MarcS
04-05-2005, 07:42 PM
Kino's Journey is an anime series (4 discs, 13 episodes) about a traveller and a talking motorcycle exploring a fictitious world. It's one of the most artistic series I've seen, and one of the most disturbing things I've seen. "The world is not a beautiful place." All of the episodes are pretty much self-contained.
The "countries" (more like cities/towns separated by vast stretches of land) Kino visits are archetypal -- depictions of some philosophy or way of thinking taken to an extreme, with fiction used to provide vivid illustration. Each episode is part of a portrait of the world. It's extremely dark, and this isn't lightened much by the use of animation and fiction vs. stuff based in reality, like Schindler's List, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, &c. The episodes aren't particularly deep if deep means complex and obscure -- what's going on is really pretty simple, and there isn't a lot of reading between the lines.
Once you recognize the archetype, you might find yourself saying "Oh my God. I can't believe they did that, except that I know people who would behave like that". The series has a good bit of violence, but it's the gut-wrenching violence seen in noir, as opposed to the fast paced slapstick violence of traditional anime. Not something you can watch all at once, not something to watch while drinking (unless you need a major buzz kill), not something to watch while depressed. I got it off Netflix; if you can deal with noir and can fit a disc or two in your queue, it's worth it.
The "countries" (more like cities/towns separated by vast stretches of land) Kino visits are archetypal -- depictions of some philosophy or way of thinking taken to an extreme, with fiction used to provide vivid illustration. Each episode is part of a portrait of the world. It's extremely dark, and this isn't lightened much by the use of animation and fiction vs. stuff based in reality, like Schindler's List, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, &c. The episodes aren't particularly deep if deep means complex and obscure -- what's going on is really pretty simple, and there isn't a lot of reading between the lines.
Once you recognize the archetype, you might find yourself saying "Oh my God. I can't believe they did that, except that I know people who would behave like that". The series has a good bit of violence, but it's the gut-wrenching violence seen in noir, as opposed to the fast paced slapstick violence of traditional anime. Not something you can watch all at once, not something to watch while drinking (unless you need a major buzz kill), not something to watch while depressed. I got it off Netflix; if you can deal with noir and can fit a disc or two in your queue, it's worth it.