Kara no Kyoukai: Satsujin Kousatsu (Part 1) Episode 1 Discussion

BigSimo said:
This used to be my favouirte of this film series, but on a re-watch...a very flawed film, a whole lot of tension that ultimately resulted in answering no questions it posed.

BigSimo said:
There was a lot of build up of the mystery and suspense initially - who is the killer? is it/isn't it shiki? why all the bizarrely arrayed corpses?
then the mystery was tossed aside in favour of kokutou x shiki, but this was senseless as well.

BigSimo said:
kokutou is an incredibly dull lead, a passive observer to shiki's craziness until he finally let's loose some character in the form of "I don't want to die". But this is completely dismissed. Suddenly oh, he totally forgave that. He doesn't understand it at all but wants to help shiki, this troublesome girl that wants to kill him and very nearly did! visiting her in the hospital, giving her flowers. as a character he makes no sense. he is almost an insert character.

BigSimo said:
additionally, whatever happened to that skin sample the police got? and what about that guy that walked past shiki at school and told her to stop killing people?

BigSimo said:
and what was the purpose of kokutou talking to that judo guy about how he feels about shiki? ("hmm, we need some way to tell the audience that kokutou does but he doesn't but he does but he doesn't maybe have feelings for shiki...i know, let's pick a random person from a club, randomly make them kokutou's friend just for this scene, and have them be bizarrely curious about kokutou and shiki's relationship" - film's writers).

BigSimo said:
i can't remember, but the question bout that dude that new shiki was the murderer might be answered in later films. but these movies are designed with their own stand-alone plots that also contribute to the big picture. but this film, being the most detached from the other films (bar 6), has a plot that does little more than to give some basic background on shiki and to display what we saw in the opening of the first film, but for the entire duration of this film (aka shiki + kokutou's relationship. how this relationship began is ultimately of no consequence, when it is so easily established in the first film. a couple of flashbacks would have done the job this film did).

ronri said:
@BigSimo - Spoiler-tagging my reply to you so it doesn't clog up the page:


The movie is literally called "Murder Speculation (Part 1)", meaning there's obviously a Part 2 where all of this gets answered.

Actually no, the mystery is very important and serves as the catalyst as to how Shiki develops as a person after the 2-year coma, it's literally the origin of how she came to adopt her "serial killer" persona. And no, the mystery isn't just "tossed aside" for the romance especially since both elements evidently intertwine to create a narrative that plays on many central themes found in the series (love, self-acceptance, fate vs. free-will etc.) Again, most of the loose threads in this film are resolved in the final film.

Actually no. Mikiya's development in this film is very subtle but it's still there. He starts out as a naive boy who falls head over heels for this girl that intrigued him. This is very obvious and he doesn't even realize it. The more he thought about it, the more he learned that it's not just out of infatuation that he grows to love Shiki and this is very much addressed at the end of the film when he realizes that, contrary to what his younger self had said, he actually has every reason to love her for the way she is.

Again, all in Part 2.


This may seem random but no it's not. The whole point of this highlights to the audience how Mikiya's view of Shiki isn't as readily apparent or obvious as any sort of typical teen-romance infatuation. He doesn't find Shiki interesting because of her status or because she's a scary "hawk". We literally learn that Mikiya recognizes something that not many people do, including Shiki herself: specifically, that Mikiya recognizes how Shiki is a very lonely person that tries to push everyone away from her (which was the whole point of his alluding to Shiki being like a "bunny").

Also the so-called "random person" isn't really that random when you consider how it's Mikiya's closest buddy (he has a name, it's Gakuto) and he actually shows up in Movies 3 and 7 to help out Mikiya in times of trouble (his role serves to highlight Mikiya's strengths and character faults as well as serving as a relay in terms of how the outside world perceives Mikiya).

Highly disagree. Without this film, the entire point of Shiki and Mikiya's character arc (the two main characters) are rendered completely pointless. We see them as they are at first here: how they interact, how they get to know each other, how their friendship turns into a romance and how this romance becomes dangerous gamble of life and death. A bunch of flashbacks simply would not have gotten the job across. Slowly throughout the films we see how this early relationship changes, how Shiki grows warmer towards Mikiya, how her self-imposed mentality as a killer holds her back from reciprocating his feelings in its entirety. Mikiya's faithfulness gets a payoff as well, and it's this very aspect of his character that serves as the center piece of Shiki's attraction towards him and why she ends up the way she does by the end of the series.

Also while yes, these films serve in telling their own stories, one can't easily dismiss the fact that this was constructed and released as a film series (literally released almost a month after another), not just a bunch of movies that occur in the same universe that happen to fall in some chronological order (like long-running Western film franchises). If anything, if we're going to be technical, Movies 1-3 should make up Volume 1, Movies 4-5 should make up Volume 2, and Movies 6-Epilogue should make up Volume 3.

BigSimo said:
Ok, fair point. But the tension the film created should have climaxed in this film. It half did with the whole Shiki almost killing Kokutou thing, but it wasn't enough considering what preceded it. You can't sustain tension over two films. You probably disagree, because you obviously enjoy the fuck out of these films whereas for me there's little to sustain my interest. But why divide this part of the story into two parts then, if the first part is going to be an unsatisfying watch. This part should have been tacked on to part two. The tension then would have had a proper and more exciting climax. For me this film was a whole lot of omg this is getting serious then....wait, that's it?

Is it ever explored as to why Shiki developed the persona? (This is not rhetorical, I just can't remember)

When I say the mystery was tossed aside, I mean that the first third or so of the film is all about the killings. We are shown a few of the killings, a brief look at the police investigation, Shiki being edgy by painting her lips with the blood and smiling at the camera. And then it kind of fizzles out and the focus shifts to just Kokutou and Shiki, with brief "oh there was another killing" parts. Why begin the film with such a strong focus on the killings if you're film is ultimately not going to delve any deeper, not going to explore who was killed and why, and why not just show Shiki as the killer from the start instead of making it mysterious but then ultimately casually revealing that oh, yeah, it was Shiki by the way. Sure the overall mystery is ultimately revisited, but in a separate film! That's not how you structure your movie, even if it is part of a series of movies.

Let's not forget the incredibly corny date sequence that actually happened, with the cliche date-sim girl-pose (where Shiki runs to a clothes shop, turns and looks at Kokutou with her hands behind her back - the number of times I've seen this in crappy harem shows...).

Ok, the developments are fair enough. But I don't buy Kokutou as a character. He falls head over heels, but he's so passive and one-note all the time that his developments, though they may be subtle, are uninteresting. His denial/total forgiveness of Shiki as a serial killer is illogical. Perhaps I'd appreciate it more if Type-Moon didn't take themselves so seriously then throw in that horrific date sequence (yes I'm referencing that again).

This is all me trying to put words to why I find Kokutou a very dull male lead. Sure he develops, maybe his actions are logical, but I just don't care enough because he is some harem-lead looking character with glasses with a lack of defining, or perhaps exciting/interesting, characteristics.

Fair enough. I still think this film is weak on its own. This part should have been included with its part two, or it needed a stronger climax, or just a stronger link between the serial killings and how Kokutou came into play.

To be honest Type-Moon stuff has never done anything for me. Their stuff is always filled with uninteresting magic mumbo jumbo that makes no sense unless you're fanboy enough to the read hte visual novels, and even then there's a shitload of jargon and timelines and complex world-traits that you need to learn. Additionally, I don't like their character designs (some pupils in those eyes would be nice people). There, you have my reasoning on that.

ronri said:


Actually the whole point of the film is to keep the tension entirely on Shiki, while you might disagree, I think it succeeded in conceiving a perfect climax in that regard. It caused me to view Shiki in a different light and I wasn't at ease with her character especially during Movie 3 (especially since Movie 3 plays on a very grey balance of morality). In this regard, the whole point amounted to exactly where I felt the narrative was going for, in which Shiki is "revealed" to be the serial killer. The tension was always left up in the air the moment you realize that this is the first in terms of chronology, especially considering how we know that Shiki still holds those murderous urges throughout the other films.

Just because because I said that they divided certain plot elements into two films it doesn't immediately make for an unsatisfying watch with little payoff, as I find that Movie 2 is anything but unsatisfying in the grand scheme of the series.

If you paid attention then yes (and I don't mean any offense by this so I apologize if it comes across that way), the way in which Shiki developed this persona is explored throughout the films and most especially through this film. It's very evident that Shiki already possesses a fragmented mind with two personalities, and as the film shows, she possesses a murderous urge because of this. The way she develops her serial killer persona is literally handled in this film, how she balances between developing feelings for Mikiya while being blindly intoxicated by the murders in front of her is literally the beginning of it all. While Shiki's development into this self-imposed persona is shown here, the method behind Shiki's madness isn't readily apparent until the final film where it explores the finality of how Shiki's state of mind spiraled beyond her control.

Except that's not how it was structured at all. Talking about this will border on spoiler-territory for Movie 7 so I'm not going to go into too much detail, but this whole film was always more of a character piece for Mikiya and Shiki. The mystery served as a build-up of Shiki's character. What, do we really want another detective story? Should we really focus on Daisuke's investigation? The whole story operates with a natural progression based on the highlighted events, most notably from Shiki and Mikiya's perspective, both of which are purposely avoiding the mystery while being entangled with it due to Shiki being the center point of it all.

The narrative plays on the idea that Mikiya is taking a huge gamble, all odds stacked against him. The tension is derived from whether or not Shiki being the killer is actually true, and very much so, she turns out to be a homicidal person by the end and there's no denying that. You say that the film began with the murders and yet, the film actually began with Shiki and Mikiya's first meeting, TWICE even before the first murder had occurred.

Subjective, just because you found it distasteful, it doesn't mean it immediately was, especially since the directorial quality of that sequence was sound and the purpose of it was that it showed the drastic shift in Shiki's personality and how the film shows that she's able to actually enjoy her time with Mikiya contrary to what she usually claims or acts upon (which in this case, the movie succeeded in getting that point across).

Personally I find Mikiya's passive honesty and open-minded frankness as a rarity in its own right. The level of subtlety in his writing is a refreshing change from the common exclamations and blatantly-bombastic depictions of other male protagonists found in many other shows. You might find him uninteresting but I honestly think that much of the series hinges on his very nature as a passive character. Heck, it's literally part of the point of Shiki's entire character arc, writing him off while praising Shiki is literally contradictory when part of her development and characterization is complemented by Mikiya's personality and mannerism as a character.

That's your own fault not the film's. Mikiya is no "harem-lead" and the fact that you're judging him under such a biased perception is exactly why you're probably having a hard time stomaching him at all.

I respectfully disagree. Part of what made me enjoy this film is that it already put a lot of attention and made me wary of Shiki in the following films. The fact that it establishes these elements are key and instrumental in deceiving the audience so as to subvert their expectations when the final film plays out, and it's the build-up created in this film that makes the 7th film that much more of a payoff.

Except you're talking to the wrong person if you think I'm an average Type-Moon fan. I'm a Kara no Kyoukai fan first, and Type-Moon fan second (and that's already bending it considering I have a hard time calling myself an actual fan). I came into this film series with little to no knowledge of Type-Moon and I managed to understand a lot of the conventions and ideas it tried to convey which, contrary to how you describe it as "uninteresting mumbo jumbo", actually bears some purposeful meaning in how it references real-life philosophies, plays and twists existing religious concepts, while reinventing known tropes/ideas in supernatural fiction. Which makes sense because a) Nasu claimed that he based a lot of ideas on his world-knowledge when writing KNK and b) this is literally based on their first published work before the "Nasuverse" was established.

BigSimo said:
Yo, sorry for the delay.

Ok, so from the sounds of it I really need to press on with re-watching the rest of the films. In any case I respect your opinions on this film completely, because it's clear that you had a great time watching it, and you've gone well in-depth analyzing all the films.

That's fair enough, I look forward to watching the final film again. Because the main thing that bugged me throughout this was why she was just killing randoms, and so brutally.

I suppose it's a balance issue for me then. I was led to believe that the film would take more of detective route - for better or for worse - simply because of how we were shown the killings, then the scene of the crime, especially that classic detective film scene where we first meet Mikiya's uncle/cousin/whoever he is. But this is a contentious thing. It could be argued that they all directly related to what the film was actually about - Mikiya and Shiki - because the detective/mikiya's relation is the one that gives mikiya info leading him to suspect shiki, and as you say, the murder scenes served to build up shiki's character. BUT, while watching the film, this was not how I felt. idk, this could just be me, but it didn't feel as natural a progression to me as it did to you.

ok this is one thing I won't let slide, because I laughed and face palmed when this sequence happened. you can show the drastic shift in shiki's personality while still maintaining the film's mood/atmosphere, and while avoiding harem/date-sim cliches. i understood what it was going for, but execution-wise it was sloppy and it felt to me that it served an ulterior purpose (moe-fying Shiki - you can argue with me at this, but the fact that it played out like a date-sim is evidence enough for me).

True, Mikiya is not your typical protagonist. His passiveness does slot in well to the series. From memory I really liked him by the end of the series, and was rooting for him and all that. So yeah, I'll see how it goes.

I didn't mean he is a harem-lead-like character, just that his character design is kind of generic/plain. but this is just me nitpicking, you can ignore it.

Sorry, my type-moon rant there wasn't aimed at you so much. I was just giving additional info as to why I might, simply, not like these films a great deal. I've found - and I guess this is more in the fate/zero and fate/staynight stuff - that the grimdark atmosphere and weird magic (a lot of which goes unexplained) and obsession with knives and such.

Garden of Sinners is thankfully a bit different, and its grimdark atmosphere is handled better (though i have a feeling that rape scene in the next film is going to make me cringe more than anything), and the fight scenes and magic is cool as hell which means most of the time i don't even care how they're able to do what they do.

it isn't my kind of fiction, as i'm sure you've gathered by now, but there's a lot i like about it. and i can't wait to get around to the 5th and 7th films, which i remember liking more than the others.