Kino's Journey Vol.1 (DVD)

...considered, I'm glad I did. Kino's Journey is a short series, consisting of only 13 episodes, and involves a young girl (although her gender is really difficult to tell in the beginning) travelling under the name of Kino, along with her talkative, Harley Davidson-styled motorrad named Hermes. Kino's journies take her through a number of "countries" in an Earth-like enviroment, her purpose being to find out about the different customs and ...
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KINO'S TRAVELS

What I really love about Kino's Journey is that it relies so much on subtlety to convey its message. There is no plot to speak of; rather the show relies on the vibes created by Kino's everyday life. Kino has a quiet and philosophical view of life, with no delusions of trying to change the world. Take Episode 3 where she arrives in a place that is expecting the end of the world to take place on the ... more

INTRODUCTION

"A traveller doesn't just see numerous different places, but gets familiarised with different cultures and the results of their sick and twisted circumstances. Kino is one of these travellers. Riding on Hermes, her talking motorcycle and companion, she searches answers to all of life's mysteries. Armed with hunting knives, revolvers, and a sharp tongue she is ready for a journey, that differs from all others before. Do you want to join an unforgettable journey?"

THE "PLOT" AND BACKGROUND

To be honest, when I read the above description of this DVD in the store I was far from convinced of its merits. The part about the "talking motorcycle" in particular ringed like light-hearted kiddie stuff a la Knight Rider that didn't really warrant any special attention. But in any case I decided to chance it for it wasn't very expensive and, all things considered, I'm glad I did. Kino's Journey is a short series, consisting of only 13 episodes, and involves a young girl (although her gender is really difficult to tell in the beginning) travelling under the name of Kino, along with her talkative, Harley Davidson-styled motorrad named Hermes. Kino's journies take her through a number of "countries" in an Earth-like enviroment, her purpose being to find out about the different customs and cultures of each country while always staying for only three days to prevent getting attached. Each of these countries is individual in their own heritage, customs and traditions, while every one of them seem to have an unsaid law to treat travellers with kindness, just as long as the traveller doesn't interfere with the country's customs.

Based on the books by Keiichi Shigusawa, the series is episodic in nature, which stems from the fact that Kino spends only three days at any given place ("Staying longer would only be time out from some other place"). However, there are still certain links to other episodes that create a small kernel of continuance, while always functioning as stand-alone tales by themselves. What is remarkable is that each of the tales are so simple that they are actually bordering on sublime. Unlike many episodic animes (and any series in general for that matter) often have the main character travelling to different destinations, ends up helping those who need help, and leaves with things looking up for the better, with new friends and relations tied into that place. Kino does no such thing. She is an observer. She does not get involved with the lives of others or question their motives and customs. She simply comes, sees, and leaves, often without leaving any kind of impression to those she has met. In fact, it is Hermes that on occasion wonders out loud why some things are the way they are, not Kino. For Kino, her only real occupation according to her is to practice drawing her guns before every sunrise and then move on to another place.

KINO'S TRAVELS

What I really love about Kino's Journey is that it relies so much on subtlety to convey its message. There is no plot to speak of; rather the show relies on the vibes created by Kino's everyday life. Kino has a quiet and philosophical view of life, with no delusions of trying to change the world. Take Episode 3 where she arrives in a place that is expecting the end of the world to take place on the morning of her departure. Not to get stressed, or beginning to question the validity of their beliefs, she casually carries out her shopping (getting everything for free since the inhabitants know they won't be needing money anymore), and never even tries to convince others that their beliefs could possibly be false, but rather takes everything on the basis of "if it has to be, then it has to be." Likewise in Episode 2 she comes across three men stuck in snow and starving. To help them, she goes out hunting rabbits, shooting them, preparing them, but at the same time asking for their pardon: "Under the same circumstances I would do the same thing, but if I had not agreed to help those men, the rabbits would be alive now. However, if I were in the same situation as those men are now, they could help me; a rabbit could not."

In the very first tale we are immediately thrown into the action without as much as an introduction of the characters. Here we have Kino arriving into a fully automated city that for some curious reason is completely devoid of people. As she looks around some more she finally does discover people, but they all seem to stay by themselves in their homes and run for cover when they see her. This episode really is a perfect representation of the disconnectedness of Kino. She marvels at the way the machines do everything to keep her comfortable, but the story behind this is much more dark as she finds out, that due to the desire of the old leaders to root out violent behaviour by creating a way for people to read each others minds, it eventually caused their co-existence to become impossible. The episode is kept as simplistic as possible, but the questions it raises are much more deep. What is interesting is that there is very little consistency in the episodes. Whereas the first episode in the end is quite endearing, the following episode has Kino shooting rabbits with graphic detail and even shows her skinning one of them (not to mention how that episode finally ends).

The third episode details more on multiple cultures as Kino moves around from country to country in rapid succession: A country believing Armageddon is right around the corner; a country whose inhabitants are desperate to invent a tradition of their own that this has actually become the tradition they are known for; and finally a country, clearly influenced by Venice, where everybody is sad 24 hours a day. All of these countries are then tied together in the end to create an archaic storyline for the entire episode that in the end is far from being happy. But just when you thought you had pretty much figured out how the series is going to play out, the fourth episode brings everything on its head in a fantastic and mindblowing way. But, oh no, I'm not going to tell you how, since the surprise aspect of that episode lies in the way it is played out from the beginning.

DVD DETAILS

- Animation -

The animation in Kino's Journey is clear, crisp and not stuffed with all sorts of distracting details. This creates a definitely etheral sense that is gently melancholic and calm, with the movements of the charatcers often being somewhat slow and unhurried. Every action of Kino is often followed by a thoughtful pause. However, this is not to say that the animation is bare by any means. The landscapes extend forever, the forests are lush, the cities have a great amount of detail, but everything is so clearly drawn out that the details never feel clustered or too much. This is helped by the character designs that are very clear cut and simple, never receiving too much detail so that they stand out from the background quite well. The transfer is one of the more curious points of the series. The colours are excellent and solid as is the actual quality of the transfer, but director Ryutaro Nakamura made the conscious decision to include the visualistic choice of scanlines, or something quite similar to them. This apparently is a usual practice on Japanese DVDs. It's not much, but those with sensitive eyes may consider the image quality to be dire or to have some flaw in it.

- Audio -

The choices of language are either a 2.0 Japanese or 5.1 English dub. Both the dubs work very well, with nothing really to complain about. The voice acting of Ai Maeda as Kino is very good and personifying the more disconnected character a whole lot better in her monotonous tone than the English dub's Kelli Cousins. Ryuji Aigase as Hermes is likewise more quiet and not annoying as one might imagine for a motorcycle. Her English counterpart Cynthia Martinez is likewise very good, although I still wouldn't replace the original voice. The guest cast is well in keeping with the quality of the leads and will undoubtedly not disappoint anybody. The music in Kino's Journey is kept to a bare minimum, with the most notable musical moments occurring over the few seconds of the little proverbs and sentences that appear from time to time during the episodes. In fact, apart from the opening and closing songs (both decent enough), there really is not much music to speak of, the sound effects of Hermes' engine and the like creating much of the solitary atmosphere.

- Extras -

The DVD I got was part of Sandrew Metronome's so-called "Studio Animé" releases that are stripped from all extras and others apart from the films themselves. But what I have read about the more official releases, there appears to be a clean opening and ending, as well as an extensive collection of production sketches available, but that's about it.

IN CONCLUSION

Kino's Journey is one of those rare occurrances where the simplest of stories can have such a huge impact on the viewer. The beauty of the plotless procession of thoughts, ideologies, cultures, and social situations absolutely blew me away with its philosophical depth and subtle beauty. There is no need for anybody to stress their brains with this if one doesn't feel up to it. One can simply go with the etheral flow of its characters and places and enjoy the small slice of life of these fantasy surroundings. It's like a dream that can give you a lot of satisfaction for just being along for the ride; it fools you with its simplicity, while presenting a sub-conscious message of incredible depth. Although most of the episodes are pretty harmless, parents are advised to first view these before showing to the youngest children as some scenes are pretty graphic. But, despite everything, I'd warmly recommend this series to just about anybody, whether anime gets your fancy or not, and I for one am looking forward to seeing Volume 2 with great desire.

TECHNICAL STATS

Original Title: Kino no Tabi
Directed by Ryutaro Nakamura
Produced by Nabuhiro
Created by Keiichi Shigusawa
Animation Director: Takuya Matsumoto & Fumio Matsumoto
Character Design: Shigeyuki Suga

Running time: 99 minutes
Video: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Language: Japanese 2.0, English 5.1
Subtitles: Depends on country
Extras: Clean opening and closing, Production sketches

© berlioz

 

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