What Beauty is in Kill la Kill

I have been meaning to write this piece for a very, very long time. But I kept procrastinating it. I believe it's been 3-4 months since I finished Kill la Kill as I write this, but oh well. Also, I found out that this cool font does not render bold tags and em or en dashes properly. Curses!!

One of my maxims in approaching art is that we should be open to as varied aesthetics as possible. This means that while my main creative work is literature about folks trying to become better people after having a bad time, I must take from works which are astronomically distant from what I write. A close inspiration of mine would be Ingmar Bergman-where if you read my story (if they were published!) and watch a movie of Bergman's then perhaps you could glimpse traces of similarity. In my stories I always aim to emulate the confessional intensity that he had his characters do. Another close inspiration is Andrei Tarkovsky-who never compromised upon a single frame, quite clear in how I often complicate my sentences-although this is almost certainly an oversimplification Tarkovsky's technical approach.

But I take very serious and very deep inspiration-or at least motivation-from the lowbrow works of art (I'm sure some would disdain in calling them art!) like manga and anime. But first, about the terms lowbrow and highbrow. When I use those terms I don't imply a sort of inherent moral and artistic discrepancy. I use them to simplify talking about popular media that doesn't require sustained acquired taste, and one that does. Somone who never read a novel in their life would be dazed by Ulysses, but certainly not by One Piece. I trust the reader can surmise what the terms mean without me giving a concrete definition, and be assured that I don't think anyone who read highbrow novels as superior human beings.

Virtually every works of art or media contain commonly used and recycled motifs. In manga and anime, the things like the themes of friendship and "the strongest" character archetypes are one of those perpetually refreshed tropes. The latter trope is a seemingly immortal one, as it has recurred since 40 years ago with Fist of the North Star. It of course found strong consolidation with the advent of Dragonball Z.

But the same can be said of highbrow art. If you truly think about it, at least since the end of WW2, highbrow literature is always preoccupied about corrupt government, the hardship of poverty, social injustice, etc. that just like how we see boring old tropes in lowbrow art, we also see these boring old tropes perpetuated for decades by the highbrow community. One insightful realization I had is that a lot of lowbrow media are much preferrable to read or watch over, say, another short story about little people, or another "slow-burn" arthouse movie with static camera or drawn-out silence that hides the filmmaker's inability to create compelling drama. I particularly detest these slow-burn movies-and recall that I take Tarkovsky as a major inspiration-but many contemporary arthouse directors doesn't have 1% of the talent and keenness that Tarkovsky had. Sadly, very little of contemporary arthouse movies are like A Separation or Phantom Thread.

If you were born and molded by highbrow stuff for your entire life, then you, too, would find considerably disdain and boredom over the stuff that other, apparently like-minded people, would regurgitate out of their bowels. Especially dull are the artists who are more concerned in delivering a message rather than demonstrating a human condition. So, with boredom like this, I found considerable refreshment when I decide once upon a time to get into anime. Well, I didn't decide to go into anime (I was adamant that I'm not a weeb-look how that turn out!), but I did get into Dragonball partially with the idea that popular media would be entertaining and original for once in a while.

I was, in fact, genuinely amazed by the anime. I was surprised and uplifted by the elegant and streamlined simplicity. Dragonball is a story about someone who doesn't care about anything except about getting stronger. There really is no overarching plot, deep narratives, or humane insight. It wasn't even very well-written. But when you don't have to burden yourself with an intellectual need to communicate ideas, you will be surprised by what sheer, overwhelming scenarios that you can deliver to your audiences. There is nothing short of spectacular when we, for example, see Trunks and Cell trying to outmaneuver one another in the sky, or when Goku send the entire Earth trembling as he transforms into Super Saiyan 3. And I believe that, if you disregard the context and plot, you are likely being dishonest with your aesthetic judgment if you don't believe those isolated moments to hold considerable merit.

But the title of this essay regards Kill La Kill. If you have never watched or heard about it, then simply know that it is a story about two girls fighting each other where they gain more power by stripping down. No, I am not exaggerating here.

But it is indeed in how the show literally does not care about believability, and because it was entirely free of intellectual burden, it was able to deliver images-indeed, summon scenes which were extraordinary. Take a simple gander at the thumbnail of this essay. Without context it looks like a very expressive shot-the massive, wide-flowing hair of the woman on the left is flaring up as she avoids the woman on the right's similarly massive sword. It came at the wake of the protagonists's realization-that she can attain greater power if she would just show off her skin a little.

But what actually happens when she strips down? Let us take a microscopic look, into below the clothes-as in, right under the fabric that cover our character. A very thin string was let loose, and it attaches itself to her skin. As it does so, such a crimson purity as never before seen begin flowing up. The cloth is drinking her blood. Then a massive, monstrous shape begin to glow and expand, before then devouring its host. Soon the creature would integrate itself with the host, and we find our main character-half-naked-capable of flying and cutting buildings with her blade. It is without a doubt the most magnificent transformation sequence I have ever witnessed-trying to describe it in words couldn't do it justice, and what I wrote above was a very shabby imitation.

Kill La Kill is full of moments like this-where lights glow and flash gigantically under the heaviness of the action. But I always believe that to know one's true artistic ability, then we should see how one (in this case, the animators, plural) handle moments with no fast movements or mountainous scenes. The antagonist of the show had many beloved moments, not for being strong, but in the way she taps her heels in dramatic moments. In the middle of tremulous events, we would suddenly hear silence-and a cut to a shot of a brilliant white canvas. But it was a background light-and we see a firm, majestic heel stomps the floor to signal the arrival of power.

Dragonball Z was great, but it was not an aesthetic revelation. But I take the aesthetic merits of stupid, mindless anime like Kill La Kill very seriously. And I also take the rich, seemingly endless liveliness of One Piece very seriously. Of course, neither of them provide any 'intellectual' content-and perhaps no manga, anime, or lowbrow art will reach the thoughtfulness that is evident in the classical great artists (perhaps it would violate the definition of lowbrow). But there are many lessons, especially regards how to can present or offloads our intellectual burden, as we try to expand our openness to experience and begin looking what people we instinctively dismiss has to offer.

It also doesn't mean that a lack of thoughtfulness can never be detrimental to a lowbrow work. Contrary to popular belief, pretentiousness is not the monopoly of highbrow art. Attack On Titan is perhaps the most revolting display of pretentiousness in popular media. It seeks to demonstrate the terror of meaningless suffering, yet at the same time revel in the action and glorifies violence. It is a hateful story. Note, too, that Attack On Titan is unquestionably well-animated. Kill La Kill is supreme both because of its showmanship and total acceptance of simple absurdity, but Attack On Titan's attempt at being smart is so extremely trite and juvenile that no amount of fluid frames will ever salvage it in my eyes. Thus, making a serious appreciation of lowbrow art is not to suspend all prejudice, but in searching new ways of expression you will never find no matter how many literary fiction you read.

It's unbelievable that I would praise Dragonball Z and Kill La Kill of all things in an essay about aesthetic merit, but the discrepancy and seemingly-out-of-place-ness proves my point all the more that to improve highbrow art, we need to expand our openness to experience different sources of aesthetics. If we continue to write the same old drivel with the same old ways of expression, and if we fail to recognize these problems-then it is certainly the case that the artistic community is out of touch, and just as stagnantly saturated with safe, unoriginal works as the popular media many would be disdainful of.

First upload: 9 January 2025