KILL LA KILL ep13: the romance and murder of cloth

Alright! It’s back! KILL LA KILL is back! And I’m not going to waste a moment getting into it!

Despite anyone’s personal feelings, the world moves on. Ryuuko’s disasterous battle with Nui Harime has scarred her badly and she’s fully placed herself on the sidelines. While she sulks, Lady Satsuki has put Honnouji Academy into full war mode. It’s a military build up that would make any true American proud and tear up with pride. A massive indulstrial effort is put in place to complete replace and overhaul all of the academy’s uniforms. Even the lowly One-Stars are given new improved wear. The only ones still waiting are the Four Devas, whose uniforms require extra care (probably to replace and enforce those pesky Nexus threads).

Still, the war effort presses on.

Poor Mako is dragged into the war effort unexpectedly as well.  How and why is a little loser like her helping out?  Well it’s a long story, and potentially the story for this entire episode.

While Mako sulks and Aikuro wonders how she even got a brain, a new student shows up.  He claims to be Shinjirou Nagita, formerly of the Newspaper Club.  And it seems that his latest efforts at whatever have gotten him in hot water with the academy.  Not only is he suspended indefinitely, he’s being hunted by goons from the Disciplinary Bureau for it.  He scoops up Mako in an effort to get her to take him to Matoi.  Though when they do show up, Ryuuko is in no mood to see or help strangers.  She’s been questioning her worthiness to wear Senketsu, while still giving him (it?) the cold shoulder.  Shinjirou is outright denied, but states that he won’t give up.

Back out in the real world, Lady Satsuki takes time to visit her mother at the powerful international clothing company we now know as REVOCS. After her rainbow haired CEO mother, Ragyou Kiryuuin,  has finished addressing her employees/army, she talks to Lady Satsuki in private.  Lady Satsuki wants to know what the big deal is with allowing someone like Nui to crash her academy.  Ragyou’s only rebuttal is that she has no power to control an artistic wildcard like Nui.  And they both agree that Lady Satsuki will be allowed to handle the issues as she sees fit.  What Ragyou really cares about is Lady Satsuki furthering the efforts of the organization she’s part of called COVERS.  Their goal apparently being to have everyone wear their clothing.  Though I do suspect much more sinister motives than mere corporate gain.

As Lady Satsuki leaves though, Nui appears in the CEO’s office.  It really does seem that Ragyou doesn’t mind Nui doing whatever see pleases, though Nui is given a warning about angering Lady Satsuki.

“Life is droll.”

Back at the academy, Shinjirou is at it again, commandeering Mako to help him distribute leaflets.  This of course draws the attention of the goons from the Disciplinary Bureau to give chase.  As Shinjirou escapes, Mako is picked up by Ira and put to hard labor loading ammo and supplies for the war effort, and that’s her “light” sentence!  Shinjirou is chased all the way back to Ryuuko’s home and captured there.  This is enough to inspire her to put Senketsu back on and go save him.

What a colossal mistake.

Ryuuko has been played, as Shinjirou actually turns out to be Nui is disguise.  Again she goads Ryuuko into attacking her, but this time she notices that Ryuuko is much weaker, and is not even a threat.  She’s still fearful of full merging with Senketsu again, and is quickly defeated.  In fact, she’s more that defeated.  Nui is actually able to do to her, what she did to so many other warriors.  Nui’s pair of Sword Scissors is actually able to cut up Senketsu into little ribbons, effectively stripping Ryuuko of the will to fight.  Lady Satsuki shows up, but she’s far too late to save Ryuuko.  She doesn’t waste any time scooping up the pieces of Senketsu and taking them to the school’s lead tailor, Shiro Iori.  She demands that he take the many different remains of Senketsu and distribute them to soldiers on the various fronts in order to gain data on them.  After that, she joins her armies for battle.

End of episode.

Well this was far from a “downer” or “breather” of an episode.  No real rest was gained here, not time was wasted.  We were allowed to see how Ryuuko was struggling with her relationship with Senketsu, but they were allowed no respite from Nui’s onslaught of curiousity and violence.  The deadlist little loli ever wasted no time  or effort tracking down her curious subject with a clever plan of getting Ryuuko to wear her Godrobe, only to rip it to shreds once she saw how broken Ryuuko was.  She’s just so utterly calm, while being so relentlessly cruel.  You get the impression that she’s like a little kid, playing/torturing an insect or a small animal the way she plays with Ryuuko.

Thinking of the war effort and the overall picture of the world it helps paint; this triple front of aggression is actually only a small part of what looks like to be a very global plan to blanket the world in REVOCS influence.  Given the little map we’re shown in Ragyou’s office, it seems like there are only pockets of resistance or untamed civilization left to be conquered.  In essence, REVOCS is on the brink of ruling the world in some fashion.  What I’m left pondering is what comes next.  And to fully ponder that, I think I have to have a better grasp of Lady Satsuki’s relationship with her mother, I need to know her past.

Right now, it appears that they are on the same page.  But Lady Ragyou has a very creepy vibe about her.  I think it was more than the standard creepy anime bullsh*t that we usually see with women groping each other to tease.  Though I just don’t know enough right now to make a guess as to whether Lady Satsuki plans to attack or dethrone her mother at some point.  The only real hints we have up to this point are Lady Satsuki’s disdain for humanity and grand goals, along with the knowledge that Ragyou is fully allowing Nui to do as she wishes at Lady Satsuki’s precious academy.  Is Honnouji Academy really so little in Ragyou’s grand scheme, or is she trying to handicap her daughter before she gets too powerful?

For now, everything is just too new and unknown.  Even the one semi-constant this show has had, Ryuuko and Senketsu’s bond has been severed and rebooted.  With only a thin piece of Senketsu left to her, and the rest roaming about on the battlefields now, I’m interested to see what she does with the tiny bit of power she has left.  Will she live her life more according to the guerrilla tactics of Nudist Beach?  Or is her destiny to use that one scrap of power as a form of One or Two-Star uniform to climb up the ranks with some help?  So much to know!  I can’t wait for the next episode!

Further Reading:

• KILL LA KILL ep12: your father was a dirtbag ninja, your rival is a dirtbag samurai, your nemesis is a dirtbag lolita, and your friend comes from a dirtbag family