Today I watched again the seventh movie of the Kara no Kyoukai series titled Satsujin Kousatsu (Go) (A Study in Murder (Part 2)). This is the second part of the second movie and the grand conclusion of Ryougi Shiki's main story, even though there are technically still two movies left to watch in the franchise.

This movie focuses on revealing the real murderer of those fateful days back in high school and finally proving that, after all, Shiki was innocent. Lio Shirazumi, Mikiya's senior, was the cause of the first murder (after having a talk with Shiki) and then all the subsequent ones after his Origin of "Consumption" was awakened by Araya Souren.

After Araya's death in the Paradox Spiral movie, Lio became free to start his murders again, as Araya had been controlling him to avoid his plans going astray. He even went as far as wearing a kimono and a red jacket to simulate being Shiki in an attempt to force her into action against him. He truly believed that Shiki could be moved to become a mindless murderer just like him.

Shiki was instead fighting between her urge to kill and her relationship with Mikiya. She did not really care about Lio at all, considering him a mere nuisance. In the end, she killed him only because she thought Mikiya was dead at his hands (even though she didn't actually check to confirm).

I honestly don't fully understand Mikiya's point of view of "not fighting back." That just conflicts with the basic human instinct of self-preservation. I agree with Tohko that Lio Shirazumi was far too gone and there was nothing to do aside from finishing him off and closing this string of murders.

I understand the idea of contrasting the more prone-to-action Shiki with the calm and reasonable Mikiya, but at the same time, his thoughts come off as jarring to me. It reminds me of the movie with Fujino, where he tried to protect the criminal at his own risk from being killed by her, despite the terrible things the guy did.

I'm curious to read the novels (3 volumes) from which this is adapted to understand if the representation of the movie series was faithful to the original or something was lost in the translation to an animated format. It's hard to keep everything consistent in an adaptation and I saw very few series manage to achieve it.

Maybe it is because quite a long time has passed since the last time I watched this, but I noticed many details in the movie that I didn't remember. There were camera shots that are clearly fanservice, slight expressions from Shiki, and much more. It really surprised me, to be honest.

Either way, I enjoyed the movie and I am looking forward to the last few entries. I will probably watch all the remaining pieces together and will make another post to complete my coverage of it once I am ready.