English Dub Review: Kino’s Journey -the Beautiful World- “Bothersome Country”

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

Overview (Spoilers)

Kino and Hermes are in a bit of a bind. They’re stuck in a canyon, and it’s lined with rough mountains. While resting and pondering the problem, rumbling sounds. A giant vehicle the size of a city rolls through the forest. They welcome the travelers on board and offer a room to stay in, as well as a tour of the facilities. It’s got an insane steam generator, which generates more electricity than the country consumes. To make sure the generator doesn’t overheat, they have to keep the country constantly moving. This is exactly how they like it anyways. They get to see the world but never have to leave the comfort of home. The top levels of the city are open to the sky, they have their own internal farmland, and they have yearly projects where the grade-schoolers paint a mural of places they’ve visited on the outer walls. Only downside, this giant city on treads leaves a long trail of utter devastation. Then, we have a bit of a diplomatic issue. They are about to cross into the territory of another country. They have a giant wall, and they ain’t budging. Unfortunately for them, the moving country has a giant frikkin’ laser, and slices the wall to ribbons. Oh, well. We’re gonna just drive over all your farmland, m’kay? The soldiers of the walled country, feeling a bit petty after this invincible super-tank walks right past them, starts firing missiles at the mural. It won’t damage the city, but it will ruin the painting, and we can’t have that. But, using the giant laser to disrupt the targeting would kill all the soldiers at the same time. Kino goes out to destroy the targeting scopes with her sniper rifle. Half a day later, the city-tank crashes through the other side, and Kino disembarks. As they drive off, she and Hermes discuss how bothersome both countries were. As it turns out, the walled country had intentionally built their walls to span the valley. They then charged exorbitant taxes to come through. So, they really deserved all this destruction.

Courtesy: Funimation

Our Take

This episode played with me a little bit. The last episode, Kino engaged in casual genocide without much of a care. This one, I thought I was about to see more of the same. She does so many things that seem arbitrary. She discards her rule of only staying for three days, staying for five instead. She’s absolutely callous to the death, destruction, and famine that was part and parcel of the moving country’s invasion. She’s even willing to risk accidentally killing people in order to protect an unfinished mural. I’m left wondering why she is acting like this. Did the writers just want to get all edgy? Did they forget just about everything about the character? At the very end, we get the answer. The walled-in country was a bunch of jerks who profited off travelers, and not in a reasonable amount either. So, rather than pay the tax or go around (which she couldn’t do) she hitched a ride on an ENGINE OF DEVASTATION. Like one does. It at least makes sense. I felt like the scene with the sniper rifle was taking it a bit far, but at least it doesn’t feel arbitrary. Still, think of all the people that are going to starve because they drove over all the farmlands.

I wasn’t really all that impressed by the visuals in this episode. The animators relied very heavily on CG to do their business, and it lacks the polish that I’ve seen so far. I’ve gotten used to them seamlessly blend their CG with the traditional animation, especially since Hermes has been CG the whole time. Nope. Seeing him up on the truck bed, he stuck out like a sore thumb. It just felt like they didn’t quite take the time they had in the last two episodes. Similarly, the voice acting was just barely there. None of the characters seemed to care about anything. There’s a wall in the way? Meh. Shoot the lasers. Are they blasting the mural? Oh, I guess that’s not very nice. Maybe we should do something about that. Yes, it is written like that, but there is absolutely no emotion or depth or feeling a single one of these characters. Oh, except for the walled-city general. He sounds a bit defeated at the end. I guess. It was just so… bleh.

Score

Summary

I wasn't really expecting to run into an episode of this series that I would feel didn't have polish. I hope that they return to more of the source material soon, and don't let the graphics wane like Chronos Ruler did. I can't really give this episode more than six treads of destruction out of ten.

6.0/10