Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Kino's Journey - the Beautiful World-
|
Goto page Previous Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
JaffaOrange
 Posts: 251 |
|
|||
spoiler[Destroying a whole country/city and leading the the deaths of a huge number of the people living there because you think the people are kinda shitty is still completely sociopathic. In the original anime series they tried to show the class structure and that Kino's rule was a way to try and overturn that...maybe? I mean, I guess it's still sociopathic but it's better? Maybe less innocent people die? Alright, any interpretation of Kino's rule paints her as a bad person but the first anime series tried to give her a more grounded reason.] |
||||
|
||||
trilaan
 Posts: 1056 Location: Texas |
|
|||
|
My dad would be able to give an in-depth lecture on how the first episode relates to current issues with gun ownership in the United States but I can only say that I enjoyed it and it gave me those classic Kino vibes.
I missed the fleshing-out of the story for Colosseum from the original series, but had no troubles with this adaptation. Way to exploit a legal loophole, Kino. Revenge is a dish best served sneakily. |
||||
|
||||
|
Yours_Truly
Posts: 11 |
|
|||
|
Yeesh! Ep 2 was really bad. They should've just followed what the first series did instead of rushing through the material incoherently.
Tsk tsk. |
||||
|
||||
Yazu13
 Posts: 129 |
|
|||
spoiler[You could certainly see Kino's actions as evil, though I would argue that pitting evil, or at the very least complicit, people against each other is merely a case of just desserts. Saying to a crowd of people that they can be king if they kill everyone else, and then having those people voluntarily start killing neighbors and friends seconds later, really just leads me to believe Kino was allowing the country to be crushed under the weight of its own filth. There aren't any innocent people who attend coliseum-style death matches between hapless travelers and married couples, so all Kino did was put fire to the oil deluge that was this failed country full of failed people. All in all, I felt the episode did an excellent job of justifying Kino's seemingly cruel act.] |
||||
|
||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11416 |
|
|||
|
So this kingdom is ruled by Christopher Walken?
Anyway, I was ok with condensing this down to one episode, but they still could've taken a minute to explain that there was a wildly disparate class system rather than just "citizenship," and to make Kino's law less "kill-'em-all" by including the limits put on the law. E.g., with some added dialog, the brief sight of poor people during the wagon ride to the Coliseum could've been used to clarify that those people weren't citizens and the fights were their only hope of becoming one. It's been years since I've watched the original, (I rewatched the Coliseum episodes after this) so this was mostly like-new to me, and I was scratching my head over what about being a citizen of this country would make anyone risk their life for it voluntarily. I mean, the rules laid out for Kino made no sense: if you flee, you're executed; if you refuse the match, you're made a slave. And yet the entire non-citizen population obviously wasn't required to fight in these matches, just the ones who wanted to. I guess the rules he explained only applied to people entering the country? That wasn't at all clear. The other important difference (dunno how the novels addressed it) was the presentation of Kino's motivation. In 2003 Kino wanted to find out what could make a person's smile look so distant, referring to the woman who told them about the country. In that version, the woman's eyes do look haunted despite her faint smile, but in this version there's no hint that everything isn't fine. She grins brightly, her eyes crinkle the way eyes do with a genuine smile, her voice sounds cheerful. It's as if she truly happy to send other people to their deaths, rather than absently recommending it out of traumatic association with the last place she saw her husband alive. By putting a different spin on this meeting, it changes Kino's motives from curiosity (despite knowing that what awaited in this country was apparently something bad), to straight up avenging this stranger's loss even after she sent Kino completely unawares into probable slavery or death. Curious Kino I can buy. Pissed off Kino works for me. Avenging angel Kino is a bit harder to swallow. So good changes and not so good changes. On the whole, I feel like so far, instead of impacting my emotions and/or making me think, this iteration has kind of left me flat after both episodes, though I'm certainly far from hating it. |
||||
|
||||
Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
|
|||
|
Did i miss some major rule change or since when do we need to use spoiler tags in the review thread while actually talking about the reviewed episode?
As someone who's watched the original anime (and not read the light novels) but remembers very little of it because it's been a while, i enjoyed both episodes so far. Though i gotta admit that Kino's behaviour at the end of ep.2 did puzzle me a bit...but overall, the new series is doing a good job at conveying the mood of the story. Looking forward to see more of Shizu and his talking dog (Hermes being shocked that the dog could talk was probably my favourite part of ep.2...)! |
||||
|
||||
Rederoin
 Posts: 1427 Location: Europa |
|
|||
If its animated faithfully like ep 2, I don't see the problem. |
||||
|
||||
|
meiam
Posts: 3442 |
|
|||
|
It's been a really long time since I watched the first one (I wasn't sure if ep 2 was a redo, it felt familiar but I don't remember the original that well), so I'm not quite sure if my feeling for this version could also apply to the first one. Overall I though both story were shallow, I get the appeal of though experiment, but the devil is in the detail and no though experiment is complete if you just look at the big picture. For ep 1, what happen when someone just disappear under suspicious circumstance? Say Husband's wife disappear and he look pretty happy about it, do they all come down and just murder him?
Ep 2 Kino really came off as just as bad as the king if not worse, his new law apparently end up with more people dead than the old king would ever do... And why would anyone even bother trying to become king? They're just going to be the only person alive when everyone is dead around them, it's good to be king I guess? And really, no one bothered to bring a gun to a fight to the death with no weapon limit? |
||||
|
||||
danpmss
 Posts: 769 |
|
|||
Er... It was much more faithful to the source material than the first series? |
||||
|
||||
Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
|
|||
Wait, so it's faithful to not at all distinguish the vast difference in lifestyle between citizens and non-citizen? It's also faithful to simply incite violence between everyone in the country and not shield the noncitizens from the violence. The whole country is how the upper class exploits the lower class in all facets of life and derive pleasure watching them kill each other to earn citizenship. Kino's rule in the light novel and 2003 version that specifically targets the upper class and shields the lower class made sense. However this version didn't make any sense by inciting everyone to kill each other in their lust for status and power. |
||||
|
||||
Vibrant Wolf
 Posts: 109 Location: Canada |
|
|||
I don't think the issue is in the faithfulness of the story itself, but in how the characters are represented. The king is just a token bad guy whom killed his daddy, presumably exiled his kids, and ran a gladiators' tournament. Shizu isn't given as much reason to plot the king's death. Kino had the worst treatment by successfully talking an entire city-state into killing each other for the right to reign supreme. The first adaptation expands on the story, by making the king creepier, giving Shizu a legit cause for holding a grudge against the king, and by applying a time & caste limit to Kino's new rule, exempting those whom have suffered enough or simply want nothing to do with what's about to happen. They included an expository puppet show, depicting a royal family history of patricide. |
||||
|
||||
|
Chrono1000
|
|
|||
|
Kino's Journey is a gritty world of killers who are mostly decent and well mannered which it gives it a fairy tale feel. The world isn't like ours since talking motorcycles are common though apparently talking dogs still freak people out. I think it is overly harsh to say that Kino seems like a sociopath since even if the story was hilariously condensed the citizens of that country were forcing travelers to fight to the death. Kino was simply giving them a bit of their own medicine and was nice enough to warn the guard about leaving the country. While I generally don't care much for traveling shows that is mainly because they tend to sugar coated fluff and I am intrigued to see where this shows goes.
|
||||
|
Echii
Posts: 107 |
|
|||
|
Boring/ralaxing show like Girls' Last Tour get A rating
And this get C rating. LOL Who cares about the old adaptation. Why not judge this anime itself independently. . Not everyone here is an old folk who watched the old series. As someone new for this anime, I personally think this show is one of the best in this season. And this show is a remake, it probably for new people like me, not for people who watched the old series Also, someone mentioned that this adaptation is more faithful to the manga than the old (the old show added more stuff that were not in the manga). |
||||
|
||||
Animechic420
 Posts: 1730 Location: A Cave Filled With Riches |
|
|||
It could be because the Colosseum episode was boring one and my least favorite of the Kino's Journey episodes. Now, A Country Where People Can Kill Others was excellent. That twist at the end had me like, "Oh, snap! I did NOT see that coming.". 
|
||||
|
||||
|
Keichitsu0305
|
|
|||
|
*deep heavy sigh*
.... .... ....This is gonna be FMA 2003 vs. Brotherhood all over again isn't it? 
As a 2003 fan, I clearly didn't like the more 'faithfully bland' episode but, I've also read some of the fan translations a few years ago so I wasn't too surprised either. I'm still interested in seeing more Shizu since he didn't get much screen time in the older series, but so far this adaptation seems so close to the original that I might as well re-read the light novel translations than watch a pretty animated version of it. Or at least wait until they adapt stories that weren't in the 2003 version. :/ |
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group