Kino's Journey 2017
Mar. 4th, 2018 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
type_wildI'll borrow the reasoning from someone over at tumblr: The 2017 Kino's Journey anime is pretty clearly meant as an animated take on the novels. Was it to please existing fans or make new readers curious about the universe? Both, I guess, but to what extent it worked is not for me to say. I never got around to reading more than the four novels that were translated to German, and I remember preciously little from them. My love of this universe is love of the 2003 anime, which is very much its own story.
There are a number of differences between the 2003 series and the 2017 one, but the only one that really matters for what they are, is their relationship to the novels from which they were adapted. The 2003 anime might be as episodic as the novels are, but there's a thematic coherence to it; the final episode (A Kind Country) neatly ties back into episode four (Country Of Adults). The story doesn't end because the journey doesn't - but the anime gives us closure.
The 2017 anime sets these two episodes back-to-back: Country Of Adults is episode ten, Kind Country is episode eleven, and the final episode is then some completely unrelated nonsense. The 2003 anime hasn't got much in terms of a story arch either, but the end ties back to the very beginning. The 2017 anime is completely episodic, and together with the so-so production values, is almost certainly only interesting inasfar as it connects to the novels.
Which is a lot of words for telling you that while the 2003 Kino's Journey anime is distinctive in both visuals and music and has a consistent purpose for its storytelling choices, the 2017 one is very generic in looks and sounds and comes across as fairly slapdash as far as the stories go. The 2003 anime made it very clear that the purpose of its stories was the social commentary and philosophical questions. While the 2017 did so sometimes, at least half the time I was just wondering what the hell was wrong with all these assholes.
I don't even dislike the 2017 Kino's Journey. But it wasn't memorable either, and I'm not using another six hours of my life on it. It was okay, but the most interesting part of it was how it compares to the 2003 one.
Below is a bit more in-depth commentary on how they did things differently, with spoilers for Country of Adults, A Kind Country, and the prounouns.
Going back to the novels for a very brief bit: The German ones kept Country of Adults in its original placement, which was as one of the last stories of the first novel. Only the first novel was ever published in English, but it starts with Country of Adults, thus establishing Kino's gender and the reason she travels rather than just throwing it out in medias res. (For those interested: The first German novel consistently uses male pronouns for Kino throughout the first novel, then changes to female ones for the rest)
A lot of what makes Country Of Adults so tense in both the novels and the 2003 anime is that its initial premise is that we're watching a timeskip, where a young girl is meeting the Kino we've been following for the first few stories. The 2003 anime notably gave original!Kino a different design from how he is described in the novels to trick us further. It's not until Hermes starts speaking to help Kino escape that we realise that what we're watching/reading is our Kino's origin story (and that yes, yes this means that Kino is a girl).
The 2017 anime points out that Kino is a girl relatively later, but the moe-ish design feels a lot less ambiguous about that thant he 2003 anime was. If I'm correct in guessing that the intended audience was the existing fans, then it was a mostly irrelevant point to make anyway. It likewise makes zero attempts at tricking its audience into thinking that original!Kino is the same person we've followed throughout the story.
As one of the few places where this anime really got its philosophical game together was when young!Kino flashbacked to being taught what "adulthood" means. In 2003, it's in a lecture hall with mechanical beeping in the background. In 2017, the location is more difficult to pinpoint, but there are churchbells tolling in the background, and both the adult talking and the children listening are cast in a sinister red cross. I don't know enough about religiosity in Japan to tell why they'd go with Christian symbols as the motif of organised religion, but it really helps to stress the message that suffering for the sake of suffering is a dubious virtue.
A Kind Country had a lot less impact here. I can't really pinpoint whether that was becaues 2003 Kino was different from the novels or because the 2003 anime framed it differently; whichever it was, her horror at the fate of the country is one solid punch in the gut. In 2017, not so much. Oddly, both 2003 and 2017 omit one of the parallells between Kino and Sakura: in the novels, Sakura's mother writes that Sakura (like Kino in Land Of Adults) was two days away from turning twelve, at which point she would've been an adult and would've been told about the coming apocalypse and could've made her own choice whether to surrender to it or to survive.
The third story that both 2003 and 2017 both adapted was Colloseum, but I'm pretty sure 2017 only did it to introduce Shizu. Someone better than me might dwell on the meaning of this in 2003, which broke its own rules and devoted two full episodes to it.
Another factor that makes the overall narrative of 2017 feel weird and disjointed (but who cares they were doing this for viewers who were fans already) is that they sometimes cram two or even three different countries into the same episode, without any attempts at thematic coherence between them but hey they had seven minutes left over so why not. This isn't in itself a terrible thing if what you're doing is getting as much of the source material as possible into your twelve episodes, and it's actually evocative of the novels, where the longer stories are occasionally interrupted by shorter interludes. But as said, the cost is your narrative flow, and for an anime to stand alone (which this one probably didn't aspire to in the first place), you need something more glueing the story together than (mostly) all episodes having the same protagonist.
One gold start for 2017: It got to introducing more of the secondary characters. There's a lot of Shizu and Riku in this, and I like that! He makes for a very interesting contrast to Kino, particularly in light of gender and all that. Have your noble and nurturing and self-sacrificing young man who wants to settle down in a peaceful place, whereas your main character is a fiercely survivalist and morally neutral teenage girl who only remembered the dog's name, not his. We also got stories about Master, and there's this one striking episode about someone named "Photo" who clearly has some more presence in the novels since she's in the OP here. As someone in from the 2003 anime, I enjoyed seeing them all. Even if, again, this wide cast of seemingly incidental characters creates yet more cracks in your coherence.
There are a number of differences between the 2003 series and the 2017 one, but the only one that really matters for what they are, is their relationship to the novels from which they were adapted. The 2003 anime might be as episodic as the novels are, but there's a thematic coherence to it; the final episode (A Kind Country) neatly ties back into episode four (Country Of Adults). The story doesn't end because the journey doesn't - but the anime gives us closure.
The 2017 anime sets these two episodes back-to-back: Country Of Adults is episode ten, Kind Country is episode eleven, and the final episode is then some completely unrelated nonsense. The 2003 anime hasn't got much in terms of a story arch either, but the end ties back to the very beginning. The 2017 anime is completely episodic, and together with the so-so production values, is almost certainly only interesting inasfar as it connects to the novels.
Which is a lot of words for telling you that while the 2003 Kino's Journey anime is distinctive in both visuals and music and has a consistent purpose for its storytelling choices, the 2017 one is very generic in looks and sounds and comes across as fairly slapdash as far as the stories go. The 2003 anime made it very clear that the purpose of its stories was the social commentary and philosophical questions. While the 2017 did so sometimes, at least half the time I was just wondering what the hell was wrong with all these assholes.
I don't even dislike the 2017 Kino's Journey. But it wasn't memorable either, and I'm not using another six hours of my life on it. It was okay, but the most interesting part of it was how it compares to the 2003 one.
Below is a bit more in-depth commentary on how they did things differently, with spoilers for Country of Adults, A Kind Country, and the prounouns.
Going back to the novels for a very brief bit: The German ones kept Country of Adults in its original placement, which was as one of the last stories of the first novel. Only the first novel was ever published in English, but it starts with Country of Adults, thus establishing Kino's gender and the reason she travels rather than just throwing it out in medias res. (For those interested: The first German novel consistently uses male pronouns for Kino throughout the first novel, then changes to female ones for the rest)
A lot of what makes Country Of Adults so tense in both the novels and the 2003 anime is that its initial premise is that we're watching a timeskip, where a young girl is meeting the Kino we've been following for the first few stories. The 2003 anime notably gave original!Kino a different design from how he is described in the novels to trick us further. It's not until Hermes starts speaking to help Kino escape that we realise that what we're watching/reading is our Kino's origin story (and that yes, yes this means that Kino is a girl).
The 2017 anime points out that Kino is a girl relatively later, but the moe-ish design feels a lot less ambiguous about that thant he 2003 anime was. If I'm correct in guessing that the intended audience was the existing fans, then it was a mostly irrelevant point to make anyway. It likewise makes zero attempts at tricking its audience into thinking that original!Kino is the same person we've followed throughout the story.
As one of the few places where this anime really got its philosophical game together was when young!Kino flashbacked to being taught what "adulthood" means. In 2003, it's in a lecture hall with mechanical beeping in the background. In 2017, the location is more difficult to pinpoint, but there are churchbells tolling in the background, and both the adult talking and the children listening are cast in a sinister red cross. I don't know enough about religiosity in Japan to tell why they'd go with Christian symbols as the motif of organised religion, but it really helps to stress the message that suffering for the sake of suffering is a dubious virtue.
A Kind Country had a lot less impact here. I can't really pinpoint whether that was becaues 2003 Kino was different from the novels or because the 2003 anime framed it differently; whichever it was, her horror at the fate of the country is one solid punch in the gut. In 2017, not so much. Oddly, both 2003 and 2017 omit one of the parallells between Kino and Sakura: in the novels, Sakura's mother writes that Sakura (like Kino in Land Of Adults) was two days away from turning twelve, at which point she would've been an adult and would've been told about the coming apocalypse and could've made her own choice whether to surrender to it or to survive.
The third story that both 2003 and 2017 both adapted was Colloseum, but I'm pretty sure 2017 only did it to introduce Shizu. Someone better than me might dwell on the meaning of this in 2003, which broke its own rules and devoted two full episodes to it.
Another factor that makes the overall narrative of 2017 feel weird and disjointed (but who cares they were doing this for viewers who were fans already) is that they sometimes cram two or even three different countries into the same episode, without any attempts at thematic coherence between them but hey they had seven minutes left over so why not. This isn't in itself a terrible thing if what you're doing is getting as much of the source material as possible into your twelve episodes, and it's actually evocative of the novels, where the longer stories are occasionally interrupted by shorter interludes. But as said, the cost is your narrative flow, and for an anime to stand alone (which this one probably didn't aspire to in the first place), you need something more glueing the story together than (mostly) all episodes having the same protagonist.
One gold start for 2017: It got to introducing more of the secondary characters. There's a lot of Shizu and Riku in this, and I like that! He makes for a very interesting contrast to Kino, particularly in light of gender and all that. Have your noble and nurturing and self-sacrificing young man who wants to settle down in a peaceful place, whereas your main character is a fiercely survivalist and morally neutral teenage girl who only remembered the dog's name, not his. We also got stories about Master, and there's this one striking episode about someone named "Photo" who clearly has some more presence in the novels since she's in the OP here. As someone in from the 2003 anime, I enjoyed seeing them all. Even if, again, this wide cast of seemingly incidental characters creates yet more cracks in your coherence.
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