KILL la KILL Review — Final Thoughts

Although I had not originally planned to watch this anime, I decided to go ahead and give it a go after it was recommended to me. Further adding to the intrigue for me was the fact that KILL la KILL was being done by Trigger, founded by IMAISHI Hiroyuki and OHTSUKA Masahiko, who came from Gainax.  Gainax has done a combination of serious titles, but also very whacky titles. As such, I decided to take a risk on KILL la KILL. While it may not have been a revolutionary anime that some had hoped for, it was a pretty enjoyable anime just the same.

The premise of the anime is set in a dystopian Japan, where a girl named Ryuuko comes to a high school named Honnouji Gakuin, ruled with an iron fist by “Satsuki-sama” and her Elite Four — Ira (Discipline Committee), Uzu (athletic clubs), Houka (information), and Nonon (music). Since Ryuuko is looking to avenge her father, she immediately challenges the system she believes caused her father’s death. Her initial clash causes her to encounter the living school uniform named Senketsu, which allows Ryuuko to fight with increased skill.

KILL la KILL starts off mostly as a whacky action-adventure series.  As such, Ira’s giant size and super-deformed moments when he enforces discipline are funny.  There’s also an element of “monster of the week” as Ryuuko fights various club leaders.  However, Trigger does not opt to just follow tropes for the heck of it. Trigger constantly changes things up so that one is never quite sure where the story will go. One that that did become apparent to me was that they had a fairly interesting story, and they were willing to to put twists in that actually made sense to me plot-wise, not just as a cheap ploy.

The cast of characters are highly memorable, thanks to great performances of the seiyuu, but also thanks to the work from Trigger on writing said characters and working them into the story effectively. Satsuki is probably the most fascinating character, not because she’s a “battle babe” (the physique and curves of a woman that’s all woman, while having the abilities to battle any man), but because she’s a samurai at heart. Her minions in the Elite Four initially come off as cliches, but as their backgrounds are explored, one sees that they too are samurai in their own right.

To avoid having KILL la KILL get too dark or serious, Trigger has the character of Mako (and by extension, her family) provide a great deal of comic relief.  Even here, Mako’s comic relief is not just rooted in traditional comic relief (though there is some of that, such as when she went on an Osaka food buying spree), but in her protests against things she hears which she vehemently disagrees with.  As such, Mako is not afraid to go up against the giant Ira, nor even the fearsome “Satsuki-sama” if the situation requires it. Trigger also uses these moments to have Mako do certain parody elements in her actions. The result made Mako such a fun, loveable character.

Parody is at the heart of KILL la KILL in addition to telling the story Trigger wants to tell.  The folks at Trigger where obviously highly influenced by Marvel Comics. Honnouji Gakuen and the city around it seems to be based on Madripoor. The Nudist Beach logos on their uniforms were clearly based on the X-Men logo on their outfits. Some of the Goku Uniforms and their powers were based on Marvel characters (Spider-man, Doctor Octopus, Punisher, Wolverine, and more). In addition, Trigger gives nods to the Alien franchise a few times, the Robocop franchise, and other Western influences on top of whatever Japanese references Trigger does.

While everything leading up to the end of the series is looking to take a different spin on things, I felt that Trigger was pretty much forced to return to a formulaic approach in order to wrap things up with a happy end. This is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. However, I guess I was hoping for the “good end” that was unexpected, but at my age, such an end is going to be very difficult to find, indeed. As such, the ending that Trigger provides works and works quite well, leaving a small window to explore a sequel of they desire, but giving a good “and they all lived happily ever after” moment in case Trigger doesn’t do more (other than the OVA later in 2014, which should be aftermath stuff).

My only real problem with the series was the very ecchi content. Yes, having Mikisugi stripping all the time for comedy’s sake was one thing. However, I could have done without the ecchi transformation sequences (a parody of magic girl transformations), and the ecchi forms for Senketsu and Junketsu when worn by Ryuuko and Satsuki respectively.  Even worse was the way over the top incestuous scenes where Satsuki’s mother Ragyou sexually assaults her daughter.  If the point of that was to get me to hate Ragyou, it succeeded. However, I suspect that Trigger wanted cheap sexual scenes to help boost the otaku viewing numbers, thus increase the amount they spend.

In the end, I found KILL la KILL to be a fascinating tale mixing Western elements as well as Japanese elements like the samurai code. If it weren’t for the very ecchi content, I would give this a very high rating instead of just a high rating.