February 17th, 2014 
AstroNerdBoy キルラキル ep. 18 SPOILER Review
KILL la KILL episode 18
Synopsis:
Satsuki reveals to Ragyou the full purpose of Honnouji Gakuen — to fight the Seimeisen and Ragyou. She has the audience freed from being encased by the Seimeisen. Nui is amused and drops in to fight, but is greeted by Uzu. Ira defends Satsuki from attack by Ragyou’s PA (Rei), then lets Ryuuko, Mikisugi, and Tsumugu know that this was Satsuki’s plan from the start. Ragyou is amused by this as she regenerates, thanks to being fused with the Seimeisen. Meanwhile, Uzu attacks Nui, thinking he has her, but he’s battling her clone as she has Houka in her sites. Ira defends Houka from an attack, causing the amused Nui to question a three on one battle. Nonon shows up to remind Nui that they are the Elite Four. Nui is unharmed in their attack, but informs them they they are annoying.
Ira has Mako evacuate the people in the stadium as Satsuki continues her “chat” with her mother, revealing that her father (Souichirou) told her everything when she was five, whereupon after seeing Ragyou abort the life of her infant sister, Satsuki’s purpose in life became clear. Meanwhile, Iori takes a team to the Seimeisen lair, sealing the main ball of alien thread. Ragyou just laughs, having already freed herself unbeknownst to Satsuki, then takes over Satsuki’s armies. Satsuki is forced to fight them, but then Ragyou takes over Ryuuko, forcing Satsuki to fight her. Ragyou is impressed that Ryuuko fights so well even without Senketsu being activated.
Nui has the Elite Four battling her clones as Ryuuko manages to break free of Ragyou’s control. Rei is shocked and Ragyou senses something unexpected, causing her to reflect on how droll life can be at times. Before Ryuuko can attack, Nui intervenes, attempting to provoke Ryuuko. Ryuuko tells Satsuki to handle Ragyou, something Satsuki didn’t need to hear since that was her plan all along. Ryuuko activates Senketsu. Nui starts the fight in her normal nonchalant fashion, but when Ryuuko shows her skills might be greater than Nui’s, Nui shows concern as Ryuuko and Senketsu have completely synched.
Satsuki moves in for the kill as Ragyou says Satsuki’s motivation for avenging her dead father and infant sister are boring. Satsuki beheads Ragyou, causing blood to rain down. However, the Seimeisen come to life, taking out Iori’s team. Saori evacuates them as Ragyou’s body attacks Satsuki. Ragyou reveals that even one Seimeisen thread connecting her head to body means she’ll regenerate. With the Elite Four tied up battling Nui clones, Rei insures they won’t interfere as Ragyou beats her daughter to a pulp, taking Junketsu for herself and breaking Satsuki’s sword. With Satsuki thrown out, Ragyou stabs Ryuuko in the chest, plucking out her heart, which is fused with Seimeisen. With that, Ragyou reveals that Ryuuko is her daughter.
Thoughts/Review:
I completely called it on Ragyou being fused with Seimeisen.
I started thinking that maybe Ragyou is actually a personification of the Seimeiseni, but then the scars on Ragyou’s back along with her red eyes may mean that Ragyou has Seimeiseni within her, controlling her. Yes, Seimeiseni normally cannot be within the body of a living being, but just as Ryuuko is an exception to the rule with Senketsu, Ragyou may be an exception to the rule with Seimeiseni. We’ll see.
It appears I was off on the controlling aspect, but otherwise, another homer. ^_~
And speaking of homers, I’d like to take another shot by quoting myself from episode 9.
Ultimately, I think that everything Satsuki is doing is a test for Ryuuko, to see if she’s worthy to stand at Satsuki’s side when the war begins.
Satsuki confirmed this when Ryuuko demanded to know why Satsuki fought her as well as the attack on Nudist Beach in Osaka. As she told Ryuuko, she had no need for half-baked allies. ^_^
Someone mentioned to me the possibility that Ryuuko and Satsuki may be sisters. (I wish I could remember who said it and where so I could give proper credit.) I wasn’t completely sold on that theory, but they knocked a home run in calling that.
Blog commenter Andarion scored with this theory.
Then again what if the true difference is Ryuuko? Mikisugi mentioned that she is very resistant to life fibers which made me consider the idea that Ryuuko herself might be some sort of Human/Life Fiber hybrid. If Ragyo can have fibers in her then why not Ryuuko?
And that turned out to be true as well. ^_^
I was wrong with this prediction though.
I also think that they’ll still end up fighting each other (Ryuuko and Satsuki), but only after Junketsu takes Satsuki over for a time.
I didn’t think that Ryuuko would be the one to be controlled, even if I agreed with the theory that Ragyou would take control of Satsuki’s army. I had figured that Satsuki’s mistake would be wearing Junketsu and thinking herself safe. In one sense, I was right about that, but I never expected Ragyou to strip Satsuki of Junketsu.
So, where do things go from here? Satsuki is defeated, the Elite Four are being held up by Rei and Nui clones, and Ragyou has Ryuuko’s still beating heart in her hands. How do our heroines come out on top? At the moment, I’m not even sure. Ryuuko could overcome Ragyou. Nui might turn on her master after learning the truth about Ryuuko. The Elite Four might go to the next level. However, at the moment, there’s just not enough information I see to make any predictions. ^_^; It’ll be fun to watch things proceed though. ^_^
Speaking of Nui, was she really afraid when Ryuuko appeared to outclass her? She’s so deceptive, it is very hard to tell what she is actually doing.
Finally, there was Ira telling his “wife” (Mako) to get the civilians out. ^_^
Man, I love their relationship. ^_^
In the end, another good episode with predictions by others coming true, more predictions by me coming true, and then some twists that I didn’t see coming. Bring on the next episode, Trigger. ^_^
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Well you Might not be wrong about Life Fibers controlling her. Assuming she was possessed those 20 years ago when she first discovered them. We know nothing about Ragyo Before she discovered them so it’s still an open issue. For all we know she might be screaming inside her mind seeing what Life Fibers are forcing her to do.
Hmm… here is a thought, Mikisugi said that when placed inside a person Life Fiber destroy the host’s nervous system. But what afterwards? Once the original nervous system was destroyed what if they replace it?
Maybe that’s what happened to both Ryuko and Ragyo, they seemingly “died” at first when the Life Fibers overwhelmed them and then came back to life once Life Fibers finished converting their nervous system. I have this feeling that the little mouse we saw in episode 16 might be the very same mouse which rode on Isshin’s shoulder.
The whole plot and idea behind Honnouji makes so much more sense if you think of Honnouji as military boot camp. All the abuse the students experience is to toughed them up as soldiers. Same with Ryuuko, after some poking and testing in the first three episodes Satsuki gleefully included Ryuuko into her plan, both as a potential ally and fire-testing for her own toys. Seeing how her enemy was a being fused with Life Fiber, a girl who used a Kamui was the perfect test for her toys.
The bit with baby Ryuuko was pretty horrible… also Soichirou really wasn’t all that better than Ragyo. What kind of parent does something like that to their own child?
Yeah Ragyo taking Junketsu from Satsuki kinda robs the rivalry between Ryuuko and Satsuki of the conclusion. But then it’s a nice twist nobody would probably expect.
I have a hunch that Tsumugu will use that Life Fiber bullet we saw when Ryuuko was fighting Elite Four. It won’t kill Ragyo but might incapacitate her long enough for the good guys to evacuate from there. Ragyo is the greatest threat at the moment, she was already a monster and now she is powered up with Junketsu which actually makes her vulnerable to that bullet.
I think Nui was honest there, she smiles when she deceives people and here she was genuinely shocked. She tried to get her smile back by deploying the clones but then Ryuuko just wiped them out. She really was scared there.
GaMako is for the win as always XD
Yeah, that’s possible. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. ^_^
I think you are very likely right in your hypothesis. After all, we know that Ragyou can’t die as long as one thread keeps her head connected to her body and that she regenerates. So this theory makes sense to me.
You are absolutely correct. That being said, and not to excuse Soichirou, there have been numerous, horrific things done to children by parents in history. Usually, it is the woman going along with whatever horrible thing the husband (or boyfriend) wants to do to the child because because they are supposedly blinded by love (a perverse form of love to be sure). Obviously, a guy could be convinced to go the other way, and since Soichirou married into the Kiryuuin family, she has the greater status, thus was likely able to convince him that it was OK to do this. After all, if a child’s mother is fine with it, then the guy thinks, “well, I guess it is OK.” (Again, NOT to justify Soichirou’s actions or inactions.)
That being said, at the end of the day, Soichirou paid for his sins with his life, but tried to make sure Satsuki was protected, even if she was burdened with carrying on Soichirou’s plan to overthrow the Seimeisen.
I’d forgotten about the bullet. I bet you are correct on this one too. ^_^
She was also shocked by the reveal that Ryuuko is a hybrid Seimeisen-human. Still, it just seems so odd for her to be scared. After all, this is the girl who comes out of every fight (save the one with Ryuuko’s father, where her cockiness cost her an eye) without a scratch. I guess I keep thinking that there will be this kind of moment; “Oh, I’m terribly frightened by what I’m seeing. NOT! Tee!hee!”
Actually… This is a seriously outlandish theory but I have a feeling that Soichirou paid with More than his life. You see… I think Senketsu IS Soichirou. If you look carefully at the full Kamui transformation you can see a “demon” kind of thing appearing and devouring the user and then Life Fiber appear and bind the demon. My theory is that Kamuis are actually some sort of beings bound by Life Fiber, not pure Life Fiber beings like Goku Uniforms or COVERS.
So my theory is that Isshin somehow managed to bind Soichirou’s soul into Senketsu. He even now is atoning for what he did to Ryuko by protecting her. Part of the reason for this theory is that we haven’t heard his voice, and the only reason to do That would be because he is still present now, and neither Satsuki nor Ragyo can hear Senketsu’s voice.
Well that was actually the point I think. After this episode I see Nui’s invincibility and shrugging off pretty much anything thus far as build up to Worf her. Essentially she was portrayed as this invincible monster to show just how Ridiculously above everyone else the beings like Ryuko and Ragyo are. Ryuko easily overpowered and scared her after achieving Perfect Synchro and Ragyo pretty much blind sided Ryuko with very little trouble.
Considering how you called it on another wild theory, I’m going to go safe and figure you are probably right.
As to Nui, I see your point there. You’re probably right, but we’ll probably find out more in the next episode (assuming Nui’s in it).
I’ve got to ask: why do have such a long period between the episode coming out, and posting your review of it?
Also, I don’t know if you saw the spoiler for the next episode, but it’ll apparently be focusing on the Elite Four and the Two Nudists.
This site is terrific! There’s so much text it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of the sequence of the posts when I’m jumping. One assist would be to put the date of a post right under its title, above the little icons for social media. Again, congrats on this setup. The pictures come out great on my PC and Android.
As I’m looking, the dates are displayed first, right under the title and above the social media icons (at least on the PC). ^_^; I don’t think I’ve seen the mobile version before, if that’s were the problem is.
Re dates: yes, thanks. I knew about those locations, but my latent, lurking perfectionism pounced on the links themselves on my cell. It removes the dates on your sublinks! Makes me wonder what else it changes. Sorry for the bother :o(
It is no bother. I’ll have to investigate. ^_^;
Well, unfortunately, different emulator websites show me different things, even for the same phone type. 🙁
My schedule. ^_^; Seriously, I don’t get to watch the episode until Saturday evening, so I usually have the review up on Sunday. This week, I took Saturday night off to play (and record) a couple of games for YouTube. I didn’t get to write the review until Sunday evening because something came up. ^_^;
If KILL la KILL came out on Friday evenings or Saturday evenings, I wouldn’t writing that much after the fact. But, when they come out in the middle of the week (or whenever), I just have to wait until I get a moment to watch.
Sadly, that has always been my problem as an anime blogger. The big dogs seem to watch it immediately, then have a post up shortly thereafter. Working full time, that comes first. As such, I usually write on my days off and schedule out through the week so that I don’t have to worry about anything other than answering comments or fixing the images (and other problems) with old posts.
Anyway, how I’m doing things (usually) is as follows:
I have spent a great deal of time working my way back through the blog archives to fix stuff, which sometimes takes longer than others. Also, for my downtime, I’ve been playing games and posting on YouTube. So that is time that could be spent working the blog, but since I need a break, that’s it.
It would be nice to get more character development out of those characters. ^_^
Just like lord genome in gurren lagaan the creators went for a villain with super natural powers that’s sets them far above all other humans.
Genome case was the fact he had the highest spiral energy output and a lagaan mecha, Ragyo case would be complete bond with life fibre with no ill effect and complete synch with kamui.
Simon had same core drill, incredibly high spiral energy output and lagaan mecha as genome and in ryuko case, she has kamui at 100% synch and life fibre in planted into her body.
The sister part was obvious when it was hinted at the start but yeah, whilst the story line is different, there a lot of similarity and déjà vu when watching kill la kill and gurren lagaan.
It was hinted? Man, I missed that. ^_^;;;
1- Really? In which episode was it hinted? Only the fathers appeared in flashbacks so far!
2-This was a nice development: at first, I thought Isshin Matoi had done something to Ryuuko, so she could wear the Kamui (and he looked too old to be her father lol); Then, after Senketsu’s unusual nature explanation, I believed that was the reason…until I saw that baby, and everything came together!
Yeah, the baby did bring it all together. ^_^
I still need to try to take the time to watch the early episodes and see where the hints were that Satsuki and Ryuuko were sisters.
Sorry, my bad for confusing everyone. I meant in ep 18 when they went in depth with satsuki family, her lil sis and coincidently the dad who is a super genius working on seimeisen… It was just obvious…
Ah. OK. Thanks for the clarification. ^_^
Okay. Who’s emulating whom? I always go directly to “AstroNerdBoy’s Anime & Manga Blog” from my History and tap your leading posts listed there. Your anime & manga blog is always the first entry in the search, that is not an ad. Maybe I should use “.com?” No trouble except on the Android cell phone, and then only some minor details like a date in a different place at the end of the day’s entries instead of at the front. Machts nichts.
I guess I need to get some folks to do some testing for me on mobile devices. ^_^; I’ll see what I can (or can’t) do. ^_^
Your attention is appreciated, but probably unnecessary unless you’re seeing something I’m not. I sometimes can’t resist perfectionism at its trivial worst. :o\
Qoute: “her lil sis and coincidently the dad who is a super genius working on seimeisen… It was just obvious…” I was going mention a theory about Matoi dad that I had but after watching episode 19 and finding out my prediction was correct… I’m not going mention it…
Heh! Now I am curious. ^_^ Man, it is a shame that I don’t get to watch the new episode until Saturday evening. 🙁
Well if you put two and two together it quite obvious to predict what happens like matoi isshin is a seimeisen genius plotting against revocs and happen to find ryuko and know all about ragyou plan.
Also satsuki dad who was a seimeisen genius, who was so great that he manage to infuse life fibres into ryuko and create junketsu and was then mysteriously killed off ^^
Also found a trivia somewhere that mentioned ryuko eyes being gear shape was reference to nia from gurren lagaan who was the daughter of genome and was also not human and had flower patterns in her eyes.
Also each time uzu speaks all I can think is viral due to the same voice actor and essentially the same character, also it seems next weeks is the grand finale of kill la kill
Well, yeah, I guess I sorta assumed that without saying it. ^_^;
I can’t wait to see it. ^_^