Awesome Music: As expected of a soundtrack composed by Yuki Kajiura. In fact, most Type-Moon fans consider the movies' OST as the best in the franchise. Likewise with the ending themes, performed by Kalafina.
Base-Breaking Character: Azaka. Some people find her cute and interesting due to having a Brother–Sister Incest backstory that's given a surprising amount of depth and in-universe justification (albeit largely limited to the novels); others, particularly those who have watched the OVAs, find her personality obnoxious, her incestuousness creepy and pandering to Otaku and Harem Genre enthusiasts, or a Spotlight-Stealing Squad who hogs valuable focus from important subplots involving Shiki and Satsuki Kurogiri despite her lack of relevance to the overarching story.
Complete Monster: In Paradox Spiral, Cornelius Alba is a hyperactive, flamboyant, murderous mage with a sickening obsession with tormenting and killing his old academy rival Aozaki Touko. Allying with Souren Araya, Alba assists the man in his horrifying scheme involving the Ogawa apartment complex, entailing the massacre of the residents and then trapping their brains in an unending loop of their final days alive and eventual deaths, a crime that Alba proudly brags about to Touko with glee. When Touko's head is severed from her body by Araya, Alba takes her fully-conscious head for himself to molest and torture as he pleases, before crushing her in his bare hands after bragging about his intentions to kill her defenseless protege Mikiya. Alba is killed after brutally beating Mikiya, smashing his head repeatedly into a wall and stomping his head just because of his association with Touko.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Fujino Asagami happens to be relatively popular among fans due to her tragicbackstory and her cuteness. It also doesn't help to note that her angst is one of the main reasons why she is one of Nasu's favorites. It has gotten to the point where she was featured as a 4* gacha Servant in Fate/Grand Order during the "Garden of Order" rerun.
Epileptic Trees: Trying to decipher the murky relationship between this series and the rest of the Nasuverse (e.g. Tsukihime and Fate/stay night) has led to a lot of wild theories about its place in the timeline. Early on Nasu stated that the probability of two people having the MEoDP was astronomically low, which made it unlikely though not completely impossible for KnK and Tsukihime (at which point Fate was implied to be a distant sequel to Tsuki) to coexist. However, Touko's goal in KnK openly contradicts Arcueid's existence and origins in Tsukihime. Melty Blood explicitly states that Ryougi's cameo is due to being transported there from another timeline, which suggests that the two series are mutually exclusive. The Heaven’s Feel route of Fate/stay night (the first Fate installment) and the Lord El-Melloi II Case Files (a Fate interquel) both feature plot-relevant cameos from Touko that strongly allude to the events of Paradox Spiral, implying that KnK is canon to Fate. Thus the current theory is that KnK and Fate are part of the same Broad Strokes canon (known as the "strong human order" timelines), whereas Tsukihime, Melty Blood, and Witch on the Holy Night represent another (the "weak human order" timelines).
Ho Yay: Shirazumi does get pretty obsessed with Mikiya at times. And there's the fact that he seems to have a little too much fun kissing him with tongue, even if it is to force a drug down his throat.
There's some between Azaka and Shiki too, at least in the sixth movie. Most notably when Azaka pins Shiki to the bed and straddles her while trying to take away a knife.
Just Here for Godzilla: While fan reception of Future Gospel is mixed, most fans came to watch it not only so they could get to see Shiki kicking ass onscreen again, but also so they can get to see Mana Ryougi, Shiki and Mikiya's cute little daughter, debut in the movie's epilogue.
Magnificent Bastard: Souren Araya is the true mastermind of the events of the story, orchestrating events and manipulating fallible, talented people to his will. Inserting himself into the lives of impressionable teenagers with potential for immense power, Araya grants them their greatest desires while turning them into tools he uses as obstacles in Shiki Ryougi's path. Planning to steal Shiki's body so as to use her "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception" for his own goals, Araya concocts the Ogawa apartment massacre to both test his powers and to lure Shiki into a successful trap. Araya uses the psychopathic Cornelius Alba as his stooge, keeping the lunatic pacified and under control to further his schemes, and later quickly and efficiently kills Touko Aozaki when she tries to interfere. Ultimately driven by a life of witnessing needless death and pain, Araya plans to wipe out all life on Earth while preserving records of each and every death in history in his memory to give them "purpose," and, even when beaten and dying, Araya proudly stands by his beliefs that he was trying to prevent misery, and hoping to honor every death to ever occur.
Moe: The sixth movie plays up Azaka's cuteness for all it's worth.
Smoking is prohibited. Don't burn, be Moe!note This is, incidentally, a Pun in Japanese, as "Moe" can refer to both "cute" and "fire."
Narm: The scene where Tomoe's father is hit with a frying pan by Tomoe's mother. It's meant to be a serious scene highlighting the tragic deaths of Tomoe's parents but because of the utterly nonchalant way it's framed, it instead looks like a joke right out of a comedy sketch.
Narm Charm: The scene from the seventh movie of Shirazumi drooling over Shiki. Shirazumi produces an inhuman amount of saliva that would be comical, yet it adds to the squick nature of the scene even more.
Seasonal Rot: The sixth movie is generally agreed to be the worst of all the films due to several factors. Changes include the Enjo Kosai plotline becoming Bowdlerized into drugs (which is glaring considering the third movie did not shy away from depicting Rape as Drama), Base-Breaking Character Azaka becoming a Spotlight-Stealing Squad while the novel's actual focus, Kurogiri, was Demoted to Extra, the removal of Shiki's memory loss subplot, and the plot and connection's to the greater storyline becoming nonsensical due to all the Adaptation Induced Plot Holes produced by the changes and emphasis on Azaka. Even without knowledge of the source material and the changes, Movie Six can be downright confusing with how little information is given on the antagonists and how underdeveloped several ideas and plot points are.
Sequelitis: The first seven movies were planned from the beginning to be one cohesive story and thus are successful with anachronicistic narration, cross-references and distinct aesthetic. Being a later addition to what has already been completed and having brighter color tone, the final movie, Future Gospel, is considered by many as not as good as its predecessors. The gap of four years between release dates doesn't help, and only made ufotable Art Evolution much more noticeable. You would not be surprised to see that discussions about The Garden of Sinners often leave out this movie and the epilogueOVA.
Right about the time we get a close up of Tomoe shoving his thumb through a guy's eye... and then it just keepsgoingfurther...
Shirazumi from the first minute of the seventh movie, and itdoesn'tstopthere.
Star Trek Movie Curse: The movies after the first one fall into this. Remaining Sense of Pain has the most popular antagonist, Paradox Spiral is widely regarded as the best film in the series, and Murder Speculation Part B concludes the arc of Shiki and Mikiya's relationship rather nicely. Murder Speculation Part A and The Hollow Shrine, while not bad movies, are a bit hard to get into due to their anachronistic nature, Oblivion Recording is regarded as the weakest film due to adapting out a lot of and deviating from the chapter's plot, and Future Gospel is often seen as an unnecessary continuation of the story.
Asagami Fujino. She goes through so much abuse that even Nasu has taken to calling her Fujino~n* Ending words in ~n is supposed to onomatopoeia for crying.
Tomoe Enjou. Araya even mentions that his origin is worthlessness. This includes the fact that he was NOT responsible for awakening Shiki; she merely awoke at that time. His Heroic Sacrifice was a Senseless Sacrifice. The sword might have helped, though. Ironically, it's the fact that he's so worthless that inspires Shiki to fight Souren.
Shiki: Enjou didn't need to come here, but he will be the reason for your destruction.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The Garden Of Sinners' amazing animation helped ufotable gain its reputation as one of Japan's best animation studios thanks to the amazing fight sequences that still hold up even after a decade. To wit, pretty much all of Shiki's battles fall under this category, special mention goes to her psychic power animation-filled clash with Asagami Fujino, her high-paced and dizzying battle with Araya Souren, and her knife fight against Lio Shirazumi. Even some of their non-battle scenes, such as the falling snow-filled epilogue, were truly beautiful.
