天下制覇

Could have used more exploding.

Impressions:

Well… I’m conflicted. I’ll start by saying that it was still a very solid watch all around, but it differs in structure and tone dramatically from the previous five, and they reduced practically half the mystery and story to just a pair of little expositional snippets. In the original story, people were regaining lost memories and it was leading to a lot of fights, as well as losing them. This added at least a little more mystery and drama to the big reveal that Satsuki and Misaya were involved with it. Without really any of that entire side, the reveal of Satsuki as the magician of God’s Word felt extremely fabricated and just thrown in to give Shiki someone to wave her knife around at before he ran off. That also made Shiki feel almost completely marginalized to poking at animals and using her eyes to open stuck cabinets. I think things might have even been improved if they had just axed the entire Satsuki side of the story entirely instead of just devoting 3 minutes of the movie to it. Fans would probably have been pissed, but this one seriously could have used at least another 10 minutes to actually touch on that side of the story.

The vast majority, however, was totally focused on Akiha Azaka, Kokutou’s sister and a pyro mage. The entire first half was almost straight out of shows like Modern Magic, complete with: "I’m a 16 year old mage, and a school girl who’s doing my best! Tee hee! But now there’s some strange woman who likes my brother. Grr grr." It made the story really lack a lot of the subtle menace and intrigue that is part and parcel of the series. It is there in the original story, since girls were getting into knife fights because of memories Satsuki was stirring up, and then forgetting about because of Misaya, but this just had Misaya lurking in the background a few times before the final fights.

So, all in all, compared to the novels, I think this is the one that fell the shortest in transition of the lot. Still a very solid flick, but Paradox Spiral is a really tough act to follow, and it’s hard for me to be happy about them effectively lobotomizing half the story.

Briefish Summary:

Mikiya’s sister (who is in love with him), Azaka, gets snagged by Touko to investigate ‘fairy’ incidents at her school, and she’s less than happy that her brother’s beard will be posing as a potential transfer student to assist. After a little wandering around, and talking with Satsuki, a teacher from Wales who knows a little bit about fairies, they’re chased out by Misaya, the student council pres. Shiki spots one outside and gives chase. A woman appears behind Azaka and she passes out. She has a dream about going to a neighbor’s funeral, but her brother never cried.

Shiki eventually returns and they realize that Azaka was attacked by one of the fairies. The two hit the books, Ryougi using her powers to get past a stuck cabinet door, and figure out that it all started when a girl named Kaori started having a strange sickness and blamed it on fairies. At dinner, Shiki obsesses over a knife, which Azaka has to later physically confiscate from her. While still straddling Shiki, the two start talking about how they both love Mikiya. Weirdos. The next day, Misaya reveals to Azaka that she’s the one controlling the fairies and can look into people’s memories. She explains how evil Kaori’s teacher was and how nobody would save her. She blindsides Azaka with a fairy, but when she wakes up in Satsuki’s arms, Azaka still has her memories.

After a little more investigating and a call to family, they hit the showers. Mikiya wonders to Touko whether they should be worried about Satsuki being the God’s Word mage, but she waves it off since the guy’s not evil or anything. Azaka plugs in her walkman and races past Satsuki in the rain to confront Misaya. Shiki wants to fight, but he uses his ability to forcefully plant hypnotic commands to make her blind, or just outright miss. Meanwhile, Azaka finds all the girls about to kill themselves and each other in the same way Kaori was killed thanks to Misaya putzing with their brains. Azaka reveals to her the truth, there was no murder. Kaori killed herself. Misaya’s trying to take revenge for it, but none of her control over anything is real. Azaka fights off Misaya’s fairy swarm, but is knocked into a corner. The fairy ‘queen’ (or whatever you want to call that plant) seizes Misaya’s body in the middle of the fight and starts trying to eat her (proving Azaka’s point), but Azaka rushes it down and detonates it with an atomic heel drop.

The next day, Azaka forces her brother to miss the bus at the last second so that he’ll take her out on a mini-date. She finishes her Rin-era flashbacks by noting that her brother would never want to make anybody feel sad, and that’s why he doesn’t cry.

After the credits a man who just wanted to punch someone because he felt like a loser, but ended up killing them, decides that the only way to get rid of the corpse is to eat it. Araya watches him do that and asks him what he really wants before introducing himself.

Intermission:

Conclusion to Murder Speculation.