Kill la Kill Volume 2

Warning: may contain spoilers.

“My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.” – Jack Nicholson.

Continuing on from the first collection, we witness more over-the-top action, fascistic fashions, and shocking revelations affecting not just the students at the dictatorial Honnouji Academy, but the entire human race.

In Part 2 of Kill la Kill, we return to the “King of the Hill” tournament in which Ryuko Matoi, wearing Senketsu, a “Kamui” made entirely out of a special material called “Life Fibres”, is battling the members of the school’s Elite Four of Three-Star Goku Uniform wearers. She has already beaten the gigantic Ira Gamagoori, the Disciplinary Committee Chair. This collection sees Ryuko battling her next opponent, Information and Strategy Committee Chair Houka Inumuta, followed by Non-Athletic Committee Chair Nonon Jakuzure and Athletic Committee Chair Uzu Sanageyama.

However, during these battles they are interrupted by Nui Harime, the Grand Courtier of REVOCS, the multinational clothing firm run by Ragyo Kiryuin, mother of the head of the fascistic head of Honnouji’s Student Council, Satsuki. Even Satsuki is somewhat intimidated by Nui’s appearance, but things get even worse when Nui shows Ryuko something which drives her mad with anger, something which helps her answer the one question that is her motivation for coming to Honnouji Academy in the first place: who killed Ryuko’s father?

Following the “King of the Hill” tournament, the next event organised by Honnouji is the “Tri-City Schools Raid Trip”, where the school plans to invade three of the largest schools in the local area. Ryuko, however, following the new revelations, does not want to fight anymore. She only gets motivated to do so following a dastardly trick which results in the almost total destruction of Senketsu. Luckily, she holds onto one part of him, meaning that there is still a chance that Senketsu can be repaired.

Even worse is to come, however, when Honnouji Academy holds its “Cultural and Sports Grand Festival”, to be attended by Ragyo Kiryuin. It is at this and surrounding events that we discover many truths: the origins of the Life Fibres, the activities of the anti-clothes paramilitary group “Nudist Beach”, secret plans, rebellions, relationships, and all these result in revelations which turn the whole story of Kill la Kill on its head.

In this collection the main selling point is the plot, especially during the “Cultural and Sports Grand Festival” in which the roles of the many of the characters are changed. It is here that we discover who the real villain is; certain characters change sides; and the relationships between these characters reveal a deeper plot. It is somewhat like director Hiroyuki Imaishi’s most famous work, Gurren Lagann: both start with one key enemy and as the story progresses, an even bigger threat is revealed. There are some nice comedic moments as well, mainly self-acknowledgement over certain things that annoy anime fans. For example, at the start of one episode Senketsu says it is the highlights episode – but then summarizes the entire plot of the series so far in less than 90 seconds.

This collection sees the introduction of new opening and closing theme tunes: “Ambiguous” by Garnidelia, and “Shin Sekai Kokyogaku” by Sayonara Ponytail. While these songs are good, the originals are better in my view. There are some issues with the production of this Blu-ray. Like before, aspect ratio (1920x1080p) is only in widescreen, so if you have a small TV the images get cut. Also, some preview discs reportedly had errors with one of the chapter points which in turn led to a subtitle error, but All the Anime has reported that this error was fixed by the time it was released for retail. Having watched the retail release, I can confirm that this seems indeed to be the case. However, the main production issue that occurred in the first collection, the way the on-screen Japanese subtitles were translated into English, has been sorted completely.

Regarding the extras in this Blu-ray collection, these are very much the same as for Part 1: textless opening and closing, web previews, and a 212- page artbook.

In Summary

The twists and turns in the plot are building up to a thrilling conclusion, and hopefully Part 3 will be a release that will match the grandness of this show so far.

©TRIGGER,Kazuki Nakashima/Kill la Kill Partnership

©T,K/KP