#kill la kill thoughts

[cyphyree]

whenever i talk about Kill La Kill here

[wardingshout]

fast travel duck my beloved....

[cyphyree]

That's honestly a very interesting thought, like Junketsu was always an object, sentient only by way of how compatible it can be with its host (which boils down to purely scientific reasons anyway). Ngl early on my first watch I thought they were gonna develop Junketsu into a character too. Plus Nui being fully sentient gave rise to the possibility of coexistence too. It's like what I wish we got in Promare where (spoilers) I wanted the promare to stay and be buddies with humans :/

I feel like tho, it does KLK well for Life Fibers to not coexist peacefully with humans in the end. They represent assimilation and control, and the annihilation of free thought and will-- they themselves as a species seem to lack free thought and will other than the autonomous drive to consume. It's less of a matter of "two entities capable of forming a truce" and moreso "a virus will kill your body if you don't kill it first" -- or rather "facism will crush you if you don't crush it".

Also, thematically KLK is partly about growing up in a system that fostered you, but ultimately needing to break out from it.

Ragyo's wealth and power gave Satsuki all of her privileges, but Satsuki uses these resources to stop Ragyo's oppression. It's similar to how Life Fibers fostered humankind, but ultimately humans must use what they can to free themselves of Life Fibers, otherwise Planet Earth Go Boom. Both Ragyo and Life Fibers formed systems that only ever meant to incubate "livestock" until they're ripe for slaughter, and neither Satsuki nor humankind owe them thanks for it

Senketsu and Ryuko's relationship tosses a wrench into this idea because yeah, they ARE BESTIES and Ep 5 did set up an expectation for coexistence, only to crush those expectations. Even weirder is the revelation that Senketsu and Ryuko were essentially engineered to be compatible, which could be read as an imposed relationship.

Which....... yeah, it kinda was. They were basically boxed into a system of their own, and add it turns out, they both managed to make-do and thrived and grow within it and developed a genuine friendship. The fact that Life Fibers and humans could never coexist made their relationship all the more special and complex.

At the end of the day though, just like Satsuki and humanity, Ryuko must grow up and break away from the system that her father made, even though that relationship/ system gave her what she needed to develop. To grow out of her sailor uniform and graduate, so to speak.

TLDR to me Life Fibers and humans not coexisting is less about "the solution is to destroy our enemies rather than making peace with them" and more about "people gaining independence from the imposed system in which they grew up to become their own person."

(Sorry if I went wayyyyy off tangent, it's migraine season, and what little of my brain that is functional is marinated in KLK thoughts. I'll have to read your links when I have the capacity to though, would love to see what could have been and compare it to what we got, who knows maybe coexistence could've worked better afterall)

On a KLK forum, some folks have talk about how the show could've benefit with cohabitation between mankind and the Life Fibers, with each specie benefiting from the other in an harmonious balance. It would make sense when you consider life fibers involvement humanity evolution ago, their traits of a simple organism, Kinue die trying to do and Ryuko & Senkentsu relationship and they said about human & clothing in the end. Kinue and Ryuko understood all the strength and potential of it

On the same forum, they talk about how in KLK the humans didn't win with their strength but with the Cooperation from the enemy they were fighting against. It's an understandable argument with ryuko & senkentus being life-fiber hybrids & the scissor blade & uniforms being made of life fibers. The show basically concedes that without the help of rebellious and/or repurposed life fibers then humans would be fucked in a fight against life fibers since they were inferior to them.

I think the show argues that it is in fact human strength and intelligence that overpowers the Life Fibers in the end. As Satsuki proclaims in Episode 21, the fact that humans could make the Life Fibers work for them instead of against them is "a stroke of human genius":

Satsuki: You should call it [that Kamui cover so little of the wearer's skin, thus preventing the wearer from being overtaken by the Life Fibers] a stroke of human genius.

But that said, personally speaking, I'm not particularly fond of how Kill la Kill handles the Life Fibers because I find the messaging to be confusing, contradictory, and disappointing.

As noted, Episode 5, my all-time favorite in the show, emphasizes the idea that humans and Life Fibers do not have to be enemies. They can work together and achieve great things. The end of Episode 15 extends this notion, with Ryuko proudly declaring that she and Senketsu are "two in one" to Satsuki, who staunchly believes that a friendship with Life Fibers is nothing more than a fairytale.

And the thing is: Satsuki's right. Any camaraderie with pure Life Fibers is impossible. The series paints the Twizzlers aliens as nothing more than villainous monsters, and the only reason Senketsu and Ryuko are different is because they're also human. The actual message of Episode 5 comes off less as a push for friendship between the two species but, well... maybe a lesson about how someone with "evil" in them can still be good, I guess?

Which is too bad! I think a more fleshed-out examination of Life Fibers, where they're not just mindless, vicious beasts, would have provided a much more compelling plot—especially with writer Kazuki Nakashima consistently stressing that Kill la Kill is ultimately a story about "a lonely young woman meeting and losing an irreplaceable partner" and his attempt to "make a form of intimacy that transcends love and species"!

I adore Ryuko and Senketsu, don't get me wrong, but I feel that their love and friendship would have been even more powerful had it actually represented a real coming together of humans and Life Fibers. As it turns out, an older draft of the series does go further with the concept, and while I can understand it getting scrapped for being "too much," I'm still attached to the possibilities and wish the final product had gone more in that direction.

[featherymainffins]

I hate to say it but I might have to admit that Redditors can be pretty based sometimes

[eyepatchoflove]

lestat being both french and italian explains everything, because there is actually nothing wrong with him, he's just like that.

[cyphyree]

happy 10th anniversary to kill la kill, the horniest show i've ever unironically analyzed like that second guy in the pro zd skit

happy 10th anniversary to kill la kill and people pretending the horny stuff is way deeper than it actually is

[massiveladycat]

"luke was a good person deep down, and he deserves elysium-"

[kosegruppaa]

guillermo de la cruz, you have the most interesting and fucked up moral compass of any character i know <33333

he kinda gave up on his vampire dreams cause he couldn't deal with the killing but he fine with nadja killing his new coworkers to get him a promotion

[venti-death-watch]

absolutely convinced that characterization-wise, the funniest team up would be acheron, boothill, sunday, and aventurine. any mission they go on would be spectacular. like they’re all intensely competent it’d just also be a mess. they’d solve the original issue after the weirdest shit ever goes down and leave 80 million new, mostly minor problems behind.

[bleue-flora]

It’s interesting that in the finale, while talking to Punz, Tommy and Tubbo note how Dream was like weaker and that’s how they managed to kill him with Tubbo even saying “He was sluggish—he was slow—he was out of practice we took him by surprise.” [clip] And yet it took like two inventories of harming potions for them to take Dream down [clip]…

[cyphyree]

Kill La Kill - Fight Club episode is also about conditional love and it kills me, man

The first time i watched it, I thought that Ryuko was being selfish for wanting to step down. She puts Mako in the president position to begin with, and dissolving the club meant that the family goes back to poverty. Like, girl, you're fighting everyone to begin with, why stop now?

Later on tho, I realize that what was actually happening was that the family was exploiting her. Mako works hard as an exec of the club yes, but Ryuko's the one who's actually fighting and taking all the hard hits (literally) for them, so that they can live in overkill Top 1% luxury. She wasn't a family member anymore, but a tool to be used for the gain of others, and discarded when no longer useful. For Ryuko, love is conditional, and she just cannot meet those conditions.

Which is the struggle Ryuko is faced with her entire life, the entire show. Ryuko couldn't figure out why no one wanted her--she was carted off to boarding school by her dad and bullied by peers. She struggles with finding innate value in herself, yearning for family and friends who will accept her as she is. Even in the haha funny filler episode 4, Ryuko's would-be friend Maiko has only been using her to get to Senketsu.

The fact that Ryuko is half-Life Fiber is devastating because Life Fibers are either insentient tools or the enemy to cull. The entire show, she was treated as a tool or an enemy, and now there's indisputable, irreparable reason for her to be treated as such. There's no reason to love someone who's half-monster like her, and Ragyo exploits this by "fully embracing" Ryuko for "all" that she is. But in reality Ragyo seeks to effectively kill off the human side of Ryuko -- again, discarding what's useless.

Thus in the Wedding, Mako tells Ryuko to choose what she wants: to love and be herself, or to kill Ryuko off for good and assimilate into the Life Fibers. It's during the Wedding, that Ryuko realizes that, whatever she is, there is someone who unconditionally loves her -- not as a tool, but as herself.

Kill La Kill is about loving your body, but also loving yourself in your entirety. It's about breaking free of toxic expectations, and living a life of your choice, wearing the clothes (or not) that you want, you being you, and being loved for it all the same.

[philosophiums]

truly i have been eating all of the theories/ideas lately about itfs cursing each other in some way shape or form at the end of the manga. i love twisted love stories i love a bittersweet ending i love living through the tragedy by enacting violence upon yourself and your loved ones OUGH it's so good

megumi whose main goals this entire series have been centered around yuuji. yuuji who is possibly already acting under the (beginning?) effects of a curse that megumi put on him ("start by saving me" - could also argue that "you've got it from here" isn't helping either kjsdbvjkdfb). megumi who watched yuuji die once and who refuses to see it happen again. yuuji who has witnessed up close everyone dear to him die and cannot lose megumi too....

just... the fighting and clawing and tearing at themselves and each other - desperate to stay together no matter what, even if it leaves them scarred and broken on the other side. because wounds can heal and they can fight to realign themselves with each other and the world, but none of it means anything if they're not alive and together

[pancake-breakfast]

I still think the translation/localization/whatever missed a golden opportunity with Kill la Kill to translate the title as "Dress to Kill," since the series title in the Japanese and the plot are already all about the pun between "斬る" (pronounced "kiru", which means "to kill") and "着る" (also pronounced "kiru," which means "to dress").

It could have been like, "Oh, is this some fun-but-competitive shojo show? NO! Seinen magical girl series with goofy animation, odd choices in fanservice, a surprisingly thoughtful plot, and sexy alien murder outfits."

[tenwhiteandalusians]

so no one was going to tell me if i got literally one episode further tenax drops that he’s the one who saved scorpus from his mom’s pimp AND that he’s intimately familiar with scorpus’ dick when he was younger. guys. guys.

[tinypaperstar]

offers u alnst oc stats

[ryllen]

FJADJSDSDHSDH NOW THAT Ooo..... MAKES SO MUCH SENSE