(For more love-remembering et al. in the 12 Days project, see: otou-san, schneider, doctordazza, Gargron, Scamp, zaon47, kevo, rabbitpoets, drmchsr0, Pontifus, ghostlightning, 53RG10, Vii, Seinime, _ETERNAL, FuyuMaiden, Eater-of-All, Shinmaru, calaggie, yumeka, Nazarielle, Cuchlann, Jinx, Janette, stringedsonata, animewriter, prototype27, and probably more in the days to come~)

Or such is my crude understanding of the series as a whole.

My relationship with the Type-Moon universe (Nasuverse, as you will), to put it eloquently and poetically, is much like my relationship with women: I don’t get it at all, but I’m mysteriously attracted.

12 Memories of Anime 2009
#04: Kara no Kyoukai

My experience with the Nasuverse is much the same: I am told it’s a relatively small place – although complicated and entangled as all hell – but even so I’ve only experienced something resembling two-thirds of it, having played Tsukihime and Kagetsu Tohya, and having watched 6 out of 7 Kara no Kyoukai movies.

And to be brutally honest, the historical / mystical side of the Nasuverse, I have made next to no effort to comprehend outside of that which happened to click into place as I watched and read. I figured out a few choice things, like some intriguing contrasts between, say, Aoko Aozaki who destroys and Touko Aozaki who constructs, but as a whole, my knowledge of the Nasuverse appears and dissapears at a whim.

I would like to blame my upbringing as much more of a traditional galge-type person, much more empathetic with characters and personalities, rather than knowledgeable about backstories and magical settings … but I shouldn’t let something like that limit my world-view, right? No use staying in a comfort zone all the time, and all that.

Instead, I will blame the fact that my memories of Tsukihime are hazy – it was my first anime-related experience in years, being the bridge between the Cardcaptor Sakura of my youth and the Kanon of my … less youth – and that I watched 6 movies of Kara no Kyoukai in one sitting.

It wasn’t all seven, because the time of this sitting was this summer. So my next excuse I can throw in, is the sands of time. Half a year is a long time for a fleeting heart.

Well, those are all excuses anyway, because Kara no Kyoukai was incredible in pretty much every way. So I’ll cut through that by promising myself that I’m going to end up seeing the movies again, at least two times more. (Once with some friends over winter break, and once again when I screen them for the opening salvo of the Project Anime Club Project.)

I’m not quite sure what is exactly the formula that makes Kara no Kyoukai tick. Is it the action that stirs my blood? The sequences gloriously rendered with care as Ryougi jumps from a building to the next, the water on the rooftops glistening as the music climaxes?

Maybe it’s the characters. That strange personality of Ryougi’s, a mix of a bunch of different stereotypes (of course ‘tsundere’ is the word I ache for, but don’t quite want to grasp) that form quite the interesting ‘human’, if I can call her that. The level-headed Touko, who is pretty laid-back and snarky, only to pull off some glorious moments (taken from her, and given back with twice the force) in the 5th movie in particular. Or maybe the contrast of that against ‘simpler’ types like the Kokutou and Azaka, both of which we swear we’ve seen before in Tsukihime.

The curious mood of the show? That inquisitive nature that has a vaguely supernatural feel to it – perhaps it is an understatement to call the Nasuverse ‘vaguely’ magical, but it is a different kind of magical than the type seen in a show filled with ten-year-old girls. The type of magic that merely allows humans to go beyond the border of common sense and sanity to perform impossible feats and tasks, rather than the type of magic which is a journey into the realms of fantasy. It’s like there’s an realism underscoring it all, in the slightly dark world of Kara no Kyoukai. Not to mention how it seems to show a very zoomed-in view of the world, focusing on very few key characters, nearly erasing all others.

As usually, it’s probably all of the above, or maybe it’s just those little Claymation Neko-Arc shorts before every movie. Either way, ufotable and Nasu are both doing it very right with Kara no Kyoukai, and I’m looking forward to experiencing it all over again.

My Mystic Eyes of Awesomeness Perception tell me we have a keeper.

CCY