Thursday 16 January 2014

Kill la Kill - Episode 14

An attack by Harime and Satsuki's latest devious plot have, quite literally, stripped Ryuko of Senketsu, leaving her for dead clutching what turns out to be the last remaining essence of her Kamui's life.

Luckily for her, Mikisugi is again on-hand to pluck Matoi to safety before it's too late, meaning that she can live to fight again another day... and fight she will, Kamui or not, as she sets off on a motorcycle to retrive the various pieces of Senketsu that have been spread across Kiryuin's minions in an effort to power them up to play their part in the Tri-City School Raid Trip.


It's this raid on rival schools in Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto that takes up the mainstay of the episode - Honnouji's students might have some substantial power in their hands, but these other institutions are no slouches either with their own selection of weird and wonderful hardware, be it weapons that literally shoot money or tanks armour-plated with Kobe beef to create the world's most delicious tank.  Of course, while all of this is going, Mako makes a detour from her duties in Osaka to do a little sightseeing and enjoying of the local delicacies, while eventually Ryuko catches up to prove her abilities have improved even without Senketsu's power to bolster her.  With almost all of Senketsu's missing "body" reclaimed, only one piece remains... no prizes for guessing who is in possession of that particular item, though.

If I've perhaps been a little reserved in my praise for Kill la Kill at times, I'm not going to go down that road this week - this episode was amazing.  In a sense, it feels like the fullest use of the show's lunacy by taking it outside of its normal confines and showing that, in Kill la Kill's word, everywhere is bonkers.  Every scene was played perfectly for either overblown action or comedy, Mako's comic turn in particular was joyous, and Ryuko's brief, understated part to play in proceedings only added to her character.  In short, this was a great distillation of, and arguably even improvement upon, some of the things that have captured the imaginations of so many within this series.

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