Kino's Journey

This review may contain some light spoilers for the story of Kino's Journey.

Kino's Journey is a collection of tales with Kino, our main character, at the center of all of them. Kino with his buddy, motorcycle, Hermes travels the world, explores new countries, new traditions and customs. It's an anime that anyone can watch, no matter their age, the themes of Kino's Journey are presented so lightly that a child can watch it and understand stuff that's happening and have fun while someone older can watch it and understand the deeper meaning and questions behind each episode, in my opinion not many animes can do that.

"If I was asked, 'Why do you go on journeys?' I would answer, 'I go on journeys because I'm a traveler'."

Kino is a free person, someone who doesn't have any attachments to the people or things and doesn't get involved in traditions or customs of other countries, just simply watches them. In 4th episode of the show Kino leaves her own country after finding out that everyone in their country was supposed to have a surgery when they turn 12. That surgery would make them do whatever job they want without complaining even if they feel unhappy doing it. One could argue that Kino doesn't offer her opinion because she saw what happened to the man who opposed to the tradition in her own country, or rather she just wants to find what the good answer is for herself, however the true reason isn't given to us in the show.

"Whenever people see birds flying through the sky, it's said that they get the urge to go on a journey."

While watching the anime I somehow got the feeling that Kino doesn't believe in concepts of good and evil, even if Kino does see bad or good things happening she won't get involved with it because she is only there to see things and not change them. Most people would like to see Kino get involved and do good things but not me. I love how Kino doesn't believe in traditional concepts of what's good and what's evil because Kino doesn't tell viewer what is good and what is evil, all of us have different concepts of good and evil and that's why we have arguments.

"It's probably a lie. The reason why I only stay for three days in any country. I'm afraid I'll settle down, if I stay too long. Because if I settled down, I would cease to be a traveler."

I mentioned a quote from Kino's Journey about how Kino doesn't want to stay in a certain country for longer than 3 days because she would settle down and cease being a traveler. I find it interesting because there is also another quote I mentioned where Kino said that she goes on a journey because she is a traveler so if she stopped going on journeys her life would basically lose its purpose.

"You know, Hermes, sometimes a traveler also explores their mind."

As I said already, Kino shuns the basic concepts and goes beyond them. If you asked someone if they'd like to never work in their life again and still be able to live normally I'm sure everyone would say yes but it isn't a universal truth because Kino shows us that universal truths don't exist. In episode 5 of Kino's Journey there is a country where the machines do all the work and humans don't have to do anything but soon Kino finds out that humans are going to a certain job where the humans have to do calculations that have already been done by machines. Yeah, that job is pointless because machines are never wrong but when Kino asked one of the workers why is he doing it he answered that he's doing it so he wouldn't be bored. This country sounds fun to us because we hate work but those who have never experienced it would be eager to see what's it like.

"The world is constantly changing. And you can't expect it to stay the same, even for a second. If that's true, there's no need for you to go on a journey, Kino. Even if you stay in one place, you'll be able to keep experiencing the world!"

Usually at the end of my reviews I give out a few animes that you can watch if you liked the anime I reviewed which is in this case Kino's Journey but honestly I don't think I can find anime similar to this one. If you really want to watch something that is kind of similar to Kino I'd suggest episodic shows such as Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Samurai Champloo or Barakamon.

Thank you for reading.

10/10