TYPE-MOON Review: Kara no Kyoukai/The Garden of Sinners Chapter 6: Fairy Tale (Oblivion Recording)
For this sixth chapter of studio ufotable’s Garden of Sinners/Kara no Kyoukai anime adaptation, apprentice mage and high school student Azaka Kokutou finally takes centre stage, and we learn why she dislikes her brother Mikiya’s girlfriend Shiki Ryougi so much. The reason is… well, we’ll get to that later. Sigh. I sometimes wonder if watching all this anime is good for my health.
While previous chapter Paradox Spiral was a two-hour-long mind-melting non-chronological puzzle box narrative requiring multiple watches to fully comprehend, Oblivion Recording is a much leaner 58 minutes, and is significantly simpler than its predecessor. Set during January 1999, we find Azaka reluctantly paired up with Shiki by mage/employer Touko Aozaki to investigate strange goings-on at Reien Girls Academy, Azaka’s exclusive private school for rich Roman Catholic girls. Posing as an exchange student, Shiki must wear the nun’s habit-esque uniform to blend in.
Kinoko Nasu’s works often heavily feature his fictional analogue to the real world’s Roman Catholic Church. Most of his priest characters are twisted human beings (like Kirei Kotomine from Fate/Stay Night, for example), and the church has an uneasy relationship with the Mage’s Association. However there are certain differences — Fate/Hollow Ataraxia’s Caren Hortensia is an official priestess, a role that doesn’t exist in mainsteam Roman Catholicism. Mostly Nasu uses his fictional church for the aesthetics and to provide powerful antagonists. The church features in Kara no Kyoukai less prominently than in even Nasu’s preceding novel Witch on the Holy Night/Mahoyo— it’s only in this chapter that it plays much of a part in the story. Chapter three did feature Reien student Fujino Asagami as its main antagonist, and she briefly cameos here, still attending school but now blinded and walking with a cane.
As is usual for Kara no Kyoukai, the cast is limited to a very small group of characters — in this case Azaka and Shiki, and their two investigation targets — apparently friendly new teacher Satsuki Kurogiri and imperious Head Girl Misaya Ouji. Touko and Mikiya are mostly confined to brief cameos. Azaka spends much of the chapter pouting, groaning and complaining about Shiki’s presence. She does come off as a spoiled child, and Shiki mostly radiates “don’t really give a shit” energy. Mikiya notes that Shiki thinks of Azaka as a little sister, and that definitely comes across in her mostly nonchalant interactions with her. What Mikiya doesn’t realise, but Shiki does, is the depths of Azaka’s feelings for her brother.
Kara no Kyoukai has already featured heavy subject matter, such as serial murder, dismemberment, torture, obsession and existential horror. Now it’s incest’s turn to be featured. Yeah, Azaka has a “big-brother” fixation. As a child she even arranged for herself to be adopted by an uncle so that there would be distance between her and Mikiya growing up, so that later she could swoop back into his life and steal his heart. Yep. She’s aware that her desires are abnormal, but she intends to fully double down on them — until Mikiya goes and gets himself a girlfriend, damn him!
Azaka’s pining for her brother is played mostly straight, though Shiki does accuse her of being a “pervert”, and there is the occasional vaguely humorous scene. At one point Shiki comments that Azaka is so abnormally physically strong that she could essentially pin her brother down to the bed and he’d be unable to fight her off. That’s kind of unsettling…
I tend to find the subject of incest in anime to be squicky at best, it’s generally a topic I’d prefer not to be in my entertainment. It’s often handled very badly, such as in the almost-universally derided conclusion to Oreimo. At least Azaka’s affections are entirely one-sided, and Mikiya’s competely oblivious. I don’t find this aspect of Azaka’s character to be endearing, and to be honest it kind of grosses me out. I’m not really sure what tone Nasu was going for here when he wrote the original — it’s not like murder and gore are nice things either, but they’re generally depicted as morally wrong things. As far as Azaka is concerned, there’s a general lack of judgement in the writing, so I suppose it’s up to the viewer to decide whether to condemn or support her twisted attraction.
Compared to the original novel version, a lot has been cut to streamline this story. It’s one of the least compelling narratives so far, and much of what was cut isn’t missed. Some scenes are combined, others are skipped, and a lot of supporting character backstory is completely missing. Azaka and Shiki are investigating the apparent suicide of a fellow student, the possibly-related disappearance of a former teacher, and struggle to get any witnesses to talk to them. There’s a rumour about memory-stealing fairies, and the head girl seems strangely antagonistic to their investigation.
The relationship between Head Girl Ouji and teacher Kurogiri is the biggest casualty of this streamlining, we’re given no details about their tragic connection — and in fact Kurogiri’s ultimate fate is left ambiguous, whereas the novel spells out in gruesome detail how he dies. This lack of narrative connective tissue makes the story somewhat jumpy, with events apparently happening without rhyme or reason. For a detective story, there’s not a whole lot of detection going on — the viewer is left to piece together the plot from context clues and leaps of logic, and this is only partly mitigated by the overly-explanatory and dry prose of the fan-translated novel. Once again, many of Nasu’s loredumps read like floridly-descriptive but empty gobbledegook, so perhaps ufotable made a good choice cutting most of it out.
It’s a little surprising that the anime cuts out the sinister student prostitution ring backstory, as it much better justifies the actions of the students who refuse to engage with Azaka and Shiki’s investigation, and why Ouji attempts to induce them all to commit mass suicide via immolation. The dead girl’s secret pregnancy also isn’t mentioned, which along with her illicit drug use was a powerful reason for why she felt so trapped at a strict convent-run Catholic School. Ouji’s horror and anger at her classmates comes from a deeper, more visceral place in the novel, but in the anime her motivation is half-baked and hard to follow. An extra few minutes to properly flesh out the plot would have been very helpful here.
Out of every chapter so far, Oblivion Recording feels like the most superfluous, though it functions well to flesh out Azaka’s (twisted) character, and also shows Shiki interacting with someone she (surprisingly) doesn’t want to immediately murder. Its main narrative purpose appears to be to introduce a deus ex machina in the form of Kurogiri’s true identity as the mage “God’s Word”. His main ability is to speak in the “Unified Tongue” — i.e. the pre-Tower of Babel universal language of humanity that can compel others to act, or impair their function. It’s pretty similar to Genesis from the comic book Preacher. He’s somehow able to unlock suppressed memories in others, and was contracted by the now-deceased Souren Araya to force Shiki to remember the forgotten events prior to her coma. It’s left unclear as to whether he was successful, I guess we’ll find out in the next chapter.
There’s only one main action scene in Oblivion Recording, and it’s split between two battles — one between Shiki and Kurogiri, and the other between Azaka and Ouji. Shiki has a bad match with Kurogiri as he outwits her using his compelled speech. Azaka however kicks ass with her previously unseen “ignition” magecraft powers, fighting off evil fairy familiars and even kicking a creepy flower/fairy monster thing right in the stamens. This fight takes place in a church, and I particularly like the part where Azaka jumps on top of the pews and starts sprinting/jumping between them all the way down the length of the sanctuary. It’s probably not something of which her nun caretakers would approve.
Despite being one of Kara no Kyoukai’s lesser chapters, Oblivion Recording still looks great, with ufotable’s excellent animation remaining a highlight. Kalafina’s ending theme “Fairy Tale” is appropriately evocative and nostalgic, and the excellent, atmospheric score continually features motifs from it. We’re definitely heading into the home straight now, so I’m very looking forwards to what appears to be the climax with chapter seven next time. I know there’s a short OVA epilogue, plus a movie and short film to follow after, but we’ve been teased long enough. I’d like to know what the hell happened to Shiki at the end of chapter two, and I really want to know what the hell is going on with murderer/cannibal boy from this chapter’s post-credits scene. That Souren Araya guy keeps popping up everywhere. Despite being dead, it looks like his influence lingers on…
Kara no Kyoukai/The Garden of Sinners Chapter 5: Fairy Tale (Oblivion Recording)
Directed by: Takahiro Miura
Screenplay by: Masaki Hiramatsu
Story by: Kinoko Nasu
Based on: The Garden of Sinners/Kara no Kyoukai novel series by Kinoko Nasu
Music by: Yuki Kajiura, Kalafina
Production studio: ufotable
Original JP release: 20th December 2008
JP Distributor: Aniplex
UK home video release: 22nd December 2014 (Limited Edition DVD Collection), 25th November 2019 (Collector’s Edition Blu-ray set)
UK distributor: MVM
Language: Japanese audio with English Subtitles
Runtime: 58 minutes
BBFC rating: 18
RRP: Blu-ray CE box: £180 (can be found online for as low as £90)
Fan-translated novel link: here
