Thus with todays episode, Kino mets her greatest adversary, one to test her to her very limits and be her greatest obstacle on her journey so far. Kino’s Arch Nemesis is…Sheep. Yes, sheep. Of all the stories that could have been chosen for the finale for Kino, this has to be one of the most bizarre choices. Kino gets attacked by Sheep and must fight them off to escape with Hermes. What unfolds is a strange yet somewhat hilarious battle between them. This would have made for a excellent breather episode in the middle of the season and yet here it is right at the end. Besides so awkward CGI it’s an enjoyable episode but much likely my previous complaints about episodes like this, this isn’t what I watch Kino for. There isn’t really a deeper meaning to this one, only a action scene and the humor of Kino taking on sheep.
The only thing I found to be a interesting observation was the final revelation that those sheep were used to fight each other in a nearby country but were released into the wild due to animal rights groups. Now that country is oblivious to the fact that those sheep hang around outside and attack any travelers that come near. Even killing what is likely quite a number of people. An old tale of good intentions going wrong, in this case animal rights groups simply assuming that the sheep would forgot their fighting ways and go back to being docile naturally. Guess the lesson is that if you are going to do a good deed, make sure to consider all potential consequences of your actions.
My feelings towards Kino’s Journey 2017 are complicated. I will most certainly say this is not a bad season but when held up against its predecessor, it is a weaker one. The odd thing is that I don’t believe that it was how these episodes where adapted that was the problem. In fact I would consider the adaptations of these stories to be rather strong. No, the problem lies in the stories themselves and how they were laid out in this season is the thing that truly brings this season down. While Kino is an episodic series, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how these stories flow into one another. A perfect example is the episode showing various countries, were in a batch of comedic and lighthearted stories is one rather dark tale that it was almost mood whiplash. The stories where very poor choices as well, seemly chosen for making Kino look cool or showing off fan favorite characters.
This is the problem when you decide based on popular vote instead of actual quality. There are well over 200 stories written in Kino and yet the story choice in this season consisted of three remakes that frankly were not needed and far too many lighthearted/comedy episodes. I think that any new viewer would walk away from this series with a massive misunderstanding of just what Kino is actually about. I believe they would be quite surprised if they went back and watched the 2003 version to find it being a much darker introspective beast. Still I would like Lerche to take another shot at Kino as they have show they can adapt it. All they really need to do for another season is choose more wisely from Kino’s selection of stories and consider how they fit together in a season as a whole.
I think there’s a bit more to it then just good intentions gone bad. That’s definitely one way to look at it, but I also see the parallels between this story and soldiers we send off to war. Soldiers are trained to be strong and fierce, ready to kill at a moment’s notice much like the sheep. And when they come back from war, they’re expected to forget the way we’ve taught them to be and reintegrate back into society. Unfortunately, much like the sheep, it’s not that easy to simply forget such aggression. Granted we don’t train soldiers for the purpose of killing for entertainment, but we don’t always understand the extent of the consequences of training young men and women to be like this.