Spoilers ahead
Up until now I have been enjoying the Garden of Sinners anime quite a fair bit. Although not on the level of Nasu's other works (Fate and Tsukihime in particular) it still remains an enjoyable watch. Yet, I can confidently say that this movie was an absolute slog to get through, despite only being 46 minutes long. I also feel confident in saying that if Garden of Sinners did not have top tier production values, I'd easily rate this movie below a 5.
Let me explain my reasons why.
So basically in this movie Shiki has been in a coma for 2 years, and it is diving more into her backstory. Cool right? More Shiki = great! Well yes, but actually no. While I was looking forward to seeing Shiki's backstory being explored, this movie handled it in the worst way possible. They could have showed us more of her upbringing, her relationships with other cast members, maybe revealed a power or secret that she had been hiding from us all along. But this entire movie is just pretentious anime bullshit times 1000. Instead of the usual badass Shiki that we got in the first 3 movies, this time around we get a depressed bitch who constantly flip flops between wanting to live and die, leaving the viewer with a miserable watching experience. Some random fuck jumps at you out of nowhere and begins to strangle you. What do you do? Well I'd assume most people would at least try and fight back, maybe start punching and kicking, throw objects or grab a potential weapon and utilize it. What I can fucking guarantee you is that pretty much nobody is going to lie there and begin pondering the meaning of existence. "What is the meaning of life?" "What purpose does my life actually have?" "For what reason were we brought into this world?" "Why should I keep on living?" "Is death as bad as it seems?" "Life is so hard and death is so easy." "Why was I even born?" are all questions that are completely and utterly meaningless as you only get one shot at life. Once you're dead, that's it. Your time's up. Game over. Lights off. The time is now, and if you aren't living in the present you will just waste your life away whether you like it or not. But yeah, Shiki literally just sat that for minutes on end like a dead fish out of water, spouting all that existential, philosophical crap (in her mind) trying to make it sounds "deep" and "mature" when in reality she's just making herself look like a big fat clown.
Now, Garden of Sinners is a franchise that is praised heavily by elitists. "It's peak fiction" they said. "Shiki is top 1 fictional female" they said. "Kara no Kyoukai = best Nasu work." they said. Well I'm here to tell you that those are all a bunch of lies. Granted, I just finished watching this film, so I can't speak on movies 5-8. Maybe they are much better and will solve my problems that I have with this franchise.
I do enjoy the mystery elements of Kara no Kyoukai. Which is why this movie felt like a massive gut punch because it pretty much answered none of the pre-established mysteries, left us with more, and just was kinda an overall waste of time.
There were some good moments in the film like when Shiki "killed her other self" with the knife. And look, I'm not trying to sit here and tell you that Kara no Kyoukai has a complete garbage story, because it doesn't. It actually has very interesting themes and presents them in a unique way. The problems lie within the execution. For example, it seems that Nasu loves using negative things such as r*pe and death to drive home points (this happens more in movie 3). I'm not going to dive into that right now, but I'm glad he toned that shit down in Fate because it can be insanely edgy at times, and the only reason I can think of it being there is for pure shock factor, which doesn't work after you've experience enough media.
And, I know people are going to hate me for this, but I gotta say. If I wanted a "deep" and "complex" story, I would just read Ulysses, Crime and Punishment, How to Kill a Mockingbird, etc etc. Those would have a lot more to offer in terms of compelling narratives than watching a depressed anime girl go between wanting to die versus not wanting to die. Instead of making a quick decision that would satisfy us we are forced to watch her lie in bed like a dead moth just because she doesn't have the balls (literally and figuratively) to off herself.
Again. Only reason I'm giving it a 6 is because it has beautiful animation (credit to ufotable) and amazing music (credit to Kalafina and Yuki Kaijura). If these aspects were nothing short of stellar, I probably would have given this a 3 and dropped the franchise as a whole.
