Critically Analyzing Kill La Kill: Trigger Lost Its Way - A Poorly Written Story (V.2)

Introduction

By the end of the final episode of Kill la Kill (directed by Imaishi Hiroyuki / written by Nakashima Kazuki) on 03/27/14, Trigger had lost its way. The series had a fantastic start and promised a great ending, but the promises revealed themselves to be empty by the time the second half of the season came around, notably with the introduction of Nui in the middle point of the series. Nui was NOT the sole cause of the series' downfall; She simply serves (in this article) as a marker indicating the plot's demise. This article will explain how and why Trigger had lost its way some time during the process of writing the Kill la Kill story, which mainly stems from the rushed nature of the plot's structure. 

THERE IS AN ABRUPT SHIFT OF FOCUS IN THE PLOT

The series began with the introduction of two major characters: Kiryuin Satsuki and Matoi Ryuko. Their relationship is what drives the premise of the original story. Since the beginning, the focus of the story was on the relationship between the two, which included exciting notions of strife, competitiveness, anger, hostility and vengeance. The supporting characters who stood in between the two primary rivals also served as important plot devices which would keep the story alive and running. (Supporting characters included Mako, the Two Stars, Nudist Beach and the Elite Four.) From the beginning, we experienced a very well put together story. However, the plot's initially self-sufficient structure was destroyed by the time the second half of the series came around. The original focus of the series was overshadowed by a new focus, which mainly involved the origin of the Life Fibers and the conspiracies of the REVOCS coorperation.

There is nothing wrong with this shift of focus; The key word in my previous statement is overshadowed. It's absolutely fine for a story to have a shift in focus between different themes and characters, ONLY IF doing so does not drown out its original themes and characters. Unfortunately, this is what happens in Kill La Kill. 

HIGH QUALITY CHARACTERS ARE DESTROYED

Kill La Kill has an extraordinary cast of characters, but they all fade into the background by the end of the series. It was plain and simple: Trigger bit off a piece too big to chew. 

The original characters were simply fantastic, but it proved to be more than Trigger could properly handle within 24 episodes. 24 episodes should be plenty of time to tell a story, and I hate to say it, but the fact is - the character development in many of Kill la Kill's supporting and even MAIN characters was lacking by the end of the series. There were simply too many story elements to go through. Not only that, much of the character development, especially seen in Satsuki, was RUSHED by the end of the series, which resulted in the evolution of a very odd character product.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS FADE INTO THE BACKGROUND

 

PRIMARY VICTIMS

The primary victims of this was Mikisugi Aikuro and Kinagase Tsumugu. Ever since the very first episode the audience was left with an impression that Mikisugi may had had some hidden talents. He is even seen throughout the series on the verge of intervening between Ryuko Satsuki during their fights, giving us the impression that he had the power to do so - all for naught. 

Kinagase entered the story as a badass rebel. Equipped with nail guns which he dual-wielded, rocket launchers, and other explosives, Kinagase posed a huge threat to Ryuko as well as the rest of Honnouji Academy. His skill in guerrilla warfare was very fun to watch. The audience was thus promised with great battles between Kinagase and Ryuko/Satsuki, only for those promises to fade away slowly. Never again, outside of the fifth episode, do we see Kinagase battle fiercely with Ryuko or anyone else, (albeit a few half-assed encounters).

One embarrassing example of a promise never delivered is the anti-Life-Fiber round Kinagase and Mikisugi held in the twelfth episode. After failing to use the round on Ryuko in her berserker state, the bullet never re-enters the story.

Nudist Beach in general practically did nothing by the end of the series, aside from housing the remaining members of Honnouji Academy when the school was taken over. It was great that Nudist Beach advanced the plot in this manner, but who are we kidding? The Elite Four as well as the other primary characters of the story could have survived just fine without Nudist Beach's help in the second half of the series. 

SECONDARY VICTIMS

The Elite Four is made fantastically original characters. However, they were never successfully completed as characters. Gamagoori never advances towards Mako, Inumata never poses to be a great threat in any unique way towards the Life Fibers, Nonon remains as a shallow in love with Satsuki, and Sanageyama never even gets to finish his fight with Ryuko.

The worst of the two is Nonon, who is cute as hell, and Sanageyama, who becomes overpowered by the end of the sixth episode - all for nothing; He's no stronger than any of the Elite Four by the end of the series, and the tension between him and Satsuki comes out to nothing as well. The sixth episode of the series ended with us questioning if Sanageyama was going to surpass Satsuki with his new powers, which also led us to wonder if any member of the Elite Four in general ever thought about usurping Satsuki. This left great wonder in our minds, but it was never revisited.

Sanageyama never was even given the proper chance to properly defeat Ryuko. The tense relationship between the two was utterly destroyed by the rush of the plot seemingly without any remorse. This was very difficult to realize, especially for big fans of Sanageyama.

Nonon also became a wasted character for such a beautifully designed pink haired, smug little girl. We were even given hints of yandere in the eleventh episode, only for her to be anti-climatically defeated by Ryuko's cliche power turn during their fight in the eleventh episode. It's fine that Ryuko and Senketsu were evolving at a fast pace, but a little more creativity during their fight would have been well appreciated.

MAIN CHARACTERS BECOME UNREALISTIC AND INCONSISTENT

KIRYUIN SATSUKI BECOMES AN ODD CHARACTER

Kiryuin Satsuki is a character who arguably shines the brightest among the Kill la Kill cast. Her resolve was absolutely fun to watch since the beginning of the series. Even after the shift in plot during the second half of the show, she remained a grand character full of strength and emotion, arguably even more so than Ryuko in many cases. Unlike Ryuko, Satsuki was consistent, well-mannered, rational, in charge of her emotions, self-disciplined, and graceful in her actions. It was also very fun to compare her and Sanageyama in a contest of resolve, at least earlier in the series when Sanageyama still mattered.

It's very difficult to criticize Satsuki's character development because she is a main character, and is thus tied into much of the plot's main elements. While I have nothing wrong with her testing Ryuko throughout the series, I am very much opposed to her becoming lovey-dovey with her imouto, because it is anti-climatic.

Think about the beginning of the story again: The premise of the series lay in the chaotic relationship between Ryuko and Satsuki, which was made up of great strife and competition. There was hardly any catharsis at the end of the story between the two, since they were brought together in an abruptly strange relationship as a result of a third party, REVOCS. Sure, they had three main fights within the series, and I enjoyed most of them, (although the fight in the twelfth episode was half-assed), but there is never a feeling of realistic settlement between the two.

It even got to the point where they cut off Satsuki's hair at the end of the series. To the typical viewer, this is a sign of "character development', but it is in fact a cop-out element put in place to quickly make it seem like Satsuki had developed throughout the series. Buying clothes with her imouto, taking pictures and holding peace signs, blushing in front of the camera - these are all things that don't resemble the previous Satsuki. And more importantly, there is no bridge of true development which transforms her to this point. This is what we call, fan-service. As a result, everything that made up Kiryuin Satsuki up until the final parts of the story were simply forgotten and destroyed.

RYUKO IS CONSTANTLY REWARDED FOR HER IRRATIONAL AND CHAOTIC BEHAVIOR

Ryuko had always been an extremely chaotic character throughout the story. Heaviliy emotional and taking pride in her utter irrationality, (as clearly shown within the final episodes), she is constantly rewarded with synchronization with Senketsu for simply "loving" him for who he is. It goes without saying that this is highly ideal and simply unrealistic in the real world.

I have nothing wrong with the theme of accepting living things for what they are, especially oneself, but I was never convinced by the end of the story that Ryuko truly believed this. In fact, it can be said at most that Ryuko only believed this to the extent that it suited her own interests at a given point in time. After all, Ryuko saw to the destruction of all the Life Fibers on the planet instead of integrating them with society. Humans are humans, clothes are clothes, that's understandable, but then why was every Life Fiber destroyed? Moreover, why is there no realistic consequence of the destruction of every Life Fiber? If Life Fibers brought humans to where they stood in that point in time, destroying them should have some consequence. This is arguably a huge plot hole in the story.

NUI IS NEVER REWARDED FOR HER OWN RESOLVE NOR IS SHE DEVELOPED

Nui is an extremely chaotic character as well, but there is more realistic evidence of her resolve when compared to Ryuko. She screamed at Hooumaru for not letting her fight some more after getting her arms lopped off, and she sewed her finest Kamui with her only her bare teeth. Despite the fact her new arms were built for combat instead of sewing, she managed to sew perhaps hundreds of clones to fight during the final battles of the series. And when the time came, she sliced off her own head as a sacrifice for the original Life Fiber.

Given all of this, it seems Nui proved to simply be a shallow and poorly written plot device to serve the progression of the villains' agenda.This is a shame on Trigger's part, because Nui is a very original character who would have served the story well as a tragic sort of plot device. As a defective form of what Ryuko is, Nui had always been unable to give exactly what Ragyo wanted, (the powers Ryuko obtained), and could only sew for her instead. If Ragyo was supposed to be Nui's mother of some sort, the tension between the two could have been expressed in fantastic ways within the story. Instead, Nui remains a shallow character throughout the series.

THE LINE BETWEEN GOOD EVIL BECOMES TOO THICK

The excitement contained within the beginning episodes existed partly because the line dividing good and evil was not entirely clear. Indeed, Satsuki was clearly oppressive and quite the dictator, but she vouched for personal strength and will at the same time and lived as a leading example of her words. She created a strong sense of wonder in the audience because of this. 

Ryuko, despite being clearly depicted as the good character who went against the social norms established by Satsuki, did not even have a clearly defined line of goodness in front of her either, since she seemed to be simply held up on revenge and nothing else. The Elite Four could have either been labeled as good or evil characters as well, since they cared for their students but at the same time supported an oppressive dictator.   

All of this created an exciting atmosphere for the story, since the definition of good and evil was not blatantly clear. That is, until the story took a turn and became very childish in this regard, where the evil becomes so clear to see that it becomes ridiculously boring to watch. 

Once again, this is anti-climatic, because we expect an exciting conclusion to the fights that could go either way between Ryuko and Honnouji Academy in the beginning of the series, since the lines between good and evil are not clearly defined. Instead, we understand who's clearly going to win the battles by the end of the story, and everything becomes predictable. Good must always win, right? Perhaps, but that's not what makes a good story.

EXCITEMENT IS REPLACED BY COMEDY

As a result of the line between good and evil becoming too thick, the excitement which was existent in the beginning of the series is replaced by shallow conversations and too many comedic elements in order to fill the gap. This is a classic symptom of inconsistency within the plot of any story. At first, the audience believes that, while there are very comedic points in the story, the series still has a chance to be a very seriously exciting piece of art. As time goes by however, comedy outweighs the seriousness, especially since the strife between the fighting sides (now clearly good and evil) become obviously predictable and boring.

Kill la Kill had great potential to be a serious story with a hint of comedic elements, particularly with Mako's abrubt rants and a small comedic dosage of Mikisugi's tendency to get naked. Maybe a little bit here and there between the members of the Elite Four to spice things up from time to time. (Gamagoori's huge size, Nonon's Nani Sore!, and Sanageyama's small penis). Oh, and Mako's family of course. Remember, all things in moderation! Trigger seems to have forgotten this, and turned the series into more of a comedy than anything else.

 

IN CONCLUSION

Trigger lost its way for one reason which led to another and another; It had a change in focus which in turn, overshadowed the original focus of the story, which in turn, led to the replacement of pure excitement with shallow conversations and comedy. 

This could have been avoided by Trigger through multiple ways, some including slowing the pace in which the story progressed, which would allow for proper character development in each character, or simply condensing the cast of characters so that each could be discussed properly within 24 episodes. The former idea would prove to be much better, since the cast of characters were so fantastic to the point where it would be too difficult to eliminate a few. Loose ends would have been tied up within the relationship of the characters if the pace had been slowed down. 

Ideally, the entire first season should have remained consistently focused on the original premise of the story, which was the realistically chaotic relationship between Ryuko and Satsuki. Ryuko would have been constantly demanding information about her father's death from Satsuki, and Satsuki would have been constantly keeping information from her as long as she remained under her power. This would have kept the excitement going for the entire first season, given that there was plenty of strife between Ryuko, Nudist Beach, Satsuki, and the rest of Honnouji Academy, which was rich and exciting in variety of its 2-star-club-captains constantly posing a challenge to Ryuko. But to make a sharp turn in focus towards a simple and evil third party in the middle of the season while there were still plenty of things going on was quite stupid on Trigger's part. 

Kill la Kill's first half of the story was fun to watch, but it became boring and repetitive towards the end. If this series was given a rating, it may as well have been a simple 5 out of 10, because half of the series is outstanding, while the latter half is quite disappointing.

This is not to say that there is nothing good that come from Kill la Kill, even when it comes to the latter half of the series. However, the plot of any visual story is extremely important. If it is inconsistent or abrupt in any way, the entire art form and structure will suffer as a whole. 

This article is subject to future revision - changes will be indicated above and below (see version number above in title as well).

(V.2) - 03/30/14

• KIRYUIN SATSUKI BECOMES AN ODD CHARACTER section heavily revised in order to make the point of fan-service clearer.
• NUI IS NEVER REWARDED FOR HER OWN RESOLVE section revised due to an incorrect theory regarding Nui's origins.
• Kinagase's anti-Life-Fiber round is mentioned as an example of an undelivered promise.