Fall 2017 Anime: Kino’s Journey -the Beautiful World- the Animated Series

Synopsis

Kino is a traveler who travels the world on a talking motorrad named Hermes. Kino travels to many curious countries with their own distinct customs, staying in each country for no more than three days.

Comments

Halimun Muhammad (The Indonesian Anime Times)

After 14 years, Kino and Hermes are back on the road. This new adaptation, according to novel author Sigsawa, is a remake which will have some stories that haven’t been adapted before as well as some that have been included in the previous adaptation, so newcomers need not fear to get into the new series without prior experience. With the books actually being more like collections of short stories, the previous adaptation has been very episodic for most of the part, with some episodes even containing several stories. The new series seems to be following the same structure as well.

Director Taguchi’s approach for this adaptation feels rather different from the late Ryutaro Nakamura. The look of the new series feels noticeably slicker, with brighter and shinier colour pallette. But fear not because the show is adept at making use of lighting and shadows to convey different moods, whether to show beautiful environments or to create eerie dissonance in certain scenes. The sound design and background music are also superb in helping to set the moods. Aoi Yuuki does a respectable job in voicing the taciturn Kino, while Souma Saito presents Hermes with a calmer disposition compared to Ryuuji Aigase in the previous series. Overall, it seems that the new series is poised to take viewers, old and new, for enchanting trips in its eeriely beautiful world.

Facts and Figures

Screenshots and Trailer

The Indonesian Anime Times