It has been some time since we obtained Subject T-33. Recently, we have learned of something about him that we could use to get a great experiment out of him. Henceforth, while I am a new member of the Theoretical Generalyzing Goblins group, I shall take the reins and begin experiment K-2.
Since acquiring T-33, we have gotten him to calm down a bit. However, as a matter of precaution for what I am about to show him today, I've requested our staff of orderlies to relocate him once again to the padded room. Let's go meet with the Subject now.
"Why am I in the padded room again? Hello? Only horrible things happen to me when they put me in this room, why am I back here again?"
Hello, Subject T-33.
"Who are you? You're not the regular guy, where's the regular guy? Why are you not him?"
Yes well, I am a new hire. That's not important. What is important is, are you hungry, T-33?
"Yes I am. For some reason, they wouldn't give me food today."
Ah yes, what a coincidence. Would you like an apple?
"Why... I'd love an apple. It IS just an apple, right?"
I have two apples. One in each hand. This apple is just an ordinary apple. But THIS golden shining apple, is a creation of the Theoretical Generalyzing Goblins group. It is an apple that is better than the natural apple in absolutely every possible way. Which apple would you like?
"I guess... I guess the shiny one? It looks way better than the normal apple."
Good. Go ahead and eat the apple you've chosen. Necessary side note, we additionally polled other subjects aside from Subject T-33 for further results.
"What was that last bit you just said?"
Hm? Oh, nothing. Go ahead and eat our The Golden Goblin™ apple.
"Oh... this is horrible! What the hell... this isn't an apple at all! Like sure the outside is gold and looks great, but why is the inside just filled with dirt???"
Please finish the apple. You shouldn't waste food.
"This is awful! With every bite, it just somehow gets even worse! Why would you do this???"
Coincidentally and completely unrelated to this apple experiment, did you know that there is a new Kino no Tabi anime? I've been told that you loved the original.
"Holy shit, they did a new season??? Can I watch it?"
Of course you can! Why, we wish for you to review it!
"...Wait, why would you want me to revi--"
#K-2: A Brief Recap
...Kino no Tabi, or Kino's Journey, is a novel series by Keiichi Sigsawa that's been going on for seventeen years now, with twenty one published volumes at the time of writing this review as well as a spin-off series. It received an anime in 2003 but for several reasons, I am not going to base this review heavily off of comparisons to the original anime.
Don't get me wrong, there'll still be a separate section for that, but I want to stress that the several problems I have with this show go beyond... the remake episodes.
Additionally, with the new anime, it received two separate new manga adaptations, both by different artists. One follows the original novel's order of stories (with a small bit of tweaking that puts the earliest chronological story first), and the other adapts random chapters. The new anime takes the latter approach, picking and choosing random bits and pieces throughout the 20+ volumes of Kino no Tabi. I'm going to go into why or how the order of stories matter later, but I genuinely believe there is merit in both approaches.
Although, the reason why we have not received an English translation of the novels beyond volume 1 is because the English translation changed not only several things within the actual writing, but also changed the order of the stories within volume 1, putting the chronologically earliest chapter first.
"Due to issues with the licensor, the remaining volumes have been canceled."
How unfortunate. This brings us to this new anime by Lerche (creators of Ranpo Kitan) a mere fourteen years after the original anime aired in 2003. The original Kino is in fact, one of the handful of shows I first watched when JUST getting into anime.
...So it's safe to say, I was reasonably excited when I learned that "Kino 2017" was gonna be a thing. And... just let me tell you right now. Nine times out of ten, going into a remake or a new "entry" of the thing as a fan of the original ends up leading to disaster. Because the more you liked the original, the more you're gonna want the new version to be good.
But if that new version isn't good, hell, if it doesn't even live up to the original... it's all gonna fall down and eventually, you're gonna just start pretending that it never existed in the first place.
Granted, there are exceptions... some avoid falling flat on their face... but MOST of the time...
#K-2: Looks Like Kino, Sounds Like Kino... Seems... Like Kino?#
Despite the impression I may be giving off, I truly did not immediately turn on this. As a matter of fact, I was enjoying it quite a bit. I'd have some questions pop up in my head about some of the episodes here and there, but there was nothing too major early on. The animation looks good, Kino looks and sounds like Kino, and I could clearly see at least some of that tone of Kino no Tabi.
"I heard about a country where apparently, killing is legal. Let's go visit it. I'm sure there'll be no twist to this country at all."
Like Kino running into someone and talking with them on the way to this country who was heading there both on the way to the country and in the process of leaving the country that both had very different reasons for heading to this country where apparently killing is allowed, felt very Kino no Tabi.
To clarify, this was the very first episode and to be quite honest, I believe the peak of the entire show. Everything is downhill from here on out. I was of course completely unaware of this, and was additionally unaware that there was going to be an episode so horribly stupid that a hand would reach out from my computer monitor and then proceed to bitch slap the scales off of my eyes.
It could be argued that that episode is the true start of the downhill slope of Kino 2017, but after I grew negative due to the later episodes, I started thinking about the earlier episodes and how I have a lot of problems with them. But yet, episode one still... actually works. Nothing glaring jumps out at me. I'm still capable of saying, yeah, this is Kino no Tabi.
So what... what went wrong in the following episodes, then?
#K-2: Who is Kino?#
I have no idea who Kino is in Kino 2017. She's a traveler who goes from country to country on her motorrad named Hermes... I got that, but not much else from this version of Kino. I didn't know why she did the things she did, and... I could probably count on one hand the times I was capable of telling what emotion the character was having throughout this entire series.
On one hand, you think she's just a traveler who wishes to stick to herself and not get into any conflicts within the countries she visits. But then, there are several times where she does something that clearly contradicts this. Which would be fine if we knew more about her as a character or why she was doing the things she did.
The coliseum episode, we're vaguely shown or can guess the reasons why she did what she did. That one was... mostly fine, but I'll go into it more when I start specifically discussing the episodes that are "remakes."
It starts really with the third episode... or rather, when I actually stopped and thought about it after my opinion of this show began to landslide in the negative later on, I realized nothing about what Kino does in the third episodes makes any sense at all. She boards a gigantic moving machine which is in fact a country that is constantly on the move and while she's there, the path of the moving country ends up leading through a different country down on the ground.
The moving country is prepared to literally crush this other country that was completely minding its own business up to this point (granted, yes, they put up a wall, which does inconvenience travelers attempting to pass through this area) and Kino is on board the moving country to witness this. Kino does not at any point try to dissuade the people of the moving country to either stop or perhaps just simply change paths. Perhaps I'm just mistaken here, but I genuinely recall her not even asking or bringing up the idea of them just changing their path.
No, what she decides to contribute to this situation is... once the country on the ground realizes they are completely helpless to this technological behemoth that wishes to crush its way through its country to the lands beyond, the soldiers get pissed and for some reason start... specifically aiming their weapons at... the murals of the moving country that the children made. Kino steps forth and basically squashes the petty resistance by shooting her gun at their targeting systems in a pointless and needlessly showy action scene.
...Why, exactly? Okay yes, I get it, the lasers of the moving country are super deadly and, they were genuinely considering obliterating the entire land country because they were attacking the goddamned murals. But... BUT...
THEY HAD ALREADY TRAMPLED OVER THE COUNTRY'S FIELDS. THEIR FOOD SOURCE, GONE, DESTROYED, THEIR WALL IS GONE SO THERE GOES THEIR SECURITY, AND LET'S NOT EVEN GO INTO HOW TRAUMATIZING THIS EVENT HAD TO HAVE BEEN FOR EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY.
"Gosh, I sure hope another moving country doesn't come through and blast us with gigantic death lasers! Gosh, I sure am glad they didn't just outright destroy us but rather let us starve to death after destroying our crops!"
Kino is witnessing these events firsthand and she just... no emotion, whatsoever. Just a goddamned BLANK SLATE. She just outright tries to ignore the genuine rage and hatred the general of the other country is venting. After all, she doesn't want to get on the bad side of the moving country, they'll kill her WITH LASERS. You know what... let me just check right now.
Okay, this country is from the seventh volume of Kino no Tabi. Meaning, there isn't such a gigantic and absurd leap... like seven volumes in, and Kino obviously has gone through some serious shit in a bunch of other countries that the reader has experienced throughout the past novels. In this anime, this is the third episode, and the second episode was about the coliseum country (which is from the very first volume) where Kino outright puts herself into the middle of the country's problem and DIRECTLY changes the country entirely.
We go from that to... to this. Within the span of a single episode.
"Shh, Hermes. They'll finish their war after they finish devastating this country, then we'll be on our way."
How am I supposed to like this character if I'm not even capable of making heads or tails of her? Also it's even worse if you've watched the original in which Kino is actually even more active in doing things, so you're absolutely flabbergasted when she just decides to watch this war play out before her.
Then there's episode four which is primarily focused on Shizu's (don't worry I'll get to him too) experience in a country. Basically he's told that during his stay, he can either go toil with the commoners of the country or lounge around in luxury overseeing the filthy commoners. Shizu, being a good guy, decides to go hang out with the commoners. It's revealed later in the episode that another traveler shows after Shizu and what do you know, it's Kino, and she chose to... lounge around and oversee the commoners? Shizu eventually tries to lead a rebellion to help out the commoners, and Kino is sent to actively try and stop him.
...Which she appears to genuinely attempt to do, and only doesn't when the ruling group of the country turn on her after noticing that she seems to have a previous relation to Shizu who is basically leading this rebellion.
Kino, what the FUCK. Choosing to lounge around overseeing the commoners aside because I guess maybe she was probably being less cruel than the past travelers who chose that option, why was she actually trying to stop Shizu?
Even after Kino shows her face after they "kind of fight", Kino still asks Shizu to stop his attempted rebellion and just go back. It's like the second after this when the ruling group turns on her, and then she basically just decides "oh well, I guess my eggs are in the Shizu's rebellion basket now."
Kino is supposed to be the protagonist, the series is KINO'S JOURNEY, but from what has been offered, Shizu is so much more likable than Kino edition 2017. Honestly, I actually kind of hate her. I don't know if it's the fact that she's a seemingly emotionless robot or the episode order, which I'm getting to, but...
Probably the most baffling thing to me about Kino 2017 as a whole is that Kino herself was just infuriating to me. Which leads me to the next point...
#K-2: There is a surprising lack of Kino in Kino 2017.#
You know what's even worse than Kino being unlikable? Kino not showing up at all or mattering very little throughout entire episodes. I'm not even making a joke when I say I would have loved this show if Kino had been cut out of it entirely and it had just been Shizu no Tabi. Shizu's wandering the world and throughout all these countries in an attempt to find a new place to life, an actual goal and... actually tries to help out the people in the countries he visits when he can.
He's actually on a journey with a purpose. Kino, on the other hand... "let's go watch and participate in a war!"
But this section isn't even about the Shizu episodes. Let's talk about episode six, my personal turning point with this show. After at least mildly enjoying the show thus far, episode six just... it's when everything just crumbled. Every episode after that was just awful, and there was the realization that they were doing two more "remake" episodes and they possibly picked the absolute worst locations for those episodes.
But let's calm down and tackle one thing at a time. Episode six does not focus on Kino or Shizu. It focuses on a random completely unknown slave girl in a completely unknown country. Basically, she was from a religious country who ended up having to sell her off to a group of traders... and the group of traders seems like an ordinary group of upstanding citizens for the most part.
Excluding the fact that they apparently have no qualms with slavery, and not only slavery, but being absolutely fucking malicious to their newly gained slave girl. "You're okay with being sold as a slave by your own people? Wow, you're fucking worthless. You absolutely have no worth and are a fucking drain on our resources, why did we even accept you."
...Just... just keep this important fact in mind. She is a local to the land they're in, basically. She possesses knowledge about the land they are in and about you know plants and whatnot. Potentially useful information. That's not super important, but just keep it in mind for now.
Basically one of the girls of this merchant group finds a group of super tasty looking herbs, which they decide to harvest and use for their meal. The slave girl realizes they're in the process of making a horrible mistake and tries to do the right thing and warn them, but she's incapable of bringing herself to yell loud enough for them to hear. They eat the poison soup.
So the girl's basically like, okay, fuck it then. I'll just eat my bowl and die along the side of these horrible people. But then this kid just fucking launches a stone to knock her bowl of poison soup out of her hands because he noticed she wasn't going to use a spoon and simply DOWN the entire bowl of POISON in one go. This act intended to be cruel ends up denying the girl the horribly painful death she wanted at that moment.
Finally, she manages to tell them about the poison herbs, but this results in having more stones thrown at her to get her to shut up. When she comes to, the blond boy who knocked her bowl out of her hand is in the middle of negotiations with his father to buy the slave girl.
...The kid, of this totally normal and upstanding merchant group, suddenly launches off into this whole fucking crazy tirade of how he REALLY wants to brutally torture and murder this poor abused girl.
And the adults are all like YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT KID. WE SHOULD TOTALLY FUCKING BRUTALLY MURDER THIS POOR GIRL WE ACCEPTED AS A SLAVE BECAUSE SHE TRIED TO WARN US OF ALL OF OUR IMPENDING DEATHS. What? Why? Why accept a slave as payment and then basically just discard that extra slave labor because one of your psychotic kids suddenly descended into a ravenous bloodlust? Aren't you supposed to be merchants??? I swear to God with this episode, I almost felt like I went back in time and was watching Ranpo Kitan again while locked within a horrible struggle as my brain tried to understand what was happening or why it was happening.
The girl just fucking fully snaps in this moment and admittedly, does this actually cool screaming moment because yes, I can empathize with this character. I'm surprised she hadn't fucking snapped earlier, jesus christ. Of course, everybody who ate the poison soup starts to die right after she screams.
Then, as she's left alone and surrounded by corpses wishing she could have died too, it turns out one of the merchants survived and claims that he'd help the girl end her own life. In actuality, the gun only has one bullet (???), so he tricks the girl into using it on him so only he gets to escape this horrible HORRIBLE world. Thankfully though, she finds a nearby motorrad who proceeds to tell her the true way to die.
By... by living. Oh. Well yeah, you'll definitely die eventually if you do that! You're thinking to yourself "oh, is she going to be a recurring character like Shizu?" because that would explain the purpose of this episode and character. Unfortunately, it turns out that nope, this episode contains a conclusion to this slave girl's story therefore meaning she's never going to appear ever again. She goes on to live out her life, becoming a talented photographer, who is eventually called... drumroll please...
Photo. Her name becomes Photo. As in photo in photograph because she is a photographer. That is what becomes her name. No, that's fine. Hey, your occupation is baking donuts? Well, your name is now Donut. That makes sense. That makes PERFECT SENSE.
Oh yeah, and... after all of that, at the end of the episode, Kino and Hermes do show back up and Kino looks through her binoculars at all the corpses from the preceding events because... it's Kino no Tabi after all. Kino is definitely an important character of the series, haha... ha...
...She may as well as not have shown up at all. Granted yes, she does in the novel's version of the story as well but... ugh. That chapter probably works as its own thing within whatever volume of Kino no Tabi that is. But the thing is if you're doing a new anime and you're picking stories from all these different volumes from over the years, wouldn't you want to do stories that primarily feature Kino? Or if not even that, then just interesting and good stories. It would only make sense to do the best ones.
Why choose to devote an entire episode of a twelve episode series to a side character we don't know and aren't invested in, whose story is entirely concluded within the episode, therefore meaning her importance probably doesn't go beyond that singular story?
Revising TGG: "Wait, wait, wait. Photo apparently is actually a recurring character in the novels SHE JUST DOESN'T SHOW UP EVER AGAIN IN THIS FUCKING ADAPTATION WHY INTRODUCE HER THEN IF YOU'RE NOT GONNA DO AT LEAST ONE OTHER STORY THAT'S CENTERED ON PHOTO. WITH SOU'S LITTLE SPEECH AS THE CREDITS ROLL, I FUCKING REALLY THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS JUST SHOWING HOW SHE ENDED UP BUT NO, IN THE NOVELS APPARENTLY SHE COMES BACK. MAYBE IF THIS GETS ANOTHER SEASON, THEN THEY'LL DO HER CHAPTERS. OR MAYBE THEY'LL INTRODUCE MORE CHARACTERS THEY THEN DON'T USE AND THEN ARE COMPLETELY POINTL--"
If Kino had interacted with her or the group of merchants in any way, then that would have changed things. But she didn't even see any of the events of the episode. She just saw the corpses, threw out some Kino and Hermes dialogue out there because it was required as this is a Kino no Tabi episode, and then it was over. Her role in the episode was concluded.
I can't get over it. She's an emotionless husk. I had more reason to care about this pointless side character slave girl than Kino, who you would think would be the heart of this series.
But hey, since we're on the subject of Kino regurgitating dialogue, I really liked the episode about Kino's Master (whom they didn't bother to introduce beyond a weird bad two second scene) that they made primarily be in sepia tone because the episode is about the past and everybody knows if you're gonna show anything from the past, you gotta go full sepia tone otherwise the viewer won't understand it's in the past.
The episode is mostly about the shenanigans the Master would get into with her partner when she was younger, and how they essentially overthrew a country's tyrannical ruling class by setting all the trash cans in a country on fire and then refusing to leave the country's tower when asked. But like there could have probably been a whole action scene between the Master busting her partner out of prison and them getting into the tower, but the episode just transitions back to Kino.
...Kino suddenly just takes over the episode and explains what her Master and her partner in crime did rather than the show actually just... show it. How'd they make it from the prison to the top of the tower? Nah, that'd be too interesting to see actually happen. Just have Kino drone on about it to Hermes as she's taking care of her campfire. Rather than Kino doing interesting things, we get to hear Kino just drone on about other people doing potentially interesting things.
Wonderful. That was certainly my favorite part about Kino no Tabi. Oh, and remember the country where Kino had a great time and experience being in the country, but the country forces travelers to have their memories of their time in the countries to be erased so the anime equivalent of this is we just immediately cut to Kino leaving the country right after entering it?
That was my favorite country of them all! I really wonder what made them choose to animate that country specifically!
Dude, it's basically a "free" country. We don't have to animate SHIT for this one.
____
#K-2: The Importance of Episode Order#
Look, the whole thing of Kino no Tabi is that the countries are all... there's mostly no chronological order. Or rather, apart from a handful of exceptions, there's no real order among the sequence of countries Kino visits. But that doesn't mean the episode order doesn't matter at all. Especially if you're going to pick and choose a bunch of different stories from the seventeen years plus of Kino no Tabi.
The original anime didn't exactly have that option, so it stuck with stories from the first couple of volumes. There wasn't any more of a meaning to the sequence of countries in the original than there is in the 2017 version. But also, you didn't go from a story from volume 1 to a story from volume 20 in a one episode span. As far as I'm aware, the farthest the 2003 anime goes is a story from like volume 6.
It's probably safe to say that a story from the beginning of a series compared to one twenty volumes later is going to be different in tone and ideas. If you adapt them faithfully word for word and then just slap them next to each other, it's gonna come off as fucking bizarre when you do the episode detailing Kino's backstory and how she became a traveler and then an episode when she gets into a violent and horrific war with an army of violent rabid sheep.
Just on a brief tangent here, Kino 2003 worked so well because of the countries and the stories they did. The 2003 version of Kino went through some shit and was an actual character and actually did things, and actually went through interesting and sometimes horrible or even outright ruined countries, leading up to the final country she visits which she personally hears is outright horrible to travelers, but when it turns out to be the direct opposite, she actually wishes to stay longer which actually has weight in the 2003 version because we've seen the sort of shit she had to go through.
But as it turns out, she's forced to leave, and the final note that Kino 2003 goes on is that she moves on and keeps traveling. It was such an effective final episode. Oh, I should also note, that we get to see Kino's backstory in like episode 4 of the 2003 version so watchers of the 2003 version actually got to learn who she is and why she's traveling.
...So let's finally get to it. How does Kino 2017 order these things?
Episode 10: The finale episode from 2003.
Episode 11: Kino's Backstory.
Episode 12 (THE FINALE): Kino battles sheep, lays on a hammock, and has a dialogue with Hermes lazily explaining that her "JOURNEY" will continue on "POSSIBLY" (if they get another season) but if it doesn't she'll just be "NAPPING".
...Why. Why save the episode of Kino's backstory for almost the very end when it's in volume 1 of the novel series and it was like episode 4 of the 2003 anime? It becomes even more baffling since the finale episode from 2003 has a character that is sort of a reflection of younger Kino but people who haven't watched the 2003 anime or read the novels won't get that. Additionally, why redo this episode at all if you're not going to end on it like the 2003 anime did? I understand that the sheep story is from one of the most recent volumes of Kino no Tabi and they probably wanted to end on a story from one of the recent volumes but... was that the really best one they could have chosen?
Rather than going out on an emotionally impactful note like the 2003 anime, 2017 goes out on perhaps one of the most schlocky episodes I've seen in quite a great deal of time. Kino gunning down CG sheep, setting an entire meadow on fire, and they even use slow motion!
I really find it fucking bizarre that of all of these episodes, I honestly enjoyed watching this one the most. And not solely because it was comically horrible but because Kino was actually finally doing something. Actually...
#K-2: No, We're Not Skimming Over This#
I don't wish to reiterate anything I already said in that status post about this episode, but I cannot move past it.
The sheep episode is not Lerche doing something weird or awful that goes against Kino no Tabi. No, this story actually is from the novels. Granted, it's from one of the newest volumes, so obviously the story has not been translated so I can't actively compare this episode to the original story but... I just can't help but wonder about it.
After twenty volumes, has the author just completely ran out of ideas? Like the episode did not make this seem like some joke country at all with Kino encountering the skeleton of a man who killed himself after realizing his leg was broken and he was trapped in this sheep hell, and the implication is VERY MUCH that he killed himself because of this.
Like when Kino finally seriously starts her war against the sheep, she straight up outright says: "This is for that man." Who...? The unnamed skeleton? So Kino who... watched on as another country destroyed the entire food supply of another country completely unphased... is now... claiming vengeance on sheep for an unnamed skeleton she found. What?
Additionally, there is straight up a "leave me, I'll sacrifice myself" moment between Hermes and Kino. Kino climbs down into this chasm leaving Hermes behind after Hermes insists on it, and it seems like Kino genuinely thinks she's actively sacrificing Hermes and will never see him again. But the sheep just outright don't attack Hermes at all and he's fine, and then Kino comes back, murders all the sheep, and then reclaims Hermes and does an action jump over the chasm to escape from the remainder of the sheep whose home she outright caused to become engulfed with flames and filled with the corpses of their sheep brothers and sisters.
What really puts a bow on this whole country/episode is that after Kino and Hermes finally escape and make it to the actual country, a guard asks her if she saw some sheep in the countryside. Because, lo and behold, the reason for the ravenous and violent sheep army is that this country until JUST RECENTLY would force sheep to do battle with each other for the entertainment of the people.
Sheep... sheep fighting. Why sheep? No seriously, why sheep? Is it seriously not dogs because that'd be too obvious, or the only way to make your already unlikable character even more unlikable is having her gun down an army of dogs?
To be honest, if it were dogs, the serious tone to the episode would be way less silly. But no yeah, people hate seeing dogs die in things, so fuck it, have it be sheep I guess. Nobody likes sheep. Kino can do trick shots blasting sheep back into the flames of hell and running over CG sheep in a car all day long.
Let's not even go into the fact that... like in the original anime/at least some of the early volumes of the novel, Kino does and is actually forced to kill both in defense of herself and just to provide her with food when she's on the road. Like she's actually killed people.
But in the entirety of Kino 2017... she just kills some sheep (oh and I guess the tyrant in the coliseum episode but that shouldn't even count since that's one of the remake episodes). That's it. It's not like I want to see Kino entering crazy and ridiculous gun battles or just her killing things in general. But there were actually some dark or weighty countries or ones with actual conflict...
Yet for Kino 2017 the only thing that comes close is... Kino gunning down an army of sheep. It's absolutely baffling.
#K-2: The Remake Episodes#
I figured I'd do an entire separate section for these at the start but... I'm now coming to terms that the remake episodes are probably the least interesting reason why I dislike Kino 2017. Because they're quite literal remakes or new versions of stories that were done in the 2003 anime... there's not really much to talk about with them.
Like I probably could actually watch both versions side by side simultaneously and point out all the differences or changes that 2017 makes, and yeah, maybe that'd actually make me even more upset at this adaptation than I already am. But to be honest, I think the very dumb location for two out of the three remake episodes is infinitely worse than any of the specific changes they made to the episodes/stories themselves. The idea of remaking the final country of the 2003 version which was a perfect final episode and NOT having it again as the final episode is just...
There's no getting around it. It's absolutely idiotic. I genuinely was a bit misty eyed when I first watched the original version of that episode, but I felt absolutely nothing this time around. I didn't see any motivation for why Kino would suddenly want to stay longer in the country beyond "well it's nice here" when in the original Kino had gone through some pretty rough countries at this point. Additionally, I should note that this episode is one of the few points of Kino 2017 where Kino does crack and actually show some form of emotion but... it felt like it disappeared almost literally one second later. Like it fucking evaporated into thin air.
Hmm... yeah, you know, if I had to choose one, I'd say I definitely believe the top Kino is witnessing an entire town's worth of people dying as a flow of lava just essentially wipes their country off the face of the Earth.
The coliseum episode I was initially fine with them remaking, but now I'm not so sure. Because sure, the original version was two episodes long rather than one, and there was actually a bit more atmosphere and the fighters were a bit more fleshed out when Kino found herself in this dingy underground with all of the other competitors. But really when you get down to it, the only reason why they included this in Kino 2017 is because this is where Shizu is introduced, and becomes essentially one of the few recurring characters of Kino no Tabi. But in the end, despite the inclusion of Shizu, all we get from the final moments of this show is Kino and her fucking hammock despite the surprisingly large focus on Shizu, Riku, and Ti throughout the rest of the show.
Oh, here's a bit of a confession. I skipped episode 11, which is the remake of Kino's backstory up until writing this sentence of the review. If there's anything especially noteworthy or glaring changes I notice while watching it mid-review, I will include them following this sentence. If I don't, it's probably just generally worse than the original's version.
...
...Kino's parents were a bit... I didn't like the direction they took with them this time around. I remember them being a bit calmer in the original? I don't think the original voice actors screamed/overacted quite as much as the 2017's version. Like yeah I know in the original/story they go off on young Kino after she tells them she doesn't want to receive a lobotomy anymore but...
Also, wait hold on.
Kino 2017's eyes are green. But then both her younger self as well as her adult self SOLELY in this episode's eyes are purple.
Wait, why? What about the original Kino???
...We have to go even further down this rabbit hole. What about one of the manga Kino's???
...This started out as an observation of solely Kino 2017, but now that I'm looking at them, even in the covers of the actual novels, her eye color is all over the place. Blue, green, purple, gray... why? This is just a small thing I only just now noticed which ultimately doesn't matter too much, because I honestly could care less about Kino's appearance when her character in Kino 2017 is just... a husk of nothingness.
...But apparently I'm an idiot, as this happens way earlier than when my brain first noticed it. Behold Kino 2017, the blue eyes edition.
"Who even cares if one of the most first commonly noticed physical characteristics of our character is completely inconsistent?"
#K-2: Conclusion#
I honestly don't know if they could have ended Kino 2017 any more obnoxiously than they did. After the absurd sheep story, we just get Kino and Hermes talking over basically a mostly still image of Kino lying in a hammock for like five straight minutes (including the ED). Kino and Hermes mentions "HER JOURNEY" over and over again and it's like they have no idea how much they should try and hammer it in so they just go overboard with it. But basically they imply "well we could maybe do a season two but if we don't then oh well... Kino will keep on traveling!"
...I'll pass on a season two (that's also brought to us by Lerche) of this, thank you. And you know if Kino 2003 would have ended with Kino explaining to Hermes that she's going to take a nap and maybe, MAYBE if she wakes up, she'll start out on her journey again FOR SEVERAL MINUTES, I would have reacted as negatively as I did when the 2017 version did this. But no, Kino 2003 was fine with actually ending with a little bit of finality. There was no "well maybe Kino will get a new awful adaptation 14 years after ours but sure yeah, she'll keep traveling" after Kino drove off on Hermes.
Kino 2003 remains a solid 9 out of 10 for me. Kino 2017 on the other hand... is a 1 out of 10. I really do genuinely believe that this goes way further than "I hate it just because I liked the original so much" and that if you tried to watch Kino 2017 and HATED it, maybe do actually go back and try Kino 2003. Like sure the animation is old but everything else is just... so much better.
Otherwise, my general recommendation would be to watch the original anime and if you enjoy it, possibly consider trying the novels out. Because while okay, all of the stories in Kino 2017 are ALL from the novels. The moving country, Photo's story, the goddamned sheep, and so forth. But what I'm thinking is that while apparently, and to be fair I only checked the moving country story for this, the anime is seemingly faithful in adapting these stories...
...Maybe these stories have less of an impact when going through the novels themselves. Because what I really want to believe is that Kino 2017, that Lerche for some reason apart from the remake episodes, FOR SOME REASON actively chose the worst stories of the entire series and shoved them all together in one package along with some remakes of the earlier stories. Like I honestly don't want to believe that the entire series beyond like the last of what the 2003 anime adapted is just... awful.
I didn't even go into this one, but what even was the point of doing an entire episode entirely of just off cuts? Like obviously they were miniature countries or bits probably scattered throughout the novels but why do an episode of just those? Like oh okay, Kino went to a country primarily of chefs, cooked for them, and then left. Or like a couple of bandits looking for people to ambush and rob both see Shizu as well as Kino and decide to not attack them but for different reasons and that's the end of THAT story. Couldn't... couldn't you have used this episode's spot for an actual country where she did anything that mattered?
You had twenty one volumes of material to choose from and... you're saying that in your opinion these were overall the best stories and most worthy to adapt and therefore that's why you chose them for the first Kino adaptation in fourteen years?
I don't buy it, Lerche. I JUST DON'T BUY IT.
Wait... Kino?
What's... what's happening to your face, Kino??? KINO???
~~KINO~~
Ugh...
My head... was I asleep?
Oh... oh right... I was watching anime...
Let's... watch anime!
...Experiment K-2 was a success. The subject underwent several psychological changes, and now seemingly has lost his memories of all of the past experiments after suffering a psychological breaking point.
We of the Theoretical Generalizing Goblin group are very excited for future experiments now that Subject T-33 has essentially been reset.
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