Toonami has been home to countless fantasy anime for Western audiences, but one popular series secretly says a lot about magical girl anime. Although Kill la Kill is often considered an action, comedy, and magical girl series, its direct relationship to the magical girl genre has not been explored. By playing with the tropes and expectations of magical girl games, Kill la Kill offers a very interesting commentary that, in addition to denigrating magical girls, celebrates them.
Kill La Kill it was the first independently produced series by Studio Triggeraired in 2013. It would also be Studio Trigger’s first statement, showing its commitment to producing high-quality, provocative anime. Kill la Kill centers on Ryuko Matoi, a homeless student armed with a pair of scissors. He moves to Honnou City to search for his father’s killer who stole the other half of the scissors. There, he enters Honnouji Academy, ruled with an iron hand by student council president Satsuki Kiryuin.
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The series begins with Ryuko and Satsuki’s group butting heads. Ryuko believes that Satsuki is the one who killed her father, and the previous major conflict is caused by her suspicions. The elements of magical girls are completed the conversion of goods and powerful weaponswhile the school provides the classic setting for the delinquency story.
There is a catch, however. Clothes are made of special fibers called life fibers. Their magical abilities are derived from the fact that the clothes cast the characters’ life force. To make matters worse, they are produced by a powerful group, Satsuki’s mother who is its leader. Suits are part and parcel of a program like the Human Instrumentality Project at Evangelionwhen Satsuki’s mother aims to rule the world.
Because suits are empowering and deliberately produced, they function to uphold social hierarchies of authority and institutional power. Satsuki’s team suits are specially designed. It’s almost impossible to beat someone with a high-class suit. Far from being a random, random change of key characters, suits are given a narrative purpose in the world of Kill la Kill. They make characters vulnerable and literally take their lives; they are given great expense, both in and out of combat. At the same time, they strengthen the social and political order in the world.
Things like this the exhibition Kill la KillIntentions to take down the magical girl are in effect. On the basis of finding the root of her father’s murder, tomboy-ish Ryuko is thrown into the world when she takes on the role of a magical girl. In doing so, he does not immediately find a weapon to use against evil, and he does not find direct friendship, but a world where everything is deeper and heavier than what appears on the surface.
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Kill La Kill Embrace Magical Girls While Challenging Genres and Demographics Write More
In media analysis, reconstruction usually refers to “dissecting” a genre, work, or trope in order to check for bias, assumptions, and questionable elements. child’s name, reconstructionit means to intentionally restore those features, to embrace a genre, function, or trope while recognizing their limitations.
Many anime are described as subverting the genre. The difference is not that “destructive” jobs are bleak while “reconstructive” jobs are optimistic. For example, One Punch Man both destroy and disintegrate the prototypical shonen hero, but somehow it would be difficult to call it “dark”. Kill la Kill reinvented the magical girl genre by choosing to embrace its core themes and themes.
Although it clearly shows the deception and tricks that underlie any human interaction, it also shows the power of love, unity, and friendship: common themes of magical girl franchises. There are many examples of this ultimate triumph: the implied relationship between Ryuko and Maki, the welcome madness of Ryuko and Satsuki, and the eventual uniting of Ryuko and Satsuki’s teams to fight the overwhelming evil of Satsuki’s mother and the threads of life.
It weaves together story elements perfectly to simultaneously build and rebuild magical girls, in a very optimistic way. even at the same time as it is a fiery critique of authority and institutions. Ryuko’s trauma and upbringing leads her to avenge her father’s death; it turns out that his father (and his tragic circumstances) had given him the very tools he needed to fight against a society that would make him an outcast.
In addition, since change makes the characters vulnerable and is a symbol of the exploitation of girls and women, Kill la Kill offers a silver lining. To lambast Kill la Kill because its fan service, in fact, telling girls and women to be ashamed of their bodies. Sure, there are tons of anime where the men are naked, but they’re never accused of being irrelevant to the plot or just being eye candy.
Kill la Kill you understand this. Satsuki reprimands Ryuko for her initial embarrassment during her transformation, calling her nudity trivial and unimportant. Kill la Kill rediscovers its construct of transforming girls through magic by turning exploitation into an opportunity for empowerment. This change is important to the structure of the showand it shows a conscious embrace of a certain aspect of girl magic that has led to raised eyebrows when men show interest in the genre.
Likewise, just as Kill la Kill blurs the lines of magical girl anime (traditionally shoujo) by using themes usually reserved for “seinen”, Ryuko’s tomboyish nature and tough upbringing make her universally relatable: she’s a young girl, the target demographic for shoujo, but tolerant anger. the truth of the “dark”, “seinen” themes. Where magical girls usually are target for girls, Kill la Kill boldly state this absurd interpretation. As magical girls are celebrated, subtly encourages viewers everything species to consider their relationship to species.
Put it best: magical girls as a given type of scissors; Kill la Kill offers another, then weapons itself, cutting through magical girls, shoujo, seinen, and the figures and norms underlying anime itself. Without a doubt, this is one part of why Toonaminot known for embracing shoujo, it’s a given Kill la Kill alongside their standard shonen/seinen. It doesn’t detract from magical girls by offering themes that appeal to boys and men, but actually shows that the basic ideas of magical girls apply to everyone.