K: Seven Stories — A Series of Nostalgic Kingly Episodes from K Project Franchise
Blazing, burning heart-stopping — these were only few words that I could use to describe K: Seven Stories — a six-film spin-off series of K Project. The anime that brought us the wild but genuine HOMRA, the ever-disciplined Scepter 4, the adventurous and evolving Jungle, and our free-spirited team of Shiro, Neko, and Kuro.
The Kings of K Project Anime Franchise
The K Project had been one of the most remarkable anime franchise from 2012 until its satisfying denouement on 2015. It’s a series that gave us a new definition to the phrase “VISUALLY APPALING.” The graphics were stunning with heavy contrast of varrying colours making the series on a league of its own. The fight scenes were gracefully animated with exciting soundtrack that gave us a cosmic ‘eargasm’ with lovable and interesting characters, even the antagonists were likable with relatable motives; philosophically, socially, and morally. Listed as one of the best anime movies 2018, let’s talk about K: Seven Stories and how awesome it is.
K: Seven Stories Anime Project (2018)
An hour and a minute-run of nostalgic drama and fated encounter between the Red King — Mikoto Suoh and the newly crowned Blue King — Reishi Munakata, and their respective clans. More importantly, this episode focus on Mikoto Suoh and the danger that accompany him being the Red King and his destructive power. This comes with realization on the side of Mikoto especially with the Kagutsu Incident on which the previous Red King — Kenji Kagutsu destroyed himself and brought a catastrophic damage. We also did have a short glimpse on the previous Blue King — Jin Habari and his valiant sacrifice.
HOMRA
In this episode Saruhiko Fushimi is still a member of HOMRA, in fact this is the era where HOMRA is still quite young — growing valiantly and fierce while Scepter 4 is just beginning to mobilise once again, all thanks for the arrival of the new Blue King.
The second film in the project revolves around the new Blue King — Reishi Munakata and a part of SCEPTER 4 which were not shown in the original K series. In this episode, we had seen Reishi’s effort to mobilise and reorganize Scepter 4 and the casualties, sacrifice that his clan experienced to reach its current glory in the originak K series timeline.
SIDE:BLUE mostly revolves around Reishi Munakata as the new Blue King, Gouki Zenjou, and an aspirant young lad of Scepter 4 named Takeru Kusuhara who’s death paved the way for Reishi to be a determined, and powerful king, and for the Scepter 4 to be even more stronger and dedicated on maintaing the peace and order.
Takeru Kusuhara — our main boy in this movie.
I believe this is a rather too dramatic, impulsive and heartbreaking episode of K: Seven Stories. In the end it only shows that sacrifices are necessary in order to come out even stronger and resilient when destiny is testing us. I, myself had been frustrated at some point, why does it had to end like that, but K: Seven Stories second film shows us that the ends justify the means no matter how painful the process may be. We were also able to get a glimpse of the Green King — Nagari Hisui as a mastermind of manipulation and a great perpetrator.
Jin Habari — the previous Blue King also showed in this movie.
If there’s anything that I truly admire about this episode is the fact that we get to see a different side of Sukuna Gojou and Yukari Mishakuji as well as get to know them even better. For viewers who had seen the K series, we are all familar that the JUNGLE or the Green clan is the main antagonists in the story and that these guys were truly troublesome to handle, knowing just how overpowered they are compared to the rest of the characters from the other clans, although the margin in between isn’t really that great.
Sukuna Gojo and his king — Nagare Hisui
In this episode we hd seen Sukuna as a run-away child of a powerful politician who feel that life is always controlled by adults. He became a player in Jungle on which he strive to be a J-rank and meet the Green King. On his journey, he encountered Douhan (another interesting member of the Green clan), and formed a partnership with her to defeat Yukari in order to gain more points to become a J-ranker. Personally, I thought that this is the most intense and action-filled episode of K: Seven Stories. The drama, fight scenes and plot were all decently combined altogether to produce an exciting and in-depth storyline for the Green clan, and I am really grateful to see them as a family connected by different goals, striving to make those dreams come true even if they ended up antagonizing the whole world.
The fourth movie in K: Seven Stories project is one that thrives in nostalgia and is a literal flashback — narrating Saruhiko Fushimi and Misaki Yata childhood days and how they meet Mikoto Suoh and eventually became his henchmen. This movie tells us about their life as a students, how they met in a very awkward scenario, their effort on joining the HOMRA and how the Red Clan changed their life as well as their escapade on messing up with the Green Clan. I’ll see I finally had come to understand Saruhiko Fushimi’s personality and had come to liked him. I mean, he is a pretty badass character, and I totally understand now where he came from, why he act the way he did in the original K series. Meanwhile, I also don’t like Yata before until I saw this film. Now, I also want to have a friend who’s exactly the same as Yata because he really is a great friend to be around.
Saruhiko Fushimi and Yata Misaki
In the end, this movie had shown us how kings could affect the lives of their people, how they could influenced them big time. More importantly, this had been a great dramatic ride that somehow make me feel remorseful yet gratified.
This is probably the only part that made me cry. I am a big fan of HOMRA and seeing that actual scene that led to how the original series started is heartbreaking. Tatara is such a likeable and heroic character and his chemistry with Mikoto is undeniably mesmerizing. It even pain me to learn that Tatara died on the eve of Anna’s birthday. This is seriously rather ironic as we could all feel the warmth of what kind of fun family HOMRA is. Then, it was only ruined by a twisted plot by some undeserving villain.
Such an angel, I’m still pissed off but Tatara’s death is necessary for the K’s plot.
Memory of Red simply gave me an unstable emotional ride of emptiness, sentimentality, and anger; which I believe other fans also share the same feeling. Nonetheless, the movie is truly effective, heartfelt, and pure.
First Clan Crew: Neko, Shiro, and Kuro
I think the sixth film is my least favorite among the episodes of K: Seven Stories. It’s rather confusing and a lackluster but definitely nostalgic in the end. I think it successfully served its purporse which is to beautifully wrapped K: Seven Stories conclusion on a positive note without destroying the pristine denouement of the original K series. I couldn’t say it is amazing as how K: Return of Kings concluded but they are connected in so many ways and K: Seven Stories ended up pretty decent with this chapter.
K: Return of Kings Finale Scenes (from the original series)
In general, my review of K: Seven Stories is quite positive and it truly is an amazing experience. It is a really fun ride and satisfying learning the back story of some of our favorite characters from the series. I believed that K: Seven Stories simply made the conclusion of the main series even more solid and the entire franchise worth-watching.
Originally published at www.yualexius.com on February 27, 2019.
