This completely fails to meet even the most basic standards of analysis. The blog post gives only a surface level analysis, failing entirely to realise the revolutionary themes of Kill la Kill. claiming Kill la Kill is fascist is equivilant to claiming the PRC is fascist; that is to say liberalism. Kill la Kill is a Dengist anime. It support the PRC. The entire function of Kill la Kill is an argument in favour, albeit with critique, of developing productive forces in service of a revolution against capitalism. This blog post entirely neglects the substance of Kill la Kill, reducing it to aesthetic concerns only, completely neglecting the meaning of Satsuki's, Ryuuko's, etc's struggle.
As I have mentioned before on this chat (which, unfortunately often has terrible takes on anime), I have written a somewhat lengthy paper on kill la kill's themes. You can find it here: https://hexbear.net/post/57677
To be fair, you have to have a very high theory quotient to understand Kill la Kill. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical sewing most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Ryuko's quick temper with fools, which is deftly woven into her characterisation- her personal philosophy draws heavily from Deng's own writings, for instance. True communists understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about the forces of production and how many yards of linen are truly needed to make a school uniform. As a consequence people who dislike Kill la Kill truly ARE liberals- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Mako's existential advise “Just rip it off and get naked!" which itself is a cryptic reference to Engels' On Authority. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated libs scratching their heads in confusion as Kazuki Nakashima's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂
And yes, by the way, i DO have a Satsuki tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the momma's eyes only- and even then she has to each time read Das Kapital vols 1 through 3 beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎
Hugo Boss designed those infamously dapper SS uniforms,
Sigh
From the wiki page on Hugo Boss:
By the third quarter of 1932, the all-black SS uniform (to replace the SA brown shirts) was designed by SS-Oberführer Prof. Karl Diebitsch, graphic designer Walter Heck, who had no affiliation with the company.
Hugo Boss was still a Nazi fuck who should rest in piss, but God damn stop perpetuating this fucking myth.
Which only prompts the central question of any piece of writing about Kill la Kill – is this anime very, very stupid or very, very smart?
That's what's so cool about Kill la Kill (and Gurren Lagann), it's one of those works that teaches you to stop thinking about art in those terms. At a surface level, it's very dumb, but as it goes on, it becomes really clear that the show is trying to do something. And then with some analysis, one sees all the careful planning that went into the structure of the thing. For example, Ragyo and those associated with her are the only ones that talk in other languages, and use concepts like sin. They are coded as westeners. A lot of cool interpretations can come from that (I'm partial to the idea it is all a metaphor for Japan in WW2, and the inevitable failure of the imperial project). But something is always missing, it refuses one unifying interpretation. And it keeps being earnest and dumb the whole way through.
The article seems to care a lot about the nudity in the show. I can't say for certain since I'm gay, but it didn't seem like it was supposed to be titilating, most of the time the characters look like blobs. I think this was part of the Discourse(TM) when it came out.
There is one part of the show that feels really gross and exploitative and it doesn't seem to have a purpose. People who've seen the show probably know what I'm talking about.
CW and spoilers:
spoiler
That scene where Ragyo sexually assaults Satsuki in the bath. I honestly don't know what that was supposed to be about. It's never brought up again and I've never seen an analysis that incorporates it.
Kill la Kill is the one where the anime hyper sexualization of teenagers is cranked to 11 right?
“fascist” and “fashion” do sound very similar.
aaannnddd... that was about it for the review.
I long for the day when c/anime no longer posts shitty "takedowns" of popular anime calling them fash while demonstrating an extremely poor understanding of the actual themes of the shows (and fascism for that matter), and instead focusing purely on things like aesthetics.
Besides, until someone can convincingly overcome the "haha funny robot" problem, this kind of media analysis is pretty pointless anyway.
Damn, that review has big "I watched 8 episodes, I'm sure it's like this for the whole show" energy.
