Can’t we all just get along?
What They Say:
Satsuki Kiryuin reveals her plan to rebuild Honnouji Academy’s order, a free-for-all whose survivors will be able to regain their Goku Uniforms. Despite the resulting chaos, Ryuko and Mako go for a ride, only to wind up in an unexpected situation!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
All four members of the Elite Four have good reasons for doing what they do, so it’s unfortunate that Ryuko has to be on the opposite side. But that’s where the real good conflicts of the series come in, and Satsuki herself is sure to be the most interesting once the time comes to have the final showdown with her. For now, these four stand before her, each choosing to take on Ryuko primarily to show Satsuki their dedication to her, and in the process Ryuko and the viewer she represents see why each of these members follow Satsuki. We’re onto the second one, Gamagoori, although with the current setup, it looks like all four will be getting equal exposure in the next few episodes.
And that’s because it’s tournament arc time! Okay, if you know anything about Kill la Kill, you know that such a description couldn’t possibly do justice to the sequence of events it describes. But there’s really no other way to explain it, and it does feel like it’s setting up to be potentially be a little more generic than most of the series. Satsuki wants to abolish her current hierarchy and set up a new one based on a tournament brilliantly titled “Naturals Election”, consisting of a mass elimination followed by a king-of-the-hill style finale. But inevitably the conveniently numbered final five spots go to the same four who were at the top before she decided to do this, and they collectively request that the final challenge be that each of them takes on Ryuko one on one. That sounds… just like what would’ve happened anyway, just in a more organized manner. And if there’s one thing that doesn’t really fit Kill la Kill, it’s being organized. Sure, all four of them would’ve inevitably come face to face with Ryuko in roughly the same way, but why not let it happen a bit more naturally, even if that “natural” feel is obviously artificial for the point of plot convenience as well. Gurren Lagann, for all its very similar craziness, had a brilliantly constructed story from beginning to end, with everything fitting together and nothing out of place for a second, but never resorted to some kind of an organized battle to deal with anything. It worked so well because the writing was so well-organized, while the presentation made it appear to be all over the place, and surprisingly, Kill la Kill is almost doing the reverse of that, which doesn’t work nearly as well.
The more questionably organized portion of the tournament doesn’t begin until the final seconds of the episode, though, and there’s a little more to what leads up to it than Gamagoori setting up for his opening fight with Ryuko in the finals. That part is largely the same as Sanageyama, with Satsuki being shown to have earned his respect so strongly in his younger days that he’s decided to dedicate his life to her regardless of his own opinions of her orders. But beyond that, we also get a flashback to Ryuko’s past, something that’s been strangely lacking compared to the antagonists, and we see the circumstances of her father’s death as Ryuko saw it. It may be the intention of these flashback sequences (amusingly presented in 4:3 and with some “old-feeling” filters, as well as wear on even the black bars on either side) to seem overly melodramatic in contrast to the wackiness of the colorful modern day, but it still feels like a bit much while it’s going on. Fortunately, the beautiful score in the background more than makes up for any complaints I might have on that end. Other than that, we mostly just get some nice moments between Ryuko and Mako before all hell breaks loose for the main portion of the episode.
In Summary:
Kill la Kill heads into something of a tournament arc, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. This kind of an organized event doesn’t jibe with the unconstrained feel that the show has made such an identity of up to this point, and it seems almost pointless since each of these conflicts was inevitably going to happen in a way that’s presented more naturally and thus ultimately more interestingly. This is all conjecture, though, as there’s no telling how the finals will play out and how much unpredictable nonsense could grace the series once more. The episode itself is about as strong as ever, delving into the pasts of both Elite Four member Gamagoori and our protagonist for the first real time, showing us the scene that’s meant so much to her. There are some flaws here in there, but in the end it works pretty well due to the presentation still being very likable, at least for the time being.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Toshiba Satellite L655-S5191 PSK2CU-1C301U Notebook PC.
