Sunday Splash Page #296

 

"Hit the Dusty Trail," in Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World, vol. 1, ch. 1, by Iruka Shiomiya

Kino's Journey is Keiichi Sigsawa's (with Kouhaku Kuroboshi's character designs) highly successful light novel (I'm guessing that's like young adult?) series in Japan, about Kino, a teenager who travels the world with a talking motorrad named Hermes. Kino's rule is never to stay in any land they visit for more than 3 days, though that usually seems to be long enough. It was turned into a 13-episode anime back in the 2000s (it's one of my favorites), and Viz Media released 8 volumes of manga adaptations of the stories starting in 2017.

While Volume 1 kicks off with where Kino was from and how they both met Hermes and took the name "Kino", the manga doesn't progress in chronological order. A story later in volume 1 references a land Kino and Hermes visited with only one inhabitant, but we don't see that adventure until volume 2. Volume 5 has stories starring the woman who taught Kino to shoot, set in her younger days, and volume 7 is Kino's first trip to another land after staying with Master for some time.

Most of the stories are frankly depressing, focused on humanity's ability to destroy themselves. Or come up with excuses to destroy others, maybe. The country with only one citizen is an example of the danger of mob rule, as the majority always executes the minority after every vote. Much better than a tyrannical king. A woman neglected her family to develop automatons, and once the family is dead, decides she's the automaton built to serve her "family". Kino saves three guys from starving in the winter, and they turn out to be slave traders who ate their most recent prisoner when their truck broke down. The book's subtitle, "The Beautiful World" really feels like a joke, even if Shiomiya draws some lovely landscapes for Kino to travel through.

Shiomiya (I assumed based off how Sigsawa wrote them) writes Kino as generally nonplussed by any of this. They can be bright and bubbly like a child at times, dancing when a sudden downpour saves them from dying of thirst, or taking full advantage of a high-quality hotel room an an affordable price. But violence or cruelty rarely faze them. Maybe they've seen too much, or maybe they don't think there's anything they can do. These people want to be this way, and Kino's just a traveler passing through. They know what happens to travelers who object too loudly to local customs.

The manga ended with the former prince Shizu ending his wandering days to take on responsibility for a lost child, but there's no indication Kino or Hermes will do likewise. They'll keep traveling the world, occasionally getting lost or receiving bad directions. Staying three days at a time in a different land and then moving on. Not a bad life if you can hack it, I guess. I don't think I could.

And that concludes the letter K. Quick, I know.

Family's Complicated

Is volume 7 of Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World as much a downer as the previous volume? Well, that depends how you look at it.

The volume is split between two stories. The first involves Shizu and what is now his dog, Riku, as they journey towards Shizu's home nation so he can take part in the tournament seen in volume 3. His vehicle has engine trouble and they're forced to stay in a neighboring nation for a few days. A young girl named Rafa sets her eyes on Shizu, and begins to pester him to buy her. See, her family is poor and she has to work to support all her siblings, plus her parents. But if Shizu's buys her, she can leave this land and never have to worry about such things again!

Shizu's got his own impending patricide and subsequent death to worry about, so he's not interested, but she keeps at it and eventually wears him down. As it turns out, Rafa's motives aren't exactly how she presented them, and Shizu is left with nothing to show for his trouble. But as she points out, he's planning to die soon, so what does it matter?

The other story revolves around Kino, at some point in their apprenticeship with Master. It's a very different Kino from the one we see in most stories, and not simply because they have long hair and is still adjusting to being known as "Kino". This Kino is wide-eyed, naive, and still a bit of a child. Thinks that "Master" is an odd name, not realizing it's a title. There's little of the poker face Kino sports later in life, as she cries and shouts and in general doesn't show any patience or forethought.

We see some shooting practice where Kino has to be reminded to wear hearing protection, with the impression this is typical. After doing quite well shooting a frying pan dangling from a rope, Kino tries to jump to grab it to bring it down, succeeding mostly in just making it bob and sway on the rope. It's pretty likely Kino would have a more efficient method later on.

The real hook of that story, and one that prompts a change in Kino, is a traveling salesman who recognizes the coat Kino kept from their namesake, and knows where that land is. It's Kino's first trip with Hermes since escaping their home country, this time going to deliver news to the first Kino's mother.

That trip does not go well, though I like the thicker, wavy line for Kino's perceptions while drugged. End result is, Kino has to leave another country, and understands a little better the dangers that Master left unsaid in the stories of her travels.

Beauty's in the Dead Eye of the Beholder

You come at the Kino, you best not miss.

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.

Eye Contact is Overrated Anyway

So do I. It's called alcohol.

Volume 5 of Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World takes a different approach from the earlier volumes. Whereas most of the earlier volumes were focused on Kino's briefs visits to different kingdoms, this one focuses much of its pages on just one land, where the people can't look at each other.

Iruka Shiomiya (or maybe that's how it went in Keiichi Sigsawa's light novel originally) takes the approach of having Kino visit the kingdom, and find everyone wearing masks that can be adjusted to show expressions. Then there's a flashback to when the woman who taught Kino how to shoot, who insists she be referred to as "Master" (that's her with the dark hair up there), visited the country with a previous apprentice. What Kino finds is the end result of Master's solution.

After Kino departs, the prince from volume 3, Shizu, arrives some time later. He responds somewhat differently to what he finds than Kino did, which is nice. Kino tends to go with the flow. Unless someone or something directly threatens her life, she lets people live their lives as they wish. Shizu, maybe because he spent years exiled from his kingdom and determined to come back and set things right, can't help getting involved. And his attempt to help ends, well, it's either hilarious or creepy depending on how you look at it.

Then there's Kino's teacher, who we get our first real glimpse of here. She's willing to get involved, if you pay her, and she's very morally flexible. One of the other chapters is her some years ago, telling Kino about a visit to a land where a sniper lurks in the woods and kills people for money. Some people hired her to kill him, but other people hired her to leave him be. He settles disputes, so really, he's like a community service. Like a garbageman.

The other major story in this volume, which leads it off, is about Kino visiting a land that is supposedly incredibly unfriendly. Yet Kino is greeted warmly, so you know the other shoe is gonna drop. I already knew what was coming because this was story they used for the 13th episode of the anime, but that didn't make me any less sad when it played out as it did. It cast a pall over the rest of the volume.

Nothing Like a Fight to the Death to Get the Blood Pumping

Some people test their limits by entering a race or taking a cooking class. Kino here decides entering a tournament of death is a good test.  Like Juan de Dios said in A Fistful of Dollars, you will get rich, or you'll be dead.

Volume 3 of Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World basically focuses on Kino's visit to a single country. Where she's informed that she's now entered into a tournament. If she refuses, she's enslaved. If she loses, she might be allowed to live, if her opponent feels gracious. If she wins, she becomes a citizen and gets to add a new law.

Kino doesn't give much of a damn about any of that, but the tournament only takes three days, and that's how long she planned to stay, so she's in it to win it. Each opponent has a different fighting style, a distinct look, and different styles. The second and fourth fight go on longer than the other two, and there's a bit more strategy involved on Kino's part, which keeps things interesting. But all of these contestants are there to become citizens, and none of them seem the types to accept surrender. So Kino mows through them, but without killing anyone (including laughing boy down there, who was the second opponent), to the dismay of the crowd. If the king who instituted the tournament after killing his father is disappointed, he doesn't show it.

The final battle comes down to Kino against a young swordsman who is very good at blocking bullets with his sword. Kino's a shootist, so that seems like a sub-optimal match-up for her. But he hasn't killed any of his opponents yet, either, so it seems like both of them are focused on something else.

The swordsman has a whole backstory that's set up in the early going, and we get the rest after the fact. Although none of it explains his talking dog. There are also several flashbacks during the tournament to this young couple in a wagon. Kino met them some time ago when they were on the way to this country, having heard wonderful things. When she crossed paths with them again, only the woman was around, and she confirmed all the things they'd told Kino previously. Told Kino she just had to visit this place. Which is the part that disturbs me the most in this chapter. Not the lunatic king. Not all the killers who show up looking for an easy life where slaves take care of everything. Not the crowds baying for blood. That the person who escaped willingly and knowingly sent someone else into that.

Hermes, Kino's talking motorcycle, observes he's not sure this is a beautiful world, and I'd say he's right. Kino seems to find messy situations and misery wherever she goes. But why should she be any different than the rest of us, right? Really, Kino herself can be terrifying at times. Very cold, very certain. A young kid smiling and calling 'you liaaar' while she points a gun at you is a little unnerving.