Review for Kill La Kill: Part 3 - Collector's Edition

Introduction

It’s taken the better part of six months for All the Anime to release Kill la Kill. I don’t know why that bugs me, as it used to take over a year for a 24 episode show to come out on single volumes back in the day, but these days, even when such shows are split in two, we usually get them over the space of two months if not less. It could be that Kill la Kill left us on a really cool cliff-hanger at the end of Part 2, and I’ve been nervously anticipating the conclusion for the last three months and more. Then again, Kill la Kill is replete with cool bits, and stopping at any point is anathema. Looking back now, I can’t believe I actually watched it on a weekly broadcast schedule. It’s a story that has unfolded at a breakneck pace, beginning with a bit of high school rumbling, when a delinquent girl looking for revenge showed up at a school-city where school uniforms bestow super powers, which then became a tournament anime, which then became a school battle anime that encompassed Japan, and which then became an alien conspiracy global domination anime, and in this final arc, the aliens have taken over, and the fight-back is about to begin, only the main protagonist is having a row with her school uniform. Blink, and you’ll miss something epic.


Satsuki Kiryuin has her plans for world domination well in hand. After all she’s the head of the student council at Honnouji Academy, a school around which a city revolves. That may not seem like much, but when the school uniform can literally bestow superpowers upon students that she deems worthy, and when she plans to send Honnouji students across the country to do battle with rival schools, then her power grab doesn’t seem so outlandish. It’s all down to the Life Fibre, imbued in the school uniform. 10% Life Fibre creates the 1 Star uniforms, 20% the 2 Star, and 30% the 3 Star, any more than that invites loss of control.

It all seems to be going so well for Satsuki Kiryuin and her Elite Four, then a loud and undisciplined transfer student named Ryuko Matoi arrives, wielding half a pair of giant scissors, and with a chip on her shoulder. She wants to know just who it was that murdered her father, the owner of the other half of those scissors, and seeing as Satsuki recognises the blade, she’s just jumped to the top of her suspect list. There’s not a lot that a no-Star transfer student can do against the wearers of the Goku uniforms. But Ryuko’s father left her a powerful legacy, a school uniform woven from 100% Life Fibre, Senketsu. But Satsuki’s got a legacy too...


The concluding 6 episodes are presented on a dual layer Blu-ray from All the Anime. Kill la Kill is being released in the US by Aniplex US over 5 volumes. All the Anime must know where some Aniplex skeletons are buried, as they managed to twist their arms into allowing the UK release over 3 volumes. As this is just a single disc release, All the Anime have sweetened the pot somewhat by including a limited edition collector’s artbox, in which all three Limited Edition releases of Kill la Kill can be stored.

20. Far From the Madding Crowd
21. Incomplete
22. Tell Me How You Feel
23. Imitation Gold
24. Past the Infinite Darkness
25. OVA Goodbye Again

Picture

Kill la Kill gets a 1.78:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p resolution. Kill la Kill looks nigh on perfect, and for all but a few sticklers, it may as well be. The image is clear and sharp, colours come through without flaw, and there is absolutely no sign of compression, no aliasing and certainly rare in HD anime, no banding whatsoever. And that’s in an animation that isn’t exactly pushing the budget, or stretching the limits of the format resolution. In many ways Kill la Kill is a cheap and cheerful show; with simple character designs and animation, and not a lot of complexity in the world design either. Mako Makanshoku is a masterpiece of simplicity, while the uniformity of the background characters isn’t limited to their apparel.

But the way the animation is implemented, even in the more static scenes, with lens flare and imaginative framing, keeps the show feeling dynamic, while the budget really comes out in the action sequences, fast paced and energetic, and able to draw the viewer in. There’s also a lot of visual imagination in the comedy, lots of sight gags, little Easter eggs of humour in the background of some scenes, and don’t be surprised if you skip back and freeze frame more than once to catch something you missed the first time.

The images in this review have been kindly supplied by All the Anime.

Sound

You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese, encoded at 1.5 Mb per second, with translated subtitles and a signs only track. Those few videophile sticklers I mentioned would probably balk at the fact that the audio and subtitle options are locked, meaning you can’t watch the episodes without subtitles. That’s probably the concession that was made to Aniplex to allow fewer volume releases. Also, it seems that All the Anime are on the way to solving the multiple on screen subtitle caption problem that usually plagues anime discs authored in the UK, as I certainly saw two captions on screen at any one time, when two conversations were going on simultaneously.

As for the audio, I went with the original Japanese track, and it was good enough, with the dialogue clear, the action coming across well, and the show’s music allowed to drive the story. I gave the English dub a try for half an episode, and the show actually gets the dub it deserves, with all of the main characters cast well, including to my surprise, Mako. She’s a unique character with a unique voice, and the danger was that the English version would just be an imitation; instead the English Mako is a distinct character that captures her enthusiastic ditziness while having her own identity too.

Extras

The disc gets an animated menu.

You get the second set of clean credits for the show, as well as the clean closing to episode 24. There are 1:22 of Web Previews, but most substantial is the Kill la Kill Digest: Naked Memories by Aikuro Mikisugi. This lasts 8:51 and offers a recap of the story, as narrated by that perverted teacher/freedom fighter.

All of the extras are in HD.

One final time I failed to get my greedy hands on the chipboard packaging or the hefty artbook this time, or the big collector’s box. Curses!

Conclusion

We’ve all done it; taken our eagerly purchased anime, and divided the price we paid by the number of episodes contained within, to get a false value for money reading. I say false as the real value of an anime is the value we place upon it by how we appreciate it, what effect it has on us as a viewer. As so much of the anime that’s released in Japan is of the disposable forgettable kind, that kind of mathematics can understandably cause a bit of depression. The trap is when we apply that maths to shows that we love, find that they’re comparatively more expensive than the disposable mass market stuff, and start feeling aggrieved. Anime, indeed any entertainment is really worth only what we are willing to pay for it.


You might be induced to tut when you divide the price most e-tailers are asking against the six episodes, would tut even more when you do the same with the RRP. But think about what you’re getting. The episodes, the artbook, the premium packaging, and indeed the deluxe limited edition box to contain all three instalments. Actually it’s better to look at it as whole, three special editions, replete with the aforementioned deluxe packaging and artbox, and three novels worth of artbook. And when dividing the total cost you might pay by 25 episodes it actually looks more reasonable. On top of that, we’re getting it less than a year after its first broadcast in Japan. But as I said, that’s false mathematics. Way back when, I spent over £100 importing Durarara!! on DVD from Australia because I loved the show so much, and I wanted the dub. I was perfectly happy spending that and was satisfied with my purchase (for a month, then the Blu-ray was announced by Aniplex, but that’s another story). The important thing is that Kill la Kill is well worth it, one of the best comedy action parody shows I have seen, one which I find far more preferable to Gurren Lagann which occupies the same, rarefied niche genre.


You may be wondering at this point why this idiot keeps talking about money! This is the final disc of Kill la Kill, the final five episodes of the series, and quite frankly the revelations come thick and fast, the action, the reversals, the twists and turns, and if I start to write about it now, I’ll spoil it for everyone. Two paragraphs of anime economics are two paragraphs in which I can avoid spoilers.

Kill la Kill is a fantastic series. Its offbeat, zany, hyper-energetic style is ideal for its equally daft premise, the whole idea of clothes with power, and the fate of the world resting on who controls the clothes. The characters are totally off the wall too, bizarre, over the top parodies of shonen clichés, with the show always choosing to go for the extreme, never choosing subtlety or silence when it can be loud and outrageous. Yet even with this hyper-parodic, hyper-energetic, and hyper-stylised approach to anime, it can still find the story chops to grab the viewer by the emotions, eliciting revulsion and hatred at the villains, gets you investing in the heroes, revelling in their triumphs, concerned when they are in peril. No other show but Kill la Kill can get your emotions in a twist over the trials and tribulations of a school girl, and her rocky friendship with her sailor uniform.


Kill la Kill is a rollercoaster ride of a show, one that leaves you spent by the end of its runtime, but in good way. And just when you think it’s all over, this collection offers the OVA episode, one final encore from the Kill la Kill crew, tying up a loose end, and giving one final chance for the characters to shine in another, single episode of daft, zany and ridiculous character confrontation. As can you probably guess, Kill la Kill goes on my favourite anime pile. I love this show. The characters and the story are out there as I’ve mentioned, but I love the animation too, a masterpiece of deriving energy from economy. It’s not actually all that animated, but the power of its visuals are such that it delivers ten times its budget. On top of that the soundtrack is fantastic, great music that surely deserves a soundtrack CD release here. So for me, Kill la Kill is worth the money. It’s on Netflix though at the time of writing if you want to try before you buy.