Just finished Episode 6 of Kill la Kill, with the introduction of Nudist Beach, characters and rivalries and setting firmly established, etc.
Early on, I was rolling my eyes pretty hard at all the Classic Gainax skimpy outfit panty shot nosebleed-inducing bullshit. I get that they're going for the whole lechery-as-humor thing, and sort-of-parodying-but-not-really-parodying the Titilation tropes that happen in anime and manga... but I'm starting to think that maybe they're trying to say something with all that too? Mind you, I'm still kinda rolling my eyes- maybe it's just one of those "Have your cake and eat it too" sort of parodies- but bear with me.
Let's start with real world Japanese academic culture, put ourselves into a hypothetical student's shoes, and take a look around. On one side, historical cultural pressures to be disciplined, demure, and proper, which we could symbolize in the form of Student Uniforms. On the other side, the stratification that happens between well-performing students and/or those who get involved in after-school sports and clubs, and the "slackers" who basically get thrown under the bus by the educational system, which we can symbolize by Extracurricular Clubs. Modern Japanese society is kinda chafing at some of these notions, right? So let's take that reality, and just blow it WAY out of proportion. Turn the school system into a militaristic empire/academy hybrid. Turn all the little hallmarks of academic excellence into a system of reward and punishment, with a rigid caste system full of subjugation and social inequality. Then once again throw in that symbol of the School Uniform, reimagined as some kind of supernatural garment that enforces that inequality, and literally drains the life out of students wearing it. Trying to excell in this bizzaro Hell School can literally bleed you half to death, but failure could cost you and your family your place in society, if not your lives.
So, into this Hyperbolic Negaverse comes a revenge-driven rebel of a transfer student that defies that whole slacker/tryhard dichotomy; our hero does just enough to get by in class, and busts her ass after class not trying to excell in Tennis Club but rather trying to tear the whole broken system apart, along with all the people who enforce or benefit from it. She does all this while wearing a stolen and extremely non-standard black uniform, complete with short skirt, bare midriff, and strappy gartery bits hanging all over the place. And that's when it's not in superpowered Basically Hentai mode; in order to defeat her opponents and topple the system she's fighting, our hero also has to genuinely not be embarassed by her skimpy-ass sentient blood-drinking cycloptic demon bikini, and generally accept her bod and all that.
So yeah, in light of all that, Kill la Kill is starting to look like that kind of Exagerrated Realism, built around this whole fantasy of rebelling against The System, as it might appear to a young adult in Japan. If I reach a bit, and give Trigger the benefit of a few doubts, it's maybe also about rebelling against the historic Japanese culture of modesty and propriety... which, to this Filthy Gaijin, they appear to have been wrestling with for a while. Modern Japanese Pop-Cultural Weirdness looks an awful lot like a way for average citizens to vent after a long day of rigidly-codified standards of behavior in the workplace or school or whatever. If indeed this is one of their themes, the lyrics to the closing credits tune exemplifies it pretty well too; "Adults and the previous generations say all these empty words, and play along with this big non-genuine system. Instead, I'mma go unbutton my proper shirt a bit and express myself honestly to you and/or pretty directly imply that I want you to see me nekkid~".
PS. Interestingly for a show with Kill in the title (twice!), and for a story predicated on avenging a murder, I don't think I've seen a single person die yet? Explosions and bullets and bleeding and sword fights, yes, but no deaths. It's practically a joke, a few times; trap-maker girl makes a noble sacrifice to drag the hero down with her, but parachutes away at the last minute with a "just kidding!". Innocent bystanders get gunned down in a hail of high-velocity needles, only for the shooter to explain it's actually more or less a form of long-range accupuncture that's going to make the "victim" feel great when she wakes up.
Maybe it's a stretch, or you don't agree, or revelations in future episodes of Kill la Kill will make this all look pretty stupid in hindsight, but there you have it!
Author
Topic: I like anime, do you like anime? (Read 3141309 times)