This episode almost seems like a compromise formed from the complaints I had last episode. Namely because the first half of the episode was what I look for in Kino and the second half was the most pointless fluff to grace the series to date. So let’s deal with the first part first which was quite good. Not the best KIno has to offer but still pretty solid and this week’s episode deals with a modern like country and it’s problem with radio waves. Kino is once again out of the protagonist seat and instead we have Riko, Shizu and Ti. Funny enough these three are not traveling for fun like Kino is and are instead looking for a country which they can settle down in. Considering their current role as secondary protagonists, I am guessing that plan won’t go so well. Sure enough the three find out that the relatively normal country has a problem with people going crazy every few years and committing horrible criminal acts. The reason behind this appears to be machines implanted in all the citizens brains from a time when they were slaves and a radio tower which sends out bad radio waves that cause people to commit horrible crimes. However it turns out that the radio tower is broken down and has not been operational in a very long time.
Therefore the horrible crime that happened in this episode where a teacher massacred his classroom of students, was in fact an act that he committed by his own will. Shizu once again shoots himself in the foot here by confirming this to the people, only to have them call him a liar and decide that he is now under control of the radio waves, despite how ridiculous that notion sounds. Again the characters in this episode don’t really act realistically and if you try you can certainly poke some holes into the setup. For example it’s fairly unrealistic that no traveler was sent out to investigate the radio tower before Shizu despite them living with it so long. But again, that’s not the point. The point here is the meaning behind the story and in this case I believe it’s people’s tendency to try to rationalize the illogical. It reminds me of conspiracy theory in a way as people, instead of accepting a simple truth, attempt to find some kind of underlying evil to blame. For example, there is a popular theory on the Jack the Ripper murders being a series of assassinations to cover up a secret marriage in royal family and orchestrated by a secret organization known as the freemasons. This theory is off course, ridiculous and falls apart when placed under closer scrutiny. However this theory is a far more comforting thought in that the murders had meaning and that these women at least died for a reason, as evil though it may be. This is at least a work of logic and easier to accept that over the far more terrifying truth. That a psychopath came to London and killed five women for absolutely no reason. For isn’t it far more reasonable if the devil or aliens made people do such horrible things? Surely ordinary people could not willingly commit such monstrous acts without remorse? No, of course it wasn’t their fault, it’s all because of the video games/corporations/government/satan/society/parenting/god or whatever you care to name.
So in this country they would prefer to believe that a giant evil radio tower was forcing innocent people to commit horrible crimes than accept that these crimes were of the people’s own choice. Unfortunately this belief is likely the reason for the high crime rate in the first place as the authorities do not punish those who commit these crimes and simply isolate them for a time before releasing them back into society. It’s up for debate whether there is anything to this radio story, it doesn’t make sense on a fundamental level but the criminal who killed that classroom did seem like he was behaving erratically as though there was a supernatural force at play. I somewhat wonder if this thing is thing is more of a subconscious suggestion and people just forsake any moral control because they are under the impression that they are being controlled. I could be possible that when Shizu lied about their being another radio tower to the man that just the very idea of it would be enough to push that man to become a criminal. All in all I do like this story though the payoff was a bit expected. But then there is the second half of the episode where we follow a day in the life of our resident grenade loli.
Let me preface this by stating that I like Ti. I like the dynamic of her looking emotionless while being prone to emotional outbursts, while Riko is a dog that looks happy go lucky when in reality he’s much more serious and Shizu is Kirito isekai-ed into Kino’s world to get karmically kicked in the nuts for all the crap he pulled in SAO. Ti wants the same thing that Riko and Shizu want but has an underlying desperation to her. To her, these two are her last chance for happiness and if anything whatsoever comes to threaten that then she will resort to any means necessary to protect it. I do really like that, she’s like an emotional time bomb who you never know when or how she will be set off. Her fascination with as well as endless supply of grenades only making her all the more dangerous. In a two cour series I won’t mind having half an episode to just show Riku and Ti bonding but as far as I know this is one cour and time is precious. So why is this prioritized over more important stories? You can’t tell me there were no stories to fit a half an episode timeslot. I mean it’s cute and all, almost makes me forget this girl was threatening to kill a baby just ten minutes prior, but don’t we have more important things to get to? As far as I know we have four episodes left and while I enjoyed my time with Kino I still feel like there is a well of untapped potential that it is failing to draw from. I hate to use the word disappointing as I feel this show doesn’t deserve the label but once again I feel that frustration I felt with Little Witch Academia, where in a good show could have been great if things just went a little differently.
