From episode to episode basis, I feel like all of Kino’s Journey’s sudden left curve episodes are going to happen on even numbered episodes. Episode 2 was the colosseum episode that lead to the death of an entire country, episode 4 wasn’t as bad as episode 2 but similar things happened with Shizu, who was the point of view character instead of Kino, and for this one? Kino barely appears in this episode at all. She appears at the beginning and end of the episode to cap it off and that is it. Kino is lost in the fog until she finally shows up to where the action happened. The difference between the other two even numbered episodes and this one is that I am on hundred percent sure I liked this one. I don’t know if my even numbered and odd numbered theory is going to hold for the rest of the show, based on this one episode, but that remains to be scene. This show is half over at this moment.
This episode is yet another simple one and it revolves around one concept. Luck. Also, this episode doesn’t revolve around a different country, but a caravan of people that sell goods to different countries. At this moment, it looks like they are resting from their travels and just taking a moment to relax. Unfortunately, it turns out that one country good pay for goods and gave this caravan a girl to work for payment. Yes, slavery. That is a thing that happened. They abuse the hell out of this girl, call her names, push her down on the ground for no reason, throw rocks at her, and whatever bad thing you can think of at this moment. Despite all this, when she was asked about all the abuse they gave her and whether or not she hated her handlers, she comments that she thinks it’s all a test for her and it’s her countries gifts to let her see the world. Of course, these bad people laughed at her, called her stupid, and continued to abuse her. Even a little kid got in on the action, which is just horrible.
The big turning point of this episode happened around a dinner scene. The girl was washing herbs that seemed familiar to her for some reason, though she couldn’t identify why at that moment. When these annoying people started eating their food, she remembered and tried to tell them to stop immediately. The herbs turned out to be poisonous, of course. When she tried to tell them not to eat any of it, she was stopped. Trying to accept her death as recompense. The slave girl tried to eat the food too, but got hit by a rock from the young kid of the group who immediately threatened to kill her. These horrible people just passing on their state of mind to a kid is horrible. Then, almost everyone else died. There was one person, because he didn’t like vegetables, alive that freed this slave girl from her chains and ended up offing himself with a gun with the former slave girl’s help. After that, the slave girl gets talked over to by a motoradd, drives way, and lives the life of a photographer happily ever after.
For me, the biggest part of this episode that caught my attention was the fact that this episode was like a bible parable. Especially one told to an audience by Jesus himself. I know that I don’t usually talk about my religion a lot, but I can’t help it with this episode. I am a Lutheran and I was raised with stories like this. I can’t help but feel nostalgic about. All around good episode. One thing that is annoying me about this series is the appearance of more motoradds. Hermes was special in the original series, because he was the only talking motor cycle. Now that there are two more, Hermes is nowhere near as special as he used to be. This isn’t a detriment to this episode at all though. . See you all next Monday for more Kino. (Hopefully she appears in the story too.)
Mechanical Anime Reviews 
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