Line #40 YMMV/KinosJourney


1	* AngstWhatAngst:
2	** Kino barely seems to react to [[spoiler:the original Kino, whom she'd recently befriended, being fatally stabbed in front of her]]. It does get addressed more in the first OVA however.
3	** Nimya is barely bothered that her aunt swindled her out of most of her inheritance after buying "the mage's" workshop, then disappearing, save for once referring to her "snake of an aunt."
4	* BrokenBase: Opinions are often divided about Kino's general attitude. Should Kino react to the massive cruelty and injustice that she meets, or does her neutrality only better emphasize the freedom of interpreting in the work?
5	* CompleteMonster: [[TheCaligula The king]] of Coliseum is a tyrannical psychopath who runs infamous GladiatorGames for his entertainment. Having [[{{Patricide}} murdered his father]] to ascend to the throne, the king eliminated anyone who may be a threat to him, even massacring his entire family and exiling his son, Shizu. The king then divided the people into poverty and first class, throwing the poor into dangerous living quarters and slavery. Even the first class citizens weren't safe, as the king would execute them if they didn't follow his blood lust. The king then created the Colosseum to throw any passing travelers to [[InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath fight to the death]] to fuel his psychotic urges. When Kino refused to comply with the king by sparing her opponents, the latter grew furious and even executed one of them [[ForcedToWatch in front of Kino]]. Among the many people Kino encountered, the king was one of the very few who manage to disturb her with his sheer cruelty.
6	* CultClassic: Although the original novel is obscured by new hits from its publishing house, it still retains popularity as an ageless classic and even got a new adaptation in 2017.
7	* FriendlyFandoms: With ''Manga/ShoulderACoffinKuro'' and ''Anime/{{Mushishi}}''.
8	* LesYay: In episode 8, ''The Land of Wizards'', Kino helps Nimya fly her airplane, one of the few times in the series Kino breaks her neutrality and forms a bond with the girl. After Kino gives her the idea of using gun powder to make the plane fast enough, Nimya tackles her to the ground before the screen fades to black until the next day (but not before Hermes quips [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall "Here's where things get interesting]]").
9	* LGBTFanbase: Kino's androgynous presentation and rejection of gender labels gets her a few trans and non-binary fans who choose to interpret her as transmasculine or non-binary.
10	* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments:
11	** In the Colosseum/Avengers arc of the 2003 anime Kino manages to befriend one of the guards who turns out to be a family man who wishes a better life for his children than living in the slums.
12	*** Also in the 2003 adaptation when Kino declares her new law for the people fight over who gets to be the king. She also adds that only the first class will have to participate and any mistreatment towards their slaves or the lower class citizens will lead to disqualification. This is most likely because of what she witness when she was with the guard and his family.
13	** The ending to Episode 6 of the 2017 anime. Photo survives, overcomes her guilt-stricken desire to die, and manages to make a new life for herself and the motorrad.
14	** Shizu and Ti's relationship as a whole, with Shizu readily accepting Ti into his life even after she tried to kill him and taking his role as her ParentalSubstitute seriously, earning him Ti's undying affection in return. If one interprets the "Tea Talks" chapter as being narrated by an elderly Ti, it's made clear that to the very end, she had nothing but love and gratitude towards Shizu for looking after her.
15	* HilariousInHindsight: Episode 3 "teaches" the viewer that interpreting someone's abstruse thoughts may turn out to be pretty silly or even dangerous. It's funny, considering how the show loves MindScrew and freedom for interpreting.
16	* HarsherInHindsight: Volume 6 prologue and epilogue. See TearJerker below.
17	* HeartwarmingInHindsight: It can be quite sentimental that the new Kino's VoiceActor will become Creator/AoiYuuki, which played the role of TheWoobie EnsembleDarkhorse Sakura from the 13th episode of the original series.
18	* NauseaFuel: The novels can get quite graphic in describing the way Kino, Shizu, Shisho, etc. kill people. Certain stories are worse about it than others--for instance, "A Tale of Olden Days" is deliberately trying to be as horrifying as possible as WarIsHell, and "Land of Corpses", being a zombie story, unsurprisingly has its share of this.
19	* NightmareFuel:
20	** In Episode 2 of the 2003 anime, after killing the slavers who betrayed and tried to enslave her, Kino goes inside the truck and sees the remains of the slaves inside, since the slavers had eaten their cargo in order to survive the winter.
21	** Episode 3 plays with this trope almost literally, telling us about an extremely gloomy city, which is almost 24 hours a day in sadness and depression because of the tradition of daily reading of extremely frightening and disturbing poems.
22	** Episode 4 of the 2003 anime/Episode 11 of the 2017 anime has [[spoiler:Kino's parents try to murder her for refusing to comply with their demands to get a lobotomy, then acting nonchalant when Kino's father kills the traveler who serves as Kino's namesake.]]
23	** "A Land Without Walls" has a clan that tricks unsuspecting travelers into remaining trapped with them until they die, via forcing them into a drug addiction. Kino narrowly avoids this fate, and only with the help of a clan member who was one of their victims helping her out.
24	** One story has Shisho and her partner eliminate a seemingly kindly couple... who secretly murdered travelers and used every bit of their corpses in their house, including as actual furniture. And yes, the novel describes it in graphic detail.
25	** "What It Means To Fight and Die" introduces a country that kidnaps the children of enemy villages and grooms them into becoming ChildSoldiers via erasing their memories and brainwashing them into throwing away all of their morals and self-preservation. That's not the worst part--the horrifying part comes with the revelation that it wears off in 15-20 years. Of course, most of the child soldiers don't live that long, but then Ti looks at the ~30-year-old officer, who proudly explained all of this to them, and tells him that [[AwfulTruth it's about time for him]]...
26	* OneSceneWonder:
27	** The [[spoiler:original Kino]] only shows up for the one arc, but being a core part of Kino's backstory, it's impossible ''not'' to remember him.
28	** Sakura only exists in the "A Kind Country" chapter/episode, but given that said story is one of the most well-remembered in the series for being one of the few times Kino is NotSoStoic, Sakura tends to be equally remembered.
29	* SignatureSeriesArc:
30	** A Kind Country, which tends to be featured in every adaptation due to its tie-in with Kino's backstory and being one of the biggest [[{{Tearjerker}} Tearjerkers]] of the series.
31	** Similarly, the Colosseum/Avengers arc is one of the few chapter(s) that's present in each adaptation. Aside from introducing Shizu, the arc tends to stand out for having one of the most memorable villains in the series and being one of the few times Kino breaks her detached, neutral stance.
32	* SpiritualAdaptation: The moving nation in episode 3 of the 2017 series, trampling other settlements with no concern for the consequences, and breaching a massive wall with an energy weapon is strongly reminiscent of ''Literature/MortalEngines''.
33	* TearJerker:
34	** The prologue and epilogue of volume 6 consists of an entry of a father's diary on the date Kino is born. The father was crying with happiness when he writes his diary, and vows to live for his daughter's happiness until the day he dies. Cut to ten years later, [[spoiler:and Kino's father attempting to [[OffingTheOffspring stab his daughter to death]] with a kitchen knife and can't help but feel happy about it, due to the device implanted in his head which makes him feel content on anything he does. He's forced to attack her due to the fact that Kino is [[PhlebotinumRebel against having the same device implanted in her]].]]
35	*** Worse was that Kino thinks about her mother from time to time in the novels, where she still remembers the latter affectionately calling her daughter her “little flower.” After Kino turned twelve on that fateful day, the memories of her past life and her mother, who she was more closer to than her father was nothing more than a dream to Kino to this day.
36	** From what the anime tells they don't actually [[spoiler:implant anything, but perform something akin to a watered-down lobotomy. ("They'll open your head and 'pop' the child right outta' you." sounds more like removing some key component that's responsible for questioning and reasoning.)]]
37	** "A Kind Country" has the CruelTwistEnding of [[spoiler:the volcano erupting and killing everyone in the country]]. To make matters worse, [[spoiler:the innkeepers' letter to Kino reveals that while the adults knew this waws coming and were willing to accept their deaths, the children didn't know, so they suggested that Sakura join Kino on her journey to avoid dying with the rest of the village. Sakura, however, refused, and her giving Kino the seed she got at the wedding (done by a young couple who wanted to get married while they were alive) seems to imply that she also knew what was going to come]].
38	** The end of Episode 10 of the first series, where Kino denies three [[spoiler:robots]] their purpose in serving others, which leads to them [[spoiler:killing themselves]].
39	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: Despite the fact that the show has a rather cartoonish and silly style of art, it also has a rather heavy-handed style of narration, a principled gray morale and the main character whose actions can very easily be interpreted as cynical. Not everyone will like it.
40	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Kino very often can look cold and cynical, but especially at the end of the third episode of the 2003 anime, when [[spoiler: she calmly ignores the implied genocide of the whole city, even knowing that she is the only person who can save them. Even Hermes shows more feelings in this scene.]]
41	* ViewerGenderConfusion: Kino's drawn with a non-accentuated figure, hasn't worn a dress since she was young, and has a soft boyish voice in both Japanese and English. It doesn't help that both the novels and the anime keep her gender ambiguous throughout the first parts of the story. The localization of the manga has her referred to as "Mx. Kino", a courtesy title used on nonbinary people.
42	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: The show may seem like a story about a teenager traveling around with a talking motorcycle with cute character designs, but it's full of [[NightmareFuel fairly unsettling]] [[MindScrew material]], and some of the episodes [[TearJerker are rather depressing]], [[spoiler:especially the final episode, which had a CruelTwistEnding]].
43	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: Very much, considering that the series has a lot of social AnAesop. In particular, the third episode can easily be treated as anti-religious, and the 12th as a harsh criticism of the Cold War.
44	* {{Woolseyism}}: In Episode 13 of the original anime, the English version changes Sakura's name to "Lily" to make it easier for the boys to nickkname her "Silly Willy" instead of calling her ''nekura'' (gloomy) and ''okra''. It also connects to the fact that [[spoiler:she ends up dying at the end of the episodes, since lilies are flowers symbolic with death and funerals.]]
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Context YMMV / KinosJourney