Apologies for the delay of this review of the second movie, I totally forgot about it until the third one suddenly popped up. The second chapter of the Garden of Sinners tells how everything started, and how Shiki and Mikiya first met with each other. It’s obviously a chapter that’s more about building up and establishing its characters than about its stories. Overall, I liked the first chapter more, but at least A Study in Murder Part 1 is a lot more solid.
The whole setting is a lot more down-to-earth, as the entire story is just about two rather strange high-school kids. The graphics look as good as ever, but that’s to be expected with a movie-budget, and the strange emphasises on different foods are still there. The best thing about this movie is the cast of characters. They’re well fleshed out throughout the hour of airtime and even though they won’t hit any heights, they remain enjoyable to watch, and add depth to their versions that we saw in the first movie.
The story is a bit hard to believe, though. It’s impossible to accurately describe this without going into spoilers, but let’s just say that this movie tells about a series of gruesome murders, and the motives of the eventual killer will feel rather strange, and especially the way that Mikiya reacts to this gives Elfen Lied-flashbacks. The message of this episode was a rather weird one: “it’s okay to murder, you won’t get put in jail for it, everyone will love you anyway.” Now that’s going to stop the children from stabbing their parents.
Nevertheless, the movie served its purpose: the characters are fleshed out now and they have a background, which makes them more than just a bunch of cardboard boxes. Now all that’s left to see is how the rest of the movies will use this.
| Storytelling: | 7/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 |
| Setting: | 7/10 |
Hmm… so you think Shiki is the killer? 😛
[MINOR SPOILER]
The 3rd movie hints at the reasons why SHIKI was not put in jail and why Shiki was allowed to be institutionalized. It also puts the comment about her being the one to run the family due to being the one with the ‘trait’ into better perspective.
Once again it is the little one liner throw away lines (often spoken softly, or the character speaking to themselves) which are left to help the viewer piece together the back-back story.
The third movie really starts to put the powers these people have into the forefront.
At least in fiction, it’s thinkable that she just showed up at those murder scenes shortly after the event but isn’t the actual killer. She might even hunt the killer that is she can possibly sense his presence or have some clairvoyance abilities. In the world where this takes place, this isn’t really far off considering that it has a lot of supernatural elements.
I seem to recall that this or similar was also the plot-device in some Hollywood movie. Maybe “Memento” fits the bill? Or to some lesser degree “Lost Highway”? I just mean the idea that the oh-so-obvious murderer is actually innocent isn’t completely new. Neither, the double twist in which after declared innocent, it becomes apparent we’ve been fooled.
It’s clear that she isn’t the killer, in one of the first scene we see the killer that runs and then a truck that pass. In another scene we see the killer that is stabbing the victim and he is clearly a man, not a girl in kimono.
Yo, I’m pretty sure they actually tell you who the killer is *hint* it actually isn’t her, AND you need to watch that movie more carefully because they basically just law it out about who the killer is. I’m still shocked you guys haven’t figured it out by now.