Keep in mind, this is more of an analysis than a review, and yes, I realize that I am probably overanalyzing it.
Kill la Kill is an anime that can stand solely on it's visuals. It's not that any other parts were poorly done, but the direction and details incorporated so much world building, character definition, and thematic elements that I could have watched it in Japanese without subtitles and I don't feel like my experience would have changed in any substantial way, wait, there's Satsuki's magnificent quotes. Okay, everything about it is incredible.. Again, it's not that the dialogue was unnecessary or bad, the visuals were just THAT good. I need examples for this, I'll try to refrain from spoilers as much as possible.
Kill la Kill is about a high school girl named Satsuki Kiryuin who uses her mother's success to create her own town with its high school situated at the top and turns it into a fascist dictatorship. She uses clothing to control the population, both offering upward mobility to those who follow her lead, and using the Goku uniforms power to oppress those who don't. The skimpiest outfits are the most powerful, but only if you aren't embarrassed to wear them. This should have already triggered something in your brain. Clothing as a means of oppression in high school? linking embarrassment and empowerment? these are things that are already present in our daily high school lives and Imaishi simply exaggerates these themes to the point of absurdity. I'll get to this in a bit.
Let's start with the first episode. Even in the first 10 seconds of the show, the atmosphere and style are illustrated in incredible detail. The industrial class room with the battleship door along with the brief exposition about the Nazis winning world war II makes it clear that this is a militarized society, even schools are effected (and as the episode progresses, we learn that this school actually epitomizes this). Then Gamagoori's foot smashes through the door, the scene is thrown into chaos and Gamagoori squeezes through the door, towering over everyone even the teacher. This first scene makes several things clear; The animation style is not meant to be literal, Gamagoori isn't actually 20 feet tall (we seem him at normal height a few seconds later). Rather, the series uses gross exaggeration to get a message across. Gamagoori is a dominating figure, even the teacher is beneath him, and that brings me to my next point. The hierarchy is not what you'd expect, an elite group of students are the ones who really hold the power. The teacher is sent sliding away from Gamagoori on his knees and a sequence of events follows in which Gamagoori beats a student to death in a spectacular fashion.
Let's give one more example, Mako doing manual labor. The scene depicts her passing objects don a line of people, like how the bucket of water is passed down the line in Little Rascals. Mako isn't literally passing boxes down a long line of completely identical goons (although I guess she might be, Kill la Kill is pretty silly like that), but rather, the scene is meant to describe the highly mechanical process in which the labor is carried out. It's was able to convey this idea in a span of about 3 seconds, and the entire show packed this densely with narrative and developmental visuals.
Elaborating on these specific scenes is necessary to explain just how much this show relies on imagery to convey information to the audience.
Thematic Elements:
It is likely that dozens, if not hundreds of people have attempted to enumerate and discuss all the themes present in this show. A book that detailed these theories in their entirety would like fill thousands of pages, so I wouldn't doubt that most of those theories are pure fantasy. I will attempt to explain the themes that are obvious from the world and the events in the story.
The manipulation of a population through greed and social constructs is the immediately recognizable theme. Goku uniforms are status, a better standard of living, and the power to dominate others, much like symbols of status in the real world. However, this is taken to the extreme as is everything else in Kill la Kill. Since Honnouji academy, and the city it's built on are ruled by a governing body with the ability to hand Status and power (see Goku uniforms) out as they choose, they can completely control the population by playing on peoples desperation and greed. People will literally kill each other over these uniforms.
Nudity is another idea presented in Kill la Kill. Make no mistake, this show will likely have more fan service than any non ecchi show you have ever seen, and while nudity is used for a "higher purpose", the show still has all the revealing camera angles that many anime fans have become accustomed to. However, I would argue that these camera angles reflect how the audience (because these scenes always happen in front of an audience within the show) are meant to better show how shame plays into everything.
So how is nudity used? Firstly, nudity is portrayed as a symbol shame, and later empowerment as the series progresses. Something is symbolism because of it's place in the story, nudity is consistently associated with freedom and clothing is consistently associated with oppression. The Kamui are unique, they are distinguished from the other Goku uniforms both in power and style, telling us that the main characters, Satsuki and Ryuuko,are different, they possess the resolve to succeed outside the confines of the system or to rise to the top of it, which is what Ryuuko and Satsuki respectively attempt to do, but in order to reach your final form, you can't be held back by embarrassment."The fact that you are embarrassed by the values of the masses only proves how small you are!" This may be one of Satsuki's most important quotes, it ties the ideas of oppression and conformity to nudity, forming a cohesive argument with two distinct themes. But simply alluding to social constructs does not make them an underlying theme in the show, the story and characters have to reflect them as well. And they do. Let's break it down.
Satsuki and Ryuuko, some of my favorite characters of all time, both for their development, and for what they represent. Satsuki is the pinnacle of femininity and authority, she is the ideal citizen elevated to god-like heights by her willingness to submit to the typical gender roles and her resolve to impose these roles on everyone else with absolute authority. This is depicted symbolically in the form of a wedding dress, Juketsu (purity). This symbol comes up frequently and is always associated with matrimony, conformity, traditional gender roles, all that jazz, and Ryuuko is not having any part of that. Satsuki spends much of the show trying to force Ryuuko to behave and not be a delinquent lesbian who wears black and red. Satsuki wears Junketsu, a metaphor for her beliefs while Ryuuko wears Senketsu, who is way sexier.
Ryuuko and Senketsu form the counter argument to Satsuki. What is at first a story of a girl trying to find her fathers killer becomes one of that girl tearing down a system of oppression, Senketsu constantly badgers Ryuuko about how she is wearing him but has yet to put him on, a reference to how her shame is preventing her from reaching her true potential. They grow closer throughout the series until the ending drives home the ideas the show had been working towards until that point. Unfortunately, her development can often come off as teenage angst, and it can be hard to relate to.
What is perhaps most impressive is how the show uses it's high school setting to connect high school dynamics to it's ideas of conformity and oppression. The Principle says something very important in the first episode "we are but mere pawns, Satsuki is the schools true master" that's not word for word, but the idea is the same, in Kill la Kill Satsuki, the Student Council President, is literally a fascist dictator. This is also true in a sense in real life. The school administration can suspend you, or tell you to wear a longer skirt, but ultimately, it's peer pressure that impacts your behavior the most, the desire to fit in. Ryuuko's friendship with Mako is important because she is basically immune to peer pressure, giving Ryuuko confidence, and slapping her back to reality when she decides to act like a big fat idiot.
Every other student is dependent on Satsuki's system, and if we look at this as a normal school anime, which isn't far off if you scale back the over the top style, it's about a troublemaker (Ryuuko) who gets transferred to a super uptight school after beating people up in her previous schools. Satsuki uses her position as the most popular girl in school to try and force Ryuuko to conform to her standards. She uses peer pressure by telling everyone else in the school to attack Ryuuko, and later even tries to turn her friends against her. Using greed and the desire to fit in to manipulate people is behavior prevalent in both high school and the practice of tyrants, and this double layer allows Kill la Kill to flesh out more ideas in greater detail, showing how the methods of dictators are used in other aspects of our lives.
Aesthetic:
The color palette is perfect, the shots of Honnou city give a good sense of what this city is like without devoting too much time to it, a single 5 second pan out is enough to tell you more about the setting than most shows accomplish in their entire run time. This is why "show don't tell is so important".
But wait, there's more! Kill la Kill's story is built from the ground up upon the tropes of high school and shonen genres. The overblown importance of the student council? Well this student council is a fascist dictatorship. The bizarre obsession with school clubs? In Kill la Kill, club success directly influences your quality of life. No star students like Mako live in the slums while the one stars live in condos. Beyond that are ludicrously ornate mansions. Fights are decided with asspulls, and how do you beat an asspull? with an even bigger asspull of course! Ryuuko isn't some stubborn twelve your old who doesn't afraid of anything, she runs from fights she can't win and "cheats" too! The most obvious one is the incredible roast of the "Woman wearing improbably skimpy clothing in a wildly inappropriate setting" cliche. A fair number of anime tend to feature characters like Yoko who are inexplicably wearing a bikini in a post apocalyptic setting, I'm sure you've seen many examples of your own. By using the skimpiest costumes allowed on TV, and trying it into the core themes and plot of the show, we get something that is simultaneously epic, hilarious, and beautiful.
Sound:
DON'T LOSE YOUR WAY!!!!!!!!!!
Kill la Kill features the best OST I have ever heard in my life. This is one aspect of the show that is almost unanimously agreed upon. It's so fantastically dramatic, every song so epic, that it will give you goose bumps and get your blood pumping. Listening to it will running fills me with strength. All of the voice actors are spot on as well and I can't imagine changing any of them. Just like it's art style and animation, this is literally perfect.
Weak points:
Episode 4, the only filler episode. This was by far my least favorite episode and not just because it could be removed without effecting the plot at all. Any ideas were already presented in previous episodes. If nothing else it show cases the ridiculous schemes Honnouji academy will utilize to weed out the weak. The tropes are overdone and overwhelming, I was hesitant about continuing the show after this episode because I was worried the series would devolve into episodic, nosebleed inducing nonsense. It didn't and I'm relieved. It should be noted however, that like the rest of the show, this episode likes to blow a lot of cliches out of proportion, accidental groping -> nosebleed -> head injury, but oddly enough, this actually becomes relevant to the subplot of the episode.
The show goes in a different direction after episode 12. I suppose you could say that it starts to take itself "seriously", but it never loses its insane style. Be warned, many people find the show becomes immensely better, or immensely worse after this episode.
The middle episodes could be described as the low point in the series depending on how much you enjoy the action and comedy, and whether you become annoyed with the slow plot progression during this time. The bigger issue is that most of the themes I've discussed, the character development, and the best fights take place in the first and last thirds of the show.
Kill la Kill is my favorite anime of all time but I also believe it is one of the most important releases ever. This is animation and direction perfected. Not only that, it tells multiple narratives simultaneously that all explore its core ideas and every individual piece of symbolism has multiple meanings. This kind of metanarrative is exceedingly rare, so I challenge you to watch this, and analyze it in depth, wear your detective hat, because no matter how incredible this show is on the surface, it gets immensely better the more work you put into it.
