#kill la kill thoughts

[cyphyree]

whenever i talk about Kill La Kill here

[cyphyree]

Kill la kill: What is Ryuko and Senketsu's friendship anyway

I talked before about how Life Fibers are representations of fate and predominantly facist ideals, which is why the show ultimately isn't about and doesn't end with interspecies friendship. Senketsu then is a representation of Ryuko's fate, and in the end, he frees Ryuko of himself.

BUT, Ryuko and Senketsu's relationship is more complicated than "fate imposed on a person"...... yet at the same time that's exactly what it is. Their friendship is real and fraught with ups and downs, and they BOTH undergo arcs catalyzed by the other.

Ryuko is a product of destiny grappling with her own agency. She takes up the scissor blade in order to avenge her dad, but was forced to confront her fate--Senketsu, who was tailor-made specifically for Ryuko, and who very literally and uncomfortably forced himself on Ryuko.

...Not a great start tbh. Just as Junketsu is Satsuki's wedding dress, Senketsu is Ryuko's. At that point, the only reason Ryuko rolled with Senketsu was because she could then leverage Senketsu's powers to defeat Satsuki.

(Side note, Satsuki forces Junketsu to bend to her will, but like her conquest, playing to best the system is still playing within the system. Both girls were both going to be fed to their predetermined fates one way or another. But anyway)

Ryuko has a complicated relationship with her destiny and with herself, all of which is reflected in her friendship with Senketsu. She was forced into a role, became a pawn in a game set by her parents and those around her, and yet somehow learned self love and agency. Her relationship with Senketsu is a reflection of her own self-image: when she's comfortable in her own skin, she and Senketsu are in harmony. When she is disgusted by the truth of being a Life Fiber human hybrid, she sees herself in what Senketsu is, and is vehemently repulsed.

Like Ryuko, Senketsu is a hybrid of Life Fibers, Ryuko's human DNA and his own personality. As much as Ryuko is a product with predetermined destinies, so is Senketsu, more obviously even.

Senketsu is weaponized clothing. In a world where everyone wanted to possess or destroy him, Ryuko calls him her friend.

Ryuko is a manufactured hybrid soldier. In a world where everyone wanted to use her or put her down, Senketsu calls her his friend. (We'll get to Mako in a bit)

Senketsu and Ryuko both embody their own struggles against fate and self-image. How can you live and accept yourself, when you were created a monster? A tool to be used and otherwise euthanized? Products made to either save or destroy your own species?

"Everyone else can take off their clothes, but I can't take off my own skin."

Although Senketsu's struggles aren't as upfront as Ryuko's, we still see him grapple with how Ryuko perceives him: as a friend, as "just a piece of clothing," as a mirror held up to herself? And what then, when the answer is "yes?"

The simple and most difficult answer, that I believe was presented to us, is to accept yourself and to choose what path to walk.... which is essentially the very thing that our facist villain Ragyo wants to eliminate.

At her lowest point, Ryuko was faced with the reality that she is in fact the weapon that everyone treated her as. Her fears are realized. How can anyone love this? How can she? Mako shows her that there are those who love her unconditionally--Mako herself in fact! It's important that Ryuko realizes this. But this alone isn't enough to save Ryuko from self-loathing.

The Wedding is a scene where we can clearly see the difference between giving into a predestined fate, and accepting yourself. It's here that Ryuko finally realizes that she does have the power to choose, and that for everything she is, she is unconditionally worthy of love from others and herself.

Senketsu would also make this realization, but from his side of the coin. He is clothing, to be worn, to be grown out of. He is also a weapon destined to consume his wearer. He is horrified by the idea that Ryuko is supposed to be his food, and yet would force himself onto her at the beginning. Even at the time of the Wedding, Senketsu declared that he'd force Ryuko to wear him to save her.

However, like Ryuko, Senketsu struggles with and would finally accept Ryuko's own agency. Ryuko broke out of the Wedding NOT because she was forced to wear Senketsu, another wedding dress, but because she CHOOSES to. It is finally when she willingly and full heartedly accepts herself that she and Senketsu are the most powerful, and this could only happen by her choice.

Notably, Ryuko flays herself of Junketsu, effectively a second skin, to be in her own skin again.

Just as Ryuko is a person who can choose what to wear, Senketsu is clothing that is chosen to be worn.

That's not to detract from Senketsu's personhood. What I'm saying is that Senketsu is clothing given voice and personality, and both he and Ryuko learn to make peace with what they are, and are empowered by the choices they can make.

People are people. Clothes are clothes.

People are not meant to be worn, clothes are.

This is why Senketsu leaving in the end is a powerful conclusion to his and Ryuko's arcs. Even as he burns, he protects Ryuko. He tells her to wear something she wants. As much as they could've been destined to meet, as much as he is Life Fibers meant to consume her, he is not her wedding dress, and nor will he force her to wear him. He is clothing but chooses to be a friend.

We are what we are and can't change how we were born; perhaps that is fate. But our choices are what really matter, and some of the most powerful choices we can make are to accept and love ourselves.

[cyphyree]

Kill La Kill - Fight Club episode is also about conditional love and it kills me, man

The first time i watched it, I thought that Ryuko was being selfish for wanting to step down. She puts Mako in the president position to begin with, and dissolving the club meant that the family goes back to poverty. Like, girl, you're fighting everyone to begin with, why stop now?

Later on tho, I realize that what was actually happening was that the family was exploiting her. Mako works hard as an exec of the club yes, but Ryuko's the one who's actually fighting and taking all the hard hits (literally) for them, so that they can live in overkill Top 1% luxury. She wasn't a family member anymore, but a tool to be used for the gain of others, and discarded when no longer useful. For Ryuko, love is conditional, and she just cannot meet those conditions.

Which is the struggle Ryuko is faced with her entire life, the entire show. Ryuko couldn't figure out why no one wanted her--she was carted off to boarding school by her dad and bullied by peers. She struggles with finding innate value in herself, yearning for family and friends who will accept her as she is. Even in the haha funny filler episode 4, Ryuko's would-be friend Maiko has only been using her to get to Senketsu.

The fact that Ryuko is half-Life Fiber is devastating because Life Fibers are either insentient tools or the enemy to cull. The entire show, she was treated as a tool or an enemy, and now there's indisputable, irreparable reason for her to be treated as such. There's no reason to love someone who's half-monster like her, and Ragyo exploits this by "fully embracing" Ryuko for "all" that she is. But in reality Ragyo seeks to effectively kill off the human side of Ryuko -- again, discarding what's useless.

Thus in the Wedding, Mako tells Ryuko to choose what she wants: to love and be herself, or to kill Ryuko off for good and assimilate into the Life Fibers. It's during the Wedding, that Ryuko realizes that, whatever she is, there is someone who unconditionally loves her -- not as a tool, but as herself.

Kill La Kill is about loving your body, but also loving yourself in your entirety. It's about breaking free of toxic expectations, and living a life of your choice, wearing the clothes (or not) that you want, you being you, and being loved for it all the same.

[cyphyree]

It's really poetic that, in their quest to defeat the other, Ryuko and Satsuki actually learned from one another and became stronger as the result.

Satsuki berates Ryuko for having no higher ambition than revenge for her father's death, and Ryuko comes to learn that she wants to protect those she loves. Revenge is a focus on the past, and Ryuko learns to strive towards the future with her found family.

Ryuko calls Satsuki out for using people as pawns in her conquest. Satsuki wanted to be the bigger person in order to defeat Ragyo, but realizes that by employing the same methods as her awful mother, even if it's for the greater good, she is no better than Ragyo.

They define each other's fatal flaws within the first 3 episodes, and the story follows through with them.

I love Kill la Kill

[cyphyree]

Ok as much as I loved Kill La Kill. Why did they make it Like That? Is there some sort of... cultural significance to being clothed/unclothed I'm missing? Or just fanservice?

😎

😐🕶

I have no idea LOL

I'm not well-versed in Japanese culture or relationships with clothing tbh, but it's super interesting to think about.

I do know that KLK is based on the history of Japanese school uniforms, how their designs were derived from military garment. It's a way of saying "your role in society is pre-destined, your fate is to be loyal to the nation," something like that, and KLK takes that idea and injects it with anime steroids.

And I guess that fanservice is used so prevalently in anime that the creators wanted to subvert expectations and to actually use fanservice to talk about an interesting and introspective topic?---but also to have its cake and eat it too? I think it's largely successful in its commentary, but uh, it definitely has a very different approach to heavier topics than, say, Utena.

It's really weird that this show ended up as one of my top 5 fave shows ever, it would've been such a hard sell for me. Fanservice is everywhere in the show, and yet I consistently just. Forget about it because I'm invested in the plot... but like for real please believe me :'U

looking for wholesome fanart for KLK is a nightmare tho

[cyphyree]

Ryuko's Anger

Been watching and reading different KLK analysis stuff, but haven't come across someone talking about Ryuko' anger yet.

It's volatile, it drives her recklessness, it makes her a delinquent. It's a trait that Satsuki and other characters frown on, and something that Ryuko struggles to control. When she fails to control it, it drives her berserk and makes her dangerous. Satsuki, Nui and Ragyo (even to some extent Mikisugi) all take advantage of her anger in order to make use of her in their plans. Anger by all means is one of Ryuko's worst traits and greatest weaknesses.

At the same time, though, I feel like the show makes a point in telling us that her anger is more nuanced than that. Her introduction shows us that she isn't angry about kids trying to mug her. She isn't angry at Mako for turning against her to protect her family's wealth. Her rage stems from being shunned by the only family she ever knew, and then being robbed of the chance of ever bonding with him. Underlying that anger is a lonely, grieving kid that nobody wanted, except as a tool.

Ryuko growing as a character didn't mean condemning her anger, but to put it towards something productive rather than destructive. And it was important that SHE was the one who controls it, otherwise others will use it to manipulate her.

For example, in The Wedding, Ryuko's anger was triggered at first because she wanted to defend the "happiness" Ragyo planted in her. But once she became conscious of

this was a lie

she had something better to protect (Mako, Senketsu, the people she have bonded with--her true family)

she was once again manipulated into becoming a tool for someone who didn't actually care for her

-- Ryuko was able to take back control of her life. And this manifested as RAGE great enough to override the lie's submissive bliss, and flay herself of her false skin. Because dammit she deserves better and how dare ANYONE force her to hurt the people she cares about!

Ryuko's anger was never a monster meant to be killed. It made her vulnerable when she couldn't control it -- but it's also the manifestation of her will, the drive to become better, the means to make her realize her own self-worth and to fight the forces that try to use and objectify her. She learns to OWN her rage, which goes hand-in-hand with learning to love and protect her true self, and those who love her back.

[cyphyree]

Something that gets me with Satsuki is that in her iron will to do good, she has to play the monster and put up a facade strong enough to fool even herself sometimes.

Everyone sees her as a rich teen coddled by her mother, yet she faces years of being objectified and abused by Ragyo.

She mocks the masses for trying to play the system, yet she herself tries to defeat her mother in Ragyo's own game.

She's showered in wealth, yet the things she enjoys the most is her butler's tea and the voices of her friends around her.

Ryuko bashes her for all the liberties she's allowed, and though it does not negate the luxury of her privileges, Satsuki remains bound to Ragyo's whims and surveillance.

And Satsuki belittles Ryuko for wanting to avenge her father, when in reality, buried beneath her goal to uproot the monumental system that binds her and everyone else, deep down Satsuki continues seething for the loss of her father and baby sister too.

[cyphyree]

Congrats on having the Only Good Takes on Kill la Kill.

Aw shucks thanks heheh

im sure there are way better KLK takes out there, but I'm glad that mines are at least interesting cuz I'm only gonna be posting more of them >:]