27th January 2008, 12:07 PM
Synopsis: A traveler named Kino goes from country to country, never staying in the same place for more than three days. Her only companion is a talking motorcycle named Hermes. Together they bear witness to the many facets of human nature and desire, only taking direct action when there's no other choice available. It is not their place to pass judgment, but merely to observe.
First Glance: Surrealistic fable from the director of Serial Experiments Lain? Sign me up!
Impression: Kino's Journey is surreal, yet filled with real human emotions, desires, and ideals. It's depressing at times, yet strangely uplifting. The world here is ugly and terrifying, yet exhilarating and often very beautiful. We are presented with different human philosophies and emotions in the form of various "countries" that each have something about them that is different from that last. Like the country that so strongly desires that to have their own unique culture that the purposefully make up new customs to try and entertain travels, not knowing that their practice of making new customs has itself become a custom. Or the land where war has been completely abolished, but where peace comes at a cost. Or a land where only "safe" books are allowed. The list goes on from there.
This is not a show that you watch to be entertained or in order to watch thrilling action, though it does offer some of that. No, this is a show you watch in order to take a peek into what makes humans human, not with the all excess baggage of one who has a vested interest but from the calm and detached view of one who merely wants to observe new things and new places.
The art style and music are the technical highlights of the show. The art style because it helps to give us so many new and different and fantastic places that we've never seen before, with each new country has its own personality. The backgrounds have an almost storybook quality to them, which goes along with the fable-like quality of many of the episodes. The music is also very well done and fits in very well, especially the haunting flute solo from episode two.
The animation in Kino's Journey is a bit limited in its range and there are very few scenes that show more than the movement of a few characters, making obvious the show's low budget. Nevertheless, it's not an action series where this kind of detailed and elaborate animation is needed and so the show does not suffer from this deficiency.
Conclusion: If Mushishi requires patience to get into, this requires you to be almost a saint. It's not standard anime fare by any means and if you're not hooked by episodes four, you probably won't ever be. However, if you can manage to stick with it that far and watch the show from the standpoint of desiring to watch something new and intelligent, it's hard to find a better series than Kino's Journey.
Score: 5/5
Specs: 13 episodes across four volumes and a thinkpak release.
Acquisition Difficulty Easy
First Glance: Surrealistic fable from the director of Serial Experiments Lain? Sign me up!
Impression: Kino's Journey is surreal, yet filled with real human emotions, desires, and ideals. It's depressing at times, yet strangely uplifting. The world here is ugly and terrifying, yet exhilarating and often very beautiful. We are presented with different human philosophies and emotions in the form of various "countries" that each have something about them that is different from that last. Like the country that so strongly desires that to have their own unique culture that the purposefully make up new customs to try and entertain travels, not knowing that their practice of making new customs has itself become a custom. Or the land where war has been completely abolished, but where peace comes at a cost. Or a land where only "safe" books are allowed. The list goes on from there.
This is not a show that you watch to be entertained or in order to watch thrilling action, though it does offer some of that. No, this is a show you watch in order to take a peek into what makes humans human, not with the all excess baggage of one who has a vested interest but from the calm and detached view of one who merely wants to observe new things and new places.
The art style and music are the technical highlights of the show. The art style because it helps to give us so many new and different and fantastic places that we've never seen before, with each new country has its own personality. The backgrounds have an almost storybook quality to them, which goes along with the fable-like quality of many of the episodes. The music is also very well done and fits in very well, especially the haunting flute solo from episode two.
The animation in Kino's Journey is a bit limited in its range and there are very few scenes that show more than the movement of a few characters, making obvious the show's low budget. Nevertheless, it's not an action series where this kind of detailed and elaborate animation is needed and so the show does not suffer from this deficiency.
Conclusion: If Mushishi requires patience to get into, this requires you to be almost a saint. It's not standard anime fare by any means and if you're not hooked by episodes four, you probably won't ever be. However, if you can manage to stick with it that far and watch the show from the standpoint of desiring to watch something new and intelligent, it's hard to find a better series than Kino's Journey.
Score: 5/5
Specs: 13 episodes across four volumes and a thinkpak release.
Acquisition Difficulty Easy
Sometimes you get the scorpion.