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Lines:
Did you not see the second half of TTGL? That's sad if true, it's the best part.

Taekwondoin:
Kill la Kill

I need to talk about cars for a minute, and I'm sorry if I bore anyone with it, but if anyone has ever watched Top Gear they'll know that Clarkson seems to love cars that just aren't perfect, because they have a certain something, he calls it the soul of the machine which I guess is quite an apt way of describing it, but the flaws of the car don't hinder the enjoyment of liking it. It's why people will praise an Alfa Romeo for having passion and flair and being as fun as hell, it is not perfect, but by fucking god will you love it.

And it made me think about this show, it's not perfect, it doesn't have the complexity of some of the other shows in the creators back catalogue, it doesn't have the budget either so the animation isn't always on par with some other action shows (even if the style was great). However, Kill la Kill never strived for perfection, it never tried to be anything other than what it was. As a result, any of it's flaws end up actually endearing the show to me more, and the more criticisms I read of the show, the more I love it.

(click to show/hide)And actually it handled some themes better than I've seen not just in anime, but in most media, especially family. Arguably, right from the start of the show right through to the end, all Ryuuko ever wanted was a family, she never get on with her dad, it's implied that school was pretty much hell where she did nothing but fight people that bullied her, and she lived alone throughout all of this. Then Isshin is killed, and off she goes to Honnouji, seemingly to fight more of the same kind of bullies, and along comes Mako. Suddenly she has not just a best friend, but an adoptive family, and we see just how much that means to her in episode 7, and we constantly see how much Mako and Ryuuko mean  to each other through the series, and it's always done really fucking well. Nearer the end we see that she has a real sister in Satsuki, and the relationship develops very nicely in what ends up being a short amount of time, culminating in that awesome as shit run to catch Ryuuko as she falls from the sky.

What about the other themes? Well we have the flip side of the above in the portrayal of an abusive family from Ragyou, sexually abusing her daughters, and later physically abusing them too. We also see how she discarded the baby Ryuuko by throwing her in the trash, literally. To me, the scene in ep 16 was pretty fucking uncomfortable, and that was certainly intentional as we build up more of a picture of Ragyou's nature.

Other themes? Well there's a lot of people saying about how this is all about female empowerment and is ultimately a feminist step forward for anime. I don't really agree with that, but then neither do I agree that the show is particularly bad for women. What I will say is that there is almost as much manservice as there is fanservice, and I don't actually think they really play it as overly sexualised at all.

More than anything in this show though, it's the characters that really make it. I have never ever liked a character set as much as I do in this show, all the villains are great to hate on, and the heroes are all just fucking great. But my main shout outs go to Ryuuko and Satsuki, I cannot bring 2 characters to mind who I like more than these 2, especially Ryuuko. Everything about their portrayal, their script, the fucking glorious VA's was total perfection (despite what I was saying earlier about perfection...). And that's not forgetting Mako, the 4 Deva's, the Mankanshoku's, Aikuro and Tsumugu, all of them were just brilliant in every sense of the word.
The ending was just the last brick in the skyscraper of my mind that cements this show as my all time favourite. People can tell me that it's flawed and I'll agree, people can tell me that there are shows that maybe do these themes better and I might also have to agree. However, no one will ever take away from me just how much enjoyment I got from this show, no one will take away how much of myself I ended up investing into watching it, and no one will know how profoundly I find myself changed by it.

5/5

GarandMarine:
A brief review of Kill La Kill poking at it's deeper themes.

If you want the basic, characters, story, animation, music/sound breakdown then stop right here. 10/10. Which is also my over all review of the anime. If that's all your looking for then you can stop right here, because we're about to go deeper. Spoilers! They're about to happen! So if you've been living under a rock and have yet to finish Kill La Kill... well what the fuck are you doing here?

(click to show/hide)There's a BUNCH of stuff going on in Kill La Kill, Trigger's surface stuff and trope exploration, made famous with Gurren Lagen, and their trademark Over The Top... everything... is in fine form here, with magical girl anime and their traditional fetishistic/exposing transformation sequence and costuming being one of the most pointed and obvious skewers from square one. Comedy, action, fan/manservice all of this stuff is on display at the surface and can be incredibly distracting from the central theme of the anime.

It all comes down to CLOTHING! I know it's hardly a shocking revelation but it's not in the way you're thinking. It's clothing as a social device that's the central theme here. Remember a lot of Japan is pretty damn clothing concious, Tokyo is one of the fashion capitals of the world and how you dress, and what labels you're wearing can be damning in certain circles, to a further extent then the version of this behavior you see in the U.S. with the epicenters being the American fashion capitals of Los Angeles and New York City.

Take a second and think about your clothing, think about your favorite shirt, your favorite pants, skirt, shoes, what do they say about you to an outside observer? Do they communicate anything in particular? You might not think they do, but when you take a step back and examine your mode of dress you are in fact telling people that you belong to certain groups. Whether it's based on passions such as anime, firearms, video games, the types of music you associate with, rock, punk, rap, or you just happen to only wear a certain brand whether it's Hot Topic or American Eagle. This has been an inescapable facet of human culture for centuries, since we first put clothing on. Ragyou even goes into what we were befor the fibers got their... uh... fabric on us, naked apes, unaware of their nakedness, much like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, now obviously clothing (or life fibers) didn't influence our actual evolution BUT they did influence our social evolution.

From earliest man on clothing, whether it was the red cloaks of the Roman Legion, or the simple jewlery of our further ancestors have been used to distinguish groups within society, while the shape of that society's clothing over all distinguishes that culture from others, fighting against that grain by dressing differently, by adopting a different culture's dress or that of an extreme sub culture (say the Punk style compared to general Western clothing) will get you looked at different and looked down upon by many people.

This social pressure based on how we dress and what we look like, how we present ourselves to those around us, is simply put, conformity. It's subtle, the desire to conform and be like everyone else, it can be lonely on your own, and going with the crowd, not swimming against the current of the social wave has it's benefits doesn't it? Think about what the main wave in your local area wears, in particular think back to High School, when that sort of thing was closer to the surface. For my cohort American Eagle, Nikes, Rebok and a few other "main" brands were what you wore if you were part of the main "group". Ragyou's "Revocs" corporation is set to be just such a brand, albeit on a dominating global level.

So as human beings a very real part of our self identity and personality is caught up in how we dress, how we present ourselves to the world around us. It's why in the United States students fight against dress codes under the concept of freedom of expression (which falls under speech).

Enter Ryukou Matoi and her scissor blade. From the word go she's dressed differently then everyone around her, her flash of red in her hair distinguishes her as well. From the first time she steps on to the grounds of Honnouji Academy she's challenging the social order and rebeling.

This brings us to the central theme of Kill La Kill. Revolution. Not political revolution, but individual revolution. The personal rebellion where you stand up and chose your own path in life. Fighting against the the current and resisting the easy road. Hell the anime LITERALLY tells you every episode with the refrain of "Don't Lose Your Way"

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBoocPe_DNU
So what happens when everyone is their own revolution? Culture changes. A species changes. At the very least you will change for the better. Within Kill La Kill we see multiple forms of revolution, Satsuki's "change from within the system" playing by her mother's rules while preparing the minds and wills of those who follow her to resist, snd Nudist Beach who take the path of forming an extreme counter culture to fight against the main stream. However as Ryoko fights on, more and more individuals have their own personal revolutions and realizations, the theme of revolution becoming even more obvious once the curtain comes off Satsuki's plan to resist Ragyou's plots with the life fiber aliens. Even Senketsu under goes a personal revolution in how he sees himself, and his place in the world by the end of the anime.

So final word, what is the message of Kill La Kill? What theme does it truly want to present us? IMHO it's just four simple words that I mentioned earlier...


Don't lose your way.


Other stuff that's ended.

Strike the Blood 7/10
It was a little bit generic and some of the arcs really didn't do well for me over all but I had a damn good time and really love a lot of the characters! It's activated my anime pet peeve of a lack of relationship resolution though it did at least give us a hint of a "romantic" ending.

Gin no Saji (Silver Spoon), Second Season 9/10
Fantastic is as fantastic does, a sweet little slice of life with some very real drama and some very well done character arcs. The pet peeve of no romantic arc resolution remains though. Goddess DAMN it Hachi kiss Mikage already. You want to and it's pretty clear she wouldn't mind hell, Mom, Grandma and Great-Grandma already have you marked as marriage material. Get with the program.

Sakura Trick - 6/10
It's a cute little romance slice of life with a heaping scoop of fan service ala mode to go with it. It's really disappointing in the end because I was hoping for a heavily character driven lesbian romance and well... I didn't get it.

pwhodges:
Spoof movie posters using Madoka Magica characters.

Lines:
Those are hilarious!

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