Review of the Kino No Tabi (Kino's Journey) Anime Series

Kino no Tabi -the Beautiful World- (often shortened to its English title, "Kino's Journey") is an animated series that was produced and ran on Japanese television from April 8th 2003 - July 8th 2003 for a total of 13 episodes. ADV licensed the series in 2003 just after it completed its run in Japan.

Before the animated series, there were a series of light novels by Keiichi Sigsawa. These began publication in March 2000 and are still being published. TokyoPop holds license to the North American distribution of the light novels and began publishing in October 2006. The Kino's Journey novels are receiving very positive reviews on the book market as well.

Often you'll hear of the 3 Kino's Journey movies as well. There is actually only one movie, "Kino no Tabi: Country of Illness -For You-", which debuted in Japanese theaters on April 21st, 2007. "Country of Illness" has not been licensed for American audiences as of yet.

The other two Kino's Journey movies consist of a 12-minute prologue which aired before the first TV episode called "Episode 0: The Tower Country -Freelance-" and a 30 minute TV movie, "Kino's Journey: Life Goes On".

The plot of Kino's Journey consists of the travels of a 15 year old girl named Kino. Kino is a mysterious figure at the start of the series and her motorrad companion Hermes often alludes to events in the past which are not discussed until later in the series itself. Kino does present herself however as a smart, self-sufficent and thoughtful girl.

She resides in an alternate reality which borders on the fairy tale side - where hearing motorcycles and dogs talk isn't all that astonishing and where the beautiful scenery is broken into individual countries. Each episode typically consists of Kino's 3-day stay in each country, in which she learns the customs, the good and the bad of each country. In Kino's world, travelers are not an uncommon thing and most countries welcome them and are not hesitant in sharing all about their history and customs with them.

Kino's Journey is listed in three genres of anime: adventure, drama and psychological. The psychological aspect sticks out clearly and is the over-arcing emphasis of the series. Gun-toting Kino is an excellent marksman. However, violence is rarely resorted to unless needed and Kino is often hesitant when it comes to the idea of killing anyone.

Each episode has an open-ended question to consider as it's overall theme. For example, in the first episode, Kino enters a country that seems to be entirely populated by machines. Eventually she does discover the inhabitants of the country and learns the story of the land. The inhabitants had the idea that being able to see other people's pain would make them more sympathetic and understanding. Every citizen drank a serum that made them telepathic to others who had also drank the serum. However, this resulted in the eventual scattering of the populace as along with other's pain came their selfish thoughts and their petty hatreds.

The question we are left with from this episode is: Would it be better if you could know other's pain? One could also say that every episode comes with a moral or lesson as well. In that case, this episode might be about how we don't need to intimately know and experience other's pain to appreciate it and to be kinder to one another.

Kino's Journey is a very good watch if you enjoyed such series as Mushishi. Both series have a slow nature to them and are mostly bloodless with plenty of action to still keep them interesting. It's fairy-tale nature also might lend interest to individuals who enjoyed such classic fairy tale traveling adventures as the Oz series.