Kino’s Journey (2017): A Review – Glass Reflection

It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do a comparison piece like this. I’ve had the opportunity to do so twice, but only did it once. Brotherhood was easy, but I didn’t know enough about Dragon Ball Z Kai to give it a crack. But now we have a sequel/remake to one of my favourite anime series that finished airing at the end of last year: Kino’s Journey. This new series is both a continuation and a retelling of the previous 2003 series, which I have right here. Now both of these are adaptations of a light novel that goes by the same name. But since I am such a fan, I thought it was only prudent to have a look at this new series to see what it has done right and what it might have been able to do a bit better. And so – ladies, gentlemen, and others – my name is Arkada and welcome to Glass Reflection. Today: Kino’s Journey (2017). Let’s Jam!

First off, I should mention that I’m not here today to go over what Kino’s Journey is and if you should watch it. My review of the original series still exists. And if you don’t have the time to watch that, then let me say that while the animation of the 2003 version is dated by today’s standards, the series itself is still one of my favourites and is totally worth your time.

Next, a clarification on what exactly this new Kino series is, because while both versions of Kino’s Journey are adaptations of the same material, each of them goes about adapting said source in different ways. 2003 took the traditional method. It adapts everything from the first 6 chapters of the light novel and then adds a scattering of other released stories to fill in the gaps. However, 2017 is much more like a greatest hits album. Back in 2015, there was a poll sent out to readers of the light novel to determine the best stories from the series released so far. The result of said poll is apparently what decided which stories would be adapted into this new season.

On the one hand this way of adapting is kind of brilliant because Kino’s Journey is set up in such a heavily episodic way that this actually works. But on the other hand, it left hopes for a future beyond these confirmed 12 episodes dashed on the side of the road before the series even started. Because you can’t justify having more seasons of a show when you’ve already confirmed that the episodes you’ve already adapted are the best ones. Everything’s going to kind of feel like a step down after that.

But now the more important question is, since it has been 14 years since the first adaptation, have they done things better?

Well, the animation certainly has seen an increase in quality. Kino 2003 was consistent in only that the animation was inconsistent. At times, it was a sort of a blobby mess, with extremely muted colors, and as I’ve complained about before, this weird scan line effect it decided to have. Though as bad as all of that is, objectively I’ve never held it against it. It was never so bad for me that it was distracting from the story that they were trying to tell. Heck, one of the more famous quotes from the series is, “The world is not beautiful, therefore it is.” It’s a series that’s trying to find the beauty in all things and its less-than-stellar animation actually was a boon in that regard.

The 2017 adaptation is much cleaner. In some cases though, it’s almost a bit too clean, the 3D cuts especially. I realize that 3D for a lot of anime is a cost cutting measure, but I’m still here kind of hopeful that we can get a Blu-ray release down the line, one where the 3D animation will be improved.

And now, time for the meat, the legitimate side-by-side comparison that we can do. Because the second episode of the 2017 adaptation is a story called Coliseum. It is a story about Kino entering a country that requires EVERYONE to battle to the death, thus forcing Kino to participate. It is such a well-beloved story from Kino, that it has been adapted twice now. But man, this time around? It was disappointing.

Some of the parts were nice, like how the sets were drawn as it was far closer to what was written in the original story than what was shown back in 2003. Kino’s entry to the country is a great example of this. Both in the novel and this new anime, we are shown a fairly normal gate with the sun shining down just like it is in any of the other countries. But in the 2003 version of this particular story however, it started off with Kino in an underground dungeon with no indication of why she would have gotten herself into that situation to begin with.

But on the other hand, 2003 also took the time and dedicated two full episodes to the story of Coliseum, whereas 2017 did it in one. I am reminded of my first watch through of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, when I saw the Elric brothers during the readapted version of the Father Parnelo story. Coincidentally, in its own 2003 version this story took two episodes to tell, but then in Brotherhood it was also shortened to one. It felt rushed, really rushed. It felt almost as if the soul of the story was slightly ripped out because we didn’t get to see the background story about Rose or how Parnelo treated the townspeople. It was much more like a Cliffs Notes version of the story. 2017 Kino feels the same way.

Because I have been such a fan of the 2003 adaptation, this new one just felt like it was missing things. At first, as I said, I was disappointed. But then, like I did with Fullmetal Alchemist, I decided that the best way of going about talking about this was to read the novel. And to my surprise, the 2017 adaptation was far more faithful than it was in 2003. All of that added story about the citizens, about the king, none of it was from the original novel. It was all added for the adaptation. Which now leaves me feeling conflicted.

With this being the second episode, if you’ve never seen Kino’s Journey before, you have no groundwork whatsoever of either the world or of Kino. Sure, we see Kino avoid violence in episode one, but then to quickly swap over to murdering a sovereign based on the stories of a few guards in episode two? It’s a bit like whiplash. Though perhaps that was the intent.

What’s worse is that this new Kino series doesn’t have a lot of new Kino actually in it. This new series contains twelve episodes, three of which are re-adaptions of stories previously adapted in the 2003 version. Two episodes mostly revolve around the characters of Shizu, Riku and Ti (although Kino does make cameos). Then there’s one about Kino’s old master and one about a slave girl named Sou whom Kino doesn’t even get to meet. In total, there are only four out of the twelve new episodes that solely focus on Kino and Kino’s journey.

Ultimately, I feel that this is a problem with the kind of Greatest Hits presentation that this new series went for. We see the individual “best” stories, sure, but I would like to argue that ALL of the stories are supposed to narratively help build Kino and Hermes slowly as characters. So, in removing all of that, it starts to cut into Kino’s personal story. It’s called Kino’s Journey for a reason. Cutting only to the highlights is like skipping all the travelling parts of a road trip just to get to the landmarks. The travelling is still a large part of the story.

My frustration though might just be because I hate being left out of the loop, compounded by the fact that we don’t have official translations of the original light novel beyond the first few volumes. Kino’s Journey has been an ongoing light novel since 2000. It has over 20 volumes worth of story, the vast majority of which we just don’t have access to. So I feel left out, which is a horrible feeling to have. But anyway, I must unfortunately give out the rating for Kino’s Journey 2017 to just stream it rather than buy.

Sure, this new Kino is still great, and if you’ve never seen Kino’s Journey before, then I can’t say that this is not a worthwhile watch. But the overall concept and presentation of this series leaves a bad taste in my mouth that I can’t ignore. Also, if you do start here, you’re going to be missing out on a lot from the first series and it might be a lot harder for you to actually sit through that old series once you’ve seen the new animation of the 2017 adaptation. So I would still say to watch the original series first if you can.

And if you are interested, the original 2003 version of Kino is available on a fairly new streaming service called HiDive, and the 2017 version of Kino is available on Crunchyroll in sub and also over on Funimation if you prefer to watch your animes with dubs.

Until next time – ladies, gentlemen, and others – stay frosty.

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