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

Sakura Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Shishou Supporting

Midori, Junko 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

Nakamura, Ryuutarou Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Tsuruoka, Youta Sound Director

Reviews

Apr 17, 2025

50Fiftillididee

Recommended

🏍 Wonder as she wanders °7.3° °VG° 💯%🔍

KJ is structured much like Aesop's Fables. Each episode is a simplified cautionary tale of the foibles of human nature, particularly mankind's tendency to go to extremes. Kino inhabits a sparsely populated world - most likely a post-apocalyptic world, though that information is not divulged. Staying at each place for 3 days, she is exploring various lands with her talking 🏍, Hermes.

Her first stop is a country in which the inhabitants thought they could eliminate pain if they all understood eachother better. To that end, they all drank an elixir ... that would enable them to read eachother 's minds. Obviously, people separated, grew apart, isolated themselves, and now the population is dying out. No babies are born. Nobody can tolerate another's presence. Yes, it should have been obvious. The motif ends with non-verbal communication via expression alone that is eerily like mind reading.

A 2003 release that is rated 8.29 on MAL, KJ is 1 season consisting of 13 24-minute English dubbed episodes with CC available. Several sources say it is 12 episodes. Hidive, on Prime, has 13 episodes to watch. Ep2 is bad@$$. In ep4 we get her backstory, and it's rough.

The show feels ancient as these "countries" are much like ancient walled off cities. Every city-state she visits has people with foolish notions. Due to isolation, each country comes up with rather extreme and mostly untenable solutions to problems. Quite often these countries are ruthless and harsh. (Like a fable, it's not entirely make-believe, it mirrors reality). We'll see a threatening inspector explain through gritted teeth that every country has its customs and it's no outsider's business. Yet a traveler does step in to save the life of a girl, leaving the residents befuddled.

In one country machines do all the work. Since resources are limited, they created useless jobs as a measure to divvy out their scarce resources: Those with the highest stress (useless) jobs get the most resources. And around and around we go. In a land where books are banned because 📚 cause readers to get lost in illusions, we hear that "All people exist in the illusion that /they/ are the main character." People get trapped in irony's cruel grip because nature always denies them the ability to truly be the main 🎭. The solution? Escape by becoming an author. "All I know is that no one sane would become an author," says Kino. My favorite philosophical discussion is Kino discussing man's-obligation-to-man with Hermes.

The art supports the simplicity of the show. People are drawn on a low reality scale with little detail and some exaggeration, all fitting in with the fable setting. Backgrounds are slightly more detailed with simplified, minimized and stylized realism. Though simple, the art is plenty expressive, reinforcing the sounds and verbiage that increase the sense of wonder. We wonder as she wanders 🏍〰〰


QUOTES📢

A traveler's most important asset is what helps you get back up after a struggle's left you so close to the end.

The Critics: "All they do is expound their store of knowledge. They excite themselves with their ranting. Their disapproval excites them with a feeling of importance and sick victory. They thrive on spoiling the pleasure and trashing the creativity of others."


〰🖍 IMHO

📣7 📝7.5 🎭7.5 🌞6 🎨7⚡5 🎵/🔊7 😅3 😭5 😱7 😯3 😖2 🤔6.5 💤3 🔚7

Age 14+ We see a 🐰 shot in the head, fall, bleed out in the snow. The episode is called: "I want to live." Kino says she has an obligation to the rabbit. Rabbit is skinned and fed to homeless people. Violence and blood. Cannibalism. Rated R-17+

Re-📺? Probably not, but once was great.
There are offshoot productions that do not appear available for streaming currently: Sequel Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Byouki no Kuni - For You; PrequelKino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Nanika wo Suru Tame ni - Life Goes On; Alternative VersionKino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - The Animated Series; Side StoryKino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Tou no Kuni - Free Lance; and CharacterDengeki Bunko 2007 Movie Festival Special.


From lite&trite to heavy&serious, here's some recs ~

Girls und Panzer-8,
Akiba Maid War 7.5,
Love Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4,
Assassination Classroom-9,
Chaika The Coffin Princess 8.4,
Reincarnated as a Sword 8,
Belle-8.5,
Princess Principal 8.6,
Girls' Last Tour-8.5
Made in Abyss 9,
Your Lie In April-9,
Land Of The Lustrous 8,
Watership Down-8.5,
Violet Evergarden-9.5,
Psycho Pass-8.6

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 5, 2025

oupossum

Mixed Feelings

Oof. I normally love slow psychological or philosophical shows, but this was so poorly executed it took away most of the charm.

To start with what I liked - I loved Kino's character (although superfical, with a personality that's only hinted at) and their character design. The aesthetic, animation, style. Music, voice acting. Loved the slow pacing and atypical format of the episodes. I absolutely adored some of the characters that Kino met, as well as a few of the show's character focused stories (episodes 2, 10, 11). Overall, since I love slow atmospheric shows so much, I actually did enjoy it despite my strong criticisms. ...

However, the worldbuilding is either so shallow or unrealistic that most of the stories and visited countries have absolutely no effect on the viewer. For a show wholly centered around visiting countries, it makes it impossible to feel invested in the plot or message. This is worsened by the fact that the philosophy and politics are oversimplified and stereotyped to the point where they're borderline childish. Many other works have shown similar stories, with similar messages, but much better execution. The show tries to make some point that humanity is both ugly and beautiful no matter what, and tries to show that both sides are equally bad or good, but that simply is not true. It makes a joke out of the real life situations it showcases, like genocide, war, and fascist regimes. Kino has this non-involvement policy where they don't intervene to improve others' lives no matter how easy it could be, and this could be fine as it makes sense for the character, but it really ironically reflects how this whole show refuses to truly engage with its own stories.

Overall, meh.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 22, 2025

1stDecame4Danime

Not Recommended

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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