Shiki and the Fire Within

Subtitle: Shiki and the Horror of Happy Homes.

Part 1: Driving Out the Darkness:

Shiki is a show I’m reviewing for the Reverse Thieves Secret Santa project, and fittingly, there’s a celebration within the show that makes for a good place to start this piece, a holiday, which also ties in to the winter holidays of two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity.

Let’s begin with Judaism’s holiday for the winter, Channukah, which like Passover is a celebration and remembrance for having triumphed over the enemies of the Judaic people, the Romans in this case. Here’s a translation of a children Channukah song, translated and transliterated roughly by me. It’s titled, quite fittingly, “We’re Here to Banish the Darkness“:

We came to drive away the darkness, (Banu choshech le’garesh,)
In our hands (we carry) light and flame, (Be’yadeinu or va’esh,)
Each of us is a small light, (Kol echad hu or katan,)
And all of us (together) are a great light. (Ve’kulanu or eitan.)

Move aside darkness, onward blackness! (Soora choshech, hal’a sh’chor!)
Flee from the light! (Soora mi’pnei ha’or!)

Channukah comes at the height of Winter, and one of the miracles it celebrates is that a small container of oil held for 8 days. Holidays held at Winter’s darkest which call forth the Spring are not rare, and the Christmas custom of cutting a sprig of mistletoe is believed to be a remnant of such a pagan holiday. Furthermore, the birth of a “God” as Christianity holds Christmas to be, in the Winter, when it seems the year and the world have died, fit into the same sort of pattern. Although it is held during an especially harsh summer in Sotoba village, Shiki’s end-of-series “jubilee” fits quite nicely.

(This is a Things I Like post, it’s not a review, but more a discussion of the show and of ideas that rose in my mind as a result of watching the show. There will be spoilers for the entire show.)

Kara no Kyoukai Film 2 – Murder Speculation (Part 1) – Rejection and Acceptance; Romanticism

Kara no Kyoukai, also known as Garden of Sinners, a series of 7 films with a psychological / supernatural focus. The second is called Satsujin Kousatsu or Murder Speculation (Part 1), and is 60 minutes long, and occurs three years before the events of the first film – the second part of “this movie” is the 7th film in the show, which isn’t told in chronological order.
This series of movies almost feels like an anime series, and is the current focus of an online anime watch club I’m participating in. I will share write-ups written for the club, which aren’t written in the form of notes, but also aren’t me trying to come up with a specific point (thus far).
Final and important note – these write-ups are written after watching each movie, not the whole series of movies. Spoilers of movies beyond the one numbered in each entry will not be tolerated.

This is a Things I Like post, it’s not a review, but more a discussion of the show and of ideas that have risen in my mind as I’ve watched it. This time it’s slightly farther from a review, but I do note relationships quite heavily. This post is somewhat rambly, I just had a lot to cover and too many threads. There will be a fair amount of spoilers.

If you were to take a look at my notes for this film, you’d see I noted the colour usage quite heavily in this movie as well (here is the imgur album of images taken). We still go with red-green and an atmosphere of decay for when things go wrong, or bloody. We have a lighter atmosphere when blue and green give us a sense of calmness, and yellow seems to be the colour of home. It’s quite interesting to note how the scenes tell us what sort of mood they’re going to use through their use of different palettes alone, and unless one devotes conscious thought to it (like I did), then it just sets the stage, like music gets to do. Good stuff.

Kara no Kyoukai Film 1 – Overlooking View – The Usage of Colours

Kara no Kyoukai, also known as Garden of Sinners, a series of 7 films with a psychological / supernatural focus. The first is called Fukan Fuukei or Overlooking View, and is 48 minutes long. This series of movies almost feels like a series, and is the current focus of an online anime watch club I’m participating in. I will share write-ups written for the club, which aren’t written in the form of notes, but also aren’t me trying to come up with a specific point (thus far).
Final and important note – these write-ups are written after watching each movie, not the whole series of movies. Spoilers of movies beyond the one numbered in each entry will not be tolerated.

This is a Things I Like post, it’s not a review, but more a discussion of the show and of ideas that have risen in my mind as I’ve watched it. It’s relatively close to a review though, as aside from describing the movie’s plot I actually go over it pretty closely. There will be a fair amount of spoilers.

First thing first – this is directed as a movie. Look at all those “dead moments”, those quiet moments where “nothing happens”. Shiki waking up, people just standing or walking, without music, and most of all the pretty long sequence where Shiki had eaten her ice-cream. You can see it in shows, often by the BBC, and say in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Serial Experiments Lain, but it’s much more common in films, and usually not in Hollywood films either.