Kino's Journey Episode 4 Discussion

Anisamar said:
The truth is: smiling is not happiness. All the surgery did was “extirpate” their freewill, thus losing the ability to take a voluntary decision, their independence. What was left was the rationality, the common sense in its most archaic outlook, so to not to be bound by feelings, to do whatever you have to without obstacles, to work even if you don’t enjoy life, even if you don’t like what you’re doing. Just because you have to. Just because you’re obliged to.

One believes it’s the best for the society, for the progress, but it isn’t human anymore. It’s a machine. They’ve lost the humanism. Out of its flawed plain logic, nothing makes sense and they don’t know how to act; that was what happened in that town. That happened to all those little kids. What could’ve happened to Kino.

toasterovenly said:
I guess I am the only one who thought this, but it isn't exactly clear that Kino is the little girl at this point in the story. This could very well be the story of the Kino we know dying and some little kid deciding to emulate his life. I thought it was a terrible idea (because of how confusing it was) to Have the motorrad and the main character be named after another motorrad and character who both looked exactly the freakin' same. I watched this episode and felt like "WTF just happenend? did the main character just die, or is the main character a girl?"

toasterovenly said:
I guess I am the only one who thought this, but it isn't exactly clear that Kino is the little girl at this point in the story. This could very well be the story of the Kino we know dying and some little kid deciding to emulate his life. I thought it was a terrible idea (because of how confusing it was) to Have the motorrad and the main character be named after another motorrad and character who both looked exactly the freakin' same. I watched this episode and felt like "WTF just happenend? did the main character just die, or is the main character a girl?"

MM-Rosiie said:


Kino, our main character, is a girl. Maybe watch the prequel first next time?

Kinda made me lol as it reflects our materialistic society.

Ruzgfpegk said:
The motorad starts talking just after the death of the "first" Kino.
Could it be that, somehow, he reincarnated into the motorad to continue to protect the new Kino ?

In the previous episodes, we see that other people can hear Hermes, so the voice is not an imaginary friend of Kino.

EDIT :
And we now know where Kino heard the line (about birds and travels) she said in the first episode... she said she didn't remember. O RLY ?

kawaiiyuris said:
I actually came here to see if anyone explained the whole flower thing because I can't tell flowers apart and so I couldn't figure out what were the other kids saying to her when insulting her at the beginning

Tyrel said:
Wtf he's a girl, or should I say she... WTF.

ZeroReq011 said:
And that's why travelers try hard not to involve themselves in any one country for too long. It's liable to get you get a knife stuck in your gut. But at the same time, if the original Kino hadn't stepped in the way of the knife's path to protect her, then when we wouldn't be following this Kino. And this Kino wouldn't have been alive and well, traveling and enjoying herself.

There's more to life than this dreary world of working adults, and people know that, and they're afraid of never being able to experience anything beyond it. And so that fear, rather than being conquered, is artificially excised out of you. That child-like part of you wanting more out of life, to see the world beyond the cave's shadows, is sucked from your spirit so that enter the working world without quarrel, with a smile, in fact, so there's no need to worry. But how much of that smile is you? Her parents attempting to murder her... how much is it them? Can you claim ownership of your actions if one's automatic response to a situation like that is to kill? A cog in the machine. A familiar, comforting thought because it's hardly any thought, because it is the nature of thoughts to digress, to stray from the path of the familiar and comfortable.

And yet the world is beautiful in spite of the pain, or even because of it. To be able to enjoy what you do because you are consciously enjoying it rather than smiling because you cannot stop smiling either way. It's what makes the world of you fulfilling and the world of perfect adults... unsettling. Disturbing. Uncanny.

Ratohnhaketon said:
No matter how many times I see this episode, the adults joking about pulling the knife out still creeps me out to the max. This episode does a fine job at poking at the contrast between life as a child and life as an adult. From what I've observed, many people sacrifice the spark of passion that they had as children to pursue pragmatic lives as adults, doing jobs they don't take any joy in.