We’re getting very close to the climax of Kino’s Journey (well, if a series like this can have a climax, that is). Rewatching it in this way has given me a much deeper appreciation for the series than I might have had before, and I really did like it quite a bit before sitting down and analyzing every detail of each episode. I don’t think that every anime series can or should have to stand up to deep scrutiny and there’s nothing wrong with being straightforward and entertaining. I honestly don’t know what I would do if something like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure suddenly felt the need to become emotionally complex and address social issues in some way. It just wouldn’t feel correct (and I doubt it would be even half as entertaining). But as far as Kino is concerned, I’m glad I didn’t have the same initial reaction that some other reviewers and fans of the earlier adaptation had, because I think this adaptation has its own set of charms that make it worthwhile and it certainly doesn’t slouch when it comes to introducing moral and ethical quandaries!
Below are previous weeks’ posts, as usual. Check them out and let me know if you agree or disagree with my analyses (or just have something additional to say).
Episode 9 – Various Countries – Crunchyroll – Funimation – Hulu
Kino and Shizu travel separately to several very different countries.
Kino visits a country in which the populace maintains a running point total equal to the agreed-upon value of their good or bad deeds in life. Donating money proportional to their income, helping their fellow citizens, and recognizing others for their good works gives them more points and with it more prestige. Committing crimes deducts from the total. Kino meets directly with a former president of the country who tells them of this system. But though this man has earned more points than anyone in the country’s history for his great services to society, he harbors a dark secret; all of his good deeds have been in service of a dark goal, the urge to murder another human being without dropping into the negative point range (thus keeping him out of prison). Kino judged this right away and were prepared to defend themselves if pushed, so the former president backs off. When the choice to exert cruelty comes to him again, he struggles with the right decision.
Kino later travels to a country where they’re mistaken for a traveling chef. Kino provides a very… striking recipe to the enthusiastic cooking staff in the country, calling it “Kino’s Fried Chicken.” It’s incredibly spicy, to say the least, but it becomes a favored local dish. Later on, another person stops by to provide a variant which is much less spicy. by the time Shizu rides through, he and his compatriots can only be amused by the fact that Kino seems to have inspired such an interesting dish.
Shizu, Riku, and Ti travel to a country where the people write their wishes on gold paper and attach them high up on a decorative wall in the center of town. Shizu, being the pragmatic person that he is, elects to go inquire about the possibility of immigration, but gives his gold paper to Ti to write her wish. Ti’s wish is thus: “May everyone’s wishes here come true.” The other citizens are impressed by her kindness and maturity. Her response indicates that she doesn’t really believe in the custom anyway, so it wouldn’t have mattered what she wrote.
Finally, Kino Travels to a country they’ve been anticipating for a long time. Their Master spoke very highly of it, though didn’t provide any details. As soon as Kino enters the country, however, they’re exiting it from the opposite entrance. Hermes fills Kino in on a few facts; the people of the country don’t want outsiders to know of what goes on there, so before travelers leave they’re given a drug to erase the memories of their time there. All Kino has is a letter stating as much, and a roughly-drawn picture to commemorate their time in this mysterious place, since Hermes swears upon their honor as a motorrad that they’ll never share any secrets about what happened.
Episode 10 – Kind Country – Crunchyroll – Funimation – Hulu
Kino and Hermes approach a country with a bad reputation of being rude to travelers. Kino, being the person that they are, is only made more curious by the fact that the experience there might be less-than-optimal. When Kino arrives, however, the friendliness of the people seems equivalent to the beauty of the locale itself. The citizens fall over themselves to show hospitality, and Kino is approached by a young girl named Sakura whose family owns an inn. Sakura is also an aspiring tour guide, so offers to show Kino around the country. Everywhere they go, the citizens show the utmost kindness towards Kino and Hermes, and Kino wonders how the country got such a bad reputation with other travelers.
As Kino’s stay in the country draws to a close, they consider staying a few more days; their experience has been so positive that they consider bending their rule about only remaining in a country for three days. Unfortunately, Kino is informed by the soldiers that it would break the rules to stay longer, and that they should prepare their things to depart. Many citizens join Kino outside the gate and wish them farewell; Sakura’s family even provides a couple of meals for the road – a small one for dinner, and a larger one for breakfast. After Kino sets up camp upon a high ridge and goes to sleep, they’re awakened by a strange sense of foreboding. Soon that sense is confirmed as an explosion and a pyroclastic flow falls from the mountain above the country, and swallows it up in a matter of seconds. The normally unflappable Kino is shocked by this event. Opening up the bag that Sakura’s mother provided, Kino discovers a letter; the adults of the country were aware of the impending destruction of their country, but made the decision to stay. They had previously been rude to travelers, but Kino’s arrival gave them a chance to right that wrong and show their best face to the world one last time. Inside the bag, Kino also finds a poignant gift from Sakura.
Discussion Thoughts and Questions (feel free to share additional ones in the comments!)
Episode 9 is kind of a rapid-fire adventure that’s mostly pretty light and entertaining, but definitely has some philosophical meat to it once you get the chance to think it over. I think the vignette with the most “bite” to it is the one in which people earn points for their good deeds. As with many of the societies in this show, I think the general system comes from a place of good intentions. Rather than just being deterred for doing bad things and making poor decisions, people ought to be rewarded for making choices that benefit themselves and others, right? I think rewarding both the deed itself as well as the person recognizing the deed is a good way of encouraging the continuation of positive behavior. That said, I think there’s definitely a question here about whether or not good behavior that’s performed because of the promise of a concrete reward is the same as good behavior chosen because a person is motivated by their own desire to do good things. I think this is where you get into some arguments about the necessity of religion and the rules that go along with many sects and denominations that outline the expectations of people’s behavior.
There are people who argue that our society would crumble were in not for Christianity and the commandments that come along with it. I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise you to know that I disagree with this; I believe that society would not have progressed to this point if we specifically needed Christian religion (or any other religion, for that matter) to tell us that it was bad to, say, kill other people (and in fact, religion has sometimes been used, and still is used, by others to justify killing other people; to ignore that is very questionable cherry-picking in my eyes). In any case, there are people who seem to believe that there are other people walking around whose murderous urges are held in check only by the fact that one group’s version of God told them not to do it. My views on religion are more that a person’s personal, inherent moral beliefs are what make certain religions (or non-religions) appealing to them. For example, it’s not that I believe that people’s actions return to them threefold because I’m Neo-Pagan, it’s that I choose to identify with Neo-Paganism because I’ve always personally believed that the things people do, both good and bad, will influence their interactions and what they get out of life. It’s a subtle distinction, but I believe it’s an important one. Personal fulfillment might include religion or it might not, but personal morals are rarely formed wholly out of ancient words carved into stone tablets or spoken directly to one prophet or another. Religion or group affiliation can provide a framework and an outlet, but doesn’t have an ownership monopoly on good deeds.
This is all to say that while a society that provides concrete rewards for good deeds is probably about halfway to something productive, I think that it doesn’t ultimately go far enough to establish deep-seated ethical and moral righteousness because there are still people like the former president who can achieve the highest “score” while still wishing to commit one of the more terrible forms of human violence just to see what it feels like. That, to me, seems like the type of moral disconnect that would not be considered a social victory no matter how you slice it.
The other short tales aren’t quite so heavy, which is probably a good thing. I got a good laugh from the story about Kino’s special dish. It’s interesting how someone’s prestige (as falsely-given as it might be) can influence how you feel towards what they produce. I wonder how many people in that country sucked it up and developed a tolerance for terribly spicy food just so they could appear to have good taste?
- Even in our “real life” society, there’s always a question about whether “true” altruism is really a thing that exists; everyone gets some benefit, whether emotional or otherwise, when they do something nice for someone else. Do you think the morality points acknowledge this and account for it, or do they prevent citizens from developing beyond this system?
- The former President hesitates twice when he has the opportunity to commit murder; once with Kino and once when presented with an infant. What sort of statement do you think is being made by showing this?
- In the country with the wall of wishes, Shizu outright decides not to participate; as he states, he’d rather take action than make wishes. When Ti is given the opportunity in his place she decides to participate despite saying that she doesn’t think the practice has any merit. What do you think it says about both their characters in that they seem to believe fundamentally the same thing but express it differently?
- Kino’s experience in the country that erases memories is an interesting one to me. Can an experience be judged as positive or negative even if you don’t have any remaining evidence upon which to base that opinion (besides a crudely-rendered drawing, that is)? Can you think back fondly on what might have been even if that might just be a fantasy?
I was curious about what my own reaction would be to episode 10, because out of all the episodes in the series I think I remembered the details of that one the most. It’s difficult to forget such a heart-wrenching and shocking turn, and I think it’s where we see Kino at their most vulnerable. I was surprised that knowing what was going to happen in the end made me even more emotional about the episode as I was watching it; it also made it difficult to ignore all the subtle clues that something was going to happen; as if all if Kino’s wonderful experiences with the selflessness of the townspeople and Sakura’s professed life goals weren’t enough of a death flag already!
I feel like there is not much to be said about this episode other than it made me think about the different choices that could have been made and why the citizens decided not to make them. We learn about their history as a persecuted people without a land who finally found this beautiful place to settle after being driven from other places. It makes sense, then, why they wouldn’t want to pick up and become refugees again; considering that they define themselves partly on the fact that their country is the home that they finally found for themselves, it’s much deeper than just a place to live and sleep. I do have mixed feelings about the fact that the adults didn’t say anything to their children; obviously they didn’t want their children’s last days to be lived in terror of what was about to happen, but to hide those facts from them seems wrong to me also.
- The Kind Country was not always as kind as Kino experiences. Late in the game they decided to try to mend their reputation and Kino provided an opportunity to do so. What’s your opinion on apologies or changes-of-heart that occur when the person apologizing is doing so because of limited time? Do you think these are genuine or are they in some ways forced?
- At the end of the episode, Kino states that they’re lucky that Sakura’s parents weren’t successful in coaxing Sakura to join Kino (or for Kino to take Sakura away). I think there are multiple interpretations of this, but I’m wondering what yours is?
- As a parting gift, Sakura provides Kino with the seed she received at the wedding of the young lovers. In her short letter, Sakura states that she has no use for it. How do you interpret this? Do you think Sakura had a greater perception of her limited time left than she was letting on?
Are you prepared for our last week of Kino’s Journey? I know I’ll be sad to see the series end, especially since watching it again has only bolstered my positive feelings toward it. I hope you readers out there have had as rewarding an experience as I have, and I’ll see you next week with the finale!
3 replies on “Anime Book Club – Kino’s Journey ~The Beautiful World~ Week #5”
The virtue points system is pretty curious. I think the big error in this kind of set-up is what I would consider to be a false pairing: good and evil, or at least good deeds and evil deeds, are not true opposites and you cannot truly charactize people on a slider between good and evil. The concept of the President of buying good will with good deeds in order to excuse evil deeds is clearly very manipulative, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone (except perhaps the very rich and totally unaware of their privilege) who would really think that yesterday’s charity justifies today’s abuse. Especially because something that is obviously a good deed could still help people in a completely different way than an evil deed would hurt perhaps a totally different group of people, any system that sets these as offsetting is asking for trouble. The show and the acts of the President seem to pretty clearly feel that way, too, as ultimately the President is unable to truly carry out the evil act he has earned: even a lifetime of preparation and expectation can’t overcome his moral compass when it really comes down to it. I think Scott’s comments about gaming the system are very insightful as well. Putting precise quantities on virtues, and granting privileges accordingly, is going to cause people to seek out ways to gain the most virtue points (VP?) for the least actual effort or sacrifice.
What can I say about Ti, except she’s a twisted little crawler. Way too aware of the world for her own good. Also, Hermes has a little of that, too. I love the fact that Kino knows when Hermes says they won’t talk about the mind wipe town, it’s a lost cause. Give it up and move on. Which is frustrating. Sci-fi stories have a habit of wiping people’s memories after great difficulties and heroics, and its often bothered me. Haven’t you earned the memories of your struggle? I don’t know if the same can be said of just a really good time, but I definitely agree that memory loss and corruption have always been concepts that fairly terrified me. Time to watch Dark City again, and ignore the last 10 minutes of it as always.
Now, I think I’ll do something I haven’t to this point and actually directly answer the questions posed:
1. The Kind Country was not always as kind as Kino experiences. Late in the game they decided to try to mend their reputation and Kino provided an opportunity to do so. What’s your opinion on apologies or changes-of-heart that occur when the person apologizing is doing so because of limited time? Do you think these are genuine or are they in some ways forced?
I have for quite a while held a belief that people get a little too hung up on the concept of whether people are being good for good’s sake, or if they have some kind of ulterior motive or personal selfish gain in mind. There are several pieces to my belief. One is that the people who benefit from a good act are typically not going to know the motivations of the good actor, so at least in one sense it truly doesn’t matter. That said, I do think it makes sense to consider motivation and sometimes value a person or their actions more highly based on their motivation. The problem is, I rarely think that anyone does anything with either a purely selfless or purely selfish mindset. I don’t think anyone can truly know what’s in someone’s else’s head, and quite frankly I think the actor themselves doesn’t usually know, either. A good act almost always has the potential to benefit the good actor, even only by upping their reputation. I think people can use motivation analysis to judge others harshly, writing off their positive acts by focusing on the way that it benefits the actor. Conversely, I think a lot of people get down on themselves, refusing to give themselves credit for the things they do because they can come up with a selfish explanation for their own good acts. I believe that most of the time, the drive to do good is filled with both selfless and selfish reasons, and good is still good. Finally, there is one last piece to this idea: sometimes, a person may do a good act with a very specific and selfish aim in mind. Nevertheless, in following through on the good act, they may learn more about the act itself or the effect it has on people. They may even just receive those kudos that some would say they don’t deserve. But sometimes, the kudos might come from an unexpected place, and that might encourage the selfish good actor to reevaluate themselves, and think about why they are now being held in higher esteem, and maybe they’d like to keep doing that. I am an optimist at heart, and a big believer that people can get better, and I think we do better when we give people encouragement to be better.
2. At the end of the episode, Kino states that they’re lucky that Sakura’s parents weren’t successful in coaxing Sakura to join Kino (or for Kino to take Sakura away). I think there are multiple interpretations of this, but I’m wondering what yours is?
I think a little bit Kino was expressing how hard it would have been for Sakura had she been the only suvivor of her country, but mostly Kino was being selfish in expressing how difficult it would have been to become mentor and de facto caretaker to Sakura, especially in the incredibly difficult state Sakura would then be in. I just saw Maquia in the theatres last night, and if you’ve seen that I immediately thought of that situation, in which a girl takes it upon herself to act as a mother to an orphaned baby who belongs to very different culture. I found watching that movie very hard, and I can’t imagine Kino would relish that task. It is interesting as it comes up here, since Shizu was faced with a similar choice, and at least somewhat happily did take on care of Ti.
3. As a parting gift, Sakura provides Kino with the seed she received at the wedding of the young lovers. In her short letter, Sakura states that she has no use for it. How do you interpret this? Do you think Sakura had a greater perception of her limited time left than she was letting on?
I think this has to be viewed as evidence that Sakura at least suspected the truth, even if she didn’t know all the details. I do find the habit of episodes ending with reveals that everyone knew everything to be a little tiresome, though this definitely isn’t the worst offender. Read my week 3 comment for more details. As to my feelings more directly on this one, I never really like characters choosing a death that can be fairly easily avoided and won’t really accomplish anything (or, in different contexts, show defiance to an oppressor), which I think this could be characterized as. That said, Sakura leaving would be choosing to set out into the world with her entire support system and way of life destroyed, so I feel like her choice is a better one that perhaps the towns’ as a whole is.
There’s also the opening vignette with the wall-eyed man and his apprentice bandit. Over at TV Tropes, there’s a page for “Mugging the Monster” and unlike some other fictional people, the older man has learned his lesson. Perhaps they’re waiting for someone like that band of merchants in Photo’s story, who are arrogant to the point of foolishness.
The virtue points country has an interesting set-up, and I see they did plug some of the holes. (There are countries that set fines as a proportion of income precisely because otherwise rich people consider it just a cost of doing as they please.) As with any other system with rules, it can be gamed. Plugging loopholes just makes gaming the rules more complex.
In the end, I think the former president realized that gaming the system with the motivation of gaming the system was a hollow pursuit. It might have been different if there was a specific person he had been done wrong by, but almost everyone in that country goes out of their way not to be a jerk. He could have enjoyed being virtuous for its own sake, but instead tainted his good actions with evil intent. It’s also notable that he only pushes himself to commit murder because he no longer has the leisure time to wait for a deserving target.
Ti, despite her disbelief, does show a kind side. Most children would, if they knew their wish would not come true, be selfish or frivolous. (And there’s always the possibility that the next day, all the wishes came true–surprise!)
I would be grateful to the real unknown chef, as I have no resistance to hot spices.
I would consider the memory erasure country a cheat, and not enter–I wonder if spies come in over or under the wall?
Yep, I realized quickly that the Country of the Kind was too good to be true, and understand why the supply of travelers dried up. I see that this story seems to have happened before Coliseum as Kino had the Woodsman there. It’s possible a few citizens bugged out, but they’d probably be close-mouthed. The experience probably cemented Kino’s three day rule even more than before.
Also, I was amused by the way the music changed to JRPG village theme when Sakura offered her family’s inn.