Off-Topic General Discussion - Page 1655

I've actually been musing on this recently. I think the reason I didn't enjoy KLK as much was that it doesn't have as much heart as other animes I've watched. As I've said before, it got there near the end, but for the most part it just didn't feel like it to me. What was everyone fighting for? What was supposed to be the message of the story? What were the characters trying to prove with their actions? I didn't really feel anything for them until the end, and in a (non-episodic) series (of any genre, anime or books or movies), I think that's important for a good experience.

For example, Ryuko basically just shows up in the first episode and says "someone killed my dad tell me who". Why should I care about this character? Loss (even of the familial variety) is a good setup, but needs to be built to get any emotion out of it. If FMA was just "our mom died and now we feel bad about it", it would have been much less impactful. Instead, they use it as a launching point to explore things like the limits of right and wrong, how to control power instead of using it for selfish means, accepting loss, and how to use your pain to give you strength in the future. Ryuko's hardship could have been replaced with any other number of mcguffins and the revenge story would have ended up very similarly. I had a hard time caring about her character at all until the big reveal in the second half.

There also didn't seem to be any sort of overall theme to the story. Near the end it was all about "clothes are clothes and people are people". I guess that could be a way of saying "don't let your status wear you, be yourself and act/dress the way you want", but really that wasn't expounded on in any way. For example, in other anime/manga:

• Trigun is about fortitude and personal morals, sticking to your ideals no matter what. Even in the face of hatred and despair, doing the right thing and being an example of goodness is always worthwhile.
  
• FMA is about our limitations as people, the moral implications of using power to reach what you want, and how the lines get blurred when doing the objectively thing and doing the subjectively right thing aren't the same.
  
• FLCL is a coming of age story, watching as a young man deals with becoming an adult. Wanting to be treated like a grown up, while simultaneously acting like a kid and not knowing what either means. It's about dealing with emotions and relationships in a very turbulent time in a young person's life.
  
• Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer is really about very cynical people, or at least how any person can get that way. It's about people facing losses and how they all find a reason to live afterwards, reasons to love and go on despite how the world and people have treated them up until this point.
  
• TTGL is about facing impossible tasks and having the determination to throw aside all reason and logic to do what's necessary. Kick reason to the curb and make the impossible possible, no matter the adversity.
  

KLK is a fantastic action show. The animation is brilliant, soundtrack is top notch (Blumenkranz has been on repeat for a while now), the powers are cool and the comedy beats are well timed. But it ended up feeling hollow to me. Near the end, it started to have this vibe of trusting your friends and accepting your weaknesses, but it was pretty late into the show and those are pretty over-done themes that I've seen better executed in a lot of places. It doesn't make it a bad show, it just makes it one that I don't care overly much about.