The Legacy of Ryutaro Nakamura's Kino's Journey

Watching the new Kino's Journey TV remake like most people who loved the original adaptation,  I was reminded what an incredible piece 2003's version is during the, "I sometimes wonder if I'm really just a terrible person..." monologue that begins the light novels. This isn't an insult to the makers of the most recent work and I understand if the following comes off as finding something to nag on right off the bat, but listening to the latest Kino constantly elaborate on what they mean in very specific language has a clear contrast to the stone cold confidence Ryutaro Nakamura and the staff of the original had in their atmosphere, in their visual narrative, and in their approach to portraying the light novels the franchise is based on.

The entire spiel is meant to spell out Kino's inner emotions and drive as a traveler, and what they hope to find on their journey while sharing a quiet conversation with talking motorcycle Hermes. In Keiichi Sigsawa's first light novel where the series originates from, Kino says–in what I confess could be completely botched by Tokyopop's lackluster translation–"I sometimes wonder if I'm really just a terrible person. Sometimes I feel like I am. Sometimes, it actually makes sense that I am. Because I can't change things; or worse – I just tell myself I can't, so I don't." It's a valid thought for Kino's malaise given what they experience, but it's also expressed in a general way so the reader can relate and put themselves in the traveler's shoes for the tales that follow.

In the 2017 version, Kino goes into it right off the bat with, "Sometimes I wonder... Am I a hopeless, foolish, petty person? Am I a really underhanded person? I'm not sure why, but sometimes I feel that way. Sometimes I can't see it any other way." The language here feels more specific and seems to localize exactly what Kino feels more than incorporating the viewer. Each version branches off to discuss how the beauty of the world they experience gives them life.

You know what 2003's version of this monologue is? It doesn't show up until episode 12 and more flows from reminiscing on a witnessed travesty in the supposed Country of Peace.  It is to underline their trying to put together motivation for their journey after witnessing multiple tragedies in their recent history that have left them shaken, even if they don't show it. It is important, yes, but it is one piece of information in Kino's story and not the key. The entry point for the character is instead a short vignette where Kino desperately tries to find cover in the desert and then tells Hermes the biggest asset for a traveler is luck as rains begin to fall down. The first episode then plays out one of the first light novel's main stories straight-up with a scene in a hotel to give a baseline for Kino's circumstances and ends with the series tagline in English, "THE WORLD IS NOT BEAUTIFUL. THEREFORE, IT IS." It more or less lets Kino be themselves without explaining what they are. This is a deliberate and planned approach that is wise and becomes wiser the deeper it's examined... even as the series itself doesn't put much stock in wisemen.

The difficulty in explaining Nakamura's rendition is it exists as it is. The heavy atmosphere, the more angular designs, the earthy color palette, the airy sound highlighted by light bell tones, the way thoughts drift in and out of a scene with text... all of these aspects seem just to the side of normal. However, it all flows throguh the work naturally to where it's strangely not noticeable, save the resolution lines of some tube television that could exist in the universe placed over the animation that might have been far less distracting before the widescreen HD revolution.



I did a retrospective of Ryutaro Nakamura's work after he died of cancer calling him the glue of his projects, perhaps not having his own voice, but being able to connect all the ideas visually to bring a project's full potential to life. That may have been a little too harsh for someone who has his own style (deliberate pacing that lingers on the dark and sometimes weird side of humanity), but he certainly doesn't get in the way of distinct writers like Chiaki Konaka. Eh, maybe Ghost Hound was a little too carefully atmospheric, but Konaka's massive pile of conspiracy theories and pseudo-science also didn't gel into the enthralling trip down the rabbit hole the director and writer's previous project Serial Experiments Lain is. In this case, Nakamura is teamed with writer Sadayuki Murai, a name that might not set off any familiarity sensors, but if you've spent a decent time around anime, you've ran into something he's written. He's worked with Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress), Shinichiro Watanabe (A few episodes of Cowboy Bebop), Katsuhiro Otomo (Steamboy. Well, they can't all be winners...), and other household names of exceptionally nerdy homes. In this case, he fits like a glove with Nakamura since Murai also penned the anime adaptation of Boogiepop Phantom, which was essentially a bunch of people who saw and worked on Serial Experiments Lain saying, "Hey, let's do more of that."

The best way to describe Kino's Journey is that it's kind of like like The Twilight Zone, but there are main characters, a consistent universe, and it's not afraid to get outdoors and into the countryside. Kino is an androgynous traveler who is exploring the various countries of the world with their talking motorrad, Hermes (motorrad is pretty much a talking motorcycle, so I'll just say motorcycle). The countries are usually only defined by one thing, and that one thing generally has a twist to it.

The first episode, for instance, tackles the idea of a country where a drink is developed which allows everyone to read everyone else's thoughts. Kino sees the fallout of this, which is everyone living in cottages far apart from each other in the outskirts of an abandoned city. Rather than utilizing a suspenseful tone, it is curious and ultimately empathic by having the country's history revealed by a man talking about how he got together with his wife the night everyone in the country decided to drink the mind-reading concoction. The series usually presents these ideas in a personal manner, usually with characters who've lived through it and Kino to give the reaction of an outsider. The presentation allows the series to be thoughtful without being judgmental most of the time, though it makes itself very clear there are lines that can be crossed with Kino, who eventually deposes a vicious, hedonistic ruler and gives the people who garnered entertainment from his nature their just desserts.



To discuss how Nakamura and Murai's storytelling adds to even the original light novels, the first episode will have to be spoiled even further. What happened to the people is only revealed when Kino and Hermes takes a drive out to the countryside and finds a man watering his garden who seems deathly afraid of their approach. When he's settled down, it's revealed the thought drug made him realize the woman he was in love with loved him, too. Everything was fine for awhile until they started to be unable to hide the tiny, mean thoughts they had about each other, and trying to hide them made matters worse. Their relationship deteriorated and the rest of the population separated from each other in similar fashion.

This is all pretty much from the source material. What is changed is the ending. After Kino is done talking with the man in the book, she leaves, and that's that. In the anime, an additional couple moments are added where it turns out he has a rose garden. The many fights the couple had involved him hating her gardening and her hating his music. Wouldn't you know it, Kino passes by a home of a woman who's playing the very record the man played in their discussion earlier. It's a surprisingly sweet (Or perhaps bittersweet) touch on an tale that portrays the edge of truly knowing what's within your fellow human.

The rest of the series has a similar air of thoughtfulness. The very next episode is hailed as one of the greatest single short stories of anime, and for good reason. Kino finds a trio of merchants in the snow and slowly nurses them back to health. Without revealing too much, it becomes a rumination on the value of life: How much life is taken so a person can live, how much of this loss is "necessary" depending on the perspective, and what is a waste of life? These themes hover in the background as the characters eventually play their hand, and while the ending isn't how anyone wanted it to go, the series seems to take the approach that it's a damn shame.



Throughout the course of Kino's Journey, ideas such as humanity, religion, and even existence are tilted on their head and shown a perspective that–while it may not be new–gives pause for reflection. I don't think the countries themselves are literally meant to be taken as countries as much as they are purer versions of ideas and ideals stretched out for closer examination. Balancing out the higher minded aspects are microcosms of the society itself, which are the people: the devout believers, the corrupted individuals, those who live the opposite of what their culture deems fit, and so on. The anime never loses site of the humans who live and die by these laws and cultures. Anchoring it all is Kino, perhaps the most human part of the whole show.

The first couple episodes portray Kino as a competent person who seems have their life philosophy well in place. This is only derailed by their origin story, where they begin life as a girl whose name is constantly made fun of (And bleeped out by the show itself) and her childhood is planned to abruptly come to a halt in her country's most sacred (and disturbing) tradition. Inspired by a visiting traveler, she decides to shed her identity and become Kino, taking her soon-to-be companion in talking motorrad Hermes and rejecting the coming-of-age ceremony. This comes at the cost of the visiting traveller who is brutally murdered for filling the future Kino with the ideas that caused her to betray her village. Added to what we know and how certain conversations prompted by Hermes are brushed off early on, there's a much more vulnerable and unsure side of Kino that doesn't bubble to the surface often.

Notice I've been trying to use gender-neutral terms except in the origin episode. Kino doesn't really sweat gender and mostly has it imprinted on them depending where they go. I don't think this neutral way of portraying the character is making a statement so much as describing the character's mindset. Hermes and the people Kino meet try to ascertain what Kino wants to do or where they ultimately want to go, and there's never a solid answer even up to very end when Kino talks about Hermes about the importance of what to do next, but the way Nakamura uses text to sometimes show what's on their mind indicates that these questions do wear at them. That they don't really even consider themselves a specific sex feels like an offshoot of that (Though if gender-neutral people do want to see Kino as a character they can relate to and admire, knock yourselves out. Life is full of different interpretations). Even the rules they live by are not so much tempered by their beliefs as it is a fated encounter in the final episode.



What most struck me about re-watching the series is aside from their origin story which is in the first batch of episodes, Kino's character arc runs backwards. Early on, we see the firm foundations of how Kino and Hermes go about their business. They only stay in a country for three days and are old friends at this point. Kino has a keen sense of empathy with the people who cross their path and immense patience, understanding, and only takes to harsh action when the situation absolutely requires it. Fast-forward to episode 11, "Her Story," and Kino is outright frustrated with people after coming upon a former criminal who tries to atone for murdering an innocent man after his prison sentence by acting as the body guard for the widow. The widow promptly unloads a six-shooter into the bodyguard. Kino then runs into a non-violence advocate who walks through the most dangerous parts of her country and is only spared by having a traveling companion who secretly kills everyone who would threaten her. This part shows Kino relying on a heavy crutch of cynicism and simply moving on, dispensing advice when it's far too late to do any good. When Kino has to use their weapon to survive in the next episode, they are almost in shock they have to fire the gun at actual people, many who are simply victims of circumstance.

The structure shows Kino as a journey in of themselves. When Kino finds a person with a story, we mostly see them after they've gone through most of their ordeal, and only after peeling back the layers and does Kino have an understanding. This sneakily in the same method that shakes off the myth of Kino, leading to the final episode, a seemingly minor yarn about a warm and friendly village until Kino learns exactly why they are behaving as they are and the experience shakes her enough to treat her strict three-day rule as law (Which seems to have been abandoned in the new series' covering of the later stories, but that series will have its own day in the spotlight... or in court. Stay tuned....). At the end of this, there is an air of enlightenment similar to the ones in the individual countries and it all become clear. Without spoiling to much, it is Kino watching the happy life they could've had destroyed before their eyes. Even if it's more of a beginning than an ending, it only gets increasing devastating every time I watch it.

While I've been caught up in everything else, the aesthetics of the series are not to be ignored. One of the more curious bits of trivia is the soundtrack was never released. It makes sense in a way that Kino's Journey is an ecosystem where everything builds off of and relies on everything else. The music and the sounds seemingly arise from the world itself, the hum of the earth, the aura of a town, or the errant pinging at the back of Kino's mind. To separate the music from the anime would seem strange because without these people and places making the sounds, there wouldn't be anything creating the sounds, if that makes any sense. It can best described as the perfect soundscape people who make open-world RPGs try to create.



The visuals are an early 20th century fairy tale. While the technology varies wildly between countries, the look resembles Europe in the early 1900's where the old ways of living are colliding with the onset of modern invention (And even future invention in this case). Automated robots clean up brick streets. Men in dressed to the nines with a top hat and monocle ride on hover devices.  It opens up a world that hasn't been fully discovered, mapped, and seen with the introduction of vehicles like motorcycles so an individual without much wealth can see it all. One episode even touches upon the fact that flight is only being just discovered by most of the nations, opening up even more possibilities. It all comes off as people and places that could exist, but there's a slightly dream-like layer that allows the lands to act as the folktales and fables they are supposed to be. That may be overuse of an image warping effect that is used around a dozen times per episode, though. Digital animation at the start of the 2000s had a few quirks, and every upscale only underlines them more.

What it all amounts to is an anime that makes every correct choice to create the series it wants to be. As a person who's read a decent amount of the light novels, this is how it feels like the world would look, this is how it should sound, this is how it should resonate, and most importantly, this feels like how it should make you think. It covers the ugly, weird, tragic, ironic, but ultimately beautiful world the way Kino sees it, and it even does so somewhat burying the monologue Kino uses to describe it. That's not to say it can't be fun as well. One of my favorite episodes is about the nature of books, their fans, and their authors where Kino and Hermes start by reading a story that is obviously about them. The plot only gets more wildly meta from there and the turns are unexpected, though what is predictable is a story written originally in a light novel does not respect literary critics much.

As I've said, Ryutaro Nakamura tends to get underrated, even by me. Serial Experiments Lain is credited to the out-there writing of Chiaki Konaka and the art of Yoshitoshi ABe, but Nakamura is the one who brought it to life and gave it the essence it needed. If you've ever seen a Konaka script go off the rails (And conveniently enough for my article, Megan recently has! Thanks, Megan!), that's a real gift. And to make a nearly perfect adaptation of Kino's Journey, that's something special. My current anime Holy Grail is a long-delayed project called Despera Nakamura was supposed to direct, but that gigantic asshole cancer had other ideas. The list of people who can helm an anime that takes place in Japan's pre-WWII democratic society which has a title based on dadaist poetry is very thin, as the other creative forces trying to make it happen are finding....

As I hashed out this article, Hidive has started streaming 2003's Kino's Journey (Thankfully, as my decade-old computer has finally stopped reading DVDs and I had to find SOMEWHERE to gather images. Sorry for the watermarks). If you don't have a subscription, no problem! It's free to watch as long as you can stand the same 3-4 Sentai Filmworks ads. If you haven't checked it out, do.