Gekijô ban Kara no kyôkai: Dai isshô - Fukan fûkei

To be honest, I expected more from this movie. The Garden of Sinners series is critically acclaimed, but its first movie just didn't make any sense to me.

There's something that could be called a plot (the girls that commit suicide), but it doesn't create any suspense nor does its resolution feel in any way satisfying. Perhaps I'd just need more background knowledge to understand what's happening, but this is the very first movie of the series, so... what?

The characters are bare-bones. What I've learned about all of them together wouldn't fill even half a page. And what little I know doesn't make them likeable or relatable.

Also, the dialogues are terribly confusing. There's a lot of what I'd call philosophical rambling. Perhaps there's a cultural barrier between the Japanese and myself, but I didn't have any problem with any other anime I've watched, so... huh.

Disregarding the story, the characters, and the lack of suspense, it's a pretty good movie. The animations are nice, the soundtrack is solid, the cinematography works well. Overall, the production value seems high, though perhaps not incredibly so.

It did feel like a waste of time, though. I'll still give the second movie a shot; with pretty much everybody agreeing that this series is excellent, there must be something I'm missing...