Honnouji Academy Arc

Lore & Background

Honnouji Academy is a fictional high school located in Honnō City, a mainland city in Japan. The school is dominated by its fearsome student council led by their president Satsuki Kiryuin. The students wear Goku Uniforms which give their wearers superhuman abilities because they are constructed with a special material known as Life Fibers. Honnouji Academy and Honnō City feature a stratified class structure, in which higher-ranked students are allowed to obtain more powerful Goku Uniforms, which in turn affects the social status of the student's family. Ryuko Matoi, a transfer student, arrives in Honnō City to find the murderer of her father Isshin Matoi. Her search leads her to Honnouji Academy, a militaristic high school ruled by Satsuki Kiryuin and the Elite Four student council, who use school uniforms called Goku Uniforms powered by a fabric called Life Fibers. Following a failed attempt to challenge Satsuki on her first day, Ryuko stumbles across a sentient sailor uniform in a hidden basement beneath her father's home, which is a pure Life Fiber clothing called a Kamui that increases her abilities while transformed. She names the outfit "Senketsu", and becomes armed with half of a scissor-shaped blade called a Scissor Blade that can cut Goku Uniforms. Satsuki responds by donning her family's Kamui Junketsu to challenge Ryuko's powers. Ryuko is joined by her hyperactive classmate Mako Mankanshoku, a no-star student who lets Ryuko move in with her impoverished family, and her homeroom teacher Aikuro Mikisugi, who is actually an undercover agent of the anti-Life Fiber paramilitary organization Nudist Beach.

Reader's Guide

Following a failed attempt to challenge Satsuki on her first day, Ryuko stumbles across a sentient sailor uniform beneath the ruins of her father's home, which is a pure Life Fiber clothing called a Kamui that increases her abilities while transformed. She names the outfit "Senketsu", and becomes armed with a scissor-shaped longsword called a Scissor Blade that can cut Goku Uniforms.

Did You Know?

• The series is Trigger's first original anime television project, directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi and written by Kazuki Nakashima, both of whom had previously worked together on Gurren Lagann in 2007.
• Kill la Kill was broadcast in Japan on MBS' Animeism programming block between October 2013 and March 2014.
• An original video animation (OVA) was released as a 25th episode in September 2014.
• A video game adaptation, titled Kill la Kill the Game: IF, was released in July 2019, with slight deviations to the main storyline of the anime.
• According to director Imaishi, much of the plot is based on his observation that the Japanese manner of pronouncing 'fascism' (ファッショ, fassho) is nearly the same as the word 'fashion' (ファッション, fasshon).