Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World

Kino, a 15-year-old traveler, forms a bond with Hermes, a talking motorcycle. Together, they wander the lands and venture through various countries and places, despite having no clear idea of what to expect. After all, life is a journey filled with the unknown.

Throughout their journeys, they encounter different kinds of customs, from the morally gray to tragic and fascinating. They also meet many people: some who live to work, some who live to make others happy, and some who live to chase their dreams. Thus, in every country they visit, there is always something to learn from the way people carry out their lives.

It is not up to Kino or Hermes to decide whether these asserted values are wrong or right, as they merely assume the roles of observers within this small world. They do not attempt to change or influence the places they visit, despite how absurd these values would appear. That's because in one way or another, they believe things are fine as they are, and that "the world is not beautiful; therefore, it is."

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kino Main

Maeda, Ai Japanese

Hermes Main

Aigase, Ryuji Japanese

Kino (original) Supporting

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Riku Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu Japanese

Shizu Supporting

Irie, Takashi Japanese

Shishou Supporting

Midori, Junko Japanese

Sakura Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Tchuhachkova, Nimya Supporting

Kobayashi, Ai Japanese

Poet's Daughter Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Poet Supporting

Mikimoto, Yuji Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Abe, Shoujirou Producer

Koyama, Naoko Producer

Hasegawa, Tokuji Assistant Producer

Reviews

Jan 18, 2026

bob-weebington

Recommended

Kino is one of those shows that I remember for being extremely relaxing at lots of parts. Most of the time, she just goes to weird places and interacts with the locals, then either leaves or some plot action has to happen before she can leave.

I've always been able to watch the whole season whenever I watched this, which is a good sign for the animation and art quality.

A few of the episodes go into the past of the main characters, but for the most part these don't even feel necessary to the show. It's still just as good for the next episode.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 21, 2025

DigiCat

Mixed Feelings

An endearing story accompanied by beautifully curated visuals... unfortunately, Kino's Journey stops at that for me.
While the relationship between Kino and Hermes is a very sweet one (i won't go into more detail to avoid spoilers), i didn't feel the story had that depth many watchers allude to

The various themes that are tackled as Kino travels from one town to the next feel more like a taste than an exploration.
Even the episode on Kino's past, personally i think the best in the series, while it does delve into some very interesting character writing such as how Kino views herself and the special bond she has ... with Hermes, these are never really revisited beyond that one episode, something which i think had they decided to do would've added a lot more character developement to both Kino and Hermes

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 22, 2025

1stDecame4Danime

Not Recommended

Funny

This is really not interesting: it's lacking both intellectual depth and superficial spectacle, making it a complete bore that is hard to watch. It's a typical episodic story of encountering people/places with different mini stories to tell that has been done far better by many others. The philosophical aspects are all juvenile and often just contrived nonsense to force misanthropic/wishy-washy morals ('the tyranny of the majority in democracy is unavoidable'(No. The anti-execution minority wouldn't accept a decree to be executed, it's literally the definition of their group, they'd revolt), 'slaves want not to be free but to be the masters'(No, just no. Also, reinventing the ... concept of sports doesn't necessitate death sports. But at least the author managed to headass another way to smooth their brain enough to try to justify genocide), 'We will not leave before the known natural disaster destroys the town tomorrow and then come back and rebuild the day after! We will murder-suicide everyone instead!', etc. And the story itself is mostly just (not like your other girls') world-building/character's exposition dumps interspersed by power(point)fantasy shonen action and emotionless tearjerkers where non-characters die.

The MC, Kino, ironically preaches be true to one's self like the story insists, despite how Kino's entire personality/character/name was simply copied from the person who saved them before literally forgetting everything else. With similar irony, Kino refuses to live life, almost always avoiding involvement in anything to a sociopathic degree (effectively watching people drown in a puddle while choosing not to say anything to help). Kino's entire personality and highest ideal is to be a traveler (read: bystander/sightseer/voyeur) who contributes nothing but juvenile pseudo-intellectual commentary filler for the viewer. As written Kino and the talking bike-partner non-character make for one of the most boring non-character main casts ever.

And don't even get me started on the braindead Coliseum super-powered shonen tournament arc that finishes in a deus-ex-fireball bullet for no goddamn reason, or the bs about MC having never seen flying machines despite how simple the concept is and after seeing tons of hover crafts. There is something so frustratingly juvenile about the plots in this series. It's like the author just wants to make twists like M Night Shamallama and doesn't care about anything else.

The art is uninteresting. There's almost no cinematography outside the OP, just a bunch of generic sideshots of people talking and silly everpresent CRT screen lines to cover up how generically bland and low-effort everything is drawn.

If you like elevator muzak, then this has, like, a boring OP and ED for you I guess, skip. I don't think it has much music anywhere else.

It's almost exactly like a serious version of Jing: King of Bandits by a different author which one would assume is parodying this, however Jing's source material actually came first by 5 years. I didn't enjoy either as they're both juvenile and boring slogs, but that one at least had some spectacle/humor. For something of similar style done well instead of this, I'd highly recommend: Mushi-shi, Girl's Last Tour, Golden Boy, The World God Only Knows, Made in Abyss, even Full Metal Alchemist. It's also very similar to Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina and due to those similarities that one isn't particularly much better.

2/10 (where 5/10 is average)

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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