The Hollow Absurdity of Kingdom Hearts

INTRO:

Kingdom Hearts feels like coming home. Whenever I’m feeling a bit down or like I need something lighthearted and wacky as a pickmeup, I’ll fire up either Kingdom Hearts 1 or 2 and barrel through the Heartless. It’s a nice alternative to screaming into the void about life. There’s just something about Sora, Donald, and Goofy’s misadventures through melodramatic fanfiction of the Disney canon that just speaks to my cursed self.

But note I only said 1 and 2. Though I’ve grown up with the franchise since before I started kindergarten (We love pulling an all-nighter before school just to get to Atlantica solely for my love of The Little Mermaid), I have plenty of qualms with it, some of which I’ve mentioned in my older video on how Arendelle because the worst world in the series. That video was more focused on how the series’ approach towards adapting Disney properties has shifted over the years, but today we’re gonna be focused on the core story of the Xehanort Saga. Namely, why it’s not good.

I don’t think anyone is surprised to hear the oh-so-original hot take that Kingdom Hearts’ writing is… well, bad. That’s kinda been done to death at this point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more hardcore fans are resistant at this point cuz they just wanna enjoy their weird-ass nonsense as the world burns around them. However, I think it’s important for us to express our honest feelings on how media affects us, good and bad, and to delve into why we had that reaction.

Developing media literacy takes time and a lot of exposure to things you might not initially think is up your alley, and our relationships to media can change over time as things in our own life change… or the creators of what we live turn out to be less than stellar. But my point is that it’s okay to love something that’s messy or poorly written, and likewise, you can still love something while still being frustrated with it or critiquing it. Critique is a sign of love, because you’re willing to be honest in where something disappointed you and where you wished it did better.

With that aside, Kingdom Hearts is unique given that its very premise is absurd. Take Disney, throw in some Final Fantasy cameos, have it be led by a spiky-haired anime self-insert boi with a key the size of a baseball bat, and go save the universe from a bunch of adorable shadow demons. You wouldn’t expect something so insane to be an actual best selling video game franchise. But it’s that absurdity that draws people’s attention. It takes two beloved icons and melds them into something new, and the inclusion of Disney coupled with the simple story of the first game makes it easily accessible and incredibly enjoyable - and I don’t think a lot of folks quite realize the importance of accessibility.

ACCESSIBILITY:

You want people to enjoy your story, don’t you? Ain’t nothing wrong with making sure as many people are able to follow your story and get something out of it, and the first Kingdom Hearts understood that perfectly and excelled. But then… then it got weird. And not like, cool weird, but like… needlessly weird. The kinda weird where you think being quirky itself is a personality trait rather than a side effect of you actually going off the beaten path to do something nobody’s ever done before.

For most people who don’t know Kingdom Hearts, they’d probably assume “Oh, KH2 must be the second game. I can finish KH1, then play KH2 and understand everything perfectly.” But uh… nope. You gotta play Chain of Memories first, a side game that’s still integral to the overall plot, where an actually intriguing story is haphazardly wedged between text-box rehashes of the first game’s Disney worlds, all trapped in a card-based combat system that’s entirely divorced from the series’ usual style. No shade to people who like this system, but… that doesn’t sound very inviting to newbies.

This kind of departure would be fine if it truly was a side game, but… it’s not. Chain of Memories, along with the other “side games,” are more companion pieces. They each play into the overarching story (some more than others), and as such, they’re mandatory. And if something is mandatory to understand your story, wouldn’t you want it to be less intimidating than this? Not to mention the names are bizarre. The title “Chain of Memories” makes sense for the story, but no one automatically goes, “Oh yeah, that goes between 1 and 2.” The only reason it feels like second nature to people like us is because Kingdom Hearts has made us this way through 20 years of this nonsense. (I have my own example of this nonsense for later)

When Kingdom Hearts 3 dropped, undoubtedly many casual fans and bystanders thought they could just hop in and enjoy the ride no problem, only to find some of the most baffling, convoluted, and needlessly obtuse storytelling known to ducks. And even as a fan who understood most of the story - even that accursed mobile game, oh god, why is the plot trapped in a mobile game most people are just gonna watch on YouTube anyhow - I found myself rather bored playing KH3. And that’s because KH3 is the consequence of all this unnecessary muck we’ve been served since KH2.

The honest reason why KH3 took so long, and why we got so many companion games in the meantime, is because Nomura and his team were busy with other projects. Birth by Sleep, Dream Drop Distance, Coded, 358, these games don’t exist because Nomura wanted to tell such a messy story. They exist because Square wanted to keep releasing Kingdom Hearts games for various systems, and rather than have them be self-contained, Nomura opted to incorporate them into the greater lore of the franchise. It was the same with Chain of Memories. They wanted a KH game on the GameBoy Advance, so they made it. That’s why so much of it is just the first game, but sprites, with additional plot because why not.

When the collections started coming out, it actually was a brilliant move on the part of Square to build up hype for KH3. Not only did it mean more sales to hardcore fans for not much effort, but it also meant a second chance to get even more people into Kingdom Hearts that didn’t require them to have every handheld system of the day. The collections worked because they made Kingdom Hearts more accessible. But it’s too bad the writing can’t really duplicate that.

CONVOLUTION:

A lot of folks will say, “You just don’t like Kingdom Hearts because it isn’t conventional. She isn’t like other girls - she’s absurd.” To which I say… homegurl, she’s really not as eccentric as you make her out to be.

There have been wonderful videos like Birth By Sleep: The Turning Point by Bloody Bizkitz about the franchise’s decay, but Kingdom Hearts’ obsession with complicated lore points to a deeper problem from which most of the other problems spring: the absurdism of Kingdom Hearts isn’t in service of a good story and characters, but of a convoluted, messy plot with pointless worldbuilding.

This is something I gleaned from Frustrated Jacob, who’s done… very long videos about Kingdom Hearts’ storytelling issues. Hey, they’re really nice to throw on in the background while I’m working in Blender, okay? But he talks a lot about how Kingdom Hearts is actually pretty cut and dry, and something he specifies is what the lore is in service of. And the answer is… nothing. That goes for the lore, and that also goes for the perceived absurdity of Kingdom Hearts.

Now when I talk about absurdism going forward, I’m talking about all the outlandish elements: the sleeping worlds, worlds of memory and data, world lines, the mechanics of light and darkness, hearts versus souls, so on, so forth. Things that are more steeped in the abstract and in emotions rather than logic and reason. In this sense, relying on absurd storylines and imagery can enhance your story, specifically when you go ham on your visual storytelling and have a clear idea of what represents what. You know, you make use of things like metaphors, or symbols.

Two similarly absurd animes that remind me a lot of Kingdom Hearts are Gurren Lagann and Revolutionary Girl Utena, but I find myself enjoying both far more than I’ve enjoyed Kingdom Hearts in a very long time. Spoilers for both series ahead, but Gurren Lagann is aware of its own silliness, especially in the final arc against the Anti-Spiral Forces, and revels in that silliness. And part of the reason it’s able to do that is because it knows what it’s trying to say.

To boil things down, the weird use of “Spiral” and “Anti-Spiral” refers to those who embrace the unpredictability and chaotic nature of life, and those who seek to stamp it out wherever it arises. Gurren Lagann’s final antagonist - the Anti-Spiral Forces - is a representation of despair-fueled nihilism. Ya know, the whole “Life is pointless and people suck, so we’d be better off if we were all gone” schtick. And Simon and friends’ response is, “Hey, we’re traumatized too, but we also know life can be great, so go fuck yourself.”

I actually kinda teared up towards the end of my first watch of the series, because the message resonated with me while also putting a smile on its face. Not only was it fun, but it also took a bat to my heart. Revolutionary Girl Utena, meanwhile, feels like an acid trip. By the end of the series, a lot of people could find themselves confused on their first watch if they expect a more direct story telling them outright what’s happening. Or rather, they expect something more literal than figurative.

Utena is steeped in visual storytelling and symbolism. It’s a story about abuse, gender, sexuality, and coming of age, and it explores these things through its visuals. It can feel weird, having this pink-haired girl go to a conveniently placed dueling arena at the back of her school’s campus with an upside-down floating castle, along with resident mean girl Nanami laying eggs and transforming into a cow because of her need for designer cowbells, but it works because it knows what it’s trying to communicate.

Ultimately, the chaos in Ohtori Academy is rooted in Akio, the main antagonist who was once a prince, inspiring a young Utena to become a prince herself one day, which turned out to be a pretty good idea actually. Akio is charismatic and influential, but that serves to mask the abuse and manipulation he deals out to everyone, including his sister Anthy, who at this point has been so mentally and emotionally broken she believes she deserves to be objectified and possessed as the Rose Bride.

Akio controls everyone in the school through the illusions from his observatory, including the dueling arena and the castle, representing the fairy tale full of charm he’s selling to people. But on another level, this is all to represent how Akio is able to manipulate all of these people, to make them see what they want to see, so he can puppeteer them to get what he wants. And Utena, when confronted with this, is able to break his illusion - to break the castle - and inspire Anthy to leave Ohtori Academy and leave the cruel fake world that Akio had convinced her to lock herself in.

When you look at Kingdom Hearts… does it really do anything similar to either of these stories? What do the sleeping worlds represent, or replicas, or the datascape Maleficent kept prattling on about for 5 minutes before she moved onto the next MacGuffin? The chaotic elements in Kingdom Hearts aren’t fun, they’re mind-numbing, because while Gurren Lagann and Utena both use their absurd imagery and storylines to present their stories in a visually interesting way, Kingdom Hearts uses it more as an excuse for boring lore no one really cares about, and that doesn’t mean anything.

The reason why people loved Nobodies in Kingdom Hearts 2 - aside from their cool hair and early 2000s edginess - was because of what they represented. People with no hearts, unable to feel anything, yet yearning to become more than they are? That’s an immediately understandable conflict, and one you could apply to a bunch of relatable scenarios.

But then the franchise instead decided to focus on the weird lore of Nobodies actually indeed having hearts, and making them whole people again, or bringing them back via replicas, but then oops they’re Nobodies again because Xehanort. It doesn’t really mean anything anymore beyond an excuse to drag fan favorite characters back into this story, and it feels so pointless that I don’t even really care that Larxene is here. And wow, you made me not care about Larxene… you bastards.

Character motivations, character flaws, themes, none of these things are really present in Kingdom Hearts. Much like a certain other anime-esque property, it is the illusion of a story. The main difference here is, at least Kingdom Hearts can say at one point, it was indeed fun and heartfelt. And then it fell from the pedestal.

Kingdom Hearts will sometimes pretend it has a point. That’s why they babble about hearts that are our guiding keys that connect us or whatever, but it’s all perfunctory platitudes. They’re hollow gestures to make you pretend they’re saying something, but in reality, we all know it’s memeable bullshit. The characters at this point are just chess pieces, not only to Xehanort, but to the writing itself, designed to be empty and one-dimensional to achieve whatever Nomura’s outline says we need to get us to the next game.

Hell, the fact Kingdom Hearts 3 has so much emphasis on setting up this weird Verum Rex alternate world is bizarre, because it’s supposed to be the conclusion to the Xehanort Saga. It’s okay to focus on payoff rather than setup at this point; hell, that’s a big reason why people were so excited about Kingdom Hearts 3. Add on top of that the refusal to save Aqua or Ventus, or to do anything of note, until all the Disney worlds are wrapped up, and the lack of a midpoint, and KH3 really feels like a zombie, meandering through its obligations with no soul, and no heart. The closest thing I got to feeling something was the trio’s banters, but even they can’t help us at this point.

LESSONS:

Kingdom Hearts’ stumblings come from it not realizing what made people love it in the first place. If they focused instead on fleshing out their characters, and giving them emotional storylines, using the abstract lore as a way to explore than rather than… whatever the hell Ansem was spouting in Melody of Memory, then it could easily recreate the magic of the first two games in a new and interesting way.

Ultimately, I just feel bad. For myself losing interest in Kingdom Hearts, for Nomura being chained to this franchise and unable to expand beyond it, and for people who sincerely wanted a better story to enjoy.

For people disappointed with Kingdom Hearts, I highly recommend the rewrite series by Cryptonix. This series made me tear up several times, because it took the foundations of the story and gave them actual substance, especially Birth by Sleep, and oh my god I cannot wait for his version of Dream Drop Distance. Also he did Kairi justice, so I’m obligated to love it.

Anyhow, if you enjoyed this video and would like this see more content like this from me, then be sure not only to subscribe and ring that bell for notifications because YouTube hates creators, but also please consider pledging your support over on Patreon, and/or checking out my debut urban fantasy novel, De Cineribus: From the Ashes. Nomura, I share your obsession with weird names, but we need help.

I’m the Unicorn of War, and Kingdom Hearts’ writing is a shit show.