Kino's Journey Vol. #3

By Dani Moure     February 21, 2005
Release Date: February 21, 2005



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...

Includes the episodes 'Land Of Wizards', 'Land Of Books' and 'A Tale Of Mechanical Dolls'.


The Review!
Another volume of Kino's Journey arrives, and it's another winner.

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 down-mixing problem present on the last volume thankfully seems to be gone here, as it sounds nice. The English dub seems to get better with each passing volume, with Kelli Cousins seeming to settle in much more as Kino now.

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 beautiful piece of artwork of Nimya from Episode 8 in the foreground with her flying machine behind her in front of the moon. 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 production sketches, set to some background music. Not very inspiring at all, especially for a series this good.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Having loved the previous two volumes, I firmly look forward to watching any new episodes of Kino's Journey at the earliest possible opportunity. And yet there's always a feeling that it might, just might, falter at the some point like so many excellent series have before. But that's certainly not the case with the third volume, which continues to be as strong as the discs that came before it.

All of the episodes on this disc are stand-alone, with some great themes explored. The first opens with a prologue of Kino talking about birds flying through the sky, and how it must feel. It then switches focus to a woman called Nimya, who is being called by her fiancé to go and meet his family. But she has other ideas, having just finished her invention, she has to go to the Country Chief to appeal to him for her to see through her dream. It also happens to be this day that the country has welcomed its first travellers in five years - Kino and Hermes. They are listening to the Chief ramble on when Nimya bursts in to appeal to him to have a massive statue moved, because she needs a straight run of the land to get a good enough speed to take off in her flying machine. While the Chief, and the other citizens, are less than receptive to her, shrugging her off with little thought, Kino is far more interested in helping her realise her dream.

The main theme of this episode is about the dreams people have and trying to accomplish them, as Nimya demonstrates the lengths some will go to, no matter who they must defy, to try and do just that. But it also explores other people's reactions to those who try and realise a dream that seems particularly far-fetched, and something that is perhaps impossible. The Country Chief, her neighbours, and more importantly her fiancé all believe that she won't ever make her machine fly, and for the sake of keeping a statue in its place they go to great lengths to try and get her to dismantle her invention. And yet it only takes the belief of one person (and a motorrad) to drive her to see it through no matter the consequences, and it pays off in beautiful fashion. In that respect it has a nice and uplifting feel to it, and one of the more interesting aspects is Kino telling Hermes at the end that she didn't believe Nimya would succeed. Despite that, just Nimya thinking Kino believed was enough for her. Like all episodes this one also has an intriguing twist at the end, which also demonstrates just how fickle society can be.

Episode 9 explores a different theme, this story revolving around a country that's said to have the biggest library of books anywhere, with books from every country. On their way there, Kino and Hermes meet a man in the desert who they help, and he gives them a book so they can use it to make a withdrawal from the library. On arriving though, the library is tiny, and Kino is told that while they have books from every country here, only a select few are on display because they have to go through a strict screening process to ensure they're not harmful. In addition, no one in the country is allowed to write books. But Kino soon gets caught up in an elaborate plot involving a resistance group who want to change the system so all books are readable.

One of the interesting themes that this episode explores is of course censorship, and the effect it has on people. Here, many of the citizens of the country are so eager to be able to read anything they want that they form a resistance group to try and storm the "castle" where the critics reside in order to try and make all books available to everyone. Additionally, many of the citizens are said to be so enamoured by the illegal books that they do read that some of them start to believe they are the characters from the book, and that the story of the book is reality. It's interesting as the comments from the Author really blur the lines between fantasy and reality, and it almost becomes something of a mind trip at times, and it all goes to show that perhaps keeping some books from people is not the best thing to do considering the detrimental effect it has on some. But again, the ending contains a twist to the tale that makes it even more interesting.

The final episode on the disc has Kino and Hermes looking for another country, when they come across an old woman while they're in a forest, who tells them no country is nearby. She invites them to her master's house, where she shows them a basement full of mechanical dolls, and reveals that she is one herself. But when her master's family returns, things aren't quite right. They all talk the same and none of them eat their food, but instead throw it away and tell the old woman it was delicious when she comes out and asks them if they enjoyed it. In fact, they seem to exhibit more traits of robots themselves...

This is another interesting episode, though it's slightly different in its setup to the other episodes. From very early on, it's pretty obvious that the family are the mechanical dolls given the behaviour they show and how the old woman seems far more human than them. But the point of the episode is really how this is explored in terms of the characters, and when the reasons why the old woman behaves the way she does, it comes as quite a surprise and makes the story very bittersweet.

While these episodes step away from the action element that the two-parter in the last volume had, they're an extremely strong batch of episodes that have some very engaging themes that challenge you to think about the material presented to you. And that's what makes the series so strong. You're not handed all the answers on a platter, you're left to interpret what goes on however you want, and it makes the series all the more magical and also far more personal than most series. Once again the writers employ the technique of introducing a twist, of varying degrees, at the end of the episode that has a great impact on both your feelings about the episode and its characters and the story itself. While you'd think it'd feel a bit formulaic as the series draws on, it in fact always seems fresh as it just makes each story more gripping.

Summary:
Kino's Journey is simply one of the best series currently being released. In fact, it's one of the best anime every released in the UK, period. With engaging stories and powerful themes, it encourages us to think about what we've watched rather than just presenting it to us in a straightforward fashion, and that's what makes it so appealing and so great. I could go on and on about how great I think the series is, but since I've done that in previous reviews I'll just say that everyone should get out and buy this series, because it deserves to sell more than most series which probably will. And that's the biggest shame, that a series like this may be overlooked by so many because it's not flashy, shiny and full of action and fan-service. Nevertheless, Kino's Journey is a stunning series, and that's should be a good enough recommendation for anyone.

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.