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| Welcome to Hell |
Overview
Our story begins in a regular classroom at Honnouji academy, a school populated by more bowl-cut clones than a bad Star Wars prequel. Similar to a certain Japanese minister the only flaw the academy seems to find with Nazism was they happened to lose; fascism is the order of the day and history starts with Hitler. What semblance of normalcy remaining lasts approximately thirty seconds before the disciplinary committee chair, Gamagoori Ira, makes his entrance into class by kicking the steel door off the hinges, before hunting down and actually murdering a student and hanging his corpse outside as a warning for stealing a magical school uniform that gives you special powers. Kill la Kill, it would appear, is aptly titled.
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| Did I also mention Gamagoori is bigger than the room? |
The uniform based hierarchy of the school is soon explained through some handy exposition. The position of the students ranges from the No-stars to the four elite three-stars. At the very top is Absurdly Powerful Student Council President, Kiryuin Satsuki, whose main claim to power is the ability to pose dramatically in the wind on top of absurdly tall towers.
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| She's only up there because she doesn't know how to get down |
Fear is Freedom,
Subjugation is Liberation,
Contradiction is Truth!
Enter our heroine: Seventeen year old schoolgirl, Matoi Ryuuko.
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| Hasami Senshi |
The hard-as nails, school-hopping, one-half-of-a-pair-of-giant-scissors-wielding, tomboy is on a quest to find out who murdered her beloved father. The trail has led her straight to Honnouji Academy and its fuhrer/ president. She brushes off a thieving gang of children (Our speciality is giving up!) and sort of befriends the gang leader's older sister, Mankanshoku Mako. However while prepubescents are easy pickings, she faces more of a challenge when faced with an opponent old enough for their voice to have dropped. In this case the two-star ranked boxer, Fukuroda Takaharu, who promptly beats our heroine down after she dares to grill their queen for information.
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| Row, row fight the... |
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| Never mind |
Ryuuko beats a hasty retreat while the student council meet to discuss the troublesome transfer student. The president is unhappy Fukuroda failed to confiscate the scissors as they are a dangerous tool, capable of cutting even the magic school uniforms. The council decide to execute Ryuuko's "friend" Mako as a ploy to draw Ryuuko out of hiding.
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| My first dictatorship, featuring: Mr Frog; Mr Monkey; Mr Dog; and Miss Snake (Accessories sold separately) |
Ryuuko meanwhile has fled back to the ruins of her family home. Embracing her inner shounen protagonist she cries out in the rain for more power. She is promptly dropped down a trapdoor into a secret cavern by Mikisugi Aikuro, the nebbish teacher casting his glasses aside and sweeping back his hair to reveal he's only a rose tinted background away from going full bishounen. Down below Matoi is assaulted by a demonic, talking school uniform awoken by her blood, which demands she wear it into battle. Its that sort of show.
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| Why Mr Mikisugi...you're beautiful |
Clad in her new demonic uniform and a cloak she borrowed from Anakin Skywalker, Ryuuko sneaks into the execution and is able to save Mako right before the oblivious girl is literally turned into tempura.
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| Why use scissors when you have perfectly good people to weaponise |
Ryuuko then faces down against Fukuroda for round two. His punches shred Ryuuko's cloak, much to her embarrassment as her ridiculous outfit is revealed for all to see. Fukuroda reveals in turn the iron spikes hidden beneath his gloves. Fighting past Fukuroda's dirty tricks and the utter impracticability of what she's wearing, Ryuuko uses her new power to wreak him.
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| Marquess of Queensbury, it is not |
She finishes by flinging his broken, bloodied and - naturally - naked corpse at the president; a single drop of blood streaking past the queen's human wall of mooks and staining her cheek. Her authority challenged the president, a firm traditionalist, decides not to destroy Ryuuko now while her power is still easily manageable, but instead lets her go. No doubt to Ryuuko a sporting chance the president will send wave after wave of increasingly powerful flunkies (Going by the preview the first assassin possesses the deadly power of tennis) after her so the scissor girl can gradually gain power by absorbing their uniforms into her own. I guess if you spend most of your day standing at the top of a tower you've got to come up with some way to keep yourself entertained.
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| You didn't think it was going to be that easy did you? |
Reaction
The first word I'd use to describe Kill la Kill - after what the hell did I just watch! (Which is more of a sentence) - is fun. Which makes perfect sense when you consider the pedigree of director Imaishi Hiroyuki and writer Nakashima Kazuki, whom previously collaborated on another other-the-top show that kicked reason to the curb in the name of adventure and fun: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. To many fans of the mecha series I'm sure Kill la Kill's stylisation will be very familiar. As such its little surprise Studio Triggers first major anime outing has received such hype.
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| Who the hell do you think I am!? |
If you've come looking for an original story you're going to be disappointed. The plot appears to be generic to the point of parody. The strong use of clichés such as the four "generals", the transfer student with a mysterious power and a student council with far too much authority (which is hilariously hand-waved aside) isn't a weakness but a strength; a tribute to the genre of fighting high school anime as Gurren Lagann was to the mecha genre. For example Ryuuko's victory would have felt cheap and lazy in most other series (it required no effort on her part aside perhaps from some heavy emotional scarring), but in the world Kill la Kill creates, it works.
The animation is key to creating such a crazy atmosphere and Kill la Kill is wonderfully animated. The whole show, especially during the fighting scenes, bursts with a madcap energy that demands attention. One of my favourite touches was the usually indiscreet white captions - informing the audience of location, character names and the time of day - being replaced by giant red lettering towering across the screen.
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| Just in case you forgot her name the first time. |
Best of all Kill la Kill is genuinely funny. Whether it was Mako's determination to be anime's most stereotypical schoolgirl, Ryuuko politely coming back after fleeing for her life on a stolen scooter to return a delivery, or her rather weak protests during her fight with Fukuroda that she didn't know the rules of boxing, but she was fairly sure iron spikes were illegal, the show got genuine laughs out of me several times.
The show is not without flaws though, the most major being Matoi Ryuuko. Brace yourselves lads and ladies, this is going to get ranty.
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| I think there's probably a good reason Ryuuko's father left that uniform hidden in the basement |
Now let me be clear I don't have a problem with Ryuuko herself. In fact, I really like her. Her design gives off a really cool vibe and her voice actress, Koshimizu Ami (Kallen in Code Geass), gives a suitably hot blooded performance. Furthermore, despite the rather sarcastic comment above I really don't have an issue with her choice of costume either.
What rather annoyed me was Ryuuko's treatment in the show. Yoko, of Gurren Lagann fame, wore a similarly skimpy outfit, little more than shorts and a bikini top; the difference was Yoko was perfectly happy with what she wore while Ryuuko is clearly uncomfortable. It differed from the male nudity too, which was played purely for laughs rather than any intention of female arousal.
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| At least, I really hope there wasn't. |
While there is a lot of innate humour to be drawn from a character, especially a cool or dignified one, being forced to wear a stupid outfit, its rather undermined here by an undercurrent of "I'm wearing a sexy outfit, but I was forced into it in order that my subsequent embarrassment allows me to retain the appeal of my innocence while you, the viewer, are still able to ogle over my body" that is more appropriate for your typical sub-par romcom.
Of course, that particular cliché is sadly so common within anime it cause little more than an eye roll (And I'm sure I can hear you, dear reader, rolling your eyes at me for bringing up such a trivial point). My bigger problem was the basement segment, where she was pretty much sexually assaulted by her own uniform. Again, there is a lot of humour in a situation where a character is being attacked by what is essentially their own superhero costume (And I admit, because of that coupled with how bizarre it was there was a part of me that found this scene very funny), but its a lot less fun looking back when a show chooses to trivialise an issue that is already not taken seriously enough.
I've watched more than enough anime in my time that I wasn't at all shocked at what I mentioned above, but I was somewhat disappointed. Ryuuko is a strong, likeable protagonist, and I felt she deserved better than the mediocre harem show treatment she received at times.
Make no mistake, Kill la Kill is a funny, wild ride, that I fully intend to follow. My only hope is now they've gotten the rather more tiresome anime clichés out of their system they can focus on the other 95% of the show that so far looks very promising indeed.
