Kino's Journey Vol. #2

By Dani Moure     April 11, 2005
Release Date: December 20, 2004



What They Say
For centuries, those in search of self-discovery and knowledge of the world have hit the road in furtherance of those quests. Young Kino, along with her talking motorcycle Hermes, has the same goal -- to travel and observe and learn from different cultures. Staying exactly three days in each location, Kino and Hermes learn much about the world and themselves.

In this volume, Kino discovers the joy inherent in a trip, without getting caught up in the destination. She realizes that the experience of the journey, and the diversions it brings, matters more than where she's going. As she chats with men working on railways, works hard, and encounters dramatic action in a Coliseum, Kino finds that what she learns along the way is the most important thing.


The Review!
Can Kino's Journey maintain the quality it had coming out of the first volume? It can, and more.

Audio:
I listened to the Japanese stereo track while watching this disc for my review, and noticed no distortions or dropouts. The track itself is good, though the series is heavy on the dialogue with only a little background music and incidental sounds at key moments. The two main cast members, Ai Maeda as Kino and Ryuji Aigase as Hermes, deserve endless praise for their portrayals; Kino with a sense of awe, wonder and maturity, and Hermes as one with experience but also a need to try and understand what Kino is thinking.

I spot-checked the English language track, which is presented in 5.1, and the only problem I noticed is that it doesn't downmix well into stereo, resulting in a tinny echo effect, at a lower overall volume than the Japanese stereo track. Outside of that, the English dub sounded solid from what I heard, with Kelli Cousins seeming to settle in much more as Kino now. It definitely seems to be developing well.

Video:
The video quality for this series is a strange beast. The transfer itself, being such a new show, is excellent, with a no noticeable artefacts, aliasing or other problems during regular playback of this anamorphic transfer. What is strange is the choice of the creative team to add what looks like scan lines to the picture. It gives the series an interesting and quite unique look, as it comes off almost dream-like in a way. But it can be a bit distracting at times, and it may have looked better if it wasn't there.

Subtitles are the usual ADV yellow font, and I noticed no issues with them.

Packaging:
The front cover has a gorgeous piece of artwork of one of the participants in the tournament at the coliseum, along with his dog, with a cloudy background and some robot characters lined up behind. The show's logo is at the bottom of the cover, in its original Japanese with the English translation underneath (though the English release drops the series' subtitle "The Beautiful World"). The volume number and title are also listed here. The back cover contains a few screenshots and a strange description of the show, kind of in riddles. The episodes are clearly listed, along with special features and the show's credits. The technical specs are also clearly listed in the usual ADV boxes.

Menu:
The menu is a simple system, with an image of Kino and Hermes on the right hand side, an episode listing on the left side, and languages and special features menu at the bottom. There's also a main window (which is bordered), with a slow-moving image of one of the lands. The opening theme's chorus plays over this menu. The two sub-menus are bordered slow-moving images, with a bit of background music playing over them. They're nice and quick to access, though the only problem I have is that there's no individual scene selection, which is something missing from a lot of ADV menus nowadays.

Extras:
The series continues to be light on extras, with the same features as the first volume: a clean opening and ending, and a few (admittedly nice) production sketches, set to some background music.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After being completely taken with the first volume, I wondered just how the second volume of Kino's Journey would fare when it was all said and done. To my great pleasure, there's no drop in quality at all, with the stories being as intense and engrossing as the last disc. Make no mistake though, in the same sense that it is as good in my eyes, if you didn't enjoy the first disc then there's probably not much to change your mind here. Although there is the added bonus of a series of well thought out and choreographed action sequences in the latter two episodes of the disc that might grab your attention.

The first episode on the disc is a stand-alone story, and in it's own way is really quite fascinating. On their way to another town, Kino and Hermes are following an old railroad, all dirty and covered in grass, when they come across a man sitting on top of a cart. Kino speaks to him, and joins him for lunch, at which point the man explains he's cleaning and polishing the track, and has been for around fifty years to pay for his family back home. He hasn't stopped because the company have never told him to. Kino also tells the man a story of a town he visited where the humans never had to do any work. But on beyond this man, they meet another not too far behind. He is pulling up the track, and has been for about fifty years to pay for his family back home. He also hasn't stopped because the company haven't told him too. Kino tells him the story of the town where humans don't work over lunch. Then, further along they meet another man who has also been at work for fifty years...

Despite being able to read what was going to happen by the time Kino and Hermes met the third man along the tracks, I really found the railway aspect of this story intriguing. It really shows the lengths people will go to for the sake of their families, and how some will follow orders blindly without question. Like most of the stories in this series though, it's really open to interpretation as to what the story is getting at and what the viewer will take away from it, and for me that's what makes the series work so well.

The sub-story about the town where humans don't have to do any work presents some interesting parallels to the possible future for humans, by showing us one way we might go if computers take over. In this town, some of the humans got together to work anyway, working on piles of paperwork that continuously amassed as all they did was recheck computer calculations. And if their results didn't match up? They'd start again. It was what one of the men there said to Kino though that left the strongest impression on me, as he said how they wanted to experience stress, and so some even killed themselves. It certainly left me with plenty of food for thought.

The remaining two episodes on the disc form a two-part story, and it's another winner. Kino and Hermes journey to another country but are caught up in what ends up being a brutal tournament. The king holds a regular tournament in which regular citizens are able to gain upper class status and live above ground if they win, as the other citizens live below ground working labour in the mines. The rules for the tournament are particularly harsh; if you ask your opponent to surrender and they accept, they are exiled from the country, but pretty much any other result ends up with one competitor's death. Kino is faced with the option of either competing in the tournament or going straight underground and living his life out there, despite her status as a traveller. Kino agrees to enter the tournament and proceeds through the initial rounds without killing anyone; she convinces her opponents to surrender by essentially forcing them into situations that they can't win. But as the latter stages of the tournament approach, the King becomes more bloodthirsty, and along with the crowd he wants to see some deaths; something he has a thirst for since he killed his own father to take the thrown in the first place.

It's hard to talk about this two-parter in any great detail without spoiling much of it, which would be a crying shame since it has quite a few surprises. Kino's choices throughout the course of the tournament was one of the most interesting aspects of the episodes, and Hermes was only used to bounce off some of Kino's thoughts, and almost acts as Kino's conscience in some parts. The interplay with the supporting cast is also captivating, as the three other finalists in particular have different paths they're trying to take and their own histories behind their actions. But what Kino proclaims after the tournament is said and done is an interesting rule to look at, and is another part of the story that is open to interpretation.

What's also great about these episodes is they're also filled with great action. The tournament plays out really well, only showing us the fights and the action that we need to see to advance the story, and what we do see is extremely well presented. It gives us a great chance to see how skilled Kino is at shooting and in terms of calculating and planning her victories.

Once again one of the key aspects of the show is how the stories end. The main story is revealed through the course of the episode, and then there's something at the end that helps define the characters and has an impact on the story and more than likely what you take away from it. When coupled with the social commentary that is present in the themes of the episodes (though they're in no way banged over viewer's heads), it makes for an experience that really is unlike almost anything out at the moment.

Summary:
After another three episodes, it's still hard to think of anything bad to say about Kino's Journey, especially given that there's even a fair bit of action in the two-part story. What makes the series so wonderful and quite refreshing is that the it really encourages the viewer to interpret the themes of the episodes and what is going on ourselves rather than being given all the answers. With such rich storytelling and great characterisation, it really is hard to go wrong with Kino's Journey, and I can't recommend it enough. The only downside is that there are only three episodes on this disc, and after watching it's hard to not want more straight away. It's a stunning series that everyone should give a chance, and it's easily one of the best releases of the year.

Features
Japanese Language (2.0),English Language (5.1),English Subtitles,Clean Opening & Closing,Production Sketches

Review Equipment
Philips 28" Pure Flat Widescreen TV, Pioneer DV-464 code free DVD player, JVC gold-plated RGB SCART cable, standard stereo sound.