By hephaestus
Translator’s note: The Chinese title discussed here, 空之境界, corresponds to the Japanese 空の境界, Kara no Kyoukai. Except where an English edition is identified, quotations from Kara no Kyoukai and its related interviews and reference works are translated from the Chinese wording quoted in this article, not taken from an official English edition. Chapter titles are translated literally where their wording is part of the argument.
This installment looks at the relationship between the English title of Kara no Kyoukai and the novel, and at the meanings of its Chinese and English titles.
When Kara no Kyoukai first appeared as a doujin publication, its subtitle was still “is noting id, noting cosmos” [sic]. By the time the bunko paperback edition appeared, this had become “the garden of sinners,” taken from the title of a 1990s tour by the Japanese band LUNA SEA.
This article aims to analyze the relationship between that English title and the novel, and the meanings of the two titles. To sum up the theme of Kara no Kyoukai, we might simply quote Kinoko Nasu’s own assessment: a story of Souren Araya’s struggle against 「 」, a story in which the “normal” heal the “abnormal”… For all the novel’s many elements and interwoven events, it makes no attempt to hide its author’s views or sympathies. I will break the two titles into parts, bring in some outside texts, and read them alongside the story of Kara no Kyoukai to try to answer these questions.
I. sinner
In the New Testament, the Greek ἁμαρτία (hamartia) corresponds to “sin” in English translations. Its original Greek meaning is roughly that of an arrow going astray and missing the center of the target. By extension, it is interpreted as an error arising from action in ignorance, often one of the necessary traits of a Greek tragic protagonist, as can be seen in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. For its New Testament usage, see Romans 3:23 (King James Version): “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Here, “sin” means that human beings have failed to reach the goal God appointed for them.
In early Christian thought, “sin” was held to be unrelated to human free will. Only the Messiah’s teachings could provide a foundation for goodness; only by following Christ could one remove the “beam that is in thine own eye” (Matthew 7:3, King James Version). Our sole freedom was the freedom to believe or not to believe.
Let us take Augustine’s doctrine of original sin as our basis. (Augustine was not the first proponent of original sin: Christians gradually constructed the doctrine to emphasize the necessity of the Messiah’s “redemption.” I have chosen Augustine’s relatively complete and reasonable account.) After humanity’s first ancestors were persuaded by the ancient serpent to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden, we, their descendants, are born already tainted with “sin.” For we have defied God’s will: “hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it” (Genesis 3:17, King James Version). Human beings acted according to “free will” and defied God: this is the supreme “actual sin.” “Sin” means “abandoning the eternal” to pursue “earthly/worldly” things—that is, “moral evil”—and constitutes an irreversible outcome.
The sense of sin Kierkegaard experienced alone before God ought to have faded as rival powers contended for supremacy in the supersensible world and the realm of ideals. Yet that ancient fear and anxiety born of the individual’s infinite choices did not simply disappear. After all, if we do not think that twenty-one grams of soul-substance, chemicals, or electrical signals can disprove the existence of the soul in its traditional sense, then discussion of “sin” will not end with law or ethics.
“The double-bodied one who floats in dependence on death; the one unfit for existence who finds pleasure in contact with death; the one whose Origin has awakened, who acquires a self by escaping death”; “the murderous fiend who is both perpetrator and victim”; the monk who makes an enemy of the primates… In Kara no Kyoukai, the abnormal walk beneath a moon that nurtures death and mystery; those tuned to other channels move through streets and alleys, doing evil without a sense of sin… Apart from Mikiya, who seems an onlooker even as he participates in events, most of the characters can be called “sinners.” Those who bear these sins are also those who seek, but cannot attain, the “emptiness” named in the title.
“That’s right. Common sense is no longer part of you. In the world called common sense, the abnormal are not guilty. It is only natural for the abnormal to do things that defy ordinary reason, so common sense cannot be used to judge their good and evil.” (“Murder Speculation · Kyoukai-shiki [境界式]”)
II. The Concept of “Emptiness” (空)
The word 空 (kara) chosen by the Mushroom—Nasu’s nickname—means roughly “hollow,” or “containing nothing.” After encountering the work, it is not difficult to see that this “emptiness” also carries an underlying sense of garan (伽蓝), a Buddhist temple or monastery. Beyond the similarity in sound, there are, of course, other correspondences in meaning. Shiki Ryougi describes it herself: “My body feels hollow, like a cave. Not only air but even the wind seems able to pass through it… It is an overwhelming unease… an overwhelming loneliness… So empty that I cannot even find a reason to live.” (The Hollow of Garan) Seen this way, the “hollow of Garan” is a metaphor for a place where feelings of emptiness gather. Naming both Shiki’s sense of emptiness and Touko Aozaki’s workshop “Garan” may go beyond the Mushroom’s enduring taste for coining lofty-sounding terms. Intentionally or not, it may also suggest that our understanding of “emptiness” in the work cannot be wholly severed from the Buddhist thought that gave it birth. And if we consider the image of a dwelling place for monks, correspondences can also be found in the many aspects of Souren Araya’s characterization.
Kara no Kyoukai is a story founded on what the Mushroom calls mysterious magecraft: “within the story there is only complete rationality and absolute maturity.” Magi are nonhuman seekers of mystery; psychics, too, are abnormal people capable of receiving multiple channels. In Kara no Kyoukai, there is no negotiation or persuasion, no sympathetic understanding or forgiveness. “Origin,” as a conviction, can easily devour “personality,” making mutual understanding and changes of heart irrelevant. The abnormal exist by virtue of concepts, consciously or unconsciously pursuing an unattainable place where endings and truth converge. Meaningless people follow meaningless rules, seeking a final destination where everything is present, yet all is empty and chaotic. Fujou longs for freedom, but even after acquiring a body, all she gains is floating. Fujino Asagami seeks pain and finds momentary joy in slaughter. Satsuki Kurogiri, who has lost himself, remains trapped in other people’s pasts. Rio Shirazumi longs for others of his kind and submits to the urge to devour… No pleasure to be found, no goal to fix on, no direction, no way forward—only a sense of emptiness driving them onward in a frenzy… This “empty” state of existence is rather like the inauthentic existence Heidegger describes: a helpless abandonment and exile of the self, rushing along divergent paths whose shapes one can scarcely discern.
In a more positive sense, “emptiness” can also describe the disposition of Mikiya and the fortune-teller known as the Mother of Mifune, or a certain quality they possess: a state best called “peaceful.” They neither ask things of others nor turn down others’ requests. They are never truly shaken by the outside world, nor do they wish to impose their views on those around them, point out others’ shortcomings, or instruct them in words. They witness countless abnormal people with extraordinary gifts, yet are content to live as their unchanging, “ordinary” selves. Even when they glimpse the course of the future, they have no intention of evading what fate has arranged.
As discussed above, “emptiness” in Kara no Kyoukai is not entirely the concept of emptiness seen from the Buddhist’s detached perspective, nor is it the absolute, thoroughgoing nihilism expounded by philosophers. It is a concrete description of the characters’ actual conditions of existence, embodied in their sense of emptiness. “That kind of longing does not exist in me. Since I have no real sense of being alive, I do not know the pain of living.” It is enacted in what the characters do and permeates the viewer’s experience. This is a story that attempts to interpret emptiness, but unlike the tale in Macbeth’s speech, it is not “full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” (Macbeth, 5.5, Folger edition)
And what we call the “boundary,” the “garden,” is both a stage and an enclosing wall, both a promised land and a site of contingent existence. Here a deity inevitably falls and suffers, then is reborn and departs through a chance conjunction of circumstances.
III. “Boundary” (境界), “garden”
“In the mountain ascetic tradition of Shugendo, or on mountains held sacred, barriers are set up to keep women out. I’ve heard that a woman who enters turns to stone. But a barrier is nothing more than a boundary. What lies inside the circle is not the barrier itself, only a wall of magical power that keeps others out. So—all I have to do is erase that line, and the power will disappear.” (Paradox Spiral)
“A barrier separates inside from outside. To use it to create a world complete in itself, one must first make oneself complete. Lacking exceptional gifts, Araya brought himself to completion through the accumulation of years and conviction.”
A barrier separates: common sense is inside, mystery outside; the ordinary lies within, the abnormal off to the side. It is thus not difficult to understand what Touko tells Shiki in The Hollow of Garan: “A conjurer—a mage—cannot fill the hole in your chest. Only an ordinary person can.”
In her first confrontation with Satsuki Kurogiri, Shiki forces herself to attack him on the grounds that “he is someone from the other side of the boundary.” The position here is perfectly clear: beyond the boundary of ordinary people lies the domain of monsters. Common sense does not apply there. They are strangers in the moral world, their behavior elusive and beyond reason. To try to eliminate this difference is to chase the wind.
“Every human being is a creature with an entirely different meaning. They gather together only because they belong to the same species, and live only to turn incomprehensible differences into a boundary of emptiness (空之境界).”
As a “barrier,” the “boundary” separates inside from outside. Outwardly, the abnormal person’s “boundary” appears as the estrangement and discomfort of living among people of common sense; within the self, it appears as an unbridgeable gap in individual consciousness. These two barriers, internal and external, also mean that in the world of Kara no Kyoukai, the abnormal naturally tend toward their Origins. This is the process described in the quotation above as “bringing oneself to completion through the accumulation of years and conviction.” However twisted, evil, or contradictory he may be, we must acknowledge that Souren Araya is inwardly fuller and purer than most of the other characters. Shiki and Araya stand on opposite sides of this “boundary”: on one side is the descent of Shiki, who has returned from 「 」 and wants to become human; on the other is Araya’s ascent, his struggle to reach 「 」 driven by a longing to see his ideal humanity.
“Boundary” (境界) also has another aspect: that of a “domain.” Here we will discuss Shiki Ryougi’s domain—after all, she is the protagonist of Kara no Kyoukai, and the plot unfolds around her. From this perspective, Kara no Kyoukai is the story of how Shiki deals with her own domain: how she deals with the disappearance of her male, yang personality (the loss of the bearer of her negative emotions, which breaks the complete structure of the symmetrical spiral); how she adapts to an existence overflowing with emptiness, in which she has memories but none of the feelings that correspond to them; how she regains the dignity and felt reality of being human, and finds a reason and meaning for living; how she applies the social experience and ethical norms she can actually understand to her life; and how, as someone whose Origin is 「 」, she is guided and shaped, ultimately succeeding in breaking through the boundary—the barrier. She alone has awakened her Origin without being devoured by it. The difference arises from the circumstances that set her apart from the other abnormal people. And all of this lies within Shiki Ryougi’s domain—her “boundary.”
IV. Further Discussion and Further Proof of the Theme
“Separation” is not confined to the division between common sense and the abnormal discussed in the third section. The opposition, rupture, and separation represented by the “boundary” appear throughout the work. We cannot be content merely to point out the opposition between common sense and abnormality, or differences in ideas and ways of living. Rather, all of Kara no Kyoukai, just as Paradox Spiral reveals, is filled with endless oppositions and divisions. Equilibrium is always on the verge of being broken; difference repeatedly stands at the threshold of erasure.
Nasu said in an interview:
“Yes, I really wanted to set up two different things and have them draw a dividing line as they opposed each other. Human beings—even people who look different at first glance—have things in common. And conversely, even when they have things in common, there are still certain things about which human beings can never understand one another. I tried to put that feeling into the final conversation between Shiki Ryougi and Mikiya Kokutou. Kara no Kyoukai is a story I wrote to arrive at that line.” (Kara no Kyoukai fifteenth-anniversary interview)
“‘Taiji’: an idea that arose in ancient China, and a diagram representing the theory of yin and yang. It offers a conceptual understanding of the states of all things. The active and dynamic are classified as yang (white), and their opposites as yin (black). While it symbolizes opposites such as day and night, light and dark, male and female, it can also be called a miniature of a fluid world whose parts influence one another.” (Kara no Kyoukai glossary)
“The black half is yin—that is, female. The two parts of this figure intertwine even as they counteract each other—it is a spiral of black and white.” (Paradox Spiral)
These passages give us a glimpse of the necessary connection between the perfect “Ryougi Shiki” and the perfect “taiji.” The taiji image also finds expression in Shiki (式) and Shiki (識), the two within “Ryougi Shiki” who sustain one another even as each works against the other.2 Throughout history, countless thinkers have wrestled with the complexity of human beings themselves. “Two souls, alas! within my bosom dwell! / This strives from that with adverse strain to part,” Faust cries out. (Goethe’s Faust, translated by John Stuart Blackie, revised second edition, 1880) Stevenson gives human good and evil direct embodiment in the two opposing personalities of “Jekyll and Hyde,” while Hesse depicts the divided predicament of the Steppenwolf. Beyond the contradictions within individual characters, “contradiction” takes other forms in Kara no Kyoukai: the contradiction between Shiki, two beings sharing one body, and Kirie Fujou, one person with two bodies; between Shiki, who understands and takes seriously the meaning of killing, and Fujino Asagami, who enjoys the pleasure of slaughter; between Shiki, who resists letting others approach her, and Rio Shirazumi, who seeks others of his kind; the contradiction of Tomoe, whose Origin is “meaninglessness,” nevertheless managing to wreck Araya’s plan; and the contradiction between Souren Araya’s attempt to destroy humanity and “Alaya,” humanity’s collective unconscious.
Looking at the story from another angle, we can say that beyond the mingling and continual expansion of contradictions, the work repeatedly discusses the relationship between “humans” and “gods”, as the discussion of the “boundary” above has suggested. Kirie Fujou acquires divine vision; Satsuki Kurogiri masters divine speech. Magi use different means to try to reach the Root, and Shiki Ryougi hardly needs further elaboration… In the Gnostic view, a human being’s descent separates them from their own empirical characteristics. From this comes the characters’ sense of being stranded in a foreign land, adrift with nothing to depend on. Shiki’s behavior in particular makes us feel that the darkness of the cave has damaged Her eyes. Finally, the deity’s recollection ends, and the deity breaks free of this magnificent, splendid “prison” called the “boundary,” the “garden.” The boundary is erased; everyday life and common sense return; mortals can live.
“The boundary cannot be settled. Though you draw it yourself, what actually determines it is the view from outside. In that case, there was never any boundary to begin with. The whole world is divided by a hollow boundary. The wall separating abnormal from normal is not society—in the end, we ourselves create the divisions.”
Returning now to our original questions, we have essentially explained how the titles “空之境界” and “the garden of sinners” relate to the work. To sum up briefly: “the garden of sinners” is the abnormal walking through the world, taking in the abnormalities, sorrows, obsessions, and fantasies of others, while their own nature, alien to “common sense,” is observed in turn. And because the abnormal world is not governed by what we call ethics, the abnormal seem like humanity’s first ancestors at play in the garden, merely exercising their powers and causing calamities unthinkingly. Once they recognize good and evil, a fall and a reckoning follow.
“空之境界”—a boundary of emptiness—suggests the relativity of the “boundary” as a dividing thing: “abnormality” can exist only when viewed through “common sense.” Yet the “boundary,” this barrier, contains nothing, and on either side lies the same emptiness. Within it is the stage of the abnormal. Beings we can scarcely put into words watch this urban tale of the supernatural alongside us, admiring this distorted, uncanny, magnificent tale.
Author’s note: In my next article on Kara no Kyoukai, I will discuss why Touko seeks to obtain an “original” through dolls. Beyond Shiki’s prosthetic arm and Touko’s spare bodies, do dolls have other, deeper meanings and manifestations in Kara no Kyoukai?
