I’m not usually one to like absurd shit, but when absurd shit is coupled with absurd action and an absurdly good story. Now that’s a formula I can get behind.
Now, this is one god-tier anime. I suppose all it took was a few glasses of Gin & Tonic to give me the confidence to give this a try, but it sure was worth it. The alcohol helped me get used to all the weirdness, and the hype kept me hooked. This is the kind of show where, once you start, you can’t really stop watching. Calling it wild is an understatement. This show to me felt like what would happen if you push the medium of anime to its absolute limits. I’m not talking about limits in the sense of say the animation quality or how realistic things are, but I mean how much you can push before the viewer feels detached from what they’re seeing. Take for example how characters sometimes interact with their name tags, the text literally hangs around. Normally you’d be like, whaaa, but the execution is so well done, you don’t even feel that in Kill la Kill.
When episode 12 rolled around, and we hit the first finale, I genuinely thought the anime couldn’t do any better. Hell, I thought the show only had 12 episodes; that’s how conclusive and good that finale felt. When the episodes went on, I assumed that the show would just burn itself out. Oh ho, wasn’t I wrong? It reached even higher levels of hype and kept me invested throughout. It’s like the show is so out of this world that nothing seems to feel out of place. Everything sort of clicked, as weird as everything was. It’s like when you pile up a bunch of inconsistencies that, after a point, you can’t even tell each one apart from the other. That’s what the show felt to me. And I loved it.
I’m not usually a huge fan of the shounen whiny MCs. This is why I couldn’t handle Naruto. Those characters are so goddamn annoying. I’m not saying that Matoi wasn’t annoying at times, but the show managed to do so much that the annoyance covered itself up. The transformation sequences, the power-ups, the fights, they all added up to so much that I couldn’t help but be on the edge of my seat, eager to know what happens next. It’s rare to find a show that makes you this pumped up for a fight scene. And to find a show where every damn episode makes you go like that is near impossible. I’m surprised Kill la Kill managed to do that without messing it up.
What dragged me into the show was how many things were happening all the time. The creativity of it all was mind-boggling. I imagine the writer going, if it can happen, I will wish it to happen. This is especially evident in Mako’d dialogue scenes. There’s some random shit in every freaking frame in that. I can’t imagine the animators came up with completely new designs just to show it for a split second. I can feel the effort that was put into this show. Though it’s wild, everything feels calculated and in its rightful place. The abstractness doesn’t feel abstract for abstract’s sake. It’s like the show is telling me that there’s no point questioning why it happens because that’s not the point. It’s all about looking at the absurdity and having a great time with it.
Then there are the characters. I don’t think I need to say much about them. The level of development each of the main characters received was extraordinary. And the show very much acknowledges the difference between a main character and some random NPC, rather than half-assign everyone, it selects a cast and goes with it. Take Mako and Gamagoori’s relationship, for instance. Initially, it was coincidental, but as the two found themselves in completely random scenarios, as often happens in this show, Gamagoori slowly grew accustomed to having Mako around in those weird situations to the point where he developed feelings for her. Seeing this unfold over the entire span of the show, rather than a brief arc while everything else is happening, is incredibly satisfying. It’s as if the subplots aren’t overshadowed by the main plot, and the main plot isn’t hindered by the subplots either. It makes the main plot even more sweeter.
There’s also the sound mixing and the music. There’s no denying the music is awesome. But what really caught my eye was the sound effects for all the action scenes. The sound didn’t suspend my suspension of disbelief in the slightest. It merged well with what I was seeing. Unlike in say Reincarnated as a Slime or The Eminence in Shadow where there are a lot of fights going on, the sound is extremely mediocre at best. The sounds just don’t match very well with the things that are happening, it feels dejected at times. As if the sound was given more oomph just to make it sound cool or larger than it is.