Anime Kino's Journey

[Dagger]

I bought the first volume of Kino's Journey--artbox and all--early this afternoon. At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about the anime, and I can't say what aspect of it piqued my interest. But after seeing the first episode, I think that it's definitely going to be a fascinating series.

Kino's Journey is a thirteen-episode show that revolves around Kino, a young, gun-wielding person of indeterminate gender, and his/her talking motorbike Hermes. Before you get the wrong impression, Hermes is a character more akin to Vampire Hunter D's overly chatty hand than a shoujo mascot or Pokemon-type creature. He's sometimes sarcastic, but not annoyingly so, and his conversations with Kino are generally rather philosophical (as opposed to antagonistic).

Kino is a professional traveler who wanders from country to country, spending exactly three days in each. Episode 1 finds him--I think I'll stick with male pronouns for the time being--in a pleasant town populated only by quirky little robots. The robots, incidentally, remind me very strongly of something one might see in Spirited Away.... and Kino's Journey does give off Miyazaki-esque vibes.

Despite Kino's apparent proficiency with weapons, this is not an action-heavy anime. Its rich, unusual visuals are balanced out by an abundance of dialogue, but I never become tired of listening to the characters talk. Artistically, it looks like the love child of Final Fantasy: Unlimited and Big O, with some funky-looking backgrounds thrown in for good measure. Better yet, Kino's Journey comes in widescreen, which makes it doubly enjoyable to watch.

A quick warning: the show makes heavy use of scanlines. If you really hate that particular effect, then I'd suggest avoiding it.

~Dagger~

[JazzLady22]

Dagger, how come we always seem to be watching the same things? ^_^

Anyways, a good friend of mine bought me Kino's Journey for my birthday (knowing nothing about the anime, of course, but thinking the box looked cool.) I watched it, and was quite confused, compelled, and pretty impressed. By the way, once you get to episode 4, in a flashback, Kino is wearing a dress with a bow in her hair. So unless she was a very good crossdresser, I'm thinking it's a girl. But up until then, I did think it was a guy. Ah, the confusion.

I don't know where Kino is going, but I'm quite interested. I'm going to have to give the rest of the series a look!

By the way, Kino is from the same creator as Serial Experiments Lain and Haibane Renmei. Hence, the confusion...

[Dagger]

Heh, I think you're right about Kino's gender. ^_^;; Her voice actresses (in both English and Japanese) sound a bit [i]too[/i] feminine for me to successfully convince myself that she's a guy. After all, I had more than enough trouble with our beloved Okita-san.

I finished watching the first four episodes on Friday, and suffice it to say that I'm extremely intrigued. Kino's Journey is turning out to be my favorite type of show. It's thought-provoking and disturbing, but still thoroughly likeable. The series also has a clever sense of humor: I love how Hermes constantly mixes up his words (i.e. soliloquy and syllogism), and how Kino happily accepts all those free goods in episode 3.

Many of the individual episodes have O. Henry-style plot twists, which managed to take me completely by surprise. So that makes the series even more enjoyable to watch.

It's difficult for me to pick a favorite episode, but I found myself watching the second one several times. Episode 2 proved that Kino's Journey is not aimed at a young audience; certain scenes are downright horrific, and it does not judge human nature kindly. The symbolism here is simply brilliant--for example, there are many things that can be said of how the dead rabbits both represent and contrast with the [spoiler]slave traders, who describe themselves as wolves.[/spoiler] Only after a while did I notice that [spoiler]each man has a man-made trinket (the ring, the bracelet and the instrument) which draws attention to his more civilized, compassionate side.[/spoiler]

This makes me want to watch Haibane Renmei. ^_^

~Dagger~

[Retribution]

[SIZE=1]Yeah, I've seen Kino's Journey a few times at my friends house (Heil On Demand!), and I'm completely in love with it.

It being only 13 episodes long is really too bad, because when you start to love it alot, it's over. And towards the end of the series, you understand why Kino is traveling around. [spoiler]It's a "dream" or "book," make by her father to disillusion her from the real world, which is a barren place. Her and her father are the only two people alive there, so he uses this technology similar to the Matrix. And the intriguing question was posed "What happens when the story ends?" I'm left wondering the same thing too.[/spoiler][/SIZE]

[Dagger]

Nice timing, Retri. :animesmil

I say this because I just watched the Kino's Journey "movie" (which is not exactly what one would normally think of as a movie, as it's only half an hour long). The movie covers [spoiler]Kino's training with her master and her attempts to find out more about the original Kino.[/spoiler] On the whole, it's more linear and straightforward than the series, but there's an intriguing tidbit toward the end... [spoiler]when Kino returns home, she asks her master to tell her stories about the countries she's been to. Her master responds by briefly mentioning a few incidents that sound suspiciously similar to what happened to Kino in the TV series.[/spoiler] Definitely food for thought, although without more information it's impossible to figure out exactly what's going on.

I hope ADV licenses the movie, along with the ten-minute (?) OVA, and releases them together.

By now I've seen the series about three or four times (some episodes more than others). The railroad episode stands out as my least favorite, but I liked the library episode a lot more the second time around, and I don't think I could ever get tired of the episodes on the final disc. One interesting thing is that if you try to go chronologically, the first episode actually takes place [i]after[/i] the last episode. I didn't notice this until someone pointed it out to me.

I'm actually not sure that the [spoiler]part about the girl and her father applies to the show as a whole.[/spoiler] I think it's presented more as something tantalizing for the viewer to muse upon than as a concrete background story. Although I don't think Kino would ultimately care much either way; she's not the type to let such a suggestion change her paradigm.

~Dagger~

[wolfy129]

I think I first saw it at a friends house- shes been known to buy the least known animes not liscensed to any major television networks yet. She let me borrow the first two DVDs, but she had a bootleg for the last two DVD's worth. The subtitles were pretty bad, so I had no idea what was going on. Now that I'm up-to-date on other parts of my DVD collection, I have to go out and buy the rest... =^-._-.^= heh...

As for an opinion, It reminds me a little of .hack//SIGN in the way it makes you think. Kino isn't a hero, going on her/his journies to make everything in the world right. She's/He's a mere obsverver of whats going on, trying to avoid everything possible to change the way a country works... The artwork of it almost makes it look like a dream-state, like what Kino is seeing is not real...
Of course, this only my opinion, and I haven't seen the whole series yet. =^n_n^= heh.

[Raphael]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]- [I]The world is not beautiful;[/I]
[I]And that, in a way, lends it a sort of beauty[/I] -

I'm not sure whether this anime is popular among OBers, but I really loved this anime although I haven't watched all 13 episodes of it. Hope someone would reply to my thread.....:animesigh

Kino no Tabi stars two main characters, [URL=http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8410/kinohouse8hj.th.jpg]Kino[/URL] (click the name to show her picture) whose, to me, gender remains mystery (it was explained that [B]she[/b]'s a girl but I just love to keep wondering about her gender :D). She's a traveler, drifting from place to place along with the second main character, a talking bike named [URL=http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/8441/kinonotabi14vw.jpg]Hermes[/URL] (same as before...). They spend no more and no less than three days on each city they visit.

Kino no Tabi was adopted from a best-selling novel with same title written by Keiichi Sigusawa back on July 2000. The novel itself, as far as I know, had 6 volumes on sale in Japan. Directed by Ryutaro Nakamura from [I]Serial Experiment Lain[/I], the anime would surely captured it's viewer imaginations :D.

The story, unlike most animes out there, is not telling a girl's journey to her maturity. It's just about the world, it's just about imagination, it's just about the journey....:D. To me personally, the story's just so original. It only explained the world, for example, what would it like [SPOILER]when people could know each other's feeling without words[/SPOILER] (episode 1, if I'm not mistaken).

The pictures are great, so alive and beautiful. Click the link on Kino's name to get the example of Kino no Tabi's pictures/graphics.

Anyone watched the show yet?[/FONT]

[COLOR=DarkSlateBlue][B]Raphael[/B],

I?m moving your thread to the existing Kino?s Journey thread. To avoid confusion we ask that you do not create a new thread but instead post in the current one no matter how old it may be. You can look here: [URL=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=38208][COLOR=DarkSlateBlue][B]Official Threads Directory[/B][/COLOR][/URL] to see if the thread already exists. Or you can perform a search to see if one has already been created.

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~Aaryanna
[/COLOR]

[Par-Fait]

This is my absolute favorite anime ever and has been for years. ^^ I love how it covers different deep aspects of life and totally gives you insight to simple things you might have not even thought about before. I dunno, the whole thing is just a beautifully told story that doesn't have to use uber amazing visuals, a ginormous cast of characters, or fanservice to make the show plain awesome. x) And most anime that can make me cry is awesome to me. Even the movie was good, it explained a whole lot of previously unknown stuff about Kino. I REALLY want an mp3 of that ending song. But come to think of it, pretty much all the music from KnT is nice to listen to. Any KnT fan should also watch Episode 0.

Kino is female, but I'm sure everyone's figured that out by now. xD

Does anyone know if the visual novels are translated anywhere?

[Dagger]

The original novel series has been licensed by Tokyopop, but I don't think the first book has a release date yet. I really want to read it, though, so hopefully it'll come out sooner rather than later. I wonder how the translators chose to handle the gender pronoun issue...

~Dagger~

[Par-Fait]

YES! Thankyou! I didn't know that. TokyoPop will probably do a good job, tho I don't know of any visual novels they've licensed at all. But I really hope this doesn't turn out to be one of those things where they wait 2 or more years to translate after it's been licensed. *STILL waiting for an English Papuwa here* >_>' I can't really imagine how hard the gender thing will be to translate. x) Maybe they're still trying to figure out how to do that and thats why they haven't issued a release date. But I think they'll just make her say "I" since that's pretty much the only way people refer to themselves in English. The again since it has somewhat to do with the story...WHO KNOWS. x_x

[Raphael]

[quote name='Par-Fait']I REALLY want an mp3 of that ending song.[/quote]
[FONT=Palatino Linotype][COLOR=Indigo][B][Link Removed By Moderator][/B][/COLOR] you can find full ending song of KnT (and also the opening song :animesmil), Ai's voice is so cute!!! :D I still can't believe how a cute voice like that could match Kino's masculine (:D) attitude and body form.

About the novel, is it true that there's only 6 volumes of it?

And does anyone knows about Kino's short movies on DVDs? How many are there?[/FONT]

[COLOR=Indigo][B]Raphael[/B], I removed the link from your post. If you read the rules, you would know that distributing copyrighted material is not permitted at OtakuBoards. This includes posting links and instructions for websites that share these files. Please take a moment to read [URL=http://www.otakuboards.com/rules.php?][COLOR=Indigo][B]the rules[/B][/COLOR][/URL] before posting again. If you have any questions, feel free to PM myself or another member of the staff.

~indifference[/COLOR]

[bellpickle]

[SIZE=1]I've watched three episodes of this series so far, and I'm loving it as well! It combines two of my favorite things in anime: world traveling and heavy metaphors/hidden meanings without beating the viewer over the head with symbolism. (I know that Kino's technically traveling through countries, but each country is so different that they may as well be different worlds.)

Episode three was especially interesting. I loved the the ironic twist surrounding the "Book of Prophecies"--it says a lot about our tendency to both misinterpret and overreact. I really look forward to watching the later episodes.

And I, too, was reminded of Haibane Renmei. Both have similar tones, I think.[/SIZE]

[Nekova]

I just started watching this (I've seen 2 episodes), and am being blown away so far. The first one seemed pretty typical, but the second episode was so shocking! I think this series is going to be one that doesn't pull any punches.
I was reminded of the music video that was shown on theotaku a couple months ago though. I think it was the first time they ever did that feature. Are those saved somewhere on the site? I'd love to be able to see it again now that I'm getting to know the characters.

[Anavel Gato]

I bought this series about a month-and-a-half ago, and I've already watched the whole thing twice. It's absolutely amazing. Everything about it interested me, and I even used:
" The world is not beautiful; and that, in a way, lends it a sort of beauty." as my senior quote. For those of you who have not seen the whole thing, I highly suggest you pick it up. ADV's thinpak boxset is cheap and quite nice.
Anywho, I really hope ADV picks up the movie and OVA- I'd love to see those soon. I look forward to reading the novels- does anyone know where I can find more infor about the novels that have been liscenced by Tokyopop?

[Dagger]

There's a new Kino movie coming out, and you can view a trailer for it [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsdhUH-F_O8][u]here[/u][/url]. The same guy is still directing it, but the character designs are closer to the novel illustrations than the designs of the original Kino anime.

There have also been mutterings about a second season, but I don't think it's been formally announced or anything like that, so who knows.

~Dagger~

[bellpickle]

[SIZE=1]I love how the trailer shifts during the last 30 seconds, though I have no idea what the context is. Does anyone know which of the Kino's Journey novels the movie is being based off of?[/SIZE]

[Andy]

[SIZE=1][COLOR=DarkRed]Hmmm....well, I just finished watching the first episode, and I gotta say that this anime really got my interest. I'm not really sure what it is about it, but it just seem's like a pretty interesting little anime. Anyway's, I do plan on watching the rest of this anime, as well as the "movie".^^[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Dagger]

Just to be clear, the "movie" I put in quotes earlier in the thread was released a while ago. Maybe we should start calling the new one movie 2 or something. I'm not sure whether it'll be similar in length to the first movie, or more like a regular feature film.

@bell: I believe it's based on a novel chapter called "The Sick Country" (Byouki no Kuni).

~Dagger~

[Tsume]

[COLOR=DarkSlateBlue][FONT=Georgia][SIZE=2]I was really impressed by this anime and I?ll definitely have to check out the movie(s). I had never even heard of it before seeing and AMV based on it at Otakon this pass summer. It intrigued me and I stored the name of it in the back in my mind. A couple of weeks ago I saw a thin pack box set at the store for pretty cheap and picked it up as an impulse buy, and let me tell you, I was not disappointed.

I really liked the way each episode is kinda its own story. You actually care about the supporting characters Kino meets on her journey even though you see them for no more than an episode. That?s what really makes this anime work. Had the story not be so well written and executed, it probably would have seemed like an anime full of filler episodes.

Just finished it a few nights ago too, and that last episode was probably my favorite (although the flying machine episode was pretty sweet too). One thing I wanted a little more of was Kino?s back-story and if the movies touch on that, then that makes me want to see them even more, hehe.[/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR]

[Dagger]

So I skim-watched the second movie. :) The original director came back for this one, but the animation studio is SHAFT instead of A.P.P.P. They did a solid job, especially in integrating CG in some of the backgrounds. Kino's character design still stands out as being a little more delicate and pretty in a bishounen-esque way (like the designs released earlier showed).

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/DaggerIX1/snapshot20071229054149.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/DaggerIX1/snapshot20071229055644.jpg[/IMG]

I got the gist of the story, but I'll have to watch it again more carefully for the details. I'm hoping it'll get subbed to spare me the trouble, though. :p

~Dagger~

[Panache]

I just got the short novel for Christmas. I hope it's good. The anime was great...one of my all time favorites for sure.

[Dagger]

Speaking of which, I hear that Tokyopop has put the second novel permanently on hold. Licensing issues, apparently. I guess it's a good thing that it's all self-contained stories, so it's not like they had to stop on a cliffhanger, but I wish more were on the way.

~Dagger~

[Panache]

[quote name='Dagger']Speaking of which, I hear that Tokyopop has put the second novel permanently on hold. Licensing issues, apparently. I guess it's a good thing that it's all self-contained stories, so it's not like they had to stop on a cliffhanger, but I wish more were on the way.

~Dagger~[/QUOTE]
:animecry:

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Dagger'] [B] The original director came back[/B] for this one, but the animation studio is [B][SIZE="4"]SHAFT[/SIZE][/B] instead of A.P.P.P.[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]!!!!!!!! Subbers best get off they *****!!!! Come to think of it, was the first movie ever even subbed? I still haven't seen it T_T I need to rewatch the series soon, too.[/COLOR]

[Dagger]

Indeed it was. The unlicensed Kino material consists of a pilot episode ("The Tower Country," 12 minutes long), the first movie ("Life Goes On," 30 minutes long) and the second movie. Everything but the second movie--which seems to have just come out on DVD, anyway--is either subbed or licensed.

~Dagger~