Shopping Guide
In search of her father’s enemy, Ryuko Matoi, clad in the Kamui named “Senketsu,” challenges Student Council President Satsuki Kiryuin to a battle!
Transfer student Ryuko Matoi has arrived at Honnouji Academy’s 2nd year K class. Ryuko is on a quest to seek vengeance against whoever murdered her father.
Honnouji Academy is controlled by Student Council President Satsuki Kiryuin, who wields a school uniform called a “Goku Uniform” that gives her supernatural powers. Ryuko stands up against Satsuki on her first day of school, certain that she knows the secret of the Scissor Blade her father’s killer owned. However, she is defeated by the boxing club captain, an underling of Satsuki who wears a Goku Uniform.
Feeling dejected by her own powerlessness, Ryuko meets a talking black sailor uniform named Senketsu underground below the remains of her burnt-down home. Senketsu awakens when he sucks Ryuko’s blood.
Meanwhile, Ryuko’s classmate Mako Mankanshoku is taken by the student council. Ryuko appears clad in the overly revealing Senketsu. She takes the boxing club captain’s blows with ease, and easily defeats his 2-star 1 Goku Uniform. (Episode 1)
Ryuko approaches Satsuki, but Senketsu’s power doesn’t work, so she retreats for the time being. Just as she collapses from exhaustion, she is saved by Mako’s father Barazo Mankanshoku, a backalley doctor, and it’s decided that she’ll stay at their home. Unable to sleep, Ryuko thinks back on her meeting with Senketsu. In their conversation, she discovers that her father created Senketsu.
On the way to school the next day, the girl’s tennis captain gets in Ryuko’s way. However, Ryuko is unable to draw out Senketsu’s power. She is saved by her mysterious homeroom teacher Aikuro Mikisugi (who turns into a sleazy pretty boy when he takes off his glasses!) and learns that her blood is needed to use Senketsu’s power. She also receives a glove from Mikisugi that will allow her to activate Senketsu effectively.
Ryuko heads for another fight with the tennis captain and obliterates her within the rules of tennis (?), but feeling disadvantaged in an additional fight with Satsuki, runs away in a veil of smoke. (Episode 2)
Ryuko presses her homeroom teacher Mikisugi for answers. She then learns that her father invented Goku Uniforms and the Kamui Senketsu and that they’re made of fibers called “Life Fibers.”
In the sewing club, the development of a 5-star Goku Uniform has made progress, but the higher amount of Life Fibers makes it go out of control. At that moment, Satsuki unseals “Junketsu,” a Kamui made completely of Life Fibers, and puts it on.
Satsuki appears before Ryuko in the morning wearing Junketsu. Both wearing a Kamui, the two begin to fight, and Ryuko is thrown off by Satsuki’s overwhelming strength. During the battle, Ryuko bares her heart and is successfully able to bring out Senketsu’s power. Though the two seem an equal match, it’s Ryuko who is brought down to her knees. Nevertheless, she vows to crush Satsuki once again, and Satsuki vows to fight her again if she can defeat every club. A new battle begins! (Episode 3)
With a daring setting and story and the hand-drawn style of art and movement that feels reminiscent of the cel animation from the ‘70s, Kill la Kill has both a nostalgia and the enthusiasm of a new anime. Some of the leading staff behind Gainax’s Gurren Lagann set off on their own and created the animation production company Trigger. The first of their long awaited efforts was the original animation Kill la Kill. With Hiroyuki Imaishi as director and Kazuki Nakashima as writer and series composer, the two people behind Gurren Lagann have teamed up again, so the story is bound to heat up!
Will she cut or be cut? We won’t be able to miss a moment up until the very end!
^1^ The Goku Uniforms have different ranks to indicate strength: 1-star, which is the weakest; 2-star, which is given to the club captain class; and 3-star, which is worn by the Elite Four. The more stars, the stronger it is.
©TRIGGER,Kazuki Nakashima/Kill la Kill Partnership
This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode original article.
