Saturday, November 1, 2014

Arcane Reviews: Kara no Kyoukai: The Hollow Shrine

Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to bring you new anime review. Oh hey look at that, a new review that wasn't uploaded last week. Look I'm a busy guy and at least I posted something for last week and didn't leave you guys hanging. I know no excuses. But hey look at that another Kara no Kyoukai movie. Yay. Now unlike the last review I did this movie is nowhere near as dark as the last review. But not that all of that is out of the way lets jump into my review for, The Hollow Shrine. Just how much does the 4th installment hold up against the other 3, lets find out shall we?

Story:
In this film it takes place right after the events of the 2nd movie, within the timeline order. Shiki has fallen into a coma and she ends up waking up about 2 years later. But she is not without some scars from what ever happened to her. Her eyes seem to be acting weird and she keeps seeing horrible things like people falling apart and these crazy red lines all over the place. Yeah, Shiki's fucked up isn't she? The story here is very slow and not a lot actually happens. This may seem like a bad thing seeing as how most of these movies, the exception being the 2nd film, the slow pace here actually helps the feel of the movie. The movie doesn't have a lot happening and mostly fulled with people just talking but this is pretty good because seeing as how the last film was a very heavy and foreboding monster that makes you feel sick this film changes things up a bit which is a good. The movie also really dives deep into Shiki's mind and shows us a lot of layers to her character that we didn't really know. So this film does a pretty good job at keeping your attention even though there may not be a lot happening on screen and it's a great chance to develop Shiki into very more of a complex character then before.

Animation:
Now at first glance this film may not seem like it has the best animation out of all these films. Which is understandable, most of this film takes place in a hospital. Most notably one freaking room. This may seem like a downside to the animation seeing as how beautifully animated the last 3 films were. However the film does amp up the visual beauty in the middle and later half of the film. The movies has scenes in which it show a cavalcade of colors and gorgeous animation. It is just amazing to watch all of these glimpse of how badass Ufotable can make scenes look. There is also a great fight scene at the end, well sort of. The scene is nowhere a good as the final fight scene in A Remaining Sense of Pain but the sequence is made very memorable by the sound design the accompanies the scene. Speaking of which...

Music:
The music and sound design in this movie is really good in this film. Now like a lot of the other films music here is very good and is used wisely. But, at least to me, music is used the least in this film then in others. So you end up having a lot of all of these background noises like footsteps on the floor, wind flowing through the room, and the ruffles of clothing while characters move. When music does play it feels very strong and makes scenes feel like they hold a lot of importance because of the sudden change in sound. Great usage of music like this really makes the anime stand out among other anime that just use music for the hell of it.

Characters:
Now just like the last film this movies really has only one character that has any real character development. Shiki is the main focus of this film and she gets a lot of great development and character building. In other films we usually see Shiki as a emotionless badass but this film ends up showing a very different side of her that we don't get to see a lot in film. The movie really wants us to feel Shiki's pain and struggle which as she has to push through the horrible events that are happening to her in this film. This film felt like it was the movie to give us some real reasons and answers as to why Shiki act the way that she does and I feel like it does a very good job at that.

Overall:
This film kinda end what I like to call the "Out of Order" sequence of the Kara no Kyoukai films. The first 4 films where purposely put out of order and now that I've seen all of these films in that format I really do like. You ask question in one film and only get a few answers in another, it really makes these movies like a puzzle to watch. I do feel like this is the 3rd best out the first 4 but it's still a great watch that you should not miss.

Arcane Reviews gives Kara no Kyoukai: The Hollow Shrine a 7.5 out of 10.

You can watch "Kara no Kyoukai" on:
No legal streaming sites. Sorry.             

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