Right, hoping to keep up with here a little more than seasons past. Caught Kill la Kill today, and figured I'd share my thoughts!
Kill la Kill Episode 1
I would describe this introduction much as I would Ryuuko: confident, loud, aggressive, and rough around the edges. Kill la Kill announces its' presence to the sound of its' own fanfare. It's flashy, it's bold, and it's really happy to be here.
So, I'll go ahead and say straight up that I liked this quite a bit. Maybe not love it as I was hoping to, maybe a little too frenetic for its' own good, but there is, I think, something captivating about that unrestrained energy and liveliness of Kill la Kill. Imaishi is, I feel, very good at leaving a very striking (for good or for ill) impression very, very quickly, and it's not any less true for me here than it has been with works such as Panty & Stocking and Dead Leaves. While not quite as unfiltered through those lenses as those two works might have been, it's no less loud about its' intentions.
I really adore the art direction of the show. It's charming, imaginative and relentlessly stylish. The onslaught of red letters and names threatens to be overwhelming, but married to strongly evocative designs and profiles, it makes putting names to faces much simpler. Quality of animation itself is largely quite spectacular, bar a few somewhat jarring segues into CG animation. I don't know if it's quite so obvious or I've simply become much more sensitive to it, but it almost never failed to pull me out of the episode where it did happen (backgrounds aside). For all the raw, hyper-kinetic sensibilities and flow of Kill la Kill, I couldn't help but feel some of that momentum wound up being blunted.
It's not much more than a quibble, I fully admit, but where there are highs, the lows begin to stand out all the more.
On that note, while I didn't really find myself particularly amused by the glib remarks and loud, blustery humour, I really dug most of the visual gags they threw in. Little moments like Ryuuko placing Mako down stiff as a board or the horde of deep-fried guards bursting out of the tub of oil actually got me pretty good.
Narrative is a bit of a mess. While I was engaged in what was happening, what was actually happening felt almost irrelevant. The premise is very video-gamey, which I suppose is the point, but I feel like it ultimately winds up robbing the show of any real sense of urgency or danger. All that said, I really do like Ryuuko. Not only as an expression of the show itself, but as a personality. She's headstrong and stubborn, but not stupid enough to know when a battle's been lost. She doesn't have anything to prove or justify to anyone, and despite her battle uniform and all the hub-bub around it, she never really feels like a sensual, sexual character or necessarily to be seen or addressed as such.
While we're on the topic of Ryuuko's digs, I was unimpressed. Not repulsed, mind (though would understand if that were the case), but somewhat disappointed. I don't... hate it, I don't think. But I don't like it. And while I'm not necessarily put off by it - if nothing else, it has about as little to hide as the show itself does - I think Ryuuko's original outfit was far, far better, in both visual appeal and conveying more about her identity. While I don't feel the outfit compromises Ryuuko herself (who I strongly appreciate as a character), I feel like it does wind up undermining the gravity of her feats and presence, I feel.
All in all, I liked it. Not sure I'd say anime is saved now, but this is very, very far from the knife. Regardless, very excited to see where this ride takes me.
