Tentacle-Free Anime: "KITE" (1998) Review
The world can be a very dark and scary place, filled with an underbelly very few of us can ever imagine being true, yet still it exists right underneath our noses. It’s something that good stories are often made from, bringing to light the worlds beneath our feet that breathe low enough that we often think it dead, yet still it runs rampant when unchecked, led by criminals of all shapes and sizes. Thankfully, I have yet to have a run in with any of this kind of world, but still I am aware of its existence, so it’s definitely an interesting concept I often times love to explore out the safety of my own imagination.
KITE is one of those early outcasts that pops up out of nowhere and proves to the world that you can have adult entertainment with a solid story, and shoots down all expectations of anime being a medium that is strictly for kids in an incredible blaze of glory; almost like an assassin, a very noisy assassin. And there is a lot of noise in this movie with action scenes that would make most American-made action flicks weak in their knees. The movie explores the underbelly of cop corruption, child sex trafficking and the heart of innocence in a world filled with blood. The action scenes are gorgeous but I will get to those in a moment, first I want to discuss the matter of what makes this anime unique.
She’s abused, forced to take lives and has had her entire family murdered in front of her, with her only tie to the past lying in the earrings she wears constantly like tethers to past she wishes never left or to a future she hopes she may have. Still Sawa continues her existence until threats against Oburi force her to take action and push the limits of everything she’s been trained to fight for. Sawa is a very likeable character, and oddly relatable, she still attempts to keep a smile on her face and doesn’t allow the cruelty of fate destroy her spirit. And while I’m sure very few of us have had a stint as a child assassin, I’m more than certain that most of us at one point in our lives felt trapped by a never ending cycle we wished to escape and tried and tried even if we knew it may still be futile. 
Sawa
Oburi is a guy who we’re never really given a reason why he’s being forced into the life he’s in, sometimes it’s implied that may even be doing this by choice, maybe to make some money he couldn’t make otherwise at his second job? His personality is that of a man who regrets the life he’s found himself in and is going to do anything he can to get out of it, but he also cares about Sawa and wants to make sure that nothing happens to her in his retaliation. Out of the two, Oburi is the lesser capable assassin but still tries his best but continues to come the closest to death. Oburi also exists to illustrate that when you least expect it, our sins, no matter the slightest, can come back to haunt us at generally the most unexpected of times. The first half of the main characters, though likeable, are heavily contrasted by their scum of the earth bosses Akai and Kanie, who equip our young assassins with the machinery and information needed to carry out their deadly missions. Akai and Kanie also double as detectives who often get called onto the cases they themselves orchestrated the murder of. What makes them scum though is their bigotry towards the people they seek to kill and the means they have gone through to shape the young heroine Sawa. Though discussing Akai and Kanie, this brings up a piece of the movie that is hugely debated among viewers on whether or not you will truly enjoy the series, and honestly this one area where I agree this kind of footage needed to exist to carry home the sick and twisted world our heroes live in. And that is the sex; there are several intensely graphic scenes of sex in this adventure. To me, they do not detract, but in fact add to the impact of the story and the character’s emotions, this being a rare case where these kinds of scenes fit. It’s also impossible for me to label this a hentai (Japanese animated pornography) because the story is not centered around the sex in an way, those scenes are shown to make your skin crawl and fill you with not hatred towards the show (as many have trouble accepting that we can show exploding heads and guts but not intercourse on a screen), but hatred towards the ultimate villains who deserve every bit of pain and suffering they receive within the story and adds an extra layer of evil in a world already filled with it. 
Oburi
Before I go into the things which I did not like about the show, let’s talk about the action. The action and animation is beautiful and incredibly fluid, more so than most anime today. The action scenes between Sawa, Oburi and their targets are over the top and meant to entertain, balancing out the silent and emotion heavy scenes with high octane vehicle explosions and human body parts exploding. They’re fun to watch and too numerous to count, allowing for the story to never get dull and also get in there for everyone to enjoy in seeing those that are the scum of the Earth to get what’s coming to them. If you’re going to watch KITE at all and want to skip over the sex scenes (though I feel there’s only one true way to experience this story and it’s with those scenes intact) at least you will have a lot of kicking, screaming and bullets to the head, torso and legs to look through and that is at least something you can get a pleasurable experience out of. But as much as I talk this story up, there are many things wrong with it as well, and I kind of wished they had made the series longer, maybe even by one more episode to iron out a few of these nitpicks. First up is Oburi’s side of the story, as I stated earlier he’s the one we really aren’t given a backstory for and I feel that that is a problem, though the writers do a good job of still making us care for him by the end, the lack of showing how he got roped into this underworld organization hurts the believability of his actions in rebellion as the story nears its climax. There are a few times when character could have acted differently and in all honesty Sawa or Oburi could have acted quicker, that while ending the story more abruptly, would have still made more sense. Their seemingly unwillingness to kill certain characters early on put them directly in the situation they find themselves near the end so there are a few times when it’s hard to feel sorry for them. 
A sex offendor being assassinated
Finally are some of the inconsistencies in the weapons they use: bullets that second after they hit their target, they explode and micro sized bombs that explode seconds after activated. There are whole scenes where these bullets are used and never explode, and this is never explained as it allows for some scenes that could’ve been prevented otherwise, leading it to be that they didn’t simply because the script needed them not to. And the bombs, there are a few scenes where they take forever to explode and some where they take seconds, so it’s unnerving when they don’t explain whether you can change settings on them. These are little things and slightly glaring things I felt that took me out of the story and I also feel could’ve been easily remedied. In the end though, KITE is a solid story that presses questions so little stories feel ballsy enough to center on and for some it’s something they wish they could refuse to believe can exist and something that unfortunately exists in ways that we still don’t know the full extent of. KITE really is an adventure worth giving the time to see in its uncut, unrated original version so that nothing is left out in the wide array of emotions you’ll be sure to feel when sitting through this awkward yet awesome tale of revenge. Final Score: 4 Child Assassins out of 5 Have you seen "KITE"? Enjoyed the review? Let us know in the comments! 
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