The Series (5/5)

    Kino's Journey is an anime series from 2003, is one of the most unique and exciting animes I have seen recently. A few months ago Sentai Filmworks unleashed an early 2000's anime series Human Crossing to SD Blu-ray, that I’ll compare in certain thematic ways to Kino's Journey. Whereas the earlier series was about a handful of distinct stories showing natural human existence in Japan. Kino's Journey follows Kino and her talking motorcycle Hermes as they journey through different countries and locales observing their cultures, and various behaviors.

    What struck me about Kino's Journey as that without a single narrative throughline outside of Kino rides into town for 3 days and 2 nights, and observes the culture is how powerful and impactful the stories are here. Like the classic Polish Television series the Decalogue which tells tales that involve each of the Ten Commandments as the background to tell its stories, Kino's Journey observes various elements of morality and life. 

    The animation is quite solid, and feels totally appropriate for the atmosphere being portrayed. It's not entirely distinctive, but it works well.   The score is not standout-ish, and is not entirely memorable, but when it does spring from the background, it feels an appropriate accompaniment to the elements being portrayed in quite a strong manner.   Kino's Journey is certainly a show I can feel myself returning to in the near future, if even to dip into one or two stories rather than the entire whole, as it feels quite like a show that is made for that style of viewing.

Audio/Video (4/5)

   Kino's Journey is another SD Blu-ray from Sentai who have been recently phasing out their DVD line.  It is a wide screen transfer that looks quite solid. No issues with compression, colors are stable, and everything looks quite good.   Audio is handled with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track in English, and a 2.0 Japanese track. Everything here sounds quite good without any obvious issues.

Extras (2/5)

    Clean opening, clean closing, and production sketches.

Overall

     Kino's Journey was quite an interesting anime series with a distinct atmosphere and way of story telling that set it apart. The Blu-ray in SD looks solid, and sounds fine, and has limited extras. RECOMMENDED.