Kino's Journey - I
I figured I'd wait a day before giving a review of this anime series. I even waited until after watching the Colts win, to see if the time spent would temper my opinion at all. It hasn't.
Where eX-Driver was in the more silly/cheesy vein that I'm used to with Voltron and Battle of the Planets from my childhood, Kino's Journey goes into the more serious vein of things. The settings are exaggerations of sorts, but they are no more strange than the science fiction settings that I've read in more dystopian works. The first volume contains 4 episodes, where each was slightly darker than the previous with a different type of darkness.
The art for this anime series is extremely pretty. The colors are vibrant and beautiful, which contrasts rather strongly with the darker subjects that Kino comes across in the journeys. Snowfall, rain, and even the blood spray from a rabbit hunted for food are all drawn in such subtle ways that there's beauty in all of it. It's not drawn in dark, muted colors, as some of the more dark-future-themed anime and animated films that I've seen.
The stories are dark. Each one had a different problem that is touched upon. Not one of them has a "good" ending. There's nothing solved or resolved, really. It's a small insight of three days spent, which may affect other things, but there's nothing close to what most shows would consider an ending.
One thing that I found was that this series was extremely depressing. Were I depressed when I started watching it, I probably would've hidden in bed for hours afterward. It's extremely well-done and I hope to see the rest. This sort of darkness is something that I love seeing, but have never seen done quite so well in this art form. It's also rather thought-provoking, in its sadness.
Where eX-Driver was in the more silly/cheesy vein that I'm used to with Voltron and Battle of the Planets from my childhood, Kino's Journey goes into the more serious vein of things. The settings are exaggerations of sorts, but they are no more strange than the science fiction settings that I've read in more dystopian works. The first volume contains 4 episodes, where each was slightly darker than the previous with a different type of darkness.
The art for this anime series is extremely pretty. The colors are vibrant and beautiful, which contrasts rather strongly with the darker subjects that Kino comes across in the journeys. Snowfall, rain, and even the blood spray from a rabbit hunted for food are all drawn in such subtle ways that there's beauty in all of it. It's not drawn in dark, muted colors, as some of the more dark-future-themed anime and animated films that I've seen.
The stories are dark. Each one had a different problem that is touched upon. Not one of them has a "good" ending. There's nothing solved or resolved, really. It's a small insight of three days spent, which may affect other things, but there's nothing close to what most shows would consider an ending.
One thing that I found was that this series was extremely depressing. Were I depressed when I started watching it, I probably would've hidden in bed for hours afterward. It's extremely well-done and I hope to see the rest. This sort of darkness is something that I love seeing, but have never seen done quite so well in this art form. It's also rather thought-provoking, in its sadness.