Kino's Journey (2003) Review | The Anime ADVocate
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- Опубліковано 2 тра 2021
- Things get philosophical on the Anime ADVocate with a look at the original 2003 adaptation of Kino's Journey!
Does the series have something for everyone, or is it too smart for its own good?
Chapters:
00:17 - Intro
01:27 - Story
07:34 - Animation & Music
10:24 - Anime Dubbing Vision
12:47 - Verdict
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One of my favorite anime of all time, a lot of its messages even feel more relevant now than they were back when it came out.
A complaint with 17, and the manga is that they dropped the mystical, mind-blowing, fairytale like storytelling that 03 had. However I did hear somewhere that Nakamura himself was responsible for taking creative liberties to add in, fluff up, and splice together some countries. Like the Colliseum was mostly filler to tell more philosophy, while 17 was more accurate to the LN, just directly animating what was described on the page. And the Communist-Utopia/Democratic-Wasteland episode was 3 separate chapters that had no connection to eachother, in the LN, Kino simply goes to the advanced Communist country, instead of telling the story of his visit to the railway men. And the Democracic country was also irrelevant to the railway men, however it still could be a separate country, not actually where the rails originated, it's not the only time they interject irrelevant country stories into an episode, and here it would fit, contrasting a mostly functional Communist Utopia, something in reality is an ideology believed to be evil or at least dangerously misguided, with a Democratic wasteland, which in reality is believed to be the best if not perfect system of society.
Another example is my second favorite episode, the Land of Prophecy. This entire episode is a masterpiece of non-linear storytelling going in the order of 3-1-X-4-2 *spoilers for episode 3*
1- Kino arrives in, then leaves the Land of Prophecy
2- Kino witnesses an Army convoy who have the same prophecy book, however they noticed the Land of Prophecy can be interpreted as the "Green Plate" and destroy it.
3- Kino (seemingly after eating weird forest fungi) starts talking philosophy. Probably after the "fireworks" stopped.
4- un undetermined amount of time later Kino learns the Sad Poem had been written down and falsely interpreted as a prophecy by far off lands, as the Nineteen Moons verse is heard, revealing (to Kino, not to the viewer yet) that those people died for nothing.
X- The Cat Ear country is irrelevant to the over all storyline and episode theme, but is important to the episode to take your mind off the prophecy and lead you to assume this episode is a collection of 3 smaller stories with no significance to eachother, until the twist ending of the Sad Land.
The episode is carefully rearranged in the anime to satisfy the viewer pefrectly, 3 sets the tone, 1 lays the foundation, X misdirects, 4 reveals the twist with Kino solemnly remembering the outcome of the Prophecy as the poem ends with "Smash the green plate." Then 2 shows us the significance of the Green Plate, and Kino's reaction to learning the prophecy was a poem.
The LN source for this episode were just multiple unrelated chapters with no crossover between the first and last countries. The Land of Prophecy just had a false doomsday prophecy that was self fulfilled by another countries interpretation of the same prophecy. The world both ended that night with no hope of survival, and didn't end after completely decimating the green coastline, and the people living there. There was no source to the prophecy itself, it was just a 1 chapter plot device, and likewise, the Sad Poem was just a poem that had no significance outside making the country depressed. It was Nakamura who crafted the anime's story, while the LN, and all other versions are just random episodic chapters.
This show has my oersonal favorite abstract art style
I wish Sentai would license and release the OVA and 2 sequel films as well.
1 more detail I'd like to add that the 03 anime (and Life Goes On movie) got right, manga keeps messing up, and most people I see talk about is Kino's gender identity, which is an interesting philosophy and story that is somewhat being brushed aside, skipped over, or rewritten thanks to the current year debate on Transgenderism.
Kino is "A man on a Journey" and "Just a man named Kino." This, His old friend Hermes, and the 3 day rule is all the young girl knows about Kino, and once she fled her homeland, she just changed her name to Kino. But as we see in Life Goes On (which is only available fansubbed, never officially released in the west) after the young girl renamed Kino visits Kino's homeland she receives proper closure by completely internalizing his identity (what little she knew of it), not just adopting his name. Once Kino returned to Master, 'he' set out to continue 'his' journey. The young girl fully became "A man named Kino" who is "A man on a journey." However Kino also recognizes that the biology of his body doesn't add up despite dressing, looking, and acting less feminine, so Kino doesn't really care if people call him a he or she.
In the fansub 1st film, they change subtitle color pink and blue to signify Kino saying 'Watashi' (I, feminine) and Boku (I, Masculine) as Kino goes from being a young girl who fled her homeland to a "Man on a Journey"
In the Colliseum arc (03, I don't if 17 ever did, it's been a while) a guard calls Kino "Little Boy" in which Kino takes exception to "Little" but seems more accepting to "Mr. Kino" and Col. Sanders calls Kino "Ms. Kino" which Kino is a little embarrased, preferring just Kino.
The manga seems based off the 17 anime formula, dropping the mystical fairytale and most of the non-linear storytelling found in the 03 anime (which I've heard was added into the anime by the director, 17 was more accurate to the LN's tone and feel). Whenever they address Kino's gender they use 'They' like all of the community, and Mx, instead of Mr. or Ms. Thus losing the deep philosophical dynamic of Kino's inherited identity, replacing it with modern gender neutral terms as if they're afraid that they'll trigger fans. It would add to the manga if the characters called Kino 'Mr. Kino' or 'Ms. Kino' instead of just 'Mx.'
I haven't seen the Japanese release of the manga, nor would I be able to understand the characters, but I do understand that Kino-san is gender neutral, so choosing Mr. or Ms. for a character would be just as bad as choosing Mx. so I would just have gone with simply 'Kino' but if the manga had written 'Kino-kun' that is definitively a masculine pronoun.
I don't know if the translator is just not noticing that there could be this type of philosophy in the work she's translating, or if she is deliberately changing dialogue to insert her own Transgender inclusivity where it wasn't originally, or if the actual Japanese manga dialogue never brings up/can never disambiguate Kino's gender, so the translator just uses 'Mx./they' to simply get the dialogue across in the simplest and most accurate way possible, while letting you choose what ever gender dialogue you think that character is using. Like a math equation, replace 'X' with your digit, in this case 'R' or 'S.'
Literally kino
Fr
I like this anime alot
Life is a journey
Anyone knows the country that you need to be in, in order to watch 03' or where to find it? Personally 17' isn't what I want to share with people when I say Kino's journey.
i thought hermes was gonna sound like a more energetic man