kassulke.leilani - 2016-08-03 04:08:43

PLOT
    The culmination of everything before. That is the best way to summarize this movie.   

    So it starts out with a boy named Tomoe, who is on the run from the police because he has killed his parents, or has he really. He has vivid dreams of killing them and other times his mother killing him. Then he bumps into Shiki where he crashes with her for a longer time he originally thought. He thinks it will be a matter of time before the police find him, yet they never come. He goes to the center of town looking at the TV waiting for his name to be called for a number of days, and seemingly months, but it is said. That is until he sees his mother walk by in the street. Shocked, he decides to tell Shiki about everything that has happened and decides to go check his apartment as Shiki goes with him.

   At the same time, Kokutou and Touko receive a tip about a couple murdered at an apartment according to a burglar. However, when the cops arrive, they see the couple alive and well. So they decide to investigate the apartment and I wonder who was there?

    This was when the movie completely explodes, as if it hadn`t already, with a lot of symbolism of Yin and Yang and the main themes start. The Kara no Kyoukai series has had of plenty symbolism, but none has had the load of this movie where the symbolism and themes are very intertwined with the plot and the main villains plan. Not only that, but this movie is "one of those" movies where people would have to watch it multiple times just to grasp the scope of it. Even then, there are going to be a lot of details that are going to be missed upon previous viewings. To summarize the villains plan, he wants to find meaning in meaningless life, and just to find meaning in meaningless actions in general.

    This is when the concept of the Counter-force comes in. Now, the Counter-force is made up in two parts, one that protects mankind, the other to protect the earth. We learn that Araya, the main villain, is a mage like Touko and their life`s purpose is to reach the Origin, The Spiral of Origin, to have infinite knowledge, the past, present, and future. That`s when the counter force is activated, as it stops people from reaching it as that would be an unbalance, like Yin and Yang. So the counter force stops people like using people like Shiki to stop him, and also Tomoe as he broke the cycle that Araya has made. CHARACTERS Tomoe Enjou

Arguably the main character of the movie. He has visions of his parents murder, sometimes he sees it one way, other times another. He broke what Araya did in the apartment complex. The complex was built like a spiral and wanted to see what gave meaning to meaningless life. Tomoe is the answer to his question. He remembers the countless of times he and his parents have died. After confronting Araya the first time and leaves as Shiki gets trapped, he closes off himself in her apartment. After a brief skirmish with Kokutou, he decides to help Shiki escape and confront Aryan once again to stop the madness. He shows something he previously hadn`t other times. He ran away, hiding, waiting to be caught, until this moment were he has a meaning even if he knows he wont comeback.

Souren Araya

The main villain whose motivation is one of the more unique that I have seen recently. Is there meaning in meaningless life? Being a mage, he wanted to reach the Spiral of Origin to get the answer, but once he built the apartment complex and made the residents relive the same day again and again, even though the way he went about it was to say a bit disturbing, he lost sight of what he was actually trying to do. Not only that, he is a force to be reckoned with, not just as a mage, but also in hand to hand combat. On top of that, he is also the one responsible of the events of previous movies. A formidable foe with a very unique motivation, he is by far one of the best villains I have seen in this series. 

Touko

Just talking about her feels like I`m going to spoil a very critical point of the story and theme. I`ll just say she comes in with guns blazing, already knowing the villain as both studied together back in the day. Her skills with puppets is shown here at uncanny levels, throwing off the secondary villain and the viewer. We finally see her fight as a mage and let me just say that she has a lot of toys that no one wants to mess with. At the end of the movie, we see her and Araya talk and go over his plan. It was there with Touko that Araya realized that he lost sight of what he wanted to do and found his answer to his question. While he never reached the Spiral of Origin because of the Counter force maintaining balance using Shiki and Tome, he found the meaning of a meaningless life in Tomoe and his actions.

Overall
    When a movie presents itself with not only with a unique villain and motivation, but also has a lot of rewatch value, it has done something very special. Added with the symbolism that really needs to be thought about just to grasp the story line. While the other movies in the series have that in them, this one by far knocks it out of the park. A movie that kind of makes the main characters of the series like Shiki and Kokutou take a back seat. It makes new characters and a character that has yet to show what they can really do and make it one of the best movie, if not the best movie, of the series. I`m giving Kara no Kyoukai: Paradox Spiral a 
5/5

cindy.goyette - 2014-11-18 02:54:48

Every single movie in the Kara No Kyoukai series 1-7 is masterpiece tier is you can handle the lengthy amount of dialogue. The plot to this movie is more complicated than the others.

sthompson - 2013-08-17 14:53:00

Kara no Kyoukai is a movie series consists of 7 movies. This is the 5th film, Paradox Spiral and what I believe to be the best. Paradox Spiral is the most unique and odd out of all the Kara no Kyoukai films. Being the longest and having a different style of cinematography. Kara no Kyoukai has always been known for its deep story, beautiful animation and amazing soundtrack.

Kara no Kyoukai: Paradox Spiral has a different feel and tone than other Kara no Kyoukai movies, making this movie more unique and stand out among the others. In this movie, the protagonist is off fighting against the main villain of the series; hence it felt like a climax. As what you would expect from the title, this film can be very confusing with its cinematography but that doesn't mean it's bad. Being confusing doesn't mean the plot is messy and unclear, instead the director intentionally make it that way so the viewer will be more engage and eager to find out more about what's happening and of course make it more interesting.

+ The positive:

• 1. Complex plot
• 2. Original
• 3. Engaging
• 4. Interesting cinematography
• 5. Unique

-/+ The neutral (base on perspective and opinion):

• 1. Can be confusing

- The negative:

• 1. Narrative could be improved
• 2. Pacing could be improved

All of the Kara no Kyoukai movies are done by studio ufotable, who brought us Fate/Zero. The thing about ufotable is that they can make masterpieces only if they work with Type-moon. Type-moon is the creator of the Fate franchise and Kara no Kyoukai. Other ufotable's work without teaming up with Type-moon is Gyo, which is pretty bad in term of animation. The animation is almost flawless, the lighting is amazing, very detailed background, fantastic character movement and so on. The only small flaw I can find is the colour contrast can be done better.

+ The positive:

• 1. Smooth character movement
• 2. Detailed background
• 3. Good hair physic
• 4. Good blood physic
• 5. Amazing lighting
• 6. Good artwork
• 7. Consistent
• 8. Great action and non-action animation

- The negative:

• 1. Colour contrast

The hair physic is amazing

The amazing soundtrack is done by Yuki Kajiura, who has done all of the soundtracks for the previous movies. The soundtracks are mostly choir and orchestra like which make the action scenes more epic. I can't say all but most of the soundtracks here are amazing especially during the action scenes. The voice acting is not note worthy except for the main character Ryougi Shiki. She is portrayed by my favourite voice actress, Maaya Sakamoto and she has done a great job. The credit song I have to say is a disappointment because it can't live up to the previous movies.

+ The positive:

• 1. Yuki Kajiura
• 2. Fit the show
• 3. Epic
• 4. Maaya Sakamoto

- The negative:

• 1. Credit song
• 2. Average voice acting except for Shiki

The best soundtrack in the whole movie

Usually Shiki would be the centre of the story but this time the story is rather focused on Tomoe Enjou. Tomoe is a new character in the series and he is the main attention in this movie. While Shiki is till the main character but she often disappear and show up later in the movie. Most of the characters lack of depth and development except for Shiki and Tomoe

+ The positive:

• 1. Ryougi Shiki
• 2. Main villain is revealed
• 3. Tomoe has big development

- The negative:

• 1. Most characters lack of depth
• 2. Lack of character development

I enjoyed the climax the most because that's where everything seems to fit together. The conclusion is great and I really enjoyed it. The part where I was a little bored was during the beginning of the movie where I am still trying to understand the story. The point is, it start off a little shaky but ends great and overall I enjoyed this movie.

Kara no Kyoukai: Paradox Spiral is a must watch movie. If you have watched the rest of the Kara no Kyoukai movie, then what are you waiting for? If you haven't watch any of the Kara no Kyoukai then I suggest you start now. This movie isn't perfect but it sure is amazing.

"You underestimated Shiki, and she will be your downfall!"

- Touko Aozaki

ostracke - 2013-08-08 11:22:22

Kara no Kyoukai (KnK) is a film series with a certain purpose to it, there are clear things it is trying to achieve, yet the driving force behind it doesn't manage to make it reach that goal, at least not in its entirety. This is also the case for Paradox Spiral, the 5th and widely regarded to be the best film of the series. It drops the initial focus and purpose halfway through to make room for meaningless violence, shallow characters and ridiculous plot-twists. Though not all is lost, much of its intentions go down the drain.

Setting
The KnK universe is one of dark suspense and a sort of gloomy joy, something often displayed in its restrictive and contrasting locations. Modern and empty changes places for old and messy, and the characters and their conversations have a serious way of talking about gruesome and/or joyful subjects. This athmosphere is one of its more remarkable features, though the main location of this specific film seems like an out-of-place entity, poorly brought into view and mysterious yet distant. Several locations seem to be merely there for their artistic value, or other mundane purposes, yet the way they are brought in to view is not satisfactory in contrast with the more developed formerly existing locations.

Plot
The plot trying to go along with this athmosphere harms itself in trying to be overly complex and sinister. The film can easily be divided into two parts; the first part focuses on character development, and the second part is the complex plot-part which leads to a rather unfortunate series of events bringing the film to a close. The character development in the first part happens without much explanation, leaving quite a few plot-holes open; but as it tries to focus on the characters, and the film still has a long way to go, those holes aren't as bothersome. A problem is though, that the first part obviously works towards a major plot-device instead of focusing on the moment itself. Central is not the present moment and the characters, but they are merely devices to achieve the central plot-point and some sort of conclusion in the end.
After the major plot-twist which marks the film's progression, all previous developments and build-up is disregarded, as the film progresses into a sequence of mere explanation trying to fill the plot-holes that have been building up. This is not a terribly bad way of going about it, as the questions you've started to ask in the first half are being answered, though the seperation of the two makes neither of the two parts very interesting. The first half consists of poorly constructed drama, while the second half consists of boring explanations. The eventual plot resulting of the two is certainly not bad up until that point, yet the second half leaves you wondering where the first half went, and the first half keeps you asking when the second half is coming.
The finale of the series however is a rather messy congregation of several plot-twists and -devices, trying to keep the carefully laid out plot interesting. Yet the odd angles many events come from merely add to confusion and questionability of the plot as a whole. And the removal of everything built up throughout the film in the end is a terrible excuse for an ending, and a very poor way of getting rid of the issues previously present in the plot.

Characters
The characters play an important role, and the main characters are fairly well-developed and have a certain depth to them. The side-characters however are only there for this single installment, and they are rather shallow seeing how they are driven by 1 primary goal. The painful thing about it is that even this 1 driving force seemingly can't be properly explained, not even by the characters themselves. They have 'forgotten' why they're doing the things they do, or are blinded by the presence of a single emotion which has somehow taken control of their life. The shallow explanations don't make their characters very believable.

Development
The first part of the story focuses heavily on character development, and even though it initially starts out promising, they tie everything together with a short montage and then drop the entire development all together. After that many things are made clear, and the story progresses nicely, but what had been building up in the start is never picked up again. Which is a terrible shame, as it is supposed to be important to the ending sequence, but it does nothing in that regard. The two parts simply show 2 different perspectives and don't join together in the end, but are merely thrown together to achieve some kind of an ending. The development is good, but unnecessarily seperated, and incredibly sudden and plot-heavy towards the end.

Immersion
The plot is what drives the majority of the film, and its complexity and thriller-like build-up makes for an ineresting watch. For those seeking action and a lot of unexpected reveals the movie certainly does its job. The greatest loss is probably the character development of the first half, which was quite interesting as well but disappears to make room for developing the plot further. The process of explaining and revealing the events manages to keep your attention, yet the chaotic outcome seems rather far-fetched and makes the complexity seem more like utter randomness.

Emersion
The characters don't manage to display a meaningful story; the shallow side-characters do little more than present some cheesy drama, and the main characters are lacking real emotional attachments themselves or are simply absent in the display of any emotional scenes. Any other underlying message or intention doesn't really seem like something you can be bothered with, the plot grasps your attention and makes you look past those kinds of things. You won't be thinking about the meaning if you're trying to understand the story in the meantime. But not much can be found beyond the plot anyways.

Voice Acting
The voice acting is very well done, the actors match their characters in nearly every nuance. It is not something which could be called amazing, but it's of a high quality and done with much care and attention.

Art
The animation and backgrounds are also of a very high quality, and the film overall looks great. It isn't entirely free of some issues with perspective though, and some awkward camera positions are chosen at points which distracted from the main subject. The colouring is sometimes rather monotone, showing scenes consisting of mainly shades of red or blue without much variation or distinct features.

Sound
The sound is great, the soundtrack was very athmospheric like the rest of the film, and soundeffects during battle had a pleasing clarity and distinction without sounding unnatural. Recordings were fine, and the timing was done very well.

Overall Personal Experience
I feel like I have given this film quite an impressive amount of criticism, though negative as it may have seemed the end-result is not all that bad. The main issue is with the driving force behind it, which I mentioned at the start of this review, which merely consists of a complex and intriguing plot and senseless violence and action. The movie however tries to accomplish more than just that, and fails in those regards. The characters develop poorly, several underlying motives are underlit or of no importance to the rest of the film and it relies too heavily on dishing out plot-twists and supposedly awesome events. If this was merely an action-thriller, trying to accomplish just that, you would be in for some thorough enjoyment. But seeing it fail on many other aspects it's trying to include means you won't even be able to do just that.

Comments
Story (setting, plot, development), Animation (art), Sound (sound, voice acting), Character (characters) and Enjoyment (immersion, emersion, overall experience) were split up into more manageable portions so I could remain focused on 1 aspect of the series in an attempt to remain objective and spoiler-free. Also no unnecessary synopsis, and the OP and ED of a series aren't an actual part of the anime! Know that all feedback is appreciated, please use the helpful button as intended, and thanks for reading!

parker.courtney - 2013-07-07 10:04:49

Spoiler Free!

Kara no Kyoukai 5: Majun Resen (which I'll refer too as 'Paradox Spiral' for this review) is the fifth installment in the Kara no Kyoukai (Garden of Sinners) movie franchise, both in release and chronological order. As with every KnK movie, it has it's own director, that has his own style. For this movie it was Takayuki Hirao. He managed to freshen up the series by putting his own unique spin on the production. And as with every other KnK movie, the sound department was held by Yuki Kajiura.

Out of all the other KnK movies, Paradox Spiral's story is without a doubt the hardest to follow. Not just because it is a complex story, but because of the manner that it is shown in. Takayuki decided it would be a good idea to throw the viewer into a wild goose chase. The scenes are presented in such a way that if you aren't paying attention you will get really confused, really fast. And by the end you may have understood absolutely nothing.

If you've seen Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, then you should be prepared for this movie, more or less. And by that I mean that Paradox Spiral has a lot of dialogue, a lot; sometimes to a fault. And not every conversation is important. so the viewer has to be extra diligent when watching the movie. Moreover, sometimes the viewer will just feel like he's wasting his time, because some scenes' purpose is puzzling. This of course largely comes down to personal preference and patience. But if you thought that Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex had too much dialogue, then this movie is not for you. And as with Ghost in the Shell, the pacing may seem very slow to some.

The ending however was satisfying, and it set up the final chapter of the series perfectly (I don't consider Kara no Kyoukai 6: Boukyaku Rokuon to be that relevant to the series) and it also left the viewer with a sense of accomplishment, specially if you managed to understand all the craziness in the movie.

That does not mean that everything is given to you however. It tries to do what shows like Serial Experiments Lain and Neon Genesis Evangelion did, where a lot of the answers have to be stimulated by the viewer. Does it succeed in this? More or less, there are things that are up for the viewer himself to decide, but it's more or less pretty cut and dry.

At the end the story is very well done, and in my opinion, presented in a pretty darn cool way.

As with every other review on this site, I will assume that this rating is for botch art and animation. As such I will add em up, then average them to get the final score.

The animation quality in this show is stunning. Ufotable at that time was not a very known studio, but these movies put them on the map for good. I don't know how they did it, but Paradox Spiral is one of the best, if not the best, animated movies that I have ever seen. The 720p and 1080p versions hold their own perfectly and they don't show any signs or artifacts that occur while upscaling. The fight scenes are a special example of this, as they are as fluid as can be, making you wanting more and more, leaving you breathless.

The beauty of the animation is more down to the fact that Ufotable use a lot of tricks that other studios don't, which makes you watch and judge the animation in a totally different light. They did the same thing with Fate/Zero and have become famous for it.

The art is also marvelous, with some scenes looking like they were hand drawn on an oil painting. The colors compliment each other beautifully, and it makes Paradox Spiral's 'image' very unique, even for the other Kara no Kyoukai entries.

The character design also adds to this. The characters just cross the line between being too much realistic. That style of character design has now been coined by Ufotable as the 'Type Moon' character design, as they have used it in the other 'Type Moon' adaptation that they animated, Fate/Zero.

Regardless to say, no budget was spared for the making of this movie, and it stands as an example for good animation/art.

The music is done by none other then Yuki Kajiura.

And as with all of her other works, she does a stellar job at organizing the movie's music department.

The OST has a long range of different themes, from ambient background pieces that just set the tone, to full on battle themes with a choir. The sheer amount of different track types is impressive. However, if you have heard the other soundtracks that YukiKajiura has produced then you will know what you are getting yourself into, for she does not stray away from her formula at all.

As for the sub (since the show has no dub) I would have to say that this is one of the best voice acted anime I have heard. Maaya Sakamoto firmly placed herself as my favorite seiyuu for her amazing showing as Shiki Ryougi. I didn't understand a single thing she said, but I could feel every word of it, and my hat goes off for that. The rest of the cast does a fantastic job as well, which kinda makes up for the massive amount of reading that you will have to do during this movie.

All in all it is one of the best voice acted anime I have ever heard, not to mention the amazing music and ambience to top it all off.

The characters in the movie are kinda hit and miss, with some getting a bit too much screen time, and some getting too little. Seeing as this movie is not a stand alone, meaning that the development of the characters has a span of 7/8 movies, we cannot criticize it that much.

But since the character development spans throughout 7/8 movies, every movie has little to none of it. The pacing is very slow, and it shows, since most of the development is done through dialogue, and it gives you the impression that everyone is standing still and not progressing whatsoever.

Because of the movie's length and the pacing that it decided to go for, all the characters (not excluding ShikiRyougi) seem a tad too boring at times. Sure the movie tends to do a complete 180 from time to time. But the vast majority of it is just too slow for most people to stay interested in it for the entire duration of the movie.

However, that's not to say that the movie has no interesting characters, the problem is that because of the way it's presented, you do not care for them. But as with the story, by the end you should care, as I did. The characters all get their just deserts, and each character arc has a fulfilling conclusion. But as with most of the things in the movie, the pacing of the characters may just be personal preference, and by the end you may feel like you've finished a masterpiece (which is the consensus of most people).

In my opinion, I was never bored with the characters throughout the movie, and I felt that the awesome conclusion made up for the lack of development on some.

Kara no Kyoukai is my favorite movie series, and one of the best anime I have ever watched. I found myself engrossed with the world and the characters and found myself enjoying it more than I expected. Paradox Spiral is no different.

The animation and music alone should be enough for you to watch this series, and Paradox Spiral has the complex plot to boot. So in theory it should satisfy both worlds.

The characters might seem uninteresting at times, but they more than make up for it in their own special moments, and by the end you just fall in love with their stories.

The 7/8 movies (depending if you count the epilogue) are around the time span of a 26 episode anime. And with that being said, I cannot recommend it enough.