Kino's Journey Episode 5

[phantom000]

My favorite line in this video is "it all makes a twisted kind of sense" that is Kino's Journey in a nut shell. Having seen the entire series, it seems like the history of each country she visits seems ridiculous until you bend logic back upon itself and suddenly it all seems obvious.

The story about the democracy i think speaks to the strength, and the weakness of democracy; division. If you get a hundred people in a room and hand them an agenda to discuss they will two things, find something to agree on and find something to disagree on. The country in this story failed because it had a system to emphasized disagreement, division over unity, and so everyone saw the government as a means to remove threats rather then dealing with issues.

[pornomancer90]

On a unrelated side note, did the real JesuOtaku request this anime?

[drthmik]

I was darkly amused that after losing the vote the guy killed himself.

Also while it wasn't mentioned in the review Kino finds the unfinished and overgrown end of the railroad in the middle of the woods so you already know that polishing the track is useless because it doesn't go anywhere.

[Omnicrom]

So some fun facts and a perspective from a fan.

Kino was originally a Light Novel series. Just like the anime there's really no overarching plot, just a series of stories about Kino (and the other two main characters, but they're not important here). This episode of the anime is, as can be readily figured out, assembled out of three different chapters. In the novel Kino has a much briefer interaction with the old men because they don't ask for a story, the anime created this interaction as a framing device for the story about the automated land. In the novels they're unconnected, but it's put in here possibly to create the parallels Chuck noticed in his review. There are a couple more times in the anime where one story will be juxtaposed with another story to essentially create new text or new meaning. I really dig the anime for that, it reflects the creativity I really liked the Light Novels. Here's hoping the upcoming new season of the anime will be as good.

The third story's Japanese title is "The land of Majority Rule". This is a stylistic thing, most chapters have both a descriptive Japanese title that usually identifies the location or the person and an English title. Sometimes the English title is redundant (The first section is [Three men on the Rails] -On the Rails- for instance), but sometimes it's pithy of contradictory or ironic. For instance one light novel chapter is titled [Land with a Hero] -No heroes-.

The third story is actually a fairly standard style of story in Kino's Journey. There's a number of chapters (and episodes for that matter) where Kino goes to a place in a weird situation and then at the end someone explains the rationale behind why the country does what it does. Said rationale usually makes sense in a twisted, exaggerated sort of way.

Speaking of the third story and the light novels they actually changed something from the light novels. In print one of the implied reasons why the dude at the end kills himself after Kino leaves is that Kino and Hermes start referring to him as the king of the country, which enrages and horrifies the man. In the anime Kino quietly calls him the king to herself as she hears the gunshots.

I've always found Kino a really interesting protagonist just because she's so consciously uncommitted. What I find so particularly interesting is that it's hard to get a real read on her thoughts, even in the novels. The novel spends a lot of time talking about what Kino says or does, it occasionally dips into what she feels or how she emotes, but very very seldom does it actually talk about what Kino thinks or how she makes her decisions. On the other hand I don't get the sense that she's motivated by her personal tragedy, and there are some reasons behind this but to say more would get into details that have not yet arisen. I will say having watched the series I got the strong sense that her persona is consciously cultivated and not a defense mechanism or the like. To me the series becomes most interesting to me when Kino decides to get involved.

See you next video.

[Darmani]

I think it IS a criticism of Democracy by showing its not a magic bullet and comes with its own needs and problems and no system can make people "good"
Moreover purifying flaws with murder doesn't work. Normally its "you fall to the darkside" this is "no you will live mad and alone because what you throw away might be necessary (they killed all the doctors, I think the last guy WAS one)

Given his outfit he's meant as a bit of a mockery to utopian protest thinking. Here it might be someone seduced by socialism

That said that you were able to find substative meaning from that criticism of democracy means it was substantial and appropriate criticism.

[leafbladie]

On a unrelated side note, did the real JesuOtaku request this anime?

Yeah, last year he even commented on it saying how long it had been since they'd requested it on Twitter. They really loved Chuck's review of Madoka, so I think they requested Kino's Journey because of it.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

So, would a good summary of the entire series be "Kino parks her motorcycle at a dystopia, sees how messed up it is, then nopes the fuck out of there to reach the next dystopia"?

[MithrandirOlorin]

This was requested by JesuOtaku? Doesn't he make his own Anime reviews?

[pornomancer90]

This was requested by JesuOtaku? Doesn't he make his own Anime reviews?

He stopped making video reviews a while ago, I think he works for some site now and does written reviews, though I didn´t follow him after blip went belly up.

P.S. A quick look at his TvTropes page says that he is making a visual novel right now.

[MithrandirOlorin]

I think it IS a criticism of Democracy by showing its not a magic bullet and comes with its own needs and problems and no system can make people "good"
Moreover purifying flaws with murder doesn't work. Normally its "you fall to the darkside" this is "no you will live mad and alone because what you throw away might be necessary (they killed all the doctors, I think the last guy WAS one)

Given his outfit he's meant as a bit of a mockery to utopian protest thinking. Here it might be someone seduced by socialism

That said that you were able to find substative meaning from that criticism of democracy means it was substantial and appropriate criticism.

It's very easy to read this story as an allegory for The French Revolution, which Anime often seems to be interested in. Like in Akkito of The Exiled.