Hello everyone. Justin here and welcome to the final Otaku Mind of 2018. There is a series out there I have praised a number of times. Actually, I praised a number of series multiple times but the one series I always find myself praising and returning to is Kino’s Journey. The simple story of a young traveler traveling from country to country is in my opinion one of the best animes out there and a series I always recommend to people because of how ingenious it is with it’s writing, story, characters, and themes. To put it in the simplest of terms, Kino’s Journey is the stuff of pure genius and I can think of no better time to talk about it than now. This is, the Genius of Kino’s Journey.
The Characters
So the Genius of Kino’s Journey starts off with the main character herself, Kino. One of the questions that everyone had when they first saw Kino was is Kino a boy or a girl? Keiichi does a good job at making Kino look like this androgynous character and the VAs for both the sub and the dub do a good job at making her sound androgynous as well. When I first watched Kino with my roommate back in college, I asked him if Kino was a boy or a girl and he simply said Kino is Kino. At first, I thought he was just messing with me but as I continued to watch the original 2003 anime with him, I actually got what he was talking about, Kino is Kino. Kino is someone who doesn’t want to be defined by her gender and when she travels she doesn’t want anyone to remember her as a girl or boy but rather as Kino the traveler. This aligns with what we all seek in life. We don’t want others to see us by our gender or race, we want others to see us for who we are rather than what we are. I don’t want anyone to see me as just a black guy who likes anime but rather as Justin. The genius doesn’t stop with Kino, it can also be seen in the other characters as well. Hermes is Kino’s companion and someone Kino can confine in and talk to. This shows us that even though Kino travels alone, she is never truly alone on her journey as she has someone to talk to, confine in, and in some cases help her think. Shizu’s party is also interesting. I talked about them in my review but just to reiterate, Kino and Shizu offer a different aspect on their respective journeys. For Kino, she’s an observer, she observes a country, meets the people, and leaves. She won’t directly get involved with the dealings of the country unless she’s forced to. Shizu is the opposite, he will get involved in the dealings of the country in order to earn favor with them because he’s looking for a place to settle in. A few months ago, I actually went on vacation to Arizona and it was around election time and as I was driving around, I saw many billboards and signs asking people to vote for this politician and I honestly didn’t pay any attention to them nor did I take an interest in their state’s elections because I was on a vacation. I’m a visitor, an observer, what happens in this state has no affect on me. However, the elections in my home state is stuff I took a huge interest in because this is where I live and what happens here will affect me in one way or another. I bring this up because this is how I view the mindsets of Kino and Shizu and how both characters show an aspect of the human psychology. Kino represents the part of us who just wants to be seen and accepted for who we are instead of what we are, while Shizu represents the part of us who seeks recognition, gratification, and acceptance from others.
The Countries and Themes
Next up we have the countries. Each country in Kino’s Journey is different from the other. There are no two countries who are the same in Kino’s Journey and each one has their set of rules, people, culture, and ideas. Because of this we actually get a lot of variety in storytelling and setting. For example, in one episode we could be in a technological and futuristic country where everyone lives a good life thanks to their advancements in technology and in the next episode we could be in a country under monarch rule where visitors are forced to fight in the coliseum because the ruler has become a tyrant. Each country is never perfect and just like the real world they all have problems that stem from the people within that country whether it be from the way their ruled or from the ideology of each country.
At the end, each country presents an idea or theme about life. One of my favorite stories comes from the 2003 anime where Kino and Hermes are riding along an old railroad and meet an old man who’s been polishing the tracks for the past 50 years. Further on down, Kino meets another old man who’s been dismantling the polished tracks for the past 50 years and then further on down she meets another old man who’s been laying railroad tracks down for the past 50 years. It’s an interesting look into the whole idea of progression. The old generation makes something only for the next generation to come in, tear it down, and then the next generation comes in to build something newer and hopefully better. This episode also contains two other stories I really like. Kino tells one of the old men about her journey to a country where the machines did all the work for the people but the people still choose to work and subject themselves to meaningless and stressful tasks. This is a good look into how most people think about work. Even if by some stroke of luck we reach a time where machines will be able to do all of our work for us chances are we’re still gonna choose to work because a life with something to do is better than a life with nothing to do. The final story in this episode is where Kino visits a country where democracy rules and anyone who went against the majority vote was executed. This soon left only one citizen left in the country and when Kino and Hermes try to leave, he pulls a gun out asking them to stay. Kino and Hermes outvote him and ride away leaving him to kill himself since he went against the majority. Another episode I really like is from the 2017 version where Kino enters the country of virtue and meets a man who has acquired enough points to kill someone and get away with it without any repercussion for his actions. The story just raises so many questions about this man and his mind. How long has he been planning this, why does he want to kill someone, has he always been like this, and most importantly, if a system like was in our world what would happen? Stuff like this is what I love about Kino’s Journey and is really the bread and butter of the series. Throughout Kino’s Journey, Keiichi isn’t telling you what to believe or think, but instead, presenting the idea or theme and asking you to think about it. If something like the country of virtue was real, if we did things like the country of democracy, or if we lived in the country where we didn’t have to work what would happen? It’s stuff like this that makes Kino’s Journey so great to read and why I consider it a work of genius.
2003 vs 2017
So with all this said which one do I think you should watch? Honestly, both of them but which one should you start off with? Well in all honesty I do think 2003 had a better collection of stories from the series and comes across as more philosophical than the 2017 one. The 2017 one does have better animation and as a whole has a better balance of stories as we focus on a variety of characters and can be seen as a collection of Kino’s Journey best hits as the stories presented in 2017 were voted by the fans as being the best stories in the series. So in my opinion, I say start with the 2017 version to get more accustomed to Kino, the characters, and the overall flow of the series. Then check out the 2003 version for a more philosophical and darker version than 2017. Overall, this is a series I highly recommend you check out if you haven’t already.
Well folks, that’ll do it for me. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and have a wonderful new year. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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