An essential part of a superhero's identity is their costume. The color scheme and silhouette of the hero's clothes tell you a lot about them. Batman's black costume fades into the shadows as a dark knight should, while Superman's bright blue and red speak of "Truth, Justice and the American Way."

Who is the comic (anti)hero with the closest connection to their costume? Venom, of course, for his suit (Spider-Man's dark mirror) is a living thing. The "Venom" movie trilogy built on this, becoming a friendly-romantic comedy between Eddie Brock and the eponymous alien symbiote (both played by Tom Hardy). However, Venom isn't the only one out there with a living, alien costume. The concept also rears its head in Studio Trigger's 2013 action-comedy anime Kill la Kill.

Trigger is one of the biggest production houses in modern anime; their recent adaptation of Ryoko Kui's manga Delicious in Dungeon was top notch /Movie list of the best anime of 2024. Founded in 2011 by Hiroyuki Imaishi and Masahiko Otsuka, Trigger's oeuvre tends to be vibrant action shows filled with physics-defying action, fast-paced tonal and animation changesand sharp plot twists.

The original model for Trigger is the 2007 anime Gurren Lagann, directed by Imaishi and produced at his and Otsuka's previous employer, Studio Gainax. "Guren Lagan" is the spiritual beginning of Studio Trigger (in the same way Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind Set The Stage For Studio Ghibli's Rise), but Kill la Kill was the first anime series produced at the studio.

Kill la Kill was also directed by Imaishi (and written by Gurren Lagann head writer Kazuki Nakashima). It follows Ryuko Matoi, a 17-year-old punk girl who wants to uncover the truth about her father's unsolved murder. Her main partner in this quest is her school uniform: a living, talking "kamui" she names Senketsu.

"Guren Lagan" was a proudly masculine show that showed how real men lift others up instead of bringing them down. Kill la Kill is about femininity and how what we wear enhances how we feel and act.

Kill la Kill is science fiction. Incredibly soft sci-fi, but the villains are aliens and the show's fantastical powers derive from technology. So, in the strictest sense, Ryuko is not a "magical girl". She is also much less delicate than such a character usually is, with a stubborn and trash-talking attitude.

However, watching her in action, you can't help but think the "magical girl" genre.. Whenever she goes into battle, Senketsu transforms around her in a power-up sequence straight out of Japanese action girl classics like Sweet Honey and Sailor Moon. Ryuko's transformation makes her more powerful, but also more exposed; her skirt shrinks and the Senketsu goes from revealing only her waist to almost her entire torso. Ryuko is embarrassed at first, but her friend Mako encourages her to wear her barely superpowered outfit with pride.

I'm torn on whether I'd call Kill la Kill a feminist series, but it's body positive — and those two seemingly overlapping themes actually contain the essence of the contradiction. The framing of the series is limited by the male gaze in the original sense of the term (defined by Laura Mulvey): Ryuko's transformation is framed primarily in close-ups of her body, and the sound design emphasizes the cloth rubbing the flesh. This and the lacy suspenders and stockings of Ryuko's costume evoke slavery—and yet, the show's title overlaps with the girls' empowerment narrative. They become more powerful the less they wear because in Kill la Kill clothing is the root of subjugation.

The title of the series gives away these themes. "Kill la Kill" sounds like crap in English, but that's because it contains puns that don't translate. Transliterated, the title is "Kiru ra Kiru", and that word can mean both "to dress" and "to kill" in Japanese. There's another pun that unlocks the show's meaning: In Japanese, "fashhon" ("fashion") and "fasho" ("fascism") are pronounced almost the same.

The primary setting of Kill la Kill is Honuji Academy, a school run by student council president (and seemingly Ryuko's arch-rival) Satsuki Kiryuin. Imagine if you were a high school queen bee and her mean girls literally dictators. Satsuki often stands framed in a low shot, backlit, holding a sword, declaring "Fear is freedom!" Submission is liberation! Contradiction is the truth!” and such. She runs the academy with a strict class system, giving each student "Goku Uniforms", made from the same alien "life fiber" as the Senketsu. The students who are lowest in the school hierarchy get weak "no star" Goku uniforms, while Satsuki's elite four have powerful three star uniforms.

As in the real world, these uniforms are a self-reinforcing tool of hierarchy and division. The first opening sequence "Kill la Kill" shows row after row of miserable looking Honuji students, all in identical uniforms, except Ryuko. She refuses to be limited by her role in the academy and only aims for the top so she can pry Satsuki away from him.

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Ryuko's main weapon in it is a scissor blade, usually a tailor's tool, not a fighter's. However, since her opponents gain their power from their uniforms, she literally cuts through those clothes. Of course, a perfectly working knife requires two sister blades working together; on her journey, Ryuko and Satsuki learn that they may be the match for each other. Watching them grow together through "Kill la Kill" is a fast, bumpy ride that you should definitely take.

"Kill la Kill" is streaming on Crunchyroll.