Kino's Journey - Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World

7 words or less 

The world isn't beautiful, therefore it is.

A few more words

Kino is on a journey, staying 3 days in each place, no more no less. She generally acts like an impartial observer and rarely meddles in the affairs of locals. You'd think she's following the prime directive. The episodes are self contained and are not presented chronologically.

Hermes is Kino's motorcycle. He talks, but I have yet to figure out if he really does talk (as he only really communicates with Kino and this one dog) or if Kino does the talking for both due to a childhood trauma. I believe it was left intentionally vague.

The world is littered with "countries", essentially city-states that have little to no interaction with each other, worlds in bottles. Many bottles.

Forgetability 

If anything Kino no Tabi explores human nature: the good, the vile, the heart warming and the sickening. The word is not kind and it doesn't forgive. It doesn't sound like much, but it really is and it will stay with you. Each episode provides a fairly deep story full of meaning and metaphor.

Kino is a great character and fits the profile of a long time traveler who's been through hardship and has learned to fend for themselves trough necessity. Distant, cold, and dangerous yet compassionate, curious and consequentially wise.

World

The world has both rural and urban towns, technology varies greatly from the futuristic to medieval, yet airplanes for example have not yet been invented. All places presented are interesting, well built and horrible in their own way, but with few exceptions the people living there keep going. Just like real life.

While alien to each other all areas presented are still surprisingly similar, making the whole world homogeneous.

TL;DR: Should I watch it?

This is undoubtedly a must-watch.