Titling it Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World is really starting to feel like a dark joke, as volume 6 is one hell of a downer. There are three stories in the volume. In the first, Kino helps out three guys whose truck got caught in a blizzard and are almost out of food. They're so grateful that Kino will go hunting for rabbits to feed them - until they decide they're strong enough to try and take her prisoner and sell her into slavery. They'd already eaten their current cargo, you see.
That's the last of them up there, so you can see how that plan worked out. At least they died with a full stomach!
Not a bad start if we're in the mood for some harsh justice, but Kino feels badly she killed three rabbits to feed these men, and they ended up dead anyway. I suppose it's nice that Kino is still trusting enough to help people in need. So! Second story, Kino is following a story told to her by an old man of a country nestled in a valley. Instead she finds an old woman who believes she's an automaton built to serve the family she works for. A family that offers repetitive, basic answers to every question and dumps the food she makes down a hidden trash chute every night.
Kino learns the truth after the old woman's death. Essentially, she became so engrossed in her work of creating automatons to improve life for people, she neglected her family. By the time she succeeded, the unrest in the country had become civil war and her family were dead. Her creations cared for her, and this meant indulging her possibly-cranial-trauma-induced fantasy that she was their artificial servant. It's a little strange that Kino and Hermes are so shocked to learn the
family are automatons, as Iruka Shiomiya draws them very differently
from the old woman. Noses that look pasted on, limited expressions,
perfectly smooth and unusually shiny faces. With her gone, the automatons lack a purpose, and Kino doesn't have any need for them.
Yeah. Well then, there you go. I don't know. The woman became so wrapped up in her work, she lost the people she really cared about, and made herself into someone whose only purpose was to serve. The automatons were built to serve, and adapted that programming as needed. But they can't not serve someone, so there's no "after" for them. And Kino, Kino doesn't seem to need anyone, except maybe Hermes. She travels, that's her purpose, and whether she has anyone to rely on or who relies on her, ultimately doesn't matter. She's the only one still alive, so does that mean she's got it figured?
The third story involves Shizu, the deposed prince Kino met a few volumes ago. This is set before that story, and tells how he and his dog Riku came to meet. It's mostly a funny story of Shizu being tasked to deliver the puppy to his new owner, a member of a royal family in another nation. Riku, who doesn't speak yet, also doesn't make it easy, crapping everywhere, refusing food, biting Shizu. But they gradually become accustomed to each other.
When he reaches his destination, he finds the mercenaries he'd been working with had invaded the country and killed the entire royal family. Shiomiya gives us a delightful panel of the little girl still clutching a picture she drew of her with the dog - which is how Shizu learns the dog would have been named Riku - with a big bloodstain over her face.
No wonder Kino never stays anywhere more than three days. Every place in her world is absolute shit. Or maybe it's just that every place has people, and people inevitably fuck everything up.
No comments:
Post a Comment