Kino's Journey and Moralizing

Yesssss. I've been wanting to talk about this for a long, long time, and I highly doubt this will be the only blog I write about it because this series is phenomenal. Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World (Kino's Journey in English) started out as a book series and got turned into an anime series in 2003. The series is only 14 episodes long and has two OVAs, and it's a brilliant story about the human condition. *coughcough*Leeper*cough*

In a story like Kino's Journey, which is based primarily on the phrase "The world is not beautiful; therefore, it is," it would be very easy to moralize and say, "This is the right thing to do in this situation." But the series isn't like that. In fact, I had a friend who was appalled by Kino's actions when he watched the first episode. He asked me, "Why didn't Kino help those people? She could have stayed and helped them but she just drove away." See, the thing with this series is that it isn't a story about right and wrong. Kino frequently finds herself in morally gray territory instead of on the "moral high ground." The series serves as more of an observation of humans as Kino prefers to remain a neutral third party in most situations. She was taught not to interfere with the customs of other people and countries, even though sometimes, she probably should. There are times when Kino could do the "right thing" if she just got involved, but she tends to look the other way and let bygones be bygones.

Nonetheless, every episode and chapter is heavily imbued with meaning, even if it doesn't have a lesson. And even though it isn't necessarily children's media, it fits the bill of telling a story before it teaches a lesson, and that's part of what makes it so great. I don't think it would be nearly as great if it taught a lesson before it told a story.

I believe lessons can distract from a story if the creator tries too hard to show that they're there. Rather, by letting the reader/watcher completely immerse themselves in the story, the meaning of things and any lessons that might be there will come through on their own.

(Honestly, I always say that anyone who doesn't like Kino's Journey hasn't seen or read it yet, and it's one of those anime series that I would recommend to everybody, even if they usually don't like anime.)