Difficulty Ranking: 2
Subtitles: episodes - don't know... if anyone finds them, please tell me!!! movie subs here
i loved this series so much that i'm gonna buy the books and probably watch the anime a good few times more too.
Thanks so much for recommending this Bokusenou!!!
キノの旅 is a story about a girl called キノ and her talking motorbike. (please don't stop reading yet! ;) She is a traveller, and travels to many different countries to meet the people who live there and learn about their customs.
Whoever wrote this series definately has a love for social / human paradoxes (well, not strictly paradoxes, but you know what i mean...), the absurd, and things like infinite regress. The books are aimed at teenagers, but a good paradox story never gets old, right?
The most refreshing thing about this series for me though, was the way the stories were presented. キノ meets lots of different types of people, and a lot of the social systems portray humanity in a fairly harsh light. But, i really got the feeling that the writer just wanted to tell paradoxical stories rather than moralise on any issue. キノ herself is extremely unjudgemental, though she does stick by her own rules, and does what she thinks is right.
And what you're left with at the end isn't that heavy, sick, empty feeling that humanity is pointless and full of holes, or even some moral about how we should try to improve humanity, but just a simple, beautiful view of the world through the eyes of a true traveller.
"the world is not beautiful, and therefore, it is".
Yeah, キノの旅 is one of my favorite anime series and I wish there where more series like it. It does what I think good anime should do: explore ideas.
ReplyDeleteThe novels are just as good, if anything, better because they continue long past where the series ends! I've read harder books, but haven't found anything that's as interesting as キノの旅...once I start a chapter it's really hard to put down, seriously.^-^ I'm on volume 2.
Oh yeah, and the novel illustrations are really beautiful, much prettier than the anime's style
(link to KnT pictures: http://www.minitokyo.net/Kino+no+Tabi). Anyway, I'm really glad you liked it!
Oh yeah I forgot, there's a Hermes bot on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/hermes__bot)that's really funny. The author of the Kino novels also has a Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/sigsawa)...One of these days I'll start using Twitter.
ReplyDeleteSigsawa.. a wonderful writer :)
ReplyDeleteI wonder, there was a srs deck for byousoku right? is there one for Kino, too?
@bokusenou: Yeah, i'm really glad you recommended it to me!!! :) Cool, i'm glad the books are good too! i can't wait to start reading... i almost started reading them on the computer, but it's been so long since i sat outside on a sunny day with the feel of paper between my fingers, and i know i'll enjoy it more that way, so i'll wait. In the meantime, i'm watching Mushishi right now, have you seen it? I didn't like the 1st episode, but after that it got good. I'll review it once i've finished, anyway. Thanks for the twitter streams too, it's fun to read Hermes!! :)
ReplyDeletebtw, have you seen the Tower Country episode? You didn't mention it before, but it was a short episode they made as a pilot, i think. You can find it online through google if you haven't...
@Tori-kun: well, i don't know much about srs decks, as if i was going to make one, i'd make it myself. But if there's no subtitles, there won't be a deck either. You could make one for the movie that theres subs for though.
Which was your favourite episode?
@Tori-kun That would be really cool if there was one. Besides the movie subs mentioned above, there are also the drama CDs (It's not hard to find the first one online, but it has different seiyuu than the anime), but the easiest way would be to rip audio from the PS2 visual novel games, the play-throughs of which are mostly on Niconicodouga (e.g http://www.nicozon.net/watch/sm1370104) and use the books as scripts. I've already ripped a bunch of the ones from chapters I've read for listening to on my Blackberry, but splitting a file into many little files with one line each seems like it would be really tedious, unless there's a way to automatically split it after selecting all the little break points.
ReplyDelete@Icecream
Yeah, Kino books are some of the only books that I refuse to read on the computer...The feel of paper helps with the "old style" feeling the series has...Of all the Japanese books I've read, I think Kino is the only book (or series) in which I've fallen in love with the author's writing style.
As for Mushishi, I've seen the first few episodes (mostly because it kept being recommended for people who liked Kino on anime review sites). Maybe it's because I only saw the dub (my anime club likes dubs too much ^-^; ), hated the Ginko's dub voice, and never sought out the raw/sub version, but I was kind of disappointed...I tend to avoid episodic series because they can get monotonous, but for some reason Kino never got boring for me, while Mushishi did. Maybe I'll give it another chance, with the Japanese version this time, as I've hated series I saw the dub for, and loved them when I saw them in Japanese before. English dubs just tend to annoy me. They just screw up name pronunciation most of the time, and they always use American or Canadian VAs (Why can't they use British or Australian ones, at least once? British and Australian English sound much cooler, and more exotic. XD But maybe that's just because I'm an American).
I didn't like how Ginko is always know how to save the "victim of the week" from the Mushi. It reminds me of the typical shounen series plot: Hero(s) enters village, finds that villagers are plagued by supernatural monster, hero gets rid of monster, villagers are happy, hero leaves, the end (until next week).
Maybe I'll give the series another chance though. I was surprised to learn they made a live action movie of it, since the Mushi seem like they would be tough to do well with CGI.
Tower Country episode? No, I haven't, I'll go look it up now! Thanks! <3
Oh yeah, I've been listening to a lot of Kino no Tabi music lately, the only official "OST" the series has is a mini-Album called Their Memories, but their are some fan made, and fan ripped versions that I collected here:http://www.mediafire.com/?i603oiliyj5m6ab
It's just some really professional versions of Kino BGM by a guy at the Kino Livejournal community, and songs ripped from a Niconico Douga video (http://www.nicozon.net/watch/sm5650730), but it's the closest thing I'll probably see to a real soundtrack...*sigh*
lol that process of getting subs for the programs seems even more time consuming than just subbing them yourself!! it's actually not too difficult where you don't mind a few simplified contractions and stuff. But still, for some reason, soooo time consuming. i dunno how subbers do it, i get bored too quickly...
ReplyDeletehahah yeah, dubs of anything suck, i would generally rather not watch something at all than watch it dubbed, except under special circumstances. Well, Mushishi isn't captivating in the same way that Kino is, but it has it's own thoughtfulness too. I can't promise that you won't get bored of it at some point, but i think it's at least definitely one of those series that's worth watching until you do...
hahahh you really didn't get very far with the dubs, did you?!? There are loads of episodes that have a sad ending, where the Mushishi couldn't cure the person, or couldn't cure them entirely, or the person does something stupid and can't / doesn't want to return properly. :)
AnimeCrazy is good for streaming this series, cos they have links to both english sub and chinese sub (i.e. japanese raw, unless you know chinese)
With me it's the point I'd like to try subbin Hellsing or Samurai Champloo (starting with Hellsing since it has less episodes :P) and would like you to help me/correct me. There are english scripts outta there, so no additional timing would be needed.
ReplyDeleteI guess this is the best way to increase my listening comprehension besides SRSing dramas and byousoku right now. I switched off the annoyingly simple (in meaning) audio of the core6k deck. Yet I don't understand what's being said... Hm. Just too stressy, hinders me from learning more than I can (from vocab).
i think that's a great idea for improving your listening Tori!! gl with it!!
ReplyDeletehahah but sorry, i'm totally the wrong person to ask for help with that kinda thing. I'm far too unreliable and get bored with stuff like that really quickly.
The best thing you can do is join this site: http://animetranscripts.wikispaces.com/
that way you'll get your transcripts checked by real Japanese people too. If you find it too difficult, you could also try transcribing something there's already a Japanese script or subs for and checking it against that too. :)
It's not the subs that would be a problem really. The drama CD & visual novels follow the books so closely they're like audiobooks with some sound effects. The problem is that splitting the audio files line-by-line would get really tedious...
ReplyDeleteOK, I think I'll try it! I've been watching an old series called 今、そこにいる僕 lately to get out of my Japanese slump (I attempted a novel that was too hard for me just yet and got depressed for a few days. Watching anime helps me remember why I started learning the language in the first place, and reminds me of all the awesome things that are in Japanese, I guess)...The first episode was dull, but after that...well, It's pretty good. The dark philosophical undertones to the series kind of remind me of キノの旅, although it's not quite as good.
Nah, not really. I tend to skip anime club meetings when they start to show dubs. XP
I think I was at episode 3 or 4. ^^;
Have the Chinese raws gotten better quality?
Generally I tend to stick something over the end of the screen, and then watch any scenes I didn't understand with English subs if I can't find Japanese subs, because subbed versions always seem to be in better quality...
cool, then i won't listen to the drama CD's until i read the books then! i can't wait to start reading rrrrrr!!!
ReplyDeletecool, i'll check it out! hahah my list of stuff to watch is getting massive now!! That's good though, because i've been getting bored of most dramas recently.
hmmm, it really varies from series to series... i don't think anywhere streams as high quality, or as quickly as Veoh when they upload HD videos there, but if it's not available on Veoh, the chinese sites are as good as any of the others nowadays i think. Often i'm just lazy and watch with english subs if it's on veoh though hahah. Whenever i feel too guilty i watch a couple episodes on Chinese sites ;)
Yeah, I'm avoiding watching/listening to certain stories in the drama CD and visual novel game until I've read the chapters...I'd love to made a huge Kino no Tabi Anki deck with the stories from both of them that I've read though...I'd just need to find a file splitter tool that can split an mp3 into parts to make things easier.
ReplyDeleteLOL, My list of stuff to watch is massive too...So much cool stuff to watch, so little time, and that's not even counting my huge reading list, and visual novel list. XD
Yeah, Veoh's great, but lately I've been liking the high quality MP4 streams from watchanimeon.com. They're almost as high quality as watching a downloaded episode, even if I have to block the subs with something.^-^
ooh i've never tried that site... it sounds great! hmmm what shall i watch next... :D
ReplyDeletea Kino no Tabi deck would definately be awesome!!! i'm not sure about filesplitters and stuff, but you can do it in audacity too... it's really easy you can just select a section and export as a new mp3 file. i used to use it all the time to pick lines for my decks! :)
oh nooo don't mention visual novels >.< so far i've avoided ever playing one... the last thing i need is another useless addiction hahah! this year i've gotta start working hard again soon!!!
Yeah, but can you select a bunch of break points and automatically split a file into many little ones? I'll have to research file splitters a bit, just that kind of function would make it so much easier.
ReplyDeleteLOL There are short visual novels too! Mostly I just play the ones tagged プレイ時間１０分以内 at this site: http://www.mazenove.com along with the one long visual novel series I'm playing, うみねこのなく頃に. I just find them fun reading practice for when I don't want to open a real novel and get absorbed in it for an hour. XD
If I feel like it I might review some of the short ones for this site.^^
ｈっっｍ i'm not sure about filesplitters and such.
ReplyDeleteoh, but i just started reading キノの旅 today!!! (i couldn't wait for my birthday, and started reading them on the computer instead. it's probably for the best with the new rikaichan mod that saves straight to anki deck, i have no good excuse now to not do it hahah).
It's great!!! So addictive!!! Actually, what are the drama cds like? Do they have the descriptions in them as well? Because the text of the book also matches the anime very closely, so it really shouldn't be difficult to throw together an anki deck for the speaking parts... just by overwriting the english subs, and then using subs2srs.
I think, reading this kind of book in Japanese, i can finally understand what my english teacher was talking about back in middle school. She said that writing children's books is actually really difficult, and takes a lot of time, effort, and strategising. I didn't really know what she was talking about at the time, but in キノの旅 i can definately see that the author is using repetition of certain words and phrases to cue the kids to learn to read kanji above their current grade level with ease, and also repetition of harder words in different contexts so that those readers who haven't heard them before can come to build a meaning on their own. It's pretty amazing, and definately helpful for us learners!!!
Thank you for the links for the PS2 visual novel.
ReplyDeleteI was searching on Google for the drama cds which I believe there are two from 2001 and the Japanese DVD volumes, but cannot find a single link for it. Google mainly directs me to soundtracks only.
Do you have the links for these drama cds?