Juu Ou Sei

So…this is somewhat a fascinating sci-fi anime title from Studio BONES, the guys that brought you Wolf’s Rain, Eureka Seven & Xam’d, based on the manga series written and illustrated by Natsumi Itsuki.

On that, the plot of the series is that three hundred and fifty years have passed since humans first settled the Balkan star system, located approximately 150 light years from Earth, where a number of planets have been "terraformed" to resemble Earth. Two 11-year-old twins, Thor and Rai, live on the space colony Juno until they come home to find their parents have been murdered. The unknown assassins drop Thor and Rai ... on Chimaera, a secret planet used as a penal colony where day and night last 181 days each and the planet are marked by extreme weather patterns.



In other words, the plants dominate the ecosystem of the planet and have many defensive techniques as well as carnivorous varieties as a hazard to the people. In the society, there are 4 groups of humans called “Rings” that plays as governs via the Ochre Ring, Sun Ring, Blanc Ring and Noire Ring, which are based on skin color. Each ring is led by three people: the Top, Second, and Third, with the Top as the leader.

On characters, there isn’t a strong point on that faction. For example, take the main character Thor (yes, his name is Thor; I’ll spare the Marvel jokes and there is also the usage of names from Norse Mythology i.e. Odin, Loki, Heimdall) who at first seem like a weakling and eventually grow to be a stronger character than he was. Rai, on the other hand, isn’t much of a highlight considering he was annoying, whiny, and did slowed Thor down at some times and also was the first to die by the plants. That wasn’t really much of a spoiler; he gets killed off in the first episode. Tiz is an interesting character but there isn’t much motivation from her besides that she wants to marry Thor and have his children since on the planet since women make up 20% of the population and the chosen mate is not allowed to refuse. Third is a bit of a shifty character and it seems like he really can’t be trusted and without revealing anything, we can’t really be sure upon that. The other characters aren’t worth mentioning considering some get killed off quickly and/or we either don’t know much about them, making us not really care for their lives.



The series is only about 11 episodes and for me, the pace is a little too quick. I get that there isn’t filler and that is a plus but most of the time, they would leave out some important details that could’ve help the series progressed but it’s very flawed on that detail, much like Eden of the East and their follow-up movies.



The animation by BONES is actually good. The jungle scenery and sets has a realistic feel to it and the character designs are a bit jarring, especially with the designs of Thor and Rai, which I first assume was effeminate males although that design isn’t exactly new and then again, their child versions are voiced by a female voice actor so there’s no harm done. The background music was okay at the time but I really didn’t like the opening theme that has a taste of ‘90s boy band music and I really detest that kind of music but the ending was much better suited for where it’s at.


FINAL VERDICT: This was an okay series that really should’ve extended its episode count by at least about 3-4 episodes or even some extra OVAs. The pacing goes rapid and leaves out some details that could’ve been used for later. Some characters you can’t really care about when most of them might die after an episode or two or we just forget about them until the next time they appear. I would say to watch this, just to past the time.

A little known and in my opinion underappreciated anime, Jyu Oh Sei, while undeniably flawed, has quite a bit to offer for such a short ride. First of all it's only 11 episodes, so if you're even remotely intrigued by the premise I'd absolutely recommend banging this one out in a night or two. This deserves more recognition.

The first thing that stood out to me, and my overall biggest grievance with this anime, is the English voice acting, pre time skip, of our main character. Women providing the voice work of prepubescent male characters isn't anything new. In fact, it's been done for ages, and ... in many cases, such as Veronica Taylor voicing Ash Ketchum, it's done very well. That is not the case here. The voice we get here belongs to a preteen girl and doesn't remotely match the character. It felt so wrong and so out of place that I almost dropped the anime within the first two episodes. It was unbearable for me.

If you're able to stick it out, or if you simply watch with subs, which is probably what I should have done, there's a number of positives here. There is way, way, way more depth, complexity and world building here than I would ever expect from an 11 episode anime. You get A LOT of bang for your buck here, but there are many tradeoffs that have to be made in order for this to happen, including uneven pacing, a couple less than subtle exposition dumps and a rushed ending. Overall, with the amount of content here, this anime easily could have been, and in my opinion should have been, closer to the vicinity of 16 episodes. Had they been able to take their time a little more and had the luxury of showing us instead of telling us I think this could have been something special.

Unrelated to the overstuffed episodes, this anime makes a few peculiar choices that I don't quite understand. Many of the characters in this anime are randomly named after popular figures from Norse mythology. We've got Thor, Odin, Loki, Valkyrie and others. But, why? This is never explained, nor does it tie into the story. If the writer or director or whoever made this decision is a fan of Norse mythology, fine. I think it's fascinating too. But it's simply out of place and randomly thrown into this anime. Likewise, there's these random cuts, likely intended to be dramatic, where some dude (or woman, but whatever) starts wailing on the piano really loudly as the camera zooms into a character's face. Why? This did not generate any kind of emotional response for me. By and large it felt ineffective at best and simply distracting, unnecessary and not needing to be there at worst.

The overall concept of the plot is mostly original and unique. It borrows elements from other places, but as a whole I've never seen an anime overly similar to this one. The problems here are not with the concept- in fact, I think this anime had immense potential with its original concept and harsh but gorgeous world- and simply missed the mark with its execution. Like I said before, 11 episodes as opposed to 15 or 16 really did this anime a disservice on a number of levels.

The music was really mediocre and forgettable for me, which was further exacerbated by the aforementioned random out of place piano cuts. No accounting for personal taste, but I was pretty lukewarm on the intro and outro songs. The sound as a whole was mediocre, though some voice actors did a reasonable job. It's just hard to look beyond a main character with a blatantly unfitting voice.

The animation, keeping in mind that this anime came out in 2006, is actually quite good! It's fluid, never choppy and characters move, including in action sequences, in a realistic way. Likewise the character designs are quite varied and distinctive, though some did remind me to various extents of characters from other anime. The visuals couldn't pass for something that came out today, but they've aged well enough for something a decade and a half old.

Summing up Jyu Oh Sei, it's simply rough around the edges. The potential is there, the world building is definitely there and if it were just a little bit longer and paced a little better I can't helped but wonder what could have been. Still, even missing the mark a bit on the execution it does not miss it outright and there's enough here to make this anime at least decent and worth a watch. For an anime the vast majority of anime fans have probably never heard of, you could do a lot worse.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 7
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7.5

To keep it simple and to the point: It's been well over 10 years since I've watched this. But the reason I am writing this review is to give the person actually considering watching this show a chance to enjoy it as opposed to completely fall apart at the seems from what can only be described as "Teach the dog to read and write so he can finish it" 2nd act of a show.

Never have I been more insulted by any piece of media I've ever consumed than I have with this show. Stale, heavily clichéd , bewildering metaphors, characters and situations stabbed into ... the viewer like a knife left out on a literal poop deck to just fester and cake onto it all day in the roasting sun, with all the infections you would never imagine could happen to you all at once because someone just handed it to you while you were cutting food and said "here, the knife is good. Just was coated to be brown" then just proceeds to randomly stab you with it till you're chronically stuck in a hospital room for the rest of yours days.

That's what you get in the 2nd Act.

First act is interesting, fascinating, suspenseful. Just watch the 1st act before a certain someone grows up. TRUST ME on this.

This is a review of the anime only. I have not read the manga.

This was an interesting anime. It started off as a standard survival anime but became more complex by the time it was done. While it kept my attention and was generally enjoyable, it felt rushed and was overall, a bit disappointing.


What I liked:

1. It was suspenseful and kept my attention.
2. It kept me guessing as to who could be trusted.
3. I liked most of the characters.
... 4. It had a lot of potential.


What I didn’t like:

1. Thor’s supposed ages. It didn’t fit with his appearance, his voice, or his behavior. Thor could have started out as a 14yo and progressed to a 19yo and still have been young to be a leader.

2. Thor’s fight scenes. It made no sense for him to win the fights he did other than that it was convenient to the plot that he do so. He had no combat training and was going up against people who’d fought a lot.

3. There were a lot of convenient plot devices that could have been better disguised.

4. Thor falling in forever love with the first pretty woman he sees within a few hours of meeting her.

5. The ending was rushed and had a lot of huge holes. There wasn’t enough time to process all of the information and changes thrown at us. It also felt rather pointless, to be honest. Yes, he got his answers, but there was no real sense of justice meted out, and he lost more than he gained.


STORY: The story had a ton of potential. I think if it had been extended into a 24-episode series, it would have been better for it. There were technically enough clues to predict what was going to happen, and I did figure some of it out but not to its full extent. I would have liked my suspicions to have grown more slowly over time. I also would have like a more clear view of a certain character’s motivation to better understand why he did what he did. As it was, it seemed a poor motivation for such an elaborate and extended deception. The science behind Odin’s plan was … ridiculous. Perhaps if there had been more explanation and more evidence of both its possibility and its need, it would have been more believable. Really, the whole thing just fell flat and was confusing, disappointing, and needlessly tragic.

ART: Well, it was 2006. I’m not sure this would have gotten any awards even then. It really wasn’t great at all. The facial features were angular and blocky. I despised the noses. There was nothing special about the landscapes or textures. Overall, the art was pretty bad. The mixture of scifi, modern, and medieval cultures all into one was odd. Their dwellings and utensils were all medieval but they had modern assault rifles and futuristic air bikes. It was just … odd.

SOUND: Also, 2006, and again, I think bad even for then. It was more like a 90s anime in terms of sound, both music and effects.

CHARACTER: The only character that was truly interesting was Third and mostly because he was mysterious. None of them possessed any depth. I found Thor’s lack of true grief over Rai’s death disturbing. I found Thor to be impetuous and immature, which I guess was the only part of him that seemed the age they had him. His voice and appearance didn’t match his age at all but his behavior did. I found their obsession with having children understandable given the circumstances but disturbing for an 11yo girl to be talking about. Thor’s motivation to find out who killed his parents and why made sense. It’s the motivation of a lot of main characters, but somehow it just fell flat in this anime. It didn’t really have any punch. None of the characters were overly likable or endearing. I didn’t hate any of them but I didn’t get attached to any of them either.

ENJOYMENT: I watched the whole thing but sort of felt like I’d like those few hours back. I can’t really say that I recommend it. It’s not awful, but it’s not great. It had the potential to be great. It really did. But it wasn’t.

Jyu oh sei Anime Review

Jyu oh sei or in English planet of the beast king is an 11 episode anime released back in 2006. The studio handled the production are the hard hitter bones who have produced many shows ranging from Full Metal Alchemist/ Full Metal Alchemist Brother hood to Space Dandy. Bones is one of my personal favourite studios but that doesn’t mean that every work they put out is going to amaze me. Jyu oh sei is one of those shows which had an intriguing premise but it never lived up to its full potential.

Jyu oh sei is set in the distant star ... system of Balkan and follows the tragic tale of a boy named Thor. He and his twin brother Rai return home one day to find their parents dead, they are then kidnapped and sent to the Plant of Chimera, a jungle plant where plants rule and the only way to survive is to become a beast. The plot of this show isn’t bad per say just rushed. The show only has 11 episodes and in this short amount of time it covers a lot. To speed things up there is even a time skip at the end of episode 5. The main objective of Thor the main character is to become the beast king (basically the ultimate ruler of the planet) and get back to his old home and get revenge on those who killed his parents and sent his brother and him away to Chimera. Jyu oh sei is filled with tragedy and surprisingly politics. Even though the planet Chimera where most of the show is set is a chaotic world ruled by plants the people there follow laws and have multiple societies. The show does well to explain the laws of the planet and define the path that Thor must take to become beast king. When picking up the show it looked like a survival/action show and even though those genres are present they are definitely shadowed by tragedy and drama that Jyu oh sei produces.

Jyu oh sei also has taken inspiration from Norse Mythology, many of the characters names being from Norse mythology like Thor and Odin.

There are not that many characters to discuss. The main ones only really being Thor the protagonist, his best friend/ love interest Tiz, his sort of adult figure/guide Third, his brother Rei and a boy named Zagi. There are few side characters which fade in and out through the running of the shows but the names above are the ones to remember. Thor is your basic strong willed protagonist. Out of the main cast he is definitely the most likeable and his brother Rai being the exact opposite of him made him to me anyway the least likeable character. Thor’s goal is to get back to Juno his home and confront those who murdered his parents. At times his character can be a bit bland however as the time goes by he begins to grow and becomes a more rounded character. The biggest problem I have with his character is due to the direction of the show and its writing. Later on in the show another female character is introduced and he instantly falls in love with her and declares this after only knowing her for like 20 minutes and at the beginning of that episodel she hated him. His voice actors did a good job both in the dub and sub but I wouldn’t say that dub is amazing but it is good enough to watch. Tiz and Third are Thor’s left and right hands, they help him through his journey to the top and provide a good contrast of characters.

The soundtrack to the show was pretty under par, I can’t recall any piece of the soundtrack that stood out to me whilst even watching the show. The opening wasn’t to my taste and I feel that it doesn’t really fit the show and what it was going for. The ending however I thought was quite good and the only piece of music from the show that I have went back and listened too.

Bones usual shows have stellar animation however not every show can have jaw dropping awesome animation however I felt that the show wasn’t the best animation wise and this was definitely seen in the short and few fight scenes. Compared to other anime from 2006 it definitely wasn’t this best however I have seen worse and isn’t so bad that it ruins the show, if it was better I just think the show would have stuck out a little bit more.

Now the plot to me was ok but I did have a few problems with it, for one it was really rushed. By the end of episode 5 we had a 4 year time skip. The main gripe I have with this show is how much more developed it could have been if had been given more time and more episodes. The ending of the show I felt was also rushed and they could have done with a 12 episode to wrap it up a little bit more neatly.

Overall Jyu oh sei is an anime which I thought would be a survival/action which turned out to be more of dramatic/political/tragedy. Jyu oh sei went in a direction I never thought it would and for what it did I applaud it. Even though it feels rushed in some places especially the time scaling after episode 5 and the ending, I would still say that if you want to watch something that is quick and is filled with tragedy and drama then go ahead just don’t go in thinking it’s going to blow your mind because it won’t. It may sound like I am hating on the show, but I’m not it just didn’t stick out. Jyu oh sei is licensed by Funimation and Manga Entertainment and can be bought in DVD with both sub and dub. Thanks for reading!

I only give three ratings 1-5-10.

it was good so i give it a five
there's not enough to it and the story was rush'd
but there's something about it that was really worth watching
I wish it had more killing and more sex that's all i really care about any way
the story is more or less about " I love you " " i don't like you like that"
or loving some one who do'sent love you the same way or not at all.

This is not a well known or very popular anime. While personally I don't like it, I think everyone should give this anime a chance because it has something to offer everyone. Here's what I thought.

I really like the story. It follows two young brothers, Thor and Rei, who are abandoned on a strange, dangerous planet called Chimaera. Here humans have reverted to a feral state in order to survive. They live in a world where women are in a huge minority, and so they seem to hold some kind of power because they are viewed as 'sacred', and able to chose their own mates. ... Not a bad plot really, its sounded interesting when I first tried it.

The artwork is really nice too. The world Thor and Rai are abandoned on is covered in strange and dangerous plants, the animation is cool to look at and the character designs are pretty nice too.

The characters, in my honest opinion are very cliche and flat. I really didn't like any of them, honestly. The main characters Thor and Rai are opposites of each other, Thor being more confident and determined and Rai being slower and more dependent on Rai. The main female lead, Tiz is kind of annoying, her main goal being marrying Thor. And then there's Third who is a cool, laid back character. He claims to have no real name, and I consider him to be the most likable character in the series.

There are quite a few plot twists, mysteries and suprises. The animation is smooth and shiny, but the characters kind of suck. But I don't think anyone should pass this anime over.