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REVIEW: Kara no Kyoukai - the Garden of sinners


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mewarmo990



Joined: 11 Feb 2011
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:18 pm Reply with quote
I mostly agree with the ANN reviewer. Despite its great production values, the movies can be very difficult to sit through if you have no prior knowledge of the story.

And since the Rakkyo novels are for the most part untranslated, there are very few non-Japanese fans that will be able to enjoy it. I am lucky to have read the whole series, but if you're not bedazzled by the high quality of animation and soundtrack, this series will have limited appeal for newcomers.
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John Casey



Joined: 31 May 2009
Posts: 1853
Location: In My Angry Center
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:20 pm Reply with quote
*sigh*

Is it me, or is Type-Moon stuff practically almost impossible to translate to animation properly?

This is one by far the best, but one can't ignore that it's fifty times harder to get into than the novels.

Watching KnK is...is a lot like reading Atlas Shrugged, pretentiousness in-tact.
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hikaru004



Joined: 15 Mar 2004
Posts: 2306
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:59 pm Reply with quote
kamanashi wrote:
To all the people complaining about the price: if you didn't buy it, you have no reason to complain. You made the decision to not buy it, so you lost no money. I bought, but I just saved up over a couple months back when it was first announced. I really really wanted it.

So calm down. One day, it might come out for a cheaper price, until then, deal with it.

I like how this thread about a REVIEW turned into complaints about the price and people calling other stupid for buying (the people calling others stupid are just mad they didn't get it). Shouldn't this thread have been about discussing what you agree with in the review and your own opinions of the films?


That prob means that a lot more people were interested in buying this than actually did because of the price. Hopefully, Aniplex will take the "hint" and release a more economical BD version.
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iathomps



Joined: 08 Nov 2007
Posts: 68
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:00 pm Reply with quote
I am curious after reading Zac's review a 2nd time. How much experience does Zac have with Type-Moon in general? Has he seen Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, read the Kara no Kyoukai books? I know he has not and probably never will play the visual novels, but even watching the anime versions of Tsukihime and Fate can help get one accustomed to the shard universe they are all in.

I probably would have found movie one to be very confusing if I hadn't already read Tsukihime and knew what Mystic Eyes of Death Perception were and read Fate and knew about Magic users.
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DTJB



Joined: 20 Jan 2010
Posts: 671
Location: Dubuque, IA
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:57 am Reply with quote
prime_pm wrote:
I already checked netflix. It ain't there.


What about Rent Anime or Blockbuster? There are alternatives you know.
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luffypirate



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 3186
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:02 am Reply with quote
Just to let anyone know that didn't already:

There was an animation error in the seventh film DVD involving spoiler[Shiki's thumb.] It was fixed for the Blu-ray release. Double dips weren't in vain it seems Smile
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ZenAmako



Joined: 10 Jan 2011
Posts: 92
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:13 am Reply with quote
DTJB wrote:
prime_pm wrote:
I already checked netflix. It ain't there.


What about Rent Anime or Blockbuster? There are alternatives you know.


It's silly to think Netflix or Blockbuster would carry a limited edition import that was only available through two online stores. Netflix thinks normal everyday Blu-rays are expensive enough to charge a premium for renting them.
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Big Hed



Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 1607
Location: Melbourne, Australia
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:35 am Reply with quote
iathomps wrote:
I am curious after reading Zac's review a 2nd time. How much experience does Zac have with Type-Moon in general? Has he seen Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, read the Kara no Kyoukai books? I know he has not and probably never will play the visual novels, but even watching the anime versions of Tsukihime and Fate can help get one accustomed to the shard universe they are all in.

I probably would have found movie one to be very confusing if I hadn't already read Tsukihime and knew what Mystic Eyes of Death Perception were and read Fate and knew about Magic users.


I had watched FSN a few years before I started watching KnK, and in my opinion it didn't help much, at least not consciously--not to say that I had difficulty becoming immersed in the latter. At the time I wasn't even aware that both works were part of the Nasuverse.
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Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1524
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 10:17 am Reply with quote
Big Hed wrote:
iathomps wrote:
I am curious after reading Zac's review a 2nd time. How much experience does Zac have with Type-Moon in general? Has he seen Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, read the Kara no Kyoukai books? I know he has not and probably never will play the visual novels, but even watching the anime versions of Tsukihime and Fate can help get one accustomed to the shard universe they are all in.

I probably would have found movie one to be very confusing if I hadn't already read Tsukihime and knew what Mystic Eyes of Death Perception were and read Fate and knew about Magic users.


I had watched FSN a few years before I started watching KnK, and in my opinion it didn't help much, at least not consciously--not to say that I had difficulty becoming immersed in the latter. At the time I wasn't even aware that both works were part of the Nasuverse.


Yeah, the various Nasuverse works have very little to do with eachother, despite what fans say. I've played both Tsukihime and FSN, and there really wasn't anything from one that would help explain something from the other, and anything you needed to know was more or less explained thoroughly, if needed for that particular story. Any real information shared between them is pretty much just bread crumbs for fans to notice.

You'd be better off just trying to read the volumes upon volumes of supplemental materials released if you want some cold-hard information (and even then, the stuff that's been actually translated is pretty scanty...and frustratingly vague).

I mean, I'm at movie 4 right now and they finally explained what the Mystic Eyes are. If I were a non-Nasuverse fan, I don't think I'd have any trouble understanding, I'd just need a bit of patience.

If anything, so far it's not so much cross-series information that's making the KnK a difficult watch, but rather how frustratingly obtuse the direction is. A bit too much show and don't tell, coupled with all too intentionally vauge direction.

And I agree with what Zac said a few podcasts ago, about how it's pretty much being weird and confusing just for the sake of being weird and confusing

As I've said previously, I'm pretty much well-versed in Nasuverse lore, but I'm still have trouble figuring out what's going on.
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Big Hed



Joined: 04 May 2006
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Location: Melbourne, Australia
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 10:56 am Reply with quote
Shenl742 wrote:
As I've said previously, I'm pretty much well-versed in Nasuverse lore, but I'm still have trouble figuring out what's going on.


Yeah, I had that problem with Paradox Spiral--I don't think that's a big surprise. Laughing Partly though I think I just wasn't paying enough attention the first time through. I'll be rewatching the whole saga when I get my hands on my BD set anyway, since I have yet to even see movie seven.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:42 pm Reply with quote
ZenAmako wrote:
DTJB wrote:
prime_pm wrote:
I already checked netflix. It ain't there.


What about Rent Anime or Blockbuster? There are alternatives you know.


It's silly to think Netflix or Blockbuster would carry a limited edition import that was only available through two online stores. Netflix thinks normal everyday Blu-rays are expensive enough to charge a premium for renting them.
And Blockbuster says
Quote:
Your search for "Kara no Kyoukai" did not match any products in our catalog.
... and since its sold out, the "maybe they'll pick it up later" doesn't work out either.

Indeed, why would any rental outlet buy this? You buy five sets at $2,000 and before any disk gets turned over ten times, its gone walkabout.
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Kalessin



Joined: 15 Aug 2007
Posts: 931
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:47 pm Reply with quote
DTJB wrote:
prime_pm wrote:
I already checked netflix. It ain't there.


What about Rent Anime or Blockbuster? There are alternatives you know.


Rental stores don't just buy retail copies and rent them. They have to buy rental copies, which actually cost more than retail copies. That's how the publishers make money from rentals. So, no DVD/Blu-ray rental company could legally have purchased The Garden of Sinners from rightstuf and then rented it out. They had to have purchased a rental copy from Aniplex - assuming that Aniplex would even sell such a thing at this point. So, I don't think that it's at all reasonable to expect that any rental place would have The Garden of Sinners. They probably can't.

And honestly. Even assuming that they could have bought The Garden of Sinners for $400 from rightstuf and rented it out, do you really think that they'd want to? Imagine how many times they'd have to rent it out to make that money back. It just isn't profitable.

At this point, it looks like you either have to have already bought the Blu-ray release, or you're going to have to download it illegally. The Japanese DVDs don't appear to have subtitles on them, so they wouldn't do you any good even if you were willing to shell out the money for them (which probably would cost you more than $400 by the look of it).

Likely the only way that you're going to be able to watch this legally if you haven't already bought it, and you don't have a friend who bought it, would be if Aniplex either decides to release a relatively normal version like they have with Durarara and the Gurren Lagann movies, or if they license it out to a US company like Funimation, and they release it. But for now, you're out of luck.

There's probably at least a decent chance that Aniplex will decide to license it out at some point. They've already made their money from the expensive limited edition Blu-ray release, so I doubt that it would really cost them anything to license it out. The question is likely whether anyone will be willing to pay what they're asking for it. It could be that one of the reasons that we haven't seen The Garden of Sinners licensed before now is simply because they're asking too much for it.

So, there's pretty much no way that The Garden of Sinners would be rentable at this point. We may get lucky and someone like Funimation will license it for a more general, North American release. But until then, illegal downloads are really the only way to view this content. For the purposes of the average North American anime fan, The Garden of Sinners wasn't really released. It's just as if Aniplex had never sold it in the US at all. Because the only way to get is illegal downloads - which is exactly what the situation would have been had they never released it here at all.
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John Casey



Joined: 31 May 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 5:53 pm Reply with quote
Shenl742 wrote:

Yeah, the various Nasuverse works have very little to do with eachother, despite what fans say. I've played both Tsukihime and FSN, and there really wasn't anything from one that would help explain something from the other, and anything you needed to know was more or less explained thoroughly, if needed for that particular story. Any real information shared between them is pretty much just bread crumbs for fans to notice.

Like I said lol. You won't find a fanbase more elitist than the Type-Moon one. To them, you are officially now a heretic. :3

That said, I reiterate what most everyone here was saying... Exposure to other Type-Moon anime won't help. Checking out the visual novels won't help. Playing Melty Blood won't help. And nope, reading the KnK novels won't help either.

This is just one of those shows that either clicks, or doesn't. That's why, despite the fact that I really like it, I find this series to be extremely pretentious and arrogant in its execution. It's like reading Atlas Shrugged all over again.
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Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1524
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 6:47 pm Reply with quote
John Casey wrote:
Shenl742 wrote:

Yeah, the various Nasuverse works have very little to do with eachother, despite what fans say. I've played both Tsukihime and FSN, and there really wasn't anything from one that would help explain something from the other, and anything you needed to know was more or less explained thoroughly, if needed for that particular story. Any real information shared between them is pretty much just bread crumbs for fans to notice.

Like I said lol. You won't find a fanbase more elitist than the Type-Moon one. To them, you are officially now a heretic. :3



You know what John? At first I thought your ability to diss entire fanbases so strongly was annoying, but now I'm actually starting to be impressed a little.


Last edited by Shenl742 on Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Umino



Joined: 16 Aug 2005
Posts: 43
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:44 pm Reply with quote
John Casey wrote:

This is just one of those shows that either clicks, or doesn't. That's why, despite the fact that I really like it, I find this series to be extremely pretentious and arrogant in its execution. It's like reading Atlas Shrugged all over again.


THIS x 458763480576348756487035345. I''m glad I'm not alone.
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