Kino's Journey
Kino's Journey, Kino no Tabi, L'Odyssée de Kino, 奇諾之旅, Kino's Journey: the Beautiful World, Kinos Reise, Los viajes de Kino
Kino's Journey: the Beautiful World (キノの旅 -the Beautiful World- Kino no Tabi -the Beautiful World-), shortened to Kino's Journey, is a Japanese light novel series written by Keiichi Sigsawa, with illustrations by Kouhaku Kuroboshi. The series originally started serialization in volume five of MediaWorks' now-defunct light novel magazine Dengeki hp on March 17, 2000. The first volume of the series was published on July 10, 2000 by ASCII Media Works under their Dengeki Bunko publishing imprint. As of October 2010, 14 volumes have been published, and over 5.6 million copies of the novels have been sold in Japan. In Kino's Journey, the protagonist, Kino, accompanied by a talking Brough Superior motorcycle named Hermes, travels through a mystical world of many different countries and forests, each unique in its customs and people. A spin-off light novel series titled Gakuen Kino began with the first volume published on July 10, 2006 by ASCII Media Works; four volumes have been released as of July 2010.
In Kino's Journey, the protagonist, Kino, accompanied by a talking motorcycle, a Brough Superior motorcycle named Hermes, travels through a mystical world of many different countries and forests, each unique in its customs and people. Kino only spends three days and two nights in every town, without exception, on the principle that three days is enough time to learn almost everything important about a place, while leaving time to explore new lands. Kino says in The Land of Visible Pain that this principle is probably a lie, specifically noting "if I stay any longer, I'm afraid I will settle down." A phrase repeated in the anime and novels is "The world is not beautiful, therefore it is." Kino's Journey explores what the anime director Ryūtarō Nakamura described as "a radical sense of 'beauty," and brutality, loneliness, nonsense, oppression and tragedy are often juxtaposed against compassion and a fairy-tale atmosphere.
(Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. "Kino's Journey")
