Name(s): Kill la Kill / KLK / Dressed to Kill / キルラキル
Format: TV series (24 episodes)

I got light entertainment with absolutely zero emotional connection out of this one. It’s better than most I could say the same thing about, as Trigger’s polish and Imaishi’s style is always a treat. But I can’t get into action just for the sake of action, and the diminishing returns of the over-the-top direction seen in Gurren Lagann wears it down a bit.

While that show had more uneventful moments, they punctuated the action whenever it did show up, and used them to set up character development that gave the action more pay-off. For me, Kill la Kill is too constantly full throttle and farcical to believe in any of its character drama, and the weak attempts at deeper themes probably detracted from the show more than anything. The show is largely constructed by men, and the justification for the characters to be nude is clearly done more for their amusement than any moral stance. It’s not a coincidence female nudity in this show is targeted far more than males, and there’s no particular reason nearly every character needs to have gigantic tits flopping around either. Kill la Kill wants to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to fanservice, but it’s such a hypocritical joke and so poorly justified by the narrative that the stupidity of it all drags the show down and demeans its characters. Even if Ryuuko and Satsuki become comfortable with being nude, the focus of the camera and audience is very obviously meant to get joy out of it. When you’re writing fiction, you can of course get the characters to go along with it so they don’t feel like victims, but then that just makes the whole nudity aspect feel hypocritical.

Even the animation dips in quality over the course of the series, which is a big deal considering that’s the main appeal here. I hate to keep going back to Gurren Lagann, but that show’s final episodes were the best it ever looked. Here things begin to become off-model, and there are too many stills with only moving limbs and mouths. The show’s repetitive, constant exaggerated attitude gets tiring and the dip in animation only fails to keep that part interesting. The constant use of stock footage, transformations, Mako’s charade act, and large red superimposed text gets old rather than intoxicating. The show needs to evolve these concepts in order for them to keep being effective, and because it doesn’t do much of that the show feels way longer than it should. Even then, the series is at its best during the first half with Ryuuko fighting her way to the top of the academy, and in the second half a major mistake is made by having nearly all the antagonists be mindless grunts. Special attacks and superpowers are just pulled out of nowhere like Gurren Lagann, making them feel undeserved and having battles be more about flash and raw power than characterization or strategy. It also makes all the conflicts feel the same. This seems like a pure evolution of the Dragon Ball Z class of shonen, whereas I prefer how the genre branched out later.

Kill la Kill Specials

AKA: Kill la Kill Tokubetsu-hen / Sayonara wo Mou Ichido / Kill la Kill Digest: Naked Memories / KILL la KILL Digest –Naked Memories by Aikuro Mikisugi–
Format: Special (2 episodes)

As of writing this, MyAnimeList has two total episodes for these specials. The second is a recap episode, which seems kind of stupid since it’s only on the final volume of the blu-rays. Maybe it’s funny, but I have no intention of watching it at the moment.

The main event is what’s practically the real final episode of the series. I expected this to be the usual comedy-filled special that nobody needed, but instead it was the rare plot-relevant special that nobody needed. It’s mostly redundant character development and themes, with the meatiest new material being elaboration on the backstory of a character I’m sure almost nobody cared about. It’s serviceable screaming and explosions for the sake of it, as Kill la Kill is often good for, but the charm of the style was already fizzling out by the end of the series. This attempt to keep the momentum of the finale alive feels like trying to defibrillating a dead horse. For those who want more Kill la Kill and can settle for a single episode, they probably couldn’t have done much better. But to me it’s just weaker tricks the show’s already done.