Weekly Anime Post 126

Hi rDrama! I was previously on a long break from watching any anime, but over the last week I watched Kino's Journey. It's an episodic show about a moe girl with a talking motorcycle who travels to a wide variety of "countries" (city-states). Typically, each country has at least one bizarre or extreme custom which leads to some interesting conflict or discussion. I liked it, which is to be expected since I'm a sucker for anything vaguely contemplative as long as it's not awful. A lot of the stories are pretty abstract with characters that are obviously symbols, giving it the tone of a gloomier and more violent version of The Little Prince. In terms of anime, it could probably best be compared to Mushi-shi, out of things I've watched. The episodes are not strictly in chronological order and rather seem to be roughtly ordered by increasing absurdity of the settings. Overall, I'd give it a good 8/10, maybe 9 if I'm generous. The good episodes are really good - my favorites were 2 and 10 - but some of the stories don't really have room to breathe and are over almost as soon as the exposition finishes. On the other hand, the colosseum story took up 2 whole episodes and it wasn't very good.

In addition to the show, there are 2 movie shorts and an "episode 0" special. All of these can basically be treated as extra episodes and watched at any time. The first movie was ok but nothing special, and the second was pretty weak and had some awful 3d stuff in it. The episode 0 special was decent and fit well with the rest of the show. There is also a 2017 remake of the show, which I didn't watch.