Kill la Kill is the type of anime you must see to believe. The ridiculous concept of the anime and how it is made to work spectacularly makes it fun to watch. It combines a classic school drama with spectacular kinetic action making it a beloved series among its fans. Watching a series where the creators’ creativity is allowed flow as they want while maintaining a proper framework for the series to work is a joy.
Kill la Kill follows the story of a female protagonist Ryuko Matoi and her search for her father’s killer. This leads to her fighting Satsuki Kiryuin, the student council president of Honnouji Academy. The series redefined the magical girl genre, which gave us big animes like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura.
Kill la Kill strays far away from the orthodox style of the magical girl genre and brings some shounen action into the mix. This makes up for a different and new viewing experience for the fans of the genre. Here are 20 facts related to the series that you need to know:
1. Kill la Kill is an Original Creation without a Manga Base
Commonly, manga gets adapted into anime. Most of the animes out there are adapted from the manga, but this is not true for Kill la Kill. This is an original creation by studio TRIGGER. They created the story from scratch and made an anime out of it.
Kill la Kill has a manga, though. It was created shortly after the anime was released. This was done for the fans who like reading mangas more than watching anime. Kill la Kill is one of those few animes that got a manga adaptation after the release of the anime.
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2. Ryuko was in Boarding School before Transferring to Honnouji Academy
Ryuko’s mother died soon after giving birth, and her father, Isshin, was not too bothered raising her. He enrolled Ryuko in the prestigious Ox Elementary school, where she spent most of her life till high school began. She then transferred to the Honnouji Academy.
While in her boarding school, Ryuko turned delinquent because of her father’s absence of discipline. She was involved with a local gang and fought people as well, and her intentions only change after she gets to know about the murder of her father.
3. The Episodes Are Named After Pop Songs
The names or titles of the episodes can be a tricky feat which sometimes may hint at the happenings in an episode. But it is fine if the title does not hint at the episode’s content or does not even relate to it. The same thing can be said about the episode titles of Kill la Kill. The titles for the episodes in the series are non-typical and do not hint at the happenings of an episode.
The titles of the episodes from Kill la Kill are taken from various classical pop songs. The co-writer of the series, Kazuki Nakashima, listened to classical pop songs on iTunes while writing the scripts for the series. It is a very creative and fun way to honor the creative process the writer used to create the show.
4. Ryuko Was Intended To Look Like Satsuki
Shigeto Koyama, the art director for Kill la Kill, claimed that initially, Ryuko was supposed to look like Satsuki. The description of Ryuko resembled more like Satsuki, her rival, both in terms of physicality and in terms of expression.
But after finalizing the designs, Ryuko’s long hair was cut short, and her modest smile was changed to a pompous snarl. This was done to maintain the visual differences between the two characters. At the end of the series, when Senketsu and Satsuki combine, the character design of Satsuki looks similar to the initial design of Ryuko before the final changes.
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5. Studio TRIGGER’s First Big Project
Many good animes are out there, but the animation sets great animes apart from good ones. Everyone can agree that an anime with great animation will get a larger audience when compared to an anime with average animation.
Kill la Kill was Studio TRIGGER’s first big project which pushed them in front of the public’s eyes. Now the studio has made a name for itself and has worked on many projects giving quality animation work to animes like Darling in the Franxx, Little Witch Academia, and the movie Promare.
Previously TRIGGER had worked on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann but Killed la Kill was the project which gave them the need for recognition.
6. Outfit Of Rebellion
The outfit worn by Ryuko at the start of the series and mostly throughout it is inspired by many rebellious factors. She is proud to be a delinquent, and her outfit at the start is inspired by Sukeban, or the female boss, head of teenage girl gangs, which were much prevalent in the sixties and seventies.
Ryuko wears different socks as well when compared to her other classmates. The jacket she also wears refers to the souvenir jacket, which was worn in post-war japan as an act of defiance. Most of the rebellious acts Ryuko did were targeted toward her school’s student council.
7. Transformations Were Not A Part Of The Plan
Transformations make Kill la Kill a bit more intriguing than it already is. The series brings a shounen story to a magical girl genre and delivers the best of both in a single series. The action is the shounen part, and the transformations are the magical girl part.
You will be surprised to know that transformations were not part of the plan for the series. The transformations were added to the series very late. Previously, there were no transformation scenes whatsoever. Even if there were transformations, they were many revisions done to that. At some point, Senketsu and Junketsu even became mechas.
8. Ryuko Is Not Entirely Human
When Ryuko cleared swarms of Goku Tier fighters, many people could not understand how she achieved such a feat. Ryuko was wearing a half-blind Kamui and even wielded a broken scissor. It made people wonder how a nobody like Ryuko did something like that.
Later in the series, Ragyo claims Ryuko as her daughter during the high school’s Sports and Cultural Festival. She claims that her ex-husband has hidden Ryuko from her and rips out Ryuko’s heart (interwoven with life fibers) to prove her point.
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9. The Series Was Made To Cater to A Specific Niche.
Kill la Kill is a series with a strong female main cast. The protagonist is a female character, and the story revolves around her and their rival, a female character. The series’ creators, Kazuki Nakashima and Hiroyuki Imaishi felt that they needed to do something different from what everybody else was doing.
The story always had females as the main cast because that was the only way to make it work. The series is a bit designed for the audience, which wanted classic shounen action but with female characters.
10. The Red Hair Strand and Gear-like Eyes
Having different-colored hair is no big deal in the anime universe. Almost every other character has a design choice that includes a different hair color or a color highlight, at the very least. The same can be said about Ryuko and her red hair strand in the front part of her hair.
It looks common at first, but it could be that the red hair strand has a deeper meaning than just being a design choice. It is believed among the series fans that Ryuko has a red hair strand because of her association with life fibers.
Another trait that she possesses can be seen in her eyes. When you look at the pupils of her eyes, you can see they are shaped like gears. This is a trait that no other character in the series has except Ryuko, and it is believed to be a result of her association with life fibers.
11. Smart Use Of Language
The concept of Kill la Kill is wild, where students wear a living costume that helps the character fight gruesome battles. The director, Imaishi, smartly used the Japanese language to reflect the show’s foundation or premise.
He observed that many terms in the Japanese language have dual meanings, like “seifuku,” which means “uniform,” but can also mean “victory” or “conquest.” Similarly, the word “Kiru” means “to wear” but also means “to kill,” depending on where it is used. This smart use of language helped the show relay its message to the audience.
12. Ryuko In A “Slice Of Life” Anime
Yama no Susume, a slice-of-life anime, is the charming tale of Aoi Yukimura—a girl who fears heights and plans to climb mountains to overcome her fear and make friends.
In the twelfth episode of the series, a girl in the background resembles Ryuko very much. She doesn’t have the signature red crimson hair strand, but the rest of the design of the characters looks almost identical to Ryuko.
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13. Ryuko The Bounty Hunter
Imagining Ryuko without her swords and her fighting style without them is almost impossible. But you should know that the original plan for Ryuko Matoi was to make her a bounty hunter with a gun. It is not uncommon for a series to go through many changes before they are released, and the same happened with the idea of Ryuko, the bounty hunter.
The main problem with this idea was that it was a bit darker than it should have been. This led to the creators changing the concept of Ryuko to what we know today by dismantling the gun. The bounty hunter idea was given to another character named Tsumugu instead.
14. The Rinne-Dou High School Transfer
Ryuko was a student at Honnouji Academy when she transferred, but by the end of the series, Honnouji Academy was eradicated. Ryuko was studying in the eleventh grade when this happened, and this is known as the guitar case she carried had a labeled “JK2,” which stands for “Joshi Kousei 2″. This means she was a second-year high school girl who translated to the eleventh grade.
It is said that after the eradication of Honnouji Academy, Ryuko went to Rinne-Dou High School to complete her twelfth grade. Rinne-Dou is the higher version of the same academy that Gamagori Ira went to after confronting Satsuki.
15. A Different Name and Look
The title “Kill la Kill” is suitable enough to define the action genre the anime belongs to. But previously, the creators had a different name for the anime; “The Crimson Garment” was the name that was decided for the anime until the last changes were made.
The title was changed because the creators felt that the original title did not do the series justice and would not be able to attract audiences. The title “The Crimson Garment” did not give out the action-based feel the anime would provide, so the decision was made to scrap the title and select a new one.
The art style for the anime was also in question before its release. A simpler art style similar to Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt was looked on to be used but was discarded. A simpler art style would have ruined the action sequences we get in the anime, so it’s a relief that they didn’t go ahead with that.
16. Ryuko Knows Her Food!
Ryuko is seen to be quite a daredevil when it comes to food. She is often seen eating lemons or extremely sour food; whether she loves them or does that to seem hard-core is not known. But on the other hand, she likes croquettes, a dish made in the Mankanshoku household, because of their lack of funds.
The creators also revealed that Ryuko disliked Konnyaku (a yam cake). Chikuzenni, a dish made with sauteed chicken, lotus roots, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and many other vegetables, is her favorite food.
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17. The Unique and Outrageous Characters Were Designed To Keep The Creators Interested
The understanding that Nakashima and Imaishi have with each other surely played a part in the smooth running of Kill la Kill. It is not only true for Kill la Kill but for other studio TRIGGER productions as well.
Nakashima and Imaishi have worked together for years, but still, Nakashima feels nervous that the scripts he writes may not be engaging enough for Imaishi. So to tackle this problem, Nakashima creates absurd characters that Imaishi plays a lot with. He sometimes even considered creating stories without a single normal character.
18. Ryuko’s Skill Of Deduction Is Not Good
Ryuko’s memory cannot be relied on, especially regarding traumatic events. In the series, Ryuko tries to remember the person who killed her father but can only remember the silhouette, which resembles a woman. Later on, she convinces herself that the silhouette she remembers is of Satsuki, which fuels her feud with him.
Only when Nui Harime accepts killing her father does the full picture come into focus. She remembers the silhouette as Nui and then acts accordingly to exact her revenge.
19. Delinquent Detective And Otokogumi Were Inspiration For The Anime
Nakashima and Imaishi were responsible for creating Kill la Kill and wanted to create something different with this anime. The theme they went for in the anime was the classic school resistance shounen with loads of action. Otokogumi, the 1970s manga, was a huge inspiration for Nakashima.
On the other hand, Imaishi related the script written by Nakashima to The Delinquent Detective and The Fist of the North Star. Both of these served as inspiration for the character designs in the anime.
20. Ryuko Is A True Shounen Protagonist
Kill la Kill is often called an anime with shounen and magical girl concepts. This is true to some extent, but when it comes to the protagonist, Ryuko is far from the typical magical girl lead and fits more into the role of a shounen lead.
A shounen anime lead is mostly a teenage guy who is depressed or has a sad backstory and wants to get stronger to complete a one-dimensional goal he has set for himself. Ryuko checks all the boxes for a shounen protagonist and owns them.
The anime took a different approach by making the lead female, as shounen anime rarely has a female lead. The female characters in a shounen story are not shown battered or beaten badly; this is not the case with Ryuko. She is seen defeated and devastated, a treatment that female characters don’t usually get in shounen anime.
These were the 20 best Kill la Kill facts that you need to know. I hope you learned something you didn’t know before, and for those who haven’t watched it yet, I hope it piqued your interest.
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