Here’s another anime remake for you.
Kino’s Journey is a semi-anthology light novel series by Kouhaku Kuroboshi. The story doesn’t take place in our world, but in a world where different “countries” (more like towns or the occasional city) are bound by a similar extreme. Kino and her motorrad (a talking motorcycle), Hermies, only stay in a country for three days before moving on. Yes, there is an in-story reason for that. You’ll have to check out the series to find out, but which one will you choose?
In 2003, an anime adaptation was produced by studio A.C.G.T. and dubbed in the US by ADV Films. Kino’s Journey: This Beautiful World only lasted one season, but it’s a great season to check out. I managed to see it on Hi-Dive’s free streaming channel, but sadly I can’t bring that one to you here tonight. It’s worth looking into.
Instead, we’re seeing the first episode of a 2017 remake by Lerche, available in the US through Crunchyroll. I guess they were trying to keep themselves apart from the previous anime, so the full title is Kino’s Journey–The Beautiful World: The Animated Series. There are times I think Japanese media leans into the gag about how long some of their titles are. For reasons known only to Crunchyroll, they posted the sub and dub to their YouTube channel two years apart. At least you’re getting both, and because the first episode lacks an opening (you know me and intros), I’m going to track that down as well. Enjoy.
Do We Need To Protect King Kong?
In 1933, RKO Pictures gave us the eighth wonder of the world…or one of many eighth wonders of the world. King Kong uses stop-motion animation at a time when computer graphics weren’t even science fiction. The movie might not be the first giant monster movie, but it was the biggest until Japan sent Godzilla to take the championship belt. Since then, the tale has been given three remakes, one an animated musical, but the original is still the classic movie standard for the big ape. Even Nintendo was inspired by him to make their Donkey Kong, which led to a legal issue with Universal over the name. Universal, which owns RKO’s library, lost that, though King Kong’s status in the public domain is still debatable. One comic company was able to adapt a novelization because they didn’t copyright it properly. Universal owns the original movie. As for Kong himself…we’ll get into that.
Come January 1st, 2029, a few years away, that’s going to change.
And I’m worried. Why? Because when things hit the public domain lately, some bad things have happened. However, that’s not all we’re going to discuss. Not everything in this article will be negative, but this article from Bounding Into Comics on a new King Kong movie is also rather curious to me. It’s a new American Kong movie, but it’s not in the “Monsterverse” with Godzilla. This also seems an odd choice, but one that might work. It does kind of play into the current “shared universe” discussion after Marvel Studios, arguably responsible for popularizing the concept in recent films, seems incapable of maintaining one, and neither can anybody else. Mostly, I need an article today and don’t feel like breaking something out of the buffer I just got to minimum levels this week, so this is our topic. Hopefully it’s a good one, but you’ll have to judge that.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on November 13, 2026 in Movie Spotlight and tagged commentary, King Kong, movies, public domain, remake.
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