We Are All Utterly Incomprehensible - Kill la Kill Review

It is not uncommon for anime to take refuge in audacity. I've watched enough absurd animes to pretty much appreciate anything at this point. Heck, I consider FLCL to be one of the coolest things I've ever watched. However, I found that Kill la Kill was a different breed of ridiculous. The laugh out loud kind of ridiculous that was unrelenting awesomeness from start to finish. There have been many animes that I have watched over the years but I don't think that any anime has ever given me as much enjoyment as this one. Let's get into it now.

Kill la Kill is the first project done by studio Trigger, a new studio created by Hiroyuki Imaishi and Kazuki Nakashima, who worked together of Gurren Lagann. Based on that fact alone one can probably figure out exactly Kill la Kill is going to be all about. The story begins at Honnouji Academy, a highly disciplined school ruled under the iron fist of Kiryuuin Satusuki and her Four Devas. The school and the surrounding town is structured in a very hierarchical way. Living conditions are based on class ranks and each student is ranked by the amount of stars on their uniform. This is where things start to get a little tricky. The uniforms that the students have are meant to augment their skills. In simple terms, the uniforms give the students powers, they are known as Ultima Uniforms. The more stars an Ultima Uniform has, the more powerful it and it's wearer are. However, the highly disciplined world of Honnouji gets turned upside down when a new transfer student named Ryuuko Matoi shows up at the school gates. It's not hard to tell that Ryuuko has a hidden agenda and that becomes clear pretty quickly. Ryuuko brandishes a blade that resembles half a scissor and is looking for the person with the other half. Why? Because the person wielding the other scissor is the person who killed her father. She believes that Kiryuuin Satsuki knows the answer to that question and may even be the person who did the act, However, Ryuuko is unsuccessful at getting the answers from her and gets her butt kicked by some of the academy's club leaders. Going back to the remains of her father's house she finds an unusual uniform there, the incredibly powerful and sentient Senketsu. Ryuuko goes back to the academy and finds that she can synchronize with her new uniform and turn herself into a powerful warrior. After laying waste to Satsuki's cronies, she then makes it her mission to get the answers from Satsuki somehow and thus the plot gets going. The two girls clash several times and it soon becomes apparent that there are many more factors at play here and that their meeting may not have been just coincidence. Ryuuko's search for her father brings her not only into conflict with Satsuki but also Satusuki's mother Ragyou and her fashion empire.

The battle between Satsuki (left) and Ryuuko (right) is just part of what is an incredibly entertaining and creative plot.

Kill la Kill's plot is absolutely insane and it's actually incredibly enjoyable. It's not a stretch to say that the show favors style over substance most of the time but even so, it remains extremely entertaining to watch. The plot actually does make sense despite the insanity of it all. In fact, everything is insane about the show, to the fact that the students transform their uniforms into battle armors in order to fight one another. Or maybe it's just how ridiculous that fight sequences are. Explosions are rampant, rules of physics broken over and over again, hot-bloodedness racing through the veins of the characters. Every fight is a bombastic affair with the character's involved laying waste to just about everything around them. This ridiculousness is not unexpected however, these are two guys who worked on Gurren Lagann and while that show also loved to be ridiculous, it seems as though Kill la Kill lives and breathes insanity. However, it never feels forced or unnecessary, in fact it's a nice change from the many animes nowadays that take themselves way to seriously. Kill la Kill is an example how one can combine the more fun aspects of anime with a good, entertaining, plot and characters. I often found myself laughing along with the characters in several scenes and when I finished the last episode I felt a sad feeling that there were not any more episodes. I can safely say that I have never had more fun watching an anime than I have had watching Kill la Kill.

Like I said before, I actually found the more serious moments of Kill la Kill to be very interesting as well. Gurren Lagann posited several ideas on evolution and the way that man moves forward, having somewhat of an environmental message to go along with it. It also embraced the rate that man evolves and was a reminder of the great things that we could accomplish. Kill la Kill posits similar ideas but in a different way. On the surface it appears to be a treatice or parody on how disciplined and rigid the Japanese school system can be. However, it also talks about the role of clothing in society and how it is actually symbol of man's evolution. It's certainly unconventional but I found it very creative and was entertained the whole way through.

Every moment in Kill la Kill is silly, even mealtime

With such a ridiculous plot there is a lot of room for the characters to shine. Ryuuko, the main character has definitely become one of my favorites. She's incredibly hot-blooded and she's the one who pulls off the majority of badass moves over the course of the show. In the times where she's not being ridiculous, she becomes even better. She's a very strong character as well and the show does a great job playing on her backstory. Her relationship with Senketsu, her uniform over the show is actually quite touching and their dialogues are actually hilarious. Senketsu himself is an interesting character in the respect that he's a piece of clothing, it makes the relationship between him and Ryuuko all the better. What really makes the show what it is however it the large crop of supporting characters who are absolutely ridiculous and hysterical. Ryuuko's first friend at Honnouji is this quirky and excitable girl named Makanshou Mako who frequently isn't entirely aware of what's going on around her. However, she's many times the character who speaks the most sense in the show believe it or not and it's not an episode of Kill la Kill until she's given one of her speeches. We're also graced by the presence of Akisuro Mikisugi, Ryuuko's teacher and mentor who is also undercover at the school as part of an operation by a resistance organization. He also has trouble keeping his clothes on. On the other side of things we have The Four Devas, the highest ranking members of Satsuki's empire. Each of them get their own origin story and their chemistry with one another is really something special. They're each great characters. Satsuki herself is a strong character and many times it's hard to tell as to whether she's the true antagonist or not. That job is filled in better by her mother, the sinister Ragyou, who seems to have a plot of her own.

Visually the series looks absolutely fantastic. The same art style that was in Gurren Lagann is also present here. In addition to being crisply animated the character designs are brilliant especially when they characters transform themselves. For example, one of the Four Devas is the the leader of the band club which gives her transformed state two giant loudspeakers with which to do battle with. The creators really follow the school club aspect down to the letter and all the designs are fantastic. The music is probably Kill la Kill's finest aspects, shuffling through a catalogue of absolutely fantastic songs. Each character has their own theme and blares in when they are in the forefront of the scene. The Japanese voice cast did such a great job here that I'm actually worried for when this show becomes dubbed. I really don't think any other group would be able to do it as well. Either way, a fantastic AV job done here.

Ryuuko quickly became one my of my favorite protagonists from any anime

It's safe to say that Kill la Kill is probably the most entertaining anime I've ever watched. It's far different from many of the other anime crop because it never takes itself to seriously and embraces that craziness that makes people love anime in the first place. Sure, you could probably find an anime with a more serious plot that gives you more to think about but Kill la Kill is a wonderfully animated and brilliant masterpiece of it's own kind. It's the kind of anime that I want to watch again and again because I enjoyed it that much. It's an instant classic for me and one that everyone should check out.

My Score: 5/5