WELL HERE WE ARE AGAIN. I hope you enjoyed your six days, twenty-three hours, and thirty-seven minutes back in reality, everyone. Well, it was technically six days, twenty-two hours, and thirty-fiveish minutes for me… fuck these writeups. But anyway! We’re here. I hope none of you fuckers Lost Your Way, because the powers that be have promised this episode will fuck shit up. Let’s Kill la Kill.

Episode 3

0:07 – A proud uniform heritage. Well, it’s better than some childhoods

0:34 – “Purity”, huh? Oh god, where are we going with this

2:06 – Hahaha this OP’s such cheap crap. Just goes to show how great art direction can compensate for a non-existent budget

2:54 – Once again, after last week’s narrow escape, Ryuuko just… comes back to school 

2:57 – Man I love this show’s reality 

3:10 – The ever-reliable Mako carrier pigeon 

3:12 – Some prettiness 

3:28 – WELP, TIME TO STRIP. Starting to love this guy

3:48 – Again, if you’re gonna rely on stills, make them great fuckin’ stills. This one’s beautifully composed – I love how the light draws you to up to Ryuuko’s face, and then her gaze draws you down the scissor blade. Plus how the line of the blade and their two heads diagonally divides the room into the the brightly lit bottom and heavily shadowed top. Really arresting image

3:58 – Ahaha his shirt is just casually slipping off his shoulders 

4:39 – Of course! This explains everything 

4:50 – This show knows exactly how much seriousness to apply to its own mythology 

5:07 – Uuuugh this show’s desiiign 

6:10 – So in this universe, every adult is a dirty old man 

6:25 – DEEP IN THE BOWELS OF THE SEWING CLUB LABORATORY 

7:14 – This is the best show. COMMENCE FIRST BUTTON PLACEMENT

8:59 – Be smote by her radiance. I’m glad the secret laboratory lighting crew on her side

9:48 – Oh my god this show too amazing I can’t 

10:42 – Guts still best character 

12:31 – Who would have thought they’d attack her here!? 

14:37 – Man, those front-row seats are hazardous 

14:56 – Pew pew! 

15:11 – Well, the poses are sweet. Those fucking outfits…

15:51 – A moment to rest. It’s a shame they have to rely so heavily on CG here. They’re doing a decent job of integrating it where possible, but it still sticks out

17:05 – Wow, she’s actually directly saying “fuck off naysayers, I own this shit”. So this show really wants to overtly address what it’s doing.

Hm.

17:29 – Ahahaha 

Satsuki’s whole speech there was pretty interesting. It sounds like her point is “my goal is my identity – getting caught up in stuff like my appearance or modesty at the expense of that goal means I was never committed in the first place.” Which is a fair point, given the context of a show where power is granted by wearing these absurd outfits. The tricky thing is that the creators of this show arbitrarily decided that’s how the rules of this world work. Satsuki may not have a choice – but the writers did. But it’s still an interesting question, and I’m not really sure what to think of it. Normally, if fanservice tries to justify itself, it frames an outfit as the female character’s legitimate expression of self – which can actually be perfectly reasonable, and one of the ways things can be sexy without being objectifying (though often this reasoning is abused, and if the female character’s identity itself is just wish-fulfillment nonsense, then framing the outfit as an extension of that nonsense doesn’t actually improve anything). But here, it’s saying Satsuki doesn’t even have that choice… hm

I dunno. As a guy, I’m not really the one qualified to say whether this seems reasonable or not (the fact that the show is so lecherous about everything certainly doesn’t help its case… but even that might be part of the point, since we’re framed with the audience for these fights… but what purpose does that actually serve?), but it’s interesting that the show is even addressing this. I’ll have to see how other people more directly in tune with these sort of questions are responding to this point (far be it from me to be the reigning authority on media depictions of female characters – I just try to do the best I can), and we’ll have to see where the show takes it as well.

Really didn’t expect this show to address its own problematic elements. Fair enough, Kill la Kill.

17:38 – Can’t believe I just spent ten minutes thinking about the implications of Satsuki’s philosophy 

17:45 – Mako, Mako and Mako discussing Ryuuko’s rack. I like that even Guts-Mako is arguing her case

17:58 – THAT WAS NOT MY POINT IN THE SLIGHTEST. Ahahaha man, I know that feeling

19:32 – Yeah sure we’ll go with that. So I guess “naked” now means “accepting Senketsu and his appearance utterly?” It’s kind of an arbitrary distinction in the context of this show

19:59 – New powers left and right! 

20:06 – Time to pose 

20:31 – Man fuck these season tickets 

21:00 – Episode three folks 

22:20 – Love the orchestral LOSE YOUR WAAAAAY 

Also, Ryuuko just seems more villainy every episode, huh? From “Omoshiroi” to “I’ll get you next time!” to “All of your ambitions… I’ll crush them!” Interesting stuff

And Done

Holy fuck I have no idea what to think my brain is broken. That last fight was pretty… god damn. Satsuki definitely stole the show this episode, though Mako probably has the best screentime-to-fantasticness ratio of anyone. And then Satsuki had to go and actually bring up the ridiculousness of their outfits… I don’t even know. I thought you’d beat me with manic intensity, Kill la Kill – I didn’t expect you to actually address your own ridiculous fanservice. This is out of my pay grade.

Jeez, I need a drink or something. Anime is hard.