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Kino's Journey Volume 1: Idle Adventurer (DVD)

Kino is a traveler. Sitting astride the back of an internal combustion companion – drifting through the beautiful world, the ground rolling beneath, before, and beyond; this is their journey.

Across borders they meander – appreciating the generous, surviving the dangerous, witnessing the whims of mankind. Staying their welcome, sometimes too long, sometimes too short; but always the same three days.

Wielding guns, knives, and a piercing wit, Kino travels along – knowing luck, knowing silence, and knowing when to disappear.

The latest series from ADV is Kino’s Journey. This series works from the dynamic of the main characters as well as methodically paced storytelling to slowly develop their scenarios while continuing to develop the characters. Kino’s Journey features a melding of bright modern anime with throwback character designs remind me of Miazaki’s (My Neighbor Totoro, Laputa) work. While slowly paced, the art style is elegant, allowing for a more refined anime experience.

Episode 01: Land of Visible Pain

The disc starts off by introducing our protagonist, Kino, and her trusty motorrad Hermes (apparently a motorrad is exactly like a motorcycle, except able to talk… or in Hermes’ case: bitch incessantly). The pair travels from country to country searching the world, with Hermes asking Kino about the world that they find together.

The land that the pair comes across is world of machines: machines handle every need, but the country seems to be missing people. Eventually, Kino finds the citizens of the world, but they have isolated themselves in their homes away from their

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neighbors and families. Apparently, the scientists of the country found a way make people telepathic, which they believed would make people more peaceful… except something unexpected happened.

Episode 02: A Tale of Feeding Off Others

Kino and Hermes continue their trip through a winter field at the first thaw when they come across a stranded truck. Inside the truck are three traders who have

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been trapped inside the truck since the first snowfall knocked them from the road and kept them off the road. For the weakened men, Kino offers to hunt to help them regain their strength and eventually return to their village. The episode highlights Kino’s struggle between hunting animals for the men (killing one being for another being’s sake) and his decision to help them. The realism shown during the hunting sequence makes Bambi’s mother dying look like a stock report; excellent visualism.

Episode 03: Land of Prophecies

A multi-part episode. The first part involves Kino arriving in a country where the citizens are being told to expect the end of the country in the next day after hearing the translation of an ancient text. With all citizens getting ready for their deaths, Kino is finding that all people are parting with their wares for free… so it’s a buyer’s market and Kino is stocking up.

Second Part: Kino arrives in a new country that apparently hasn’t had any visitors in a while… the customs officer was surprised to see anybody and once Kino and Hermes were entering, he signaled the entire country to prepare for a visitor. The entire village then arrives wearing cat ears and begins to dance and tries to get her to join in. Only the reasoning behind the performance is more absurd than the performance itself. The third part takes place in a Venice-like city, which holds onto a tradition of sorrow where the same sorrowful poem is recited repeated until the evening to atone for the manner in which the poem was created.

Only the epilogue to this tale is more surprising than the individual parts.

Episode 04: Land of Adults

We finally get to see the start of Kino’s journey. She was the daughter of innkeepers, living in a country that was fixated on the idea of conformity and adult control taken to the extreme.

At the age of twelve, all children undergo a surgery to make them more amenable to working and more docile. The young unnamed girl attaches to a middle-aged traveler named Kino who decides to fix up a motorrad abandoned outside the inn. As the traveler talks to the girl, he is repulsed by the country’s society and surgery system and his pointed questions of the young girl cause her to ask questions of her parents. The mere questioning of the system causes the parents to fly into a rage and kill their “defective” daughter. The kindly Kino saves the young girl by jumping into the path of the intended killing knife and the young girl escapes on the newly repaired motorrad. Once free of the village, the young girl assumes the name of the traveler and is now Kino and decides to christen the motorrad Hermes.

Kino’s Journey can be defined at draction: drama with an action sensibility. Despite his cute exterior, Kino is a lady of action when it’s necessary and the violence is stark next to the deep drama that comes before it. A surprisingly layered anime, definitely worth watching.

- Tazman

(July 15, 2004)

“Loretta's mom was hankering for a snack, so I had to pick her up some Kibbles-and-Bits.”

- Cleveland (The Family Guy)