Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Season 1

Kino, a 15-year-old traveler, forms a bond with Hermes, a talking motorcycle. Together, they wander the lands and venture through various countries and places, despite having no clear idea of what to expect. After all, life is a journey filled with the unknown.

Throughout their journeys, they encounter different kinds of customs, from the morally gray to tragic and fascinating. They also meet many people: some who live to work, some who live to make others happy, and some who live to chase their dreams. Thus, in every country they visit, there is always something to learn from the way people carry out their lives.

It is not up to Kino or Hermes to decide whether these asserted values are wrong or right, as they merely assume the roles of observers within this small world. They do not attempt to change or influence the places they visit, despite how absurd these values would appear. That's because in one way or another, they believe things are fine as they are, and that "the world is not beautiful; therefore, it is."

### Episodes

#### Episode 01: Land of Visible Pain —I See You.—

08/04/2003 - Kino and Hermes find themselves in a country that seems to be inhabited only by servile machines. After exploring the country for one day, Kino notices that there are people living alone in cottages in the outskirts of the country. Kino befriends a lonely man there who tells her that the entire human population drank a special liquid which enabled them to understand each other's thoughts with the aim of creating harmony across the country. However, being able to read each other's minds only brought disharmony to society through being aware of the unfiltered thoughts of every other person, even between the lonely man and his wife. The only solution for the population was for everyone to live a short distance from each other. The lonely man asks Kino to stay, but she declines and continues on her way, passing by the cottage of his wife living nearby.

#### Episode 02: A Tale of Feeding Off Others —I Want to Live.—

15/04/2003 - Kino and Hermes find themselves in a country that seems to be inhabited only by servile machines. After exploring the country for one day, Kino notices that there are people living alone in cottages in the outskirts of the country. Kino befriends a lonely man there who tells her that the entire human population drank a special liquid which enabled them to understand each other's thoughts with the aim of creating harmony across the country. However, being able to read each other's minds only brought disharmony to society through being aware of the unfiltered thoughts of every other person, even between the lonely man and his wife. The only solution for the population was for everyone to live a short distance from each other. The lonely man asks Kino to stay, but she declines and continues on her way, passing by the cottage of his wife living nearby.

#### Episode 03: Land of Prophecies —We NO The Future—

22/04/2003 - Kino and Hermes arrive in a country where everyone believes that the world will end the next day according to their Book of Prophecy as interpreted by the southern priest, but the northern priest declares that his interpretation predicts that the event will occur in thirty years. Kino then passes by a country where travelers rarely visit. After she leaves, the populace begin to think of different traditions to entice the next traveler to stay. When Kino arrives in the Sad Land, she learns from a boatman that a poet was commissioned by the king to write a sad poem, which he did so after his wife committed suicide. Ten years after the poet died, society arranged for a chosen girl to recite the poem everyday. Before Kino leaves, a male examiner tells her that the poem was written down and a nearby country acquired it, calling it the Book of Prophecy. Camped overnight under the stars, Kino is interrupted by an army from the Land of Prophecies invading the Sad Land. A soldier informs Kino that a new interpretation of the Book of Prophecy indicated that the next country is responsible for their world coming to an end.

#### Episode 04: Land of Adults —Natural Right—

06/05/2003 - When Kino was eleven years old, she never knew her name before first meeting the mysterious traveler Kino while in the Land of Adults. He stayed at her family's inn for a few days where he repaired an old motorcycle in the basement, and they named it Hermes. She explained that children on their twelfth birthday undergo an operation to become a hardworking adult in the country. When she has doubts about the adult operation after he opened her eyes to other possibilities, the townspeople turned on him and he decided to leave. However, when her parents prepared to kill her for challenging their customs, the original Kino stepped in front to protect her and was killed instead. As her father pulled the knife from the original Kino's lifeless body to kill her, Hermes suggested that she ride away instead. After fleeing to a field of crimson flowers, she took on the original Kino's name as her own and changed into his clothes, including his long traveling coat.

#### Episode 05: Three Men Along the Rails —On the Rails—

13/05/2003 - As Kino rides Hermes along an old railroad, she meets a railway track polisher who has been working for fifty years. Stopping for a break, he asks her to tell him a story about her travels. She recalls a modernized country with advanced machines, where people chose to do meaningless tasks instead of work, encountering a working stiff who did calculations all day just for the stress. As she rides further, she meets a railway track demolisher who has also been working for fifty years. As she rides even further, she meets a railway track layer who has been working for fifty years as well. After three days of exploring ruined buildings in the next country, Kino finally meets a survivor who tells her that the people removed the oppressive king and formed a democracy ruled by majority vote ten years ago. Unfortunately, anyone who questioned the democracy was executed until the graveyard was overflowing. Kino prepares to leave, but the survivor pulls out a gun and insists that she stays. However, Kino and Hermes outvote him so that they can ride away, hearing gunshots echoing in the empty streets behind them.

#### Episode 06: Coliseum (Part 1) —Avengers—

20/05/2003 - Kino stops off in a country reputed to be wonderful, but she finds that all visitors must participate in battle tournaments in a coliseum to become a first-class citizen in the surface city or be subjected to slavery as a second-class citizen in the sewage city, due to the law laid down by the country's hedonistic king. The eventual winner then has the right to make a new law. Abiding by this custom, Kino wins the first round when her opponent yields. Kino also meets Shizu, another contestant, who tells her that the current king murdered his father seven years ago to take the throne and had his children banished. In the second round, Kino first faces an assassin and then a colonel, but she forces them both to surrender. Before the semifinal rounds approach the following day, only four challengers are left, them being Kino, Shizu, a withdrawn woman named Miss Rose and a gunfighter named Sixshooter.

#### Episode 07: Coliseum (Part 2) —Avengers—

27/05/2003 - The king treats the semifinalists to a play about how he was crowned by killing his father and later his wife. However, the semifinalists leave after they are unamused, and even Kino witnesses the king's madness for marriage. During the semifinal rounds, Kino and Shizu each triumph against Miss Rose and Sixshooter, respectively. Meanwhile, Hermes discovers that Shizu's Samoyed dog companion Riku can speak. In the final round, Kino faces the sword-wielding Shizu, eventually disarming his sword. Although Shizu refuses to surrender, Kino pretends to shoot at Shizu and aims a flare into the king's private suite, killing the king. As the winner, Kino proclaims a new law that the first-class citizens can fight each other until the last person standing becomes king, leading to chaos in the country but liberation for the second-class citizens. On the road, Kino encounters Shizu, who reveals that he is the country's prince and returned to kill the king. Hermes later tells Kino that Riku can speak, but Kino does not believe it.

#### Episode 08: Land of Wizards —Potentials of Magic—

03/06/2003 - In the Land of Wizards, worth and power are measured by a person's ability to increase crop production. However, in this agriculturally orientated land dwells a woman named Nimya who dares to dream of something completely different. Nimya desperately wants to build a successful aircraft, and she has dedicated her life to fulfilling her dream despite the lack of support from her peers. To help bring her dream to fruition, Nimya invites Kino and Hermes to her house and explains that she needs the town's bronze statue to be removed from the main road so she can test her latest aircraft prototype. The next day, Nimya is issued an order from the chief for her aircraft to be dismantled and burned, due to numerous complaints from the townspeople. Despite this, Kino and Hermes still convince Nimya to test out the aircraft on the following morning with the use of a ramp and tubes filled with gunpowder in order to simulate a launch. After the test proves to be successful, the chief and the townspeople forgive Nimya. Kino and Hermes go on their way, commenting that the aircraft flew as if by magic.

#### Episode 09: Land of Books —Nothing Is Written!—

10/06/2003 - Kino and Hermes encounter an escaped man in the desert who gives Kino a book that she can use to exchange when she arrives to the Land of Books, which gathers together all the books in the world. However, they find out that the Department of Reading and Welfare locks away books considered "harmful" inside the Castle, leaving only the "harmless" ones out on display to read in the library. The librarian recognizes Kino's book as being from her boyfriend who left the country. The librarian is part of the Publication Syndicate, a resistance group that seeks a secret passage into the Castle to rescue their comrades who have been caught by the Department of Reading and Welfare. Stumbling upon a key and a manuscript, Kino crosses paths with an author, who later leads her to the Castle, where former comrades are forced to become literature critics. After giving the key to the librarian, Kino meets Miss Minister, responsible for trying to catch the author but ended up luring Kino instead. Kino is allowed to keep the manuscript for herself, but the Castle's library full of harmful books is reported to be in flames.

#### Episode 10: A Tale of Mechanical Dolls —One-way Mission—

17/06/2003 - While searching for a village where she can get Hermes's speedometer repaired, Kino stumbles across a nanny, who serves a father, a mother and a son living in the woods but claims to be a mechanical doll. As Kino spends time with the family during dinner while the nanny leaves to recharge in the closet, Kino begins to realize that the nanny is more human than the family. The nanny later manages to repair Hermes's speedometer. However, she eventually dies, showing that she was human after all. At the nanny's graveside, the family reveals to Kino that they are mechanical dolls created by the nanny over fifty-four years earlier during a time of conflict in the land. After the nanny was left alone when her husband and son were killed, the family flooded the village so that she would not be reminded of the past. The family also cared for her and acted the role of a family. They offer to serve their role as a family for Kino, but she declines. Realizing that they no longer have a useful function, the family plunges into the depths of the lake that they created.

#### Episode 11: Her Journey —Love and Bullets—

24/06/2003 - As Kino and Hermes drift on a raft downstream, Kino recalls people who she has met on her travels, in particular those undertaking journeys of their own in which she chose not to intervene. Jin sought revenge for her husband's death and shot a former criminal named Ace. Brock wanted to atone for his violent past, which was unknown to his love interest named Sica. When Kino was younger, her Master, an old woman, saved her from being attacked by a wolf. Kino also recalls that she stopped at a hermitage when running low on fuel. There, she found a caretaker named Su who was caring for a wise man. The wise man explained that his attitude to life was only the result of cruel experiments to erase self-consciousness, thought to be the root of desire and criminal behavior. However, the experiments failed because his motivation was also erased. Su managed to calm down the wise man when Kino figured out the actual meaning of the "true blue sky". Hermes later remarks that Kino's life is little different to those they have met on their travels, but Kino replies that she is trying to live her life consciously.

#### Episode 12: A Peaceful Land —Mother's Love—

01/07/2003 - Kino and Hermes visit Veldelval, a land that prides itself on a being a peaceful nation. However, abandoned military equipment litters the streets, and an army is training on the outskirts of town for a war to be held on the following day. Curious about these contradictions, Kino visits the museum of national history and learns from the curator that Veldelval finally found a solution fifteen years ago after being at war with Relsumia for 192 years. The next day, Kino is escorted by a guide to the outskirts of the country, where Kino understands that the solution is for both armies to attack a tribal village of defenseless Tatatans nearby, in which the army causing the most casualties is declared the winner each year. Kino returns to the museum, where the curator explains that it was partially her idea to establish an annual Tatatan hunt to achieve sacrificial peace between Veldelval and Relsumia. As Kino and Hermes leaves the country, they are surrounded by vengeful Tatatans who want to kill Kino, but they disperse when she kills one of them, much to her own dismay.

#### Episode 13: A Kind Land —Tomorrow Never Comes—

08/07/2003 - When Kino hears of a land where travelers are shunned, she decides to visit anyway and experience the people's attitude for herself. To her surprise, when she says she will stay only three days, the inhabitants become extremely friendly and welcoming. Kino is soon made to feel at home among them and makes friends with Lily, a girl whose parents Mr. and Mrs. Sakura own an inexpensive hotel, which reminds Kino of her younger self. Lily's grandpa fixes Kino's gun while Lily gives Kino a grand tour of the country. He later has a hunch that the gun previously belonged to Kino's Master, but Kino denies this fact. When Kino considers staying a little longer after adoring a bride and a groom getting married, the citizens react strangely, but they then shower her with parting gifts when she leaves. That evening, Kino watches in horror as a pyroclastic flow engulfs the land. Kino then reads a letter given to her, explaining that the people knew of the impending destruction but decided to stay in the place that they were raised and always cherished.

### References

1. ↑ Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World (Kino's Journey) - MyAnimeList.net
2. ↑ List of Kino's Journey episodes - Wikipedia