Hi everyone. I’m fresh off both an exhausting and rejuvenating weekend attending and presenting at CONvergence (I’m not attending on Sunday due to a family event). As I mentioned, I don’t have the personal bandwidth to post about and discuss new episodes this week (I’m going to try to spend some of that energy attempting some first episode impressions), but I did want to post a little something for people to discuss (if they like) how they feel about the series so far. I feel like we’ve come so far with the series in just three weeks and it’s making the show feel really short to me for some reason. I know twelve episodes is a drop in the bucket depending on how you watch anime (I’ve been known to marathon a couple of series of that length in a day – I don’t recommend it) but in my mind it felt longer when I watched it through the first time. It speaks a bit to how fleeting anime fandom seems; there’s so much anime being produced at one time nowadays that it can become difficult to focus on and appreciate series that might have had more impact when we were in the dark years of the anime bust.
For reference, links to previous weeks’ posts and discussions are below:
Here are some general things to think about in case you’d like some more structure:
- So far, what have been your favorite/least favorite countries (or groups of people/general conglomerations/societies)? Why do you think you’re either drawn to or put off by these entities in particular? If you had to live in one of these places, which one would you pick?
- What episodes have made you think the most about your personal convictions or morals (whether to question/examine them or confirm them)?
- What are your thoughts on Kino as a character at this point in the series? Do you find them to provide a good entry point to experience the various societies in the series?
- Do you have any other general thoughts or feelings (both are valid in my opinion!) on the show?
For me, it’s difficult to pick a “favorite” country because I feel as though the MO of this series is that many of the societies are flawed in some very obvious, fundamental way which makes it easy to say “nope.” In real life the negative aspects of our societies tend to be more insidious and so it’s easier to examine them as a whole; each place is a mish-mash of various traits that defies very simple descriptors like “good” and “bad.” If I had to pick one place to live, I think it would be the moving country; ignoring the fact that it tend to leave a path of destruction (well… I suppose that’s hard to ignore), it’s technologically advanced and seems like a comfortable place to live. I like to think that perhaps if I lived there I could help contribute to a solution wherein the movement of the country could leave less of a destructive footprint while still maintaining the preferred lifestyle of the people there.
One the other side, I’d have to say that, at least based on what we see on screen, my least favorite society is the one which kept Photo as a slave. I didn’t really go into it during the formal discussion because I try to make a point of not leading the discussion in a particular direction (I can’t say I’m always successful), but the feelings I had towards the people in that society were dramatically negative to the point of revulsion. I think that a lot of things that humans do are understandable and forgivable; sometimes our reactions and solutions are just the best we have at the time. But the mental gymnastics required to dehumanize a person or a group of people are so unknowable to me and their effects so terrible that I honestly have to say that when those people all died I felt that some sense of universal justice had prevailed. Not to mention (and I’m also sad I didn’t go into this more/further last week) the ills of that group seem to include a predisposition for misogyny/toxic masculinity based mostly on the desires of the young boy to purchase Photo and beat her to death to prove his ability to “be a man.” Expressions of it tend not to be quite so blatant in real life, but in this episode it was just the cherry on top of the shit sundae that was this awful group of people.
For the second question, I think I’d have to say that the episode about the ship country probably made me consider things happening in the real world more closely than I usually do. I worry a lot about my country’s relations with others and what amount of interaction/meddling is the right amount, even if the situation is dire and there’s aid we could be providing. I think that we don’t always consider what about another culture may make our influence and interactions challenging or even insulting, since it seems to me that there’s always an implication that we occupy some moral and cultural high ground and by accepting our aid the other culture will then become exactly like our own. That’s a roundabout way of saying that Shizu does what he thinks is the right thing without having all of the information he needs to ensure that he’s correct, and I appreciate seeing that portrayed.
I think Kino is interesting to me because they occupy a space that’s between an observer of other cultures and a full participant in them, and that in turn feels wrong somehow. While I sometimes like to pretend that I have a neutral eye when I watch anime (and people like to pretend that “good reviewers” approach their subject with complete neutrality and lack of emotion), it’s clearly not true and frankly that standard is impossible (and this can make people so angry). Similarly, Kino is a focal point but also a person with a history. At this juncture we’re not informed about their backstory and so I think it’s easier to attempt to see them as a neutral party in order to get our own bearings, but when they don’t interact neutrally and sometimes do things counter-intuitively to how we might think a “good guy” would behave, it can be disorienting. Having seen the series before I have some insight into Kino, but for now I’m trying to push that aside and consider them at face value. Trying to work through complicated moral quandaries myself and then watching the person who is ostensibly our POV character act differently is certainly an interesting mental exercise.
Generally, I really like this series (and the previous Kino series, too). I continue to be impressed by how though-provoking it is, as well as its ability to leave me feeling unsettled. At the convention this weekend I attended several panels where the discussions prompted me to consider my own feelings and biases, and in some sense I feel like this series similarly serves to challenge the way I typically approach anime and my default feelings I have about how the world works. Though many of the scenarios are simplified, I feel like they’re a good jumping-off point for considering some of the more challenging situations we encounter in life.
I hope you’ve been getting as much out of the series as I have! We’ll be continuing next Sunday with episodes 7 and 8, so this is a great time to catch up with the show if you’ve been busy.
One reply on “Anime Book Club: Kino’s Journey ~The Beautiful World~ Break!”
Honestly, I am glad that i have a week off from accidentally writing essays.
I feel like looking at the show’s portrayal of the country that Photo came from is pretty interesting. As you said, they have so many negative qualities that the viewer has really no choice but to look at them as irredeemable people. The only real positive that I can come up with for them is that they have a wonderful sense of community among the people in the average citizenry. While this has obviously been used to encourage and persist a lot of negative actions and feelings toward Photo (and presumably others), they do make a solid effort to teach the younger generation about their ways.
We particularly see this with the encouragement for the young boy to buy Photo. Obviously this (along with his intentions) is horrible. Nevertheless, this society seems to value their future leader to be strong and able to do what “needs” to be done and will do whatever is needed to make that happen. The boy was probably naturally a little cruel, but it was probably heavily encouraged by the community. While acting such a way in most communities would be a negative and detrimental, it is plausible that this country experiences enough crises that this mindset is very helpful for their overall survival. If they frequently are attacked, suffer from starvation, or experience any number of other hardships, it is reasonable that a strong leader could be valuable. There are clearly better ways to approach leading such a group, and even if they truly need a leader who can act in such a way if necessary, there are a lot of methods of doing so without being unnecessarily cruel.