What the Mother of Mifune Hasn’t Seen: A Not-So-Hardcore Kara no Kyoukai Obsessive Puts Your Soul to the Test

Before holding forth on poetry and thought, remember that certain things begin with wonder and awe.

Shall We Call It a Kara no Kyoukai Quiz?¹

It’s me, your resident not-so-hardcore writer, back to make a fool of myself again. First, a disclaimer: unlike the other pieces here, this one isn’t “hardcore.” If you’re only here for theoretical interpretations and rigorous analysis, you can close the page now.

Please don’t use this as a “test of fan credentials.” It’s just for fun. Feel free to share it around for you and your friends’ amusement; where the anime and novel disagree, supporters of each can weigh things up for themselves. I don’t know Japanese, and mostly rely on Tieba, NGA, and other forums for interviews, diary entries, and so on. If you have questions other than translation issues, or complaints about how I’ve set the questions and answers, please keep it civil—or just start swearing at me. (There’s not much on Overlooking View because I don’t understand it.)

This quiz may contain: inexplicably terrible jokes, personal hobbyhorses slipped in at random, and entirely subjective speculation.

1. Which of the following does not exist?

   • A. Tsukihime Remake

   • B. Witch on the Holy Night 2

   • C. Kara no Kyoukai ZERO

   • D. “I want this to be a game with a main story you enjoy, one you’re happy to log into every day.” (Referring to FGO.)

   • E. DDD Volume 3

   • F. Kōri no Hana (Flowers of Ice)

2. What kind of person do you think Mikiya Kokutou is?

   • A. “Even if he leaves nothing behind in the future, he still won’t give up his ideals.”

   • B. (In his own view) “He ought not to become someone special to anyone.”

   • C. “There is no calculation in it, no thought whatsoever of gain or loss.”

   • D. “Despite an underlying emptiness, once he resolves to keep pursuing his ideals, he establishes himself as a heroic figure by defeating an opponent he could not possibly beat.”

3. Which of these does not count as degeneration? (I don’t think the Mushroom was approaching this biologically either.)²

   • A. Shizune Seo, who cannot forget

   • B. Kirie Fujou, whose consciousness floats free

   • C. Fujino Asagami, tuned to a special channel

   • D. Rio Shirazumi, undergoing an atavistic reversion into a large carnivore (These descriptions aren’t precise. You get the idea.)

4. Who had the best grades at school? (I don’t know the answer to this one. I just thought that comment from the Mushroom was so weird.)

   • A. Mikiya Kokutou in his ordinary high-school-student days

   • B. The bright Azaka Kokutou

   • C. Shiki Ryougi, clever but unmotivated

   • D. Miss Touko Aozaki, who inspired countless legends at Reien and could make Eiichiro Mashin drop dead simply by putting on glasses³

5. Which description do you think fits Souren Araya?

   • A. A combat-minded eccentric monk some two hundred years old, a sinister monk skilled at making dolls, a master of Bounded Fields

   • B. A self-pitying idealist who hates humanity and loathes human nature—a madman who imagines he can take on six billion people single-handedly and win (Come to think of it, at the end of Overlooking View, Mikiya says that if he caught a virus that would wipe out everyone in Tokyo if he stayed alive, he would kill himself for lack of courage. Araya tells Touko without a moment’s hesitation that he can defeat six billion people…)

   • C. Someone who pursues 【】, which gives birth to all that exists, yet himself wants nothing—someone so blank it is frightening

   • D. “A spiral of contradiction”⁴

6. What do you make of Satsuki Kurogiri?

   • A. A sadist who talks too much⁵

   • B. A nasty piece of work with no shortage of theatrics

   • C. The one key figure handpicked by Mushroom Bro to restore memories of the serial murders three years earlier, conveniently allowing the serialization to continue

   • D. A third-rate magus of the Atlas Institute who yearns for the Age of Gods and is closer to True Magic than anyone else there; he stands before the door to 【】, yet has gained nothing

   • E. A ten-year-old child who records the past and collects forgetting; one who cannot remember a single instant, has never grown, and, unable to forget, seeks eternity

   • F. “Shiki, Satsuki Kurogiri really does have a younger sister.”

7. Why did Rio Shirazumi first eat a human being?

   • A. “The man was seized by a bull’s hunger, and from then on could never be sated.”

   • B. “An Origin makes α what it is—α. It is not something a so-called 【personality】 lasting a mere century or so can withstand.”

   • C. “Right. Why not just eat him?”

   • D. “The moon, companion to darkness and death since ancient times, favored him.”

   • E. “Das Monstum in mir wird ecplodieren!”⁶

8. Which of these characters do you think has no obsession with cleanliness?

   • A. Rio Shirazumi, sleeping on the streets

   • B. Satsuki Kurogiri, covered in blood

   • C. Souren Araya, barefoot doctor

   • D. A certain young lady who won’t drink cheap drinks, won’t wear clothes made from poor-quality fabric, and won’t clean her own room

9. When Mikiya and Shiki spend their evenings together, what is Mikiya usually doing?

   • A. Reading novels

   • B. Playing cards

   • C. Playing Uno

   • D. Mikiya has to clean this young lady’s room. Does this question even need asking?

10. In volume three of Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files, Reines arrives in time by flying on a broomstick using magecraft. In Overlooking View, Touko Aozaki says her own success rate with it is:

    • A. 20%

    • B. 30%

    • C. 40%

    • D. Hello, those are different parallel worlds.

11. Which of these foods does Alba like?

    • A. Strawberry Häagen-Dazs

    • B. Blueberry pie

    • C. Pizza pancakes

    • D. Mapo tofu

12. In which of these situations did the Mushroom call Mikiya “a real man”?

    • A. Looking after Fujino Asagami in Remaining Sense of Pain

    • B. Encouraging Shizune Seo in recalled out summer

    • C. In Azaka Kokutou’s childhood recollection in Oblivion Recording, when Mikiya sheds no tears at the death of an elderly neighbor he knew well

    • D. Showing considerable restraint when alone with Shiki Ryougi (Are you really going to pick this one?)

13. Which of these scenes left the deepest impression on you?

    • A. Near the end of Remaining Sense of Pain, Shiki Ryougi counters Fujino Asagami’s attack with a sweep of her knife, then delivers her famous line

      (My personal favorite in this volume comes just before that: Shiki has just lost her left arm and remembers something Touko said: people mock certain unnecessary things as folly, yet praise certain necessary things as art.)

    • B. In recalled out summer, what Shizune Seo sees when she looks at Shiki Ryougi: “…bloodstained metal, bloodstained concrete floor…”

    • C. In Murder Speculation Part A, Shiki in her red, unlined robe, standing in the spring rain in a bamboo grove at night (The fungus really does love March… though Kara no Kyoukai is “a story of people born in the cold season.”)

    • D. The two conversations in the snow

14. Why does Kara no Kyoukai have a touch of mystery fiction about it? (Do the answers to this crappy question have anything to do with the question?)

    • A. “I want to write mystery fiction. Is that all right?”

    • B. “Ninety percent of TYPE-MOON fans hate mystery fiction.”

    • C. “Rather than fight it out with manga on the same ground, we should bring out the distinctive strengths of prose fiction.”

    • D. “Writers describe things in prose because somewhere inside they cannot trust the power of images; key animators and directors express things through moving images because somewhere inside they cannot trust the power of words.”

15. Mr. Nasu described Ikuhara’s work as “what shapes my soul.” Times have changed, and Nasu himself has long since become a star for so-called young creators to look up to. As a reader, viewer, player, or listener, what do you think made Kara no Kyoukai the outstanding work it is?

    • A. Honkaku mystery fiction, exemplified by the Yakata series⁷

    • B. An age when literature of the fantastic, new henkaku, and urban legends/kaidan could still survive

    • C. The President’s timely recognition of his talent⁸

    • D. His love of shōjo manga (or works in a similar style), combined with his being a seasoned otaku, giving him a distinctive perspective (I’m not saying shōjo manga readers aren’t otaku. Don’t read that into it.)

    • E. Writing for four hours after work every day

16. If (I) insist on being stupid enough to sum up Kara no Kyoukai in a single theme, what do you think it should be?

    • A. Boundaries—Bounded Fields: barriers and distance between people inevitably cause problems, yet human beings actually depend on those very barriers and boundaries to exist

    • B. The destruction of themes/diagrams/structures of thought built on the binary oppositions of human beings/dolls and male/female; neither absolute incompatibility nor complete mutual understanding can exist

    • C. Magi living in the modern world and Mystery living in seclusion within it—hating life, yet desperately seeking the felt reality of being alive and a reason to live

    • D. It’s been decreed a boy-meets-girl story—who are you to sit here cooking up themes?

17. What are the story’s abnormal people seeking through their actions (including Shiki, Fujino Asagami, Kirie Fujou, and so on, but not people from the world of magecraft such as Touko and Alba)?

    • A. The pleasure of killing

    • B. The felt reality of being alive

    • C. The courage to live

    • D. A way for abnormal people to live without being at odds with the world (Is The Vampire’s Tears being written yet?)

18. (The easiest question.) Which character genuinely experienced pure fear when faced with “death”?

    • A. Satsuki Kurogiri

    • B. Kirie Fujou

    • C. Fujino Asagami

    • D. Rio Shirazumi

Editor’s Note

Ohh, so that’s how it is. Mm-hm, I completely get it now.jpg.