There’s a studio called Gainax, they make Anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, then some of the people behind Gurren Lagann split off with studio Trigger. Now I have no idea who did what for which show, but I’m guess everyone on the Gurren Lagann team that did all the drugs and thought of the over the top fights went on to do Kill La Kill, the ones responsible for anything resembling a decent story stayed behind. That is what this show feels like; people did drugs and went crazy on the animation saying “Story? Where we’re going we don’t need a story.”
Kill La Kill is an Anime currently coming out in Japan and it is another thing overhyped to death by fans. However unlike Attack on Titan there’s no potential that was squandered, fans just like it because it looks pretty and is crazy. The plot, or what technically counts for a plot, is that there’s this crazy high school run by the student government and there’s lots of fighting in it. A new transfer student arrives and she has a maguffin that somehow lead her there to challenge the student body president because if the maguffin belonged to her then that means she killed the girl’s parents. This maguffin is supposed to be awesome but the girl gets beaten down and then runs back to the destroyed house of her parents. She then finds a basement with another maguffin in it that makes her go into god mode and beats up the guy who beat her up. That is the entire first episode.
Here’s the crazy stuff: the first maguffin is half of a pair of giant scissors that’s used as a sword. The second maguffin is a sentient “uniform” that forces itself onto the protagonist and it’s just some shoulder pads, a very short skirt, and two bits of string connecting the two that cover her nipples. She then fights a guy with glowing boxing gloves that can shoot lots of mini boxing gloves, grow spikes and drills, the standard crazy stuff. That “uniform” of hers somehow makes her immune to damage despite 80% of her skin being shown. To get a better idea of how bad it is, since the picture at the top is a tame version of it, here’s an image of what it really looks like:
The “uniform” is just fanservice for no reason other than fanservice. It’s fanservice to the point where you might as well watch porn because at least then you’d get a better story and care about what’s happening on screen. There is a theme of uniforms giving people powers, and having the uniforms destroyed at the end of a fight to strip them of that power. Which is fine, the comic series Empowered is all about that, that is till the protagonist walks in with the shoe-string uniform of death, because what’s actually there to destroy? Any meaningful theme and symbolism gets thrown out a window at that point as it’s made clear this series is about things looking cool to male viewers.
Everything is over the top; all the fight scenes are entirely ridiculous but fun, stupid, and well animated. But there’s nothing there, no substance or anything to care about. Gurren Lagann was consistent with its theme and message from episode one and as it got more over the top it still stuck to that core theme. Here the only core theme is “this looks cool!” There’re no loveable characters or anything to make you want to watch week after week except for the fight scenes. Quite frankly that’s not enough since there’s plenty of shows out there with good fight scenes, but they also have heart, good characters, at least a half-decent story, and some substance to them.
This show is pandering, stupid, has no redeeming features beyond crazy fights, and is a little insulting to women or anyone that knows when porn is acceptable and when it isn’t. If you want over the top action just watch Gurren Lagann, if you want a batshit crazy thing watch Dead Leaves, if you want something devoid of the attributes that made those two Animes great then watch Kill La Kill. Watch this and see the visuals, which are only interesting thing about the series; it’ll save you 20 minutes that can be spent watching better shows:
