People told me that the 5th (and 7th) movie of the KnK series is the best out of the 7. After finishing the 4th movie, I watched the 5th movie immediately and they were right. 2 hours of my life....well spent.
[Story]: (10/10)
After getting 3 sequels of a prequel to the 1st KnK, the series finally moves on past the events of the 1st KnK. The 5th movie now takes place 2 months after the events of the 1st KnK. The movie focuses on Shiki, as she meets a boy named Tomoe, a runaway teenager who claims to be a murderer. Later, Tomoe see's her mother whom he's sure he's killed. Shiki and Tomoe now investigates the building where her mother was killed.
The story, in my opinion, is a lot better than the previous 4 movies. The first 10-15 minutes of the movie were quite boring but later picks up the steam. The movie is divided into 3 acts (or you can call them short story arcs, I don't really care), 1st act focuses on Shiki and Tomoe, 2nd act focuses on Mikiya and Touko, and finally the 3rd act which connects all the acts together and explains all the things that's going on around them. Since this is a spoiler-free review, I won't explain what really happened in each act. The amount of plot twists this movie has, my god. They're all so satisfying and all of them made sense when they explained things at the end. The plot may be confusing but trust me, it will all make sense in the end.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Art/Animation]: (10/10)
This is the 5th movie and I don't really need to review the animation. It's perfect from the beginning and it's still perfect now. The fight scenes are obviously fluid and the character designs looks great.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Sound]: (10/10)
Ufotable or more accurately Yuki Kajiura should receive an award for one of the best OST's and Music in anime (I'm sure she already did). The background themes and the battle themes are so well done. Especially the theme used in a fight between Shiki and Araya and Touko and Araya. The Ending Theme used for this movie is "Sprinter" by Kalafina. Once again, Kalafina has done it. Her songs fits perfectly in a dark and psychological movie. The VA's are exactly the same so my opinion on the VA's are still the same.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Characters]: (10/10)
1 new character were introduced for this movie which is Tomoe Enjou who happens to bear a similar resemblance to Shirou Emiya from Fate/stay night.
When I first saw this character in the post-credit scene from the 4th movie, I thought I was going to hate this character because he was eating a human and he was enjoying it. After watching this movie, I took back what I thought about him. His past is a sad one and it made perfect sense as to why he did what he just did to his parents. We see more development for Shiki and more of her bad-assness. Hell, even Touko gets to be a badass. Araya who made a first short appearance in the 2nd movie, now comes back in the 5th movie. All I will say about this villian is he's not a cliche villian that you see in most animes these days. He clearly had goals and it's a good one.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Enjoyment]: (10/10)
The first 10-15 minutes were boring but later, the movie picked up the pace and from them on, I was on the edge of my seat and I was also actively thinking at the plot, wondering what's going to happen next. The action scenes may be short but they're still great to watch.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[OVERALL]: (10/10)
I'm very critical when I give an anime a perfect score of 10. However, this movie amazed me in all 4 categories. Perfect story with interesting plot twists that makes sense, perfect animation, perfect soundtrack that was composed by Yuki, and lovable current and new characters. I didn't hate any of the characters. Hell, I don't even hate the villains. If you watched all 4 previous KnK movies then I recommend that you watch this, like now. This is currently the best in the KnK series.
