What They Say:
Based on the hit anime K, K MISSING KINGS picks up where the series left off. Featuring the same director and scriptwriter as the series, the movie brings the characters that you’ve grown to love in the same spirit of action, honor, and loyalty. K MISSING KINGS also sees the return of popular voice actors such as Daisuke Namikawa, Daisuke Ono, and Tomokazu Sugita, reprising their roles for the first time on the big screen. The story starts some time after the Island Academy Incident, in which four of the seven great Kings crossed paths. Since this time, silver clansmen Kuroh Yatogami and Neko have been searching for their master, Yashiro Isana, the Silver King. Their search having turned up fruitless, the two begin to give up hope, until they encounter Anna Kushina and Rikio Kamamoto, two members of the red clan HOMRA being chased by someone.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The title of the K movie is “Missing Kings,” and it doesn’t just refer to the absence of the K television series’ protagonist, Yashiro Isana. The finale episode also saw the death of the Red King and the Blue King’s hands, and the death of the mysterious Colorless King. The opening sequence of the movie adds another: Scepter 4, the paramilitary organization that has taken it upon itself to police aggression between the different colored clans gets a call that the Gold King’s own Mihashira Tower is under attack by JUNGLE, the newly-introduced green clan. This is no small emergency, as the Gold King is the first king, one who controls politics and the economy from behind the scenes. That his tower’s defenses could be so easily breached suggests the Gold King has gone missing as well.
That I can string together a paragraph of such convoluted nonsense, and the fact that fans of K can understand it, suggests something about the K series’ strange appeal. I was a big fan of the original series, with all of its anime cliche, homoerotic tension, and hamfisted fanservice somehow still allowing a fundamental emotional honesty to shine through. The big question for me was if K was prolonged in any way, would its writers, the GoRa Project, a group of light novel authors, be able to continue the balancing act required to keep the property from collapsing into a nonsensical heap of crazy ideas? Or, since K is already a nonsensical heap of crazy ideas, a nonsensical heap that was no longer entertaining? K fans can rest easy, as Missing Kings continues with all of the smoldering homoeroticism, short skirts, and misplaced comic timing one might have hoped for. The film ends on quite a cliffhanger, and it’s very clear GoHands and GoRa would like for the saga to continue indefinitely. For now, at least, the K movie does exactly what fans would want without the Sword of Damocles crashing down upon its head.
Missing Kings picks up nearly a year after the K TV series ended. Kuroh and Neko have returned to the Island Academy after months of searching in vain for the missing Shiro. They’re unaware of the recent attack on the Gold King’s Mihashira Tower by JUNGLE, who penetrated into the tower’s inner sanctum, where the Gold King’s computer system and the Dresden Slates are kept. They’re soon drawn up into the conflict as they see Anna Kushina and former HOMRA flunky Rikio fleeing from one of JUNGLE’s cyber-hacking ninjas. They offer Anna shelter at the Island Academy, but Kuroh is in no way prepared to learn that working with JUNGLE is Yukari Mishakuji, his former sempai under the Colorless King, Ichigen Miwa. Yukari explains that Anna’s powers are needed to try and locate the Silver King, Shiro, as he poses some kind of unknown threat to JUNGLE. Kuro and Yukari’s relationship is one of jealousy, betrayal, and barely repressed longing, and while Kuroh and Yukari clash, Anna is kidnapped by JUNGLE henchman Douhan. Anna’s disappearance manages to stir former HOMRA skater boi Yata out of his yearlong depression, and HOMRA bartender Kusanagi returns from Germany, where he was researching the Dresden slates, just in time for the attempt to rescue Anna.
Missing Kings is a short film at only 73 minutes, but it rather nimbly manages to address many of the questions the series left open, while asking plenty of new questions. Its action sequences are mostly well-animated, and Anna serves as the movie’s emotional center, preventing the film from being an empty exercise in style. For K fans, the biggest problems with Missing Kings will be with what the movie doesn’t include: Primarily, a second season of the television series. While updating viewers on the fates of their favorite characters, Missing Kings really serves as a set-up to an expansion of the K “universe” with new clans and characters. Missing Kings will satisfy for only so long before GoHands and GoRa have to serve up more.
In Summary:
A film with a plot and appeal that will be almost inexplicable to non-K fans, fans will undoubtedly love the film and want more. And, if the film is any indication, the team behind K would love to deliver more. Missing Kings offers the same mix of earnest silliness that made the TV series such an enjoyable experience.
Grade: B
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