In last week's edition of Anime Friday, I mentioned that I needed a break from the cute, family-friendly stuff. I asked that my pool of Japanophiles recommend me a film from the opposite end of the spectrum. The result was an ill-informed decision to eat dinner while watching Yasuomi Umetsu's 1998 experiment in extremes, Kite.
Few animes have been cut or outright banned as frequently as Kite. In China and Norway it's just plain illegal, and Germany is the only country outside Japan where you can get a legitimate uncensored copy. All the same, Kite isn't just a series of intense, unrelated scenes of sex and violence. It's close to that, but there still is a plot.
The story (thin as it is) revolves around Sawa, a young girl who has been turned into a relentless assassin by a vigilante police detective named Akai and his sick friend Kanye who works as a coroner. To say that Akai and Kanye are corrupt is putting it lightly. It's revealed fairly early on that Akai killed Sawa's family, though for unknown reasons.
