Kill la Kill is Trigger’s first original anime television project, and it wastes no time announcing what it is. Directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi and written by Kazuki Nakashima — the pair behind Gurren Lagann in 2007 and later Promare in 2019 — the series ran 24 episodes on MBS’ Animeism block from October 4, 2013, to March 28, 2014. A separate OVA, released as a 25th episode in September 2014, sits outside that broadcast run.
Trailer, via Aniplex USA.
Ryuko Matoi and the Scissor Blade
The setup is a revenge story with a strange engine. Vagrant schoolgirl Ryuko Matoi comes to Honnou City hunting the person who killed her father, Isshin Matoi. Her only lead is a scissor-shaped longsword — half of a pair — and her search pulls her into Honnouji Academy, a militaristic high school on Tokyo Bay ruled by student council president Satsuki Kiryuin and her Elite Four.
Ryuko’s first challenge to Satsuki fails. She cannot match the Goku Uniforms, school outfits built from a fabric called Life Fibers that grant superhuman abilities. Then she finds a sentient sailor uniform beneath the ruins of her father’s home — a pure Life Fiber Kamui she names Senketsu.
Goku Uniforms and the Class Ladder
The uniforms are the show’s best invention, and they are also its politics. Honnouji Academy runs a stratified class structure: higher-ranked students earn more powerful Goku Uniforms, and that rank decides the social status of a student’s whole family.
- Goku Uniforms: standard issue, Life Fiber-powered, ranked by student standing
- Kamui: pure Life Fiber clothing, sentient, worn by Ryuko and Satsuki
- Scissor Blade: cuts through Goku Uniforms
- Life Fibers: the material underneath everything
Satsuki, Ragyo, and the REVOCS Empire
Satsuki answers Ryuko by donning her family’s Kamui, Junketsu. Behind her sits the global REVOCS Corporation, run by the academy’s director and Satsuki’s mother, Ragyo Kiryuin. Ryuko also meets Nui Harime of REVOCS, who names herself as Isshin’s killer and the thief of the other Scissor Blade.
Ryuko’s classmate Mako Mankanshoku, a no-star student, takes her in with her impoverished family. Homeroom teacher Aikuro Mikisugi is secretly an agent of Nudist Beach, an anti-Life Fiber paramilitary group. Satsuki leads the Tri-City Schools Raid into Kansai, a blitzkrieg to annex the remaining independent schools — with the secret goal of destroying Nudist Beach’s base in Osaka. After the raid, Ryuko learns her father founded that organization and built Senketsu to fight the Life Fibers, parasitic aliens.
| Element | Ryuko’s side | Satsuki’s side |
|---|---|---|
| Kamui | Senketsu | Junketsu |
| Backing | Nudist Beach | REVOCS Corporation |
| Weapon | Scissor Blade | Goku Uniforms, Elite Four |
Where the Cast Lands
Ami Koshimizu voices Ryuko; Ryoka Yuzuki voices Satsuki. Aya Suzaki plays Mako, Romi Park plays Ragyo, and Yukari Tamura plays Nui Harime. Tetsu Inada, Hiroyuki Yoshino and Mayumi Shintani voice members of the Elite Four.
The premise sounds like nonsense on paper. Clothes with a will of their own, a scissor sword, a villain empire built on fashion. What holds it together is that Kill la Kill commits completely to the bit and never apologizes for the class metaphor underneath.
The Verdict
The show’s real subject is not revenge. It is who gets to wear power and who gets crushed beneath it, and it says so through the uniforms themselves.
Aniplex of America licensed the series for simulcast, with a home video release starting July 2014, and it premiered on Adult Swim’s Toonami block in February 2015. A manga by Ryō Akizuki ran in Young Ace from October 2013 to March 2015, and Kill la Kill the Game: IF followed in July 2019.
Kill la Kill is loud, ugly in places, and smarter than its premise suggests. Its published TMDB audience score is 8.2 out of 10, from 561 votes.
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