The Garden of Sinners Chapter 1 (KNK 1 from here on out) is a film that very much feels like what it in practical terms is, a setup for later adventures in its universe, effectively the first "episode" of a "series" consisting of these films.

KNK 1 is not terribly concerned with getting you up to speed regarding its characters or its narrative, our protagonist is Shiki, a sort of hitman of supernatural beings (though again the film does not go out of its way to really make this clear) who works on behalf of a pair of paranormal investigators named Kokutou (who spends most of the film unconscious) and Aozaki, the latter of whom is also a magus although again here the film more or less glosses over this point. Of these three only Shiki herself gets any real focus, and the film is short enough that that's not a major problem.

The plot--such as it is--concerns a rash of suicides, all perpetuated by young women who jump off the roof of the same building, an abandoned skyscraper called The Fujou Building. Kokutou goes to investigate and, after falling unconscious not long after returning, Shiki does as well. There she--and I am glossing over a lot here--meets a group of ghosts (one of whom is technically an astral projection), stabs herself in the (artificial) hand while fighting said ghost because the ghost possesses it, gets a replacement hand, returns to the tower, meets the ghosts again and succeeds at laying them to rest and returning the astral projection to her body. There's a bit more to the plot but that is the gist of it.

What's not conveyed here is that it's paced extremely quickly, and the end result is an odd narrative knot of a film that doesn't really seem to care whether or not you understand what's happening on a literal level. While this all probably sounds very negative what it really means is that KNK 1 is a project that gets by on strengths of tone, atmosphere, and direction.

Let's discuss the visuals. They're simply gorgeous, and anyone familiar with ufotable's other Nasuverse adaptions knows what to expect here. Characters are rendered with just the right amount of detail and each has a distinctive, memorable design (which is not easy given the character designs skew realistic in style), everyone has beautiful, glassy eyes, and the backdrops range from "pretty" to "jaw-dropping". In particular, the shots we get of the moon are simply gorgeous, and the abandoned Fujou Building is drawn with such care that it'd be harder to believe it weren't based on a real location.

The fight choreography warrants a mention too. Even though there are just two major physical conflicts in the film (both involving Shiki and the tower phantoms), both are handled with an airy weightlessness that, given who is fighting, makes perfect sense. When Shiki draws her knife and her eyes begin to glow, even if we in the audience don't necessarily have the context for these weapons, it's immediately apparent how powerful they are, and how strong she is.

The music, composed by Yuki Kajiura (.hack//Sign, Fate/Zero, cult classic-in-the-making Princess Principal, countless others) is similarly ethereal. Crescendoing to strange, unearthly peaks at opportune times, such as during Shiki's second encounter with the phantoms.

So what you're left with at the end of the day with KNK1 is a film that is paced bizarrely--it is clearly not meant for neophytes to the franchise, simply given how little is explained--but has a lot of appeal simply for how atmospheric and mysterious it is. It could certainly benefit from being longer, and more care could've been given to point the audience in the right direction in terms of the plot and worldbuilding, but by the time I was finished watching KNK1 had so impressed me off its visual and aural strengths that I simply didn't care, and was fully willing to consider more entries in the series.