The Summer of Love VIII with The Garden of Sinners: Recalled Out Summer and Epilogue!

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The Summer of Love VIII continues! Another gap week due to a trip, but here we are! There are only two posts left, this and the wrap-up, so we are still on track to get all of this done by September! Now while the story is all but done, there are two films left, and do they help add depth to this story, or it just filler? After cut let’s take a dive into the final (for really reals this time) parts of The Garden of Sinners: Recalled Out Summer and Epilogue!

I’m doing something a bit different this time around, as honestly, with the story finished I just want to do quickly fire off my thoughts on both of these films. Also no Jontron clips this time, as I kinda ran out of all the ones that can be used. Alright? Let’s do this.

Epilogue

  • This film, if you can call it that is probably the worst thing I’ve seen in the entire Nasuverse. Every critique that people have of the franchise: it’s too wordy, its too abstract, it wants to tell you, not show you. All of that is present in this film and it really doesn’t do it any favors.
  • I mean I had to sit there with a wiki open to just understand half of what was going on, which I can summise is that the third Shiki, called “Void Shiki” by fans, was the source of Shiki’s murderous impulses and is directly connected to The Root. While she offers to heal Mikiya’s wounds, his determination to live his life with the consequences of his choices impresses V-Shiki enough that she simply vanishes.
  • And had this story actually taken the time to seed this throughout the films, I think this intro would have made sense, or if V-Shiki had challenged Mikiya on the burdens and trials that will come on loving Shiki, it would have gone down better.
  • Like it would have wrapped up his entire journey and brought everything to a nice close, instead we get the equivilant of a video essay explaining something that really doesn’t change or affect the series as a whole. Eh, maybe I’m just not understanding it.

Recalled Out Summer

  • This film goes down far better than the previous, but there is also part of me that wishes it took place after the main story had been told.
  • Putting it in between some of the other films I think robs the film of a lot of the tension that could have helped move the entire story around. Because this is honestly a better film than Oblivion Recording, which felt very fillerish. This at least keeps the story focused on Shiki and Mikiya, with a new character who has a connection to them.
  • Because the back half of the movie, with Mana and Mitsuru going to the fortune teller and talking about fate, feels very much like a capstone to the overall themes of the story. What if all of the previous events had happened after the film? I think it would have tied everything together better.
  • Shizune Seo for example, feels like she doesn’t really add anything to the story, aside from being another example showing how Mikiya is a really good guy who is perfect for Shiki. That’s nice, but we’ve seen enough examples of that before.
  • Mana is a great addition but I wish she had gotten far more time with her parents, because we just see her on her own, and I would love to have see how she views her mother and father beyond the little bit we get. Again I don’t want to armchair write the story here, but there is just a better version of this film that combines the past and present together.
  • Finally, I think the conversations with Fujino and her fellow student who lost a friend to suicide is a great way to wrap up that character arc, and I’m so glad that she wasn’t just forgotten. Frankly I would have love more of a examination of the supporting cast, a sort of “where are they now?”
  • Overall confusion level: Fuck off Void Shiki

Overall, I find both of these films to be simple additons to an already finshed story. If you are an absolute fan of The Garden of Sinners and its characters and world, you’ll enjoy a chance to spend a bit more time here. If your not, then I would advise you skip both of these, because you don’t get anything that will change your view of what has come before.

And with that, we are at the end of our journey! Join me next week as we do a final wrap up of the series!

The Summer of Love VIII with The Garden of Sinners: Mikiya Kokutou: The Rock upon which I’ll Build my Church.

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The Summer of Love VIII continues! With the series all but finished, we now are taking a moment to look at another of the key characters. We already took a dive into our main heroine, but now it is time to talk about the hero! An oddity among the male leads of the Nasuverse, is he something worth talking about? Or is it something that just doesn’t work out? Well after the cut let’s take a character dive into The Garden of Sinners’ Mikiya Kokutou and find out!

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The Summer of Love VIII with The Garden of Sinners: A Study in Murder Part 2

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The Summer of Love VIII continues! This week we have reached the final climax of the series. Have all of these twists and turns and the Nasuverse being well, the Nasuverse paid off? Are the characters able to reach a proper conclusion? Or is everything so far up its own ass that it fails? Well after the cut let’s take a dive into the final main film of the series: A Study in Murder Part 2 and find out!

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