On My Shelves: Kill La Kill

 

"In Heaven's stead, we smite clothing!"

     A grim avenger appears at Honnouji Academy. Their father was murdered, the only clue the weapon embedded in Isshin Matoi's chest – half of an immense pair of red-metal scissors or shears, and whispers of a connection to the leader of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council of Honnouji, Satsuki Kiryūin. Armed with nothing but an unbendable will, the half-scissor as a sword, and startling combat skill, this lone mysterious figure swears they will confront the super-powered Council and tear the truth from Satsuki.

This sounds like the setup for any number of shonen (boy's) anime. But in Kill la Kill, absolutely nothing is as it seems.

Our grim avenger is a teenage girl, Ryoko Matoi – who happens to act exactly like the classic shonen hero, without a single concession to the tropes of female anime characters. Her opposite number, Satsuki Kiryūin, is similarly the classic bishonen arrogant opponent, just happening to be female but behaving precisely as their male counterpart would. This inversion of normal anime roles, however, does not even begin to scratch the surface.

     Why does Ryoko's absent-minded homeroom teacher suddenly turn bishonen and start shedding clothing the moment he gets Ryoko alone? (it's not the reason you expect). Why is the most powerful corporation on Earth the Revocs clothing conglomerate? Who murdered Isshin Matoi, and why? Why does the mysterious assassin wear hardly any clothes? And how does Satsuki manage that awesome glow whenever she gives a speech?

All right, we never get a real answer for the last one, except "it's awesome!". But the others all get answered in strangely consistent, yet totally psychedelic, ways.

Kill la Kill is, on the surface, a rather peculiar "fighting anime", with the typical progression of the hero first acquiring their superpowers (in Ryoko's case, a suit of living clothing called Senketsu), confronting increasingly powerful opponents on their way to a final showdown with their obvious and most powerful rival, and then – as many shows do – a reveal of the TRUE Big Bad behind the scenes and an Enemy Mine situation in which Ryoko and Satsuki must join forces to stop the ultimate enemy, which turns out to be Satsuki's mother and the head of the Revocs Corporation, Ragyō Kiryūin.

So many other standard tropes are present – best friend Mako, who's hyperkinetic and clueless and more than a bit besotted with Ryoko, the loyal warrior group (Elite Four) who serve as the Dragon to Satsuki's Big Bad, the posturing and monologuing between battles, the sudden increase or discovery of new powers in desperation, abrupt reversals of fortune in combat, abrupt revelations of key plot elements, vast conspiracies, alien invasions, the whole nine yards. Kill la Kill does not shy away from any of the most hackneyed, or glorious, elements of its obvious ancestry.

But it is the details that take this out of the ordinary oddities of anime and make it a tour de force of deconstruction. The superhuman powers of the characters are revealed to come from "Life Fibers" – living clothing, in essence – that can use and vastly amplify the capabilities of their wearers. But this is actually a trap, for the sinister secret of the Revocs Corporation and Ragyō in particular is that the Fibers are part of an alien lifeform which acts as a long-term parasite, arriving on a planet, encouraging the growth of appropriate hosts, and then after a period of dormancy emerging to consume the entire population and then reproduce, spreading more Life Fibers across space.

Sounds … odd but not entirely out of the ordinary. Except that author Kazuki Nakashima intends every single image and concept to be a direct attack against the fashion industry, the standard body and personal images of Japan (and much of the rest of the world). The true villain is a super-fashionista ("What is the world? The world is clothing!"); the incredibly Stripperiffic transformation sequences and battle configurations of the Kamui (100% Life-Fiber outfits like Senketsu) are not presented as titillation, but to emphasize the power of the wearers (watch the poses; they aren't showing off the bodies, but presenting the characters in the exact same poses that male heroes doing the "suit up" sequences use, not female shoujo transformations), and the idea of them being titillating or shameful is directly addressed by Satsuki:

 

"To unleash the most power, this is the form a Kamui must take! You cling to the puritanical views of the masses, proving just how inferior you are! But I won't be ashamed, if it means I can fulfill my ambitions, I will bare my breasts for all to see! I will do whatever it takes! For I know that my actions are utterly pure!"

 

This is underscored by the secret underground conspiracy to overthrow the Life Fibers, led by Aikurō Mikisugi, Ryoko's homeroom teacher – the revolutionary organization known as (overdramatic announcement) "NUDIST BEACH!". As the Life Fibers were the ones who encouraged the development of the human species – most definitely including the physical need for protection and cultural desire for clothing – "Nudist Beach" rejects all but the most necessary clothing as both symbolic of the enemy and a potential weapon of the enemy. While often played for comedy, their stance turns out to be all too correct when the Revocs Corporation is revealed to have incorporated Life Fibers in all the clothing in the world in preparation for converting all of humanity into food for the Fibers.

There are literally countless references to other anime, both shonen and shoujo, in Kill la Kill. To name just a few, Ragyō Kiryūin's appearance and style is directly patterned after Lady Gaga's; she also has seven scars like stars down her back, which are a direct reference to Kenshiro in Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken); the clash of the female warrior student with a male demeanor against the leader of an Absurdly Powerful Student Council refers to the equally bizarre Revolutionary Girl Utena; she also does a "I am your father" (well, mother) to Ryoko (and she's not lying, impossible though it seems at first). The awakening of Senketsu is basically identical to the main character's acquisition of their living-weapon armor in B't X. Scattered in the background are signs referencing various anime and Western media – for instance, one scene has a sign that says, in katakana, "Pacific Rim". This list does not even scratch the surface.

Overall, this is one of the most frenetic, ridiculous, fascinating anime I have ever seen. It is well worth a look by anyone who can deal with a World of Ham where everything is Serious Business and the world's fate depends on a schoolgirl in a living sailor uniform!