This anime series follows Kino, a traveller who's gender isn't clear till the penultimate episode and his/her talking motorbike, Hermes, as they visit various very different countries. Kino never stays more than three days in any country irrespective of whether it is a friendly country or somewhere oppressive. On her travels Kino crosses paths fellow traveller Shizu and his talking dog Riku. While most episodes are centred on Kino and Hermes there are some where they barely appear. These include one where Shizu and Riku are joined by a young girl named Ti and one that features a girl who is being kept as a slave. It later emerges that the episodes aren't in chronological order; most notably the one which shows how Kino became a traveller in the first place.
Having loved the original 2003 series I was a little unsure about this... would it be a sequel or a reboot. It turns out it isn't really either. Some episodes do cover stories that were previously shown but most are new, but very much in the spirit of the original. I liked how Kino's gender is ambiguous until the penultimate episode, which is effectively a remake of the fourth episode of the original series, where Kino starts travelling. Anybody not seeing the original may think the idea of a traveller and a talking motorbike might be rather twee but in fact it is quite dark at times; it doesn't shy away from tragedy and we see that Kino's two pistols aren't just for show. The animation is good and the character designs are impressive; the characters are easily recognisable as those from the original without being identical. Overall I heartily recommend this to fans of the original and new viewers.
These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.
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