Toonamihas beenthe home of countless legendary animefor Western viewers, but one mega-popular series secretly says a lot about magical girl anime. AlthoughKill la Killis often considered an action, comedy, and magical girl series,its exact relationship to the magical girl genre is underexplored. By playing with the tropes and expectations of magical girl shows,Kill la Killprovides very interesting commentary that, more than subverting magical girls, celebrates them.
Kill La Killwasthe first series produced independently by Studio Trigger, airing in 2013. It would also be Studio Trigger’s initial statement, showcasingits commitment to producing high-quality, provocative anime.Kill la Killcenters on Ryuko Matoi, a homeless student armed with one-half of a pair of scissors. She moves to Honnou City in search of her father’s murderer who had stolen the other half of the scissors. There, she enters Honnouji Academy, which is ruled with an iron fist by student council president Satsuki Kiryuin.
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The series starts off with Ryuko and Satsuki’s squads butting heads. Ryuko believes that Satsuki was behind her father’s murder, and much of the earlier conflict is rooted in her suspicions. The magical girl elements arerounded off by outfit transformations and powerful weapons, while the school provides a classical setting for a delinquent story.
There’s a catch, though. The outfits are made out of special fibers called life fibers. Their magical abilities are drawn from the fact that the outfits siphon the life force of the characters. Making matters worse, they’re produced by a powerful group,of which Satsuki’s mother is the leader. The suits are part and parcel of a plan similar to the Human Instrumentality Project inEvangelion, by which Satsuki’s mother aims to control the world.
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Because the suits provide power and are intentionally produced, they act to uphold the social hierarchies of authority and institutional power. Satsuki’s gang’s suits are specially designed. It’s almost impossible to beat someone with a higher-ranking suit. Far from strange, spontaneous transformations for uplifting main characters,the suits are given a narrative purposewithin the world ofKill la Kill. They render the characters vulnerable and literally suck their lives away; they’re given a grave cost, both in and out of combat. At the same time, they reinforce the world’s sociopolitical order.
Elements like theseshowKill la Kill’s intentions of deconstructing magical girl works. With the premise of getting to the root of her father’s murder, the tomboy-ish Ryuko is thrust into a world where she takes on the role of a magical girl. In so doing, she doesn’t immediately find a weapon she can use against evil, nor does she find straightforward friendships, but a world where everything is deeper and heavier than it seems on the surface.
Kill La KillThen Puts The Magical Girl Genre Back Together
Kill La KillEmbraces Magical Girls While Challenging Genres And Demographics Writ Large
In media analysis,deconstructiontypically refers to “taking apart” a genre, work, or trope to look at its biases, assumptions, and unquestioned elements. The sibling term,reconstruction, refers to knowingly putting those elements back into play, embracing the genre, work, or trope while being cognizant of their limitations.
Manyanime are defined as deconstructions of the genre. The difference isn’t that “deconstructive” works are dark while “reconstructive” works are optimistic. For example,One Punch Manboth subverts and deconstructs the prototypical shonen hero, but in a way it would be difficult to call “dark”.Kill la Killreconstructs the magical girl genre by choosing to embrace its core themes and tropes.
Although it openly shows the deception and trickery that underlies any human connection,it also shows the power of love, unity, and friendship: common themes for magical girl franchises. There are multiple examples of this eventual triumph: the implied relationship between Ryuko and Maki, the embraced sorority of Ryuko and Satsuki, and the eventual unification of Ryuko and Satsuki’s groups to fight against the overarching evils of Satsuki’s mother and the life fibers.
It delicately weaves together story elements to simultaneously deconstruct and reconstruct magical girls, in a way that is very optimisticeven at the same time as it’s a searing critique of authority and institutions. Ryuko’s trauma and outsider upbringing lead her to avenge her father’s death; it turns out that her father (and in turn, her traumatic experiences) had provided her with the very tools she needed to fight back against a society that would render her an outcast.
Furthermore, just as the transformations render the characters vulnerable and are symbolic of the exploitation of girls and women,Kill la Killpresents a silver lining. To lambastKill la Killfor its fanservice is, in effect,to tell girls and women to be ashamed of their own bodies. Certainly, there are plenty of anime where men are just as naked, but it’s never accused of being unessential to the plot or being mere eye candy.
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Kill la Killpresciently notes this. Satsuki reams Ryuko for her early embarrassment during her transformation, calling her nakedness minor and unimportant.Kill la Killreclaims its deconstruction of magical girl transformations by turning exploitation into an opportunity for empowerment.This reversal is essential to the show’s plot, and demonstrates a knowing embrace of an aspect of magical girl franchises which has led to raised eyebrows when men express interest in the genre.
Similarly, just likeKill la Killblurs the lines of magical girl anime (traditionally shoujo) by using themes that are typically reserved for “seinen”, Ryuko’s tomboyish nature and hard upbringing make her universally relatable: she is a young girl, the target demographic of shoujo, yet endures the harsh reality of “dark”, “seinen” themes. Where magical girls are typicallyintendedfor girls,Kill la Killboldly declares this delineation absurd. As it celebrates magical girls,it subtly prompts viewers ofalltypes to consider their relationship to the genre.
Put more elegantly: magical girls as a genre provided half of the scissors;Kill la Killprovides the other, then arms itself, cutting through magical girls, shoujo, seinen, and the demographics and norms underlying anime itself. Without a doubt, this is one part of whyToonami, not known for embracing shoujo, offeredKill la Killalongside their typical shonen/seinen. It doesn’t subvert magical girls by providing themes that appeal to boys and men, but actually shows that the ideas underlying magical girls apply to everyone.
Kill la Kill
Cast
Kill la Kill follows Ryuko Matoi, a high school student searching for her father’s killer. She enrolls at Honnouji Academy, a school ruled by the student council led by Satsuki Kiryuin, who wields powerful clothing known as Goku Uniforms. As Ryuko battles through the ranks with her own sentient outfit, Senketsu, she uncovers deeper secrets about the academy and her father’s death.
