Blair Loveday
Sometimes I like to see an anime series challenge long standing tropes and create a story that is unique and truly special. Other times I love one that goes the other way and turns every trope up to the max and blasts you with brilliant and cheesy chaos. Kill La Kill couldn’t epitomize that more.
Kill La Kill is set in a Japanese school where kids learn to follow strict rules and earn their way to getting Goku Uniforms. Goku Uniforms contain life fibers which allows their wearers to become super powerful, and the further people get along, the better Goku Uniforms they get to wear.
Sounding weird yet?
The story follows a student Ryuko Matoi who has transferred to the school. She is hunting for her father’s killer and pretty much straight away goes into fighting massive battles within the school. After getting badly beaten she goes to her father’s old house and immediately has a sentient Goku Uniform attach itself to her. Wearing her new super skimpy sailor Goku Uniform she gets the power to start winning fights and find her way to the killer.
What is truly brilliant about the show is how insane and chaotic it is. You can’t zone out while watching it because when you zone back in you will have missed a lot and won’t have a clue what is going on. To be fair I got lost a couple of times in the pilot and I was paying attention. When I rewatched it I realised I missed a couple of details that pieced it together, but the show definitely doesn’t hold back.
The animation is beautifully designed with exaggerated body shapes that change throughout, like someone getting angry his body takes up half a classroom as he yells. With clean animation but chaotic design, the whole thing looks fantastic and so unique.
What may or may not click with some people is the over-sexualised and violent stuff. When I said they maxed out the tropes I wasn’t exaggerating. The sailor outfit is skimpy and there are regular times characters wind up upside down with minimalist underwear. This is clearly in jest as there are always jokes about it, and people especially question why Ryuko is dressed like a sailor stripper. Initially I wasn’t a fan, but the more they used it the funnier the joke got.
Between the overly sexualised and extreme violence, Kill La Kill isn’t one to watch around the kids. By scaling up the tropes it winds up being daft and funny. Given it’s strange world and story, it definitely stands out as a must watch series, and packaged up in this sweet blu-ray is the best way to do so.
