bestial, like how a predator would play with its meal before eating it which is why he's even drooling so inhumanly and heavily to begin with. To be fair, I find that the off-putting nature of it was actually a highlight in his character (many people were truly disgusted by it so you're not the only one), so I treat its blatant straightforwardness in its presentation more as a positive rather than a negative.

As for issues for 4 and 5, I thought they were simple enough that they didn't really require any detailed explanation.

wow, fantastic, that dude did have a lot of saliva haha, not sure weather this is going to be a 9/10 or a 10/10, as a series it would be a 10/10 but by it self it isn't so good, hmmm, i need to think this over

I think as a whole I liked the fifth movie a little better because of the awesome action sequences. However this one is also 9/10 and an amazing closure to the series, I'm glad things turned out okay! They make a hell of an interesting couple. I think in particular Shiki is a favorite character now, and damn is her seiyuu good or what?! I love how she's always both feminine and masculine at the same time.

This > Paradox Spiral. Now onto the Epilogue...

Damn That Ending(Not The Epilogue) Trolled Me. I Thought They're Going To Kiss. Oh Well, KnK 5 Is Still Better Than The Rest IMO.

It was a good conclusion to this awesome series!

To be honest, I had no hopes of seeing a happy ending after all, but I'm glad I was wrong.

Only one thing I didn't understand, he didn't have to die anyway after taking that drug?

What a masterpiece of a series. The OSTs only made the movie even better. I loved how everything was confusing at first, but you start to understand and like the series even better after watching all seven movies. Everything just clicks into place nicely. =D

Man, Mikiya's philosophy is just plain contrived -- and that put Shiki in a catch-22 that almost left both of them dead. And on top of that, the ending seems to invalidate the rest of the film in light of that philosophy. I've got to mull that ending over a bit more.

I'm not sure, but I assume you watched the fansubs. It actually paints Mikiya's character in a bad light and makes the audience assume that he was acting on principle and philosophy, when on the contrary, he's actually in favor of cushioning Shiki's fragile mental state here. Actually, out of all the characters Mikiya was in the right in this film. Touko wasn't very helpful and even displayed her morbid intrigue over Lio's transformation (which highlights her detached nature as a long-time Magus) and Shiki was actually completely lost in this film, being very impulsive and reckless towards herself (mentally and physically) in her pursuit of Lio.

I've analyzed the film to pieces and I've come to realize that the fansubs actually created a misleading narrative for many viewers due to certain mistranslations and choice of words in the dialogue. If you're confused about what I'm saying and still find yourself curious about this film, then feel free to ask me because really, everything that happened in this film pretty much cemented the whole point of the story and why it was such a perfect ending to the series.