Kara no Shoujo

Kara no Shoujo (Girl Of The Shell) is an erotic visual novel created by game company Innocent Grey.

It’s Tokyo in 1956, right during the middle of the American occupation. Tokisaka Reiji is an ex-cop turned detective after the death of his fiancée six years ago to a serial killer known only by the name Rokushiki Makoto. The story begins when a pair of mutilated bodies are discovered and Reiji’s assistance is requested. At the same time a mysterious young girl named Kuchiki Toko makes a strange request: Please find my true self.

As all the victims have been young female students, Reiji is asked by the school with the most missing students to take a temporary lecturing job while he investigates. The school is rather oppressive and is seemingly populated almost entirely by indistinguishable drones. There are only a few students who seem to have a spark of individuality, and among them are several of the girls who have already been killed. At the academy, he runs into Toko again who asks if he’s made any progress. Can Reiji stop more murders from being committed and also discover whatever it is Toko is looking for?

Kara no Shoujo was released in early July 2011 by Mangagamer after they purchased the translation from a fan group.

Tropes used in Kara no Shoujo include:

• AB Negative: Toko is of the Bombay Blood group, which is a real blood type that can give blood to ABO blood types, but cannot receive blood back from them due to antibodies. They can only receive transfusions from other members of the group.
• A-Cup Angst: Kazuna, Shugo’s wife.
• Anyone Can Die: There are a lot of endings, and there are a lot of dead people in them. Tojiko, Orihime and Mizuhara always die and Toko only lives in one ending… as a torso. Hatsune and Kyoko always live.
• A Love to Dismember: First murder arc ends with telling us that Kusaka has sex with the rotting composite corpse of his sister and the other girls from Schisma before committing suicide. Unless he was killed.
• The Atoner: Mamiya Shinzo. He went insane after his first wife was accidentally killed by his son and developed an obsession with Misa, Toko’s mother. Eventually, he killed her and used her as the model for Kara no Shoujo. Shinji saw this and was already pretty screwed up, so he snapped. When Shinzo was sane again, Shinji was gone. When he resurfaced, Shinzo did his best to help but by then it was of course too late.
• Bittersweet Ending: The endings where Rokushiki is caught. Okay, most of the cast is dead, but Reiji and Kyoko have put their pasts behind them and seem to be moving towards hooking up. Or Hatsune if you met with her more. Whether you count Shinji getting away as a good or bad thing is up to personal interpretation, though to be fair it seems like he’s put his… interests… behind him.
• Brother-Sister Incest: No, not Yukari. Kusaka and Yui. Though you could say it’s technically not incest since technically it was Imamura Haruka’s torso. Also, it seems Fumiya got Chizuru pregnant once. Also, Toko’s father was her brother Makoto, who thought he was sterile. This made it seem as though she had no father
• Bungled Suicide: Yaginuma’s sister after a long train of rape and abuse at her father’s hands. She doesn’t die, but she’s left brain damaged from lack of oxygen and despite the obvious signs of abuse Yaginuma’s father ‘’still’’ got away with it.
• But Not Too Foreign: Stella. Justified in that any fully foreign person would be very out of place in 1956 Japan.
• But Thou Must!: There are a few decisions where you’re given a choice of whether to do something or not, but you’ll generally end up doing it either way. For example, whether or not to try Hatsune’s cooking.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Mizuhara Toko. She actually does recognize Reiji as a good person and claims to herself not to hate him, but she still can’t get along with him due to her fixation on Kuchiki.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Yukari worries about koi drowning, has a fondness for insects and uses them in her cooking.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Hatsune’s tuna, tomato and soy sauce pancakes are surprisingly edible. The chocolate and baking soda sandwiches are not.
• Continuity Nod]: This series takes place after Innocent Grey's previous work Cartagra in which Takashiro Shugo is the main character. Takashiro, Kazuna and Hatsune are returning character from Cartagra.
• Death by Sex: If you come across a sex scene with someone, they’re probably going to die in about a minute or two. Bad End! Kyoko is the exception. She seems to hook up with Reiji instead.
• Death of the Author: Mentioned in regard to the painting Kara no Shoujo. What the painter intended to express is not as important as what the viewer thinks. Probably because what the author intended was just an expression of his paranoia and madness.
• Downer Ending: There are a lot of bad ends with extended story. The first three endings apart from those are probably even worse. The Rokushiki captured endings manage to get all the way to bittersweet except the last one, the true end. That one’s ‘’also’’ basically a downer.
• Driven to Suicide: Orihime before her bad end, which is interrupted. Shinzo, on the other hand, succeeds after he kills his son.
• Eats Babies: Rokushiki didn’t actually eat the aborted fetus. No, he fed it to the mother.
• Even Evil Has Standards]: It's implied that Rokushiki, who egged on the two main killers, saved Kazuna and killed the first killer. The reason being that he was getting too indiscriminate: Kazuna was married and intended to have the baby, but the killer still attacked her like the others.
• Everyone Is Related: Once Rokushiki’s identity is uncovered and Shinji’s connection to Toko discovered, it becomes clear how much all the cast was connected.
• Eye Scream: The girl noted below had her eyes cut after she died.
• Fan Disservice: Pretty naked girls are a good thing, right? Not when their arms have been severed and they’ve just died via having their heads turned backward and the text notes how the killer is removing their uterus.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Yaginuma.
• Freak-Out:In one bad ending, Mizuhara convinces herself that she’s Kuchiki and acts completely different. But she’s still not acting like Kuchiki and doesn’t seem to truly understand who she’s trying to imitate. Also, Rokushiki Makoto used to be a nice guy, but then he ended up probably the most horrible person in the story.
• Genki Girl: Tsuzuriko.
• Glory Hound: Yaginuma.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion
• Gorn
• Hot Mom: Chizuru.
• If It's You It's Okay: An early scene with Kuchiki Toko and Mizuhara Toko has Mizuhara in love with Kuchiki, but admitting that since neither are lesbians there’s nothing she can do about it.
• Ill Girl: Toko has ablastic anemia.
• I'm a Humanitarian: In the depths of his madness, Rokushiki ate Yukiko’s head.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Reiji tricks Murase into revealing that he knew that Nene had kidnapped Toko and also that he was involved himself.
• Insufferable Genius: Yaginuma is a dick with an inflated view of his own abilities, but he still is pretty good.
• Interrupted Suicide: In one early bad end, Orihime is about to commit suicide out of guilt and self-loathing and is stopped by Reiji. Considering what happens to her immediately after, maybe it would have been best if she had succeeded.
• It Got Worse: Toko getting hit by a car is bad enough. How about now we kill off Mizuhara, and then have Toko’s limbs removed via surgery to save her life and then have her kidnapped? And she only gets to live through one of these kidnappings.
• Freudian Excuse: Shinji and Rokushiki. Big time.
• Jerkass: Yaginuma, Murase.
• Jerkass Facade: However, Yaginuma at least does it out of being pretty psychologically damaged and not wanting anyone to get close to him and end up like his sister.
• Kansai Regional Accent: Natsume, sort of. She speaks in a strange mishmash that’s mostly based on this, though.
• Karma Houdini: Shinji gets away in some endings. Though he’s a fairly pitiful figure, he ‘’did’’ kill off most of the cast.
• Keep the Reward: Reiji feels he didn’t earn a paycheck from Ouba.
• Life or Limb Decision: Toko’s grandfather removed all her limbs in order to save her life. That… really makes it clear why they were sure she couldn’t struggle. Though she dies in most of the following endings anyway.
• Younger Sibling Fetishization]: Yukari, to an extent. She's clearly here for these reasons, but in regards to the trope she appears to serve as more of a contrast with all the Villainous Incest going on.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Nene, the school nurse. Well, at first anyway.
• Mad Artist: Katsuragi Shin, also known as Mamiya Shinji. During a period of deep insanity, Mamiya Shinzo also created Kara no Shoujo by killing his lover, Misa, and using her body as a model. Now that he’s sane again you might say he’s not terribly proud of his masterpiece.
• Multiple Endings: Most of which are bad.
• Mummies At the Dinner Table: Kusaka is a little messed up. Let’s leave it at that.
• My Name Is Not Durwood: Reiji starts calling Tsuzuriko Tojiko early on since her name is hard to say. Yukari does it sometimes as well.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Mizuhara steals Kuchiki’s medicine, thinking it was a gift of drugs from Reiji. Kuchiki ends up passing out and getting hit by a truck.
• Oblivious to Love: Kyoko doesn’t seem to realize how Uozumi feels about her.
• Offing the Offspring: Shinzo kills Shinji in one ending.
• Onee-Sama: Shows up in a couple places throughout, though since the story takes place in the 50s it doesn’t seem as well recognized instory. The first one seen is with Orihime, who seems to have quite the number of fangirls. Mizuhara and Kuchiki’s relationship is also described in a similar manner by Yukari
• One Steve Limit: Averted with Kuchiki Toko and Mizuhara Toko. Stella’s name is actually her middle name, her dead older sister also had the same middle name.
• The Ojou: Everyone at Ouba academy, really, but especially Orihime.
• Parental Incest: Yaginuma’s father raped his sister repeatedly. She put up with it so that Yaginuma would be beaten less. Shinji’s mother also raped him.
• Rape as Backstory
• Rape Is Okay When Its Female On Male: Averted.
• Repetitive Name: Stella’s older sister, Celestial Stella. Both are related to stars.
• Selective Obliviousness: Reiji realizes how Kyoko feels about him, he just doesn’t think it would be right to be involved with her.
• Serial Killer
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Rather than being defensive about it, Reiji is mostly confused as to why everyone thinks there’s something between him and Toko. Tojiko and Mizuhara both assume he’s slept with her.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Mizuhara seems to live for Kuchiki.
• Smarter Than You Look: Tsuzuriko.
• Sophisticated As Hell: The notebook tends to be pretty professional in its contents until a little after Yaginuma is introduced. There’s a brief description of him as normal followed by “Still an asshole.”
• Strange Girl: Toko and Stella.
• Student Council President: Orihime.
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Orihime.
• Title Drop: Kara no Shoujo is considered the masterpiece of painter Mamiya Shinzo. It depicts a girl who looks like Toko inside a black egg.
• Truly Single Parent: Misa, Toko’s mother, thought she got pregnant via Makoto. However, he’s sterile.
• UST: Toko and Reiji.
• Villainous Incest: Seems like all three of the serial killers dabbled in it. However, rather than being evil it seems to be more of an indication of mental instability.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Reiji and Uozumi seem to spend most of their time arguing.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Yukari. She even wears traditional Japanese clothing around the house. However, she's also a slight cloud cuckoolander and has some rather questionable taste, which rather detracts from the impression, or rather puts it in a comical light.