Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - The Animated Series

When 15-year-old Kino is feeling weighed down by heavy thoughts, one thing always manages to cheer her up: traveling. Nothing fills her heart with joy like exploring the beautiful, wonderful world around her and the fascinating ways people find to live. However, Kino is not as helpless as her cute appearance and courteous demeanor suggest. Armed with "Cannon" and "Woodsman," her trusted handguns, Kino isn't afraid to kill anyone who would dare to get in her way. Always by her side is her best friend and loyal companion Hermes, a sentient motorcycle, who supports Kino through the sorrows and hardships of their journey. Together, they travel the vast countryside with the shared goal of always moving forward, and a single rule: never stay in one country for more than three days.

As Kino and Hermes encounter new people and learn the rules of their civilizations, they grow and find out more about their own values and virtues. But as Kino slowly discovers the world around her, she also finds herself facing dangers that linger within the vast unknown.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kino Main

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Hermes Main

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Kino (original) Supporting

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Riku Supporting

Matsuda, Kenichirou Japanese

Photo Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Shizu Supporting

Umehara, Yuuichirou Japanese

Sakura Supporting

Amano, Kokoa Japanese

Shishou Supporting

Lynn Japanese

Tii Supporting

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Sou Supporting

Ogata, Megumi Japanese

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Iizuka, Aya Producer

Ashitate, Harutaka Producer

Hatakeyama, Takurou Producer

Reviews

Jul 30, 2024

Caeruleus_CCXVI

Recommended

7.0/10
First of all this is a reboot of the 2003's version of the anime, both were adapted from a light novel written back in 2000.
Disclaimer: I have not scene or read the other 2 pieces of media.

That all being said this show was an adventure, it made me sad, it made me laugh and saying 'wtf' a few times. The show really is self-aware with all its jokes and lore which I really appreciate. Really feels like a collection of short stories and there is kinda a over arching story, but over all most of the episodes could be watched in almost any ... order to get a similar effect. Some of the side characters do advance forward, but Kino and Hermes could almost be placed in any random episode at any time and it would make sense. The show does quite a good job showing you how awful the world can be, but despite that you can still enjoy life and move forward in life. I really resonated with this fact and the whole thing kinda felt like an allegory for depression. I too know a show is good when at the end I say to myself... "wait, thats it?!" and this was certainly one of those moments. Would not say this was particularly a master piece by any means, I believe there are other pieces of media that convey the various emotions much better, but it was not bad, not even close. Over all it was a good exsperiance and I would recommend this.

Feels weird that the closest thing I could compare this to, would be Mushishi, despite not liking that one.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 26, 2024

Burayan

Mixed Feelings

This show is okay, but does not compare favorably to the earlier version. If you're thinking about watching both, watch this one first, otherwise you'll be disappointed.
The excessive CGI was very distracting. The artwork lacks the character of the original, the characters look very generic. It's also a lot more colorful, which made it look "cartoonish" to me.
The episodes themselves leaned toward "cute" rather than the more dark and philosophic stories of the original. Some of them are just short vignettes, and in many of them Kino doesn't even appear. As a whole, it feels rather dumbed-down, fluffy entertainment instead of engaging and ... though-provoking.
I don't think watching it was a waste of time, but it will probably sit on the shelf for a long time before I watch it again.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 10, 2024

NisemonoDesu

Not Recommended

What a disaster of a remake.

I’m going to keep this briefer than my usual reviews because I had no plan on reviewing this when I started watching it, so I didn’t take any notes and I’m certainly not rewatching any of it to articulate my thoughts. To understand what makes this such a failure of an adaptation, you have to understand what worked about the original Kino’s Journey.

First, the original had a true visionary behind it—that of Ryuutarou Nakamura. For those unaware, this is the same guy who directed Serial Experiments Lain; it’s clear Nakamura has a penchant for highbrow philosophical experimentalism in his work. ... Compared to Lain, Kino is approachable and down-to-Earth, but in a way that still leaves you with food for thought. By the end of the OG show’s run, we still didn’t really know much about Kino, Hermes, or any of the other characters we were introduced to—and that’s fine, because for what that show was trying to be, it didn’t matter. Kino’s Journey wasn’t a show about the characters, the characters were just a vessel for the viewers to see the world and be fed ideas to think about.

Those ideas took the format of an episodic morality play. Each episode, Kino would travel to a new “country” which had its own laws or customs which would challenge the viewer’s perception of right and wrong. The stories were often told in the same way as fables, where the logic of those “countries” doesn’t make a whole ton of sense when you really stop and think about it—but that’s the thing: like with a good fable, you’re not supposed to think about details of how a society would practically function with such ridiculous rules. The scenarios aren’t supposed to be taken absolutely literally. Each country functions as more of a thought experiment into concepts like the futility of menial work and the danger of self-fulfilling prophecies.

This is the first way the remake falls flat. It largely eschews the heady themes and format of the original show and instead focuses on world-building and character development… and it sucks. For instance, we spend an entire episode developing the backstory of a character named Photo who it seems like they intend on becoming a recurring character, but we see them exactly one time and that’s it. And it’s a god-awful episode. We also spend a lot more time with Shizu, but it’s mostly to develop this new character Tii who is a completely uninteresting silent-loli. And the episode she’s introduced in is a god-awful episode. They try to build Kino’s characterization up by making her a badass action hero which feels both out of character and dumb. And the last episode of the show where they try to really lock that image of her in is a god-awful episode.

Not only is the new material bad, but they managed to fumble the parts of the original show they remade as well. They condensed Colosseum down from a two-parter to a single episode and lost a lot of its nuance in the process. And then they aired the episode Kind Country before A Country of Adults. Viewers of the original show will know that A Country of Adults sets up the events of Kind Country in a way that satisfyingly pays off. The remake airs them in reverse order for absolutely no reason and it totally ruins the foreshadowing and callbacks of that pair of episodes.

I’m honestly baffled as to how this happened. I get that Nakamura wasn’t involved, so the style of the show understandably sucks. But it’s still the same source material, so how could the quality of the writing fall off so hard? I’ve never read the light novel these shows are based off of, so I can only assume Nakamura adapted the chapters that fit his vision—which were the good chapters—and left only scraps for the remake to pick up. Whatever the cause was, the end result is that the original was interesting and thought-provoking, whereas the remake loses all the intrigue of the original by wasting time developing characters and a world in a way that raises none of those same interesting questions about what it means to be human.

The second thing that makes this remake miserable is the art style. I won’t harp on this too much since the original wasn’t exactly a feast for the eyes either—Kino’s Journey is about the ideas not the visuals. And yet, watching CGI sheep bounce off a CGI car driven by CGI Kino in the final episode just made me absolutely howl laughing, which is not a great note to end your show on.

I’m almost at 800 words for this review, but the TL;DR is this: skip this show and watch the original. Everything they remade from the original is worse here, and nothing new is worth your time.

Thank you for reading.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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