Reviews

Dec 19, 2017
War. War never changes. People die when they are killed, greed overpowers all, fighting never gets us anywhere, yada yada yada. At some point in our lives, we've all heard a spiel kinda like this, and repeated doses of the phrase demotes the saying to an irritating platitude that means absolutely nothing. So, if you want to decide the fate of the world, what do you do? Pit 12 people against each other of course. What other way would there be?

Story:

Every 12 years, twelve warriors are gathered together in order to participate in the Juuni Taisen, a battle royale in which the twelve warriors, each representing one of the animals in the chinese zodiac, fight to the death in order to get one selfish wish granted and determine the fate of the world. On the eve of the twelve Juuni Taisen, the 12 warriors gather up, and the event to see which animal will come out on top commences.

On the surface, Juuni Taisen appears to be a nonsensical gorefest as the twelve warriors duke it out in an abandoned city, each equipped with their own method of killing representative of their respective animal. Its main problem as a series stems from how little the show is willing to stay as a simple concept. With each episode, we're introduced to one of the twelve warriors' backgrounds, introduced to a world plagued with war that eventually molds them into the person (or animal...) that they become by the start of the Juuni Taisen. This in and of itself poses a problem for the viewer because once you figure out the pattern, the experience becomes all the more lackluster cause the place order and by extension the winner is easy to figure out.

The result of this eventually muddies the content of the show greatly, spending an abhorrent amount of time on so much backstory and world building information on each of the twelve warriors that what you end up getting is less battle and more "listen to my edgy and sad backstory". This ultimately breaks the flow of the show as in the middle of a battle, we're forced to listen to up to an episode's worth of information before we're thrust back into the action as if we're supposed to care for the respective warrior whose backstory we just finished watching.

Eventually, this problem comes full circle when the show gets so stuck up and drunk off of the philosophies of its various zodiac members that it becomes confusing what the hell they're even talking about. Everything from 'righteousness' to 'right and wrong', all the way to 'what is my selfish desire' intoxicates the show's runtime to the point that the show's battle royale feels like almost a secondary thought. While admittedly it is kind of refreshing to see a show spend so much time focused on character development of its main cast, the way they went about was so instrumental to the show ultimate downfall that I acts more as a detriment to what is otherwise a horse-betting competition.

The ending also gives the experience a very bittersweet flavor, but not a nice kind. Frankly speaking, it's pretty much a culmination of everything the show is or tries to be, all wrapped up in a pretentious bow cause it feels like the show feels smug about what it's done with just how much information is jam packed in the episode and how it ended. Newsflash, it ain't a good end. An understandable conclusion, but given all the information we were given about the world and the people living in it, I'd expect something a little more than 'Ignorance is Bliss'. Which I guess you could say is poetic in a way, but I'm not willing to give the show any slack for how piss poor this show was structured.

Overview:
+ Fun? (I mean...it was kinda fun to watch.)
- Breaks from the action way too often
- Many unanswered questions
- Can be predictable once you figure the show out
- Too much philosophy and attempt to be edgy/thought-provoking

Characters:

No one else matters except for the Juuni Taisen. If anything, the supplementary characters are part of the 'world building' and 'character development' attempts that the show made.

The warriors are unique style-wise, I'll give the show that much credit. Aside from that, they all, every one of them, leaves something to be desired (except I guess Tiger). Case in point, they all want something. Coming from prestigious warrior families or are renowned warriors themselves, the twelve participants enter the ring each with a story to tell: How they rose in power, the way they live their lives, the philosophies they embody, etc. My main issue stems from how the backstory is relatively simple, but each progressive character we're shown breeds more and more complexity with their stories, to the point that philosophy IS their story. It's the kind of gradual spoonfeeding that doesn't sit right with me because in a sense, that shows favoritism, and in a battle royale, immediate narrative favoritism reveals who's staying till the end.

Another aspect of the warriors is their powers. For some reason, they all have some kind of special ability that makes each of the warriors superhuman to an extent which makes absolutely no sense to me because a) How and why do they get these powers? and b) Does everyone in the world have these powers? Or is it just specific to 'warriors'? My theory is that this is just the show's excuse to have more edge and battle potential which, while true, poses those questions that loom over the show's entire runtime cause still confused as to how a human being is physically capable of producing a multitude of poisons in his own body or create zombies by killing them. Seriously, they don't explain this at all and it frustrates me to no end.

Overview:
+ Interesting cast
- Powers make no goddamn sense
- Again, drowned in philosophy (and pattern makes things kinda easy to figure out.)

Art:

Produced by Graphinica, a small studio with almost nothing major under their belt (they helped animate Hellsing Ultimate, so I guess that's part of their resume), Juuni Taisen's quality wavers greatly.

On one hand, the art isn't terrible. Sure most of its is stills due to the amount of downtime the show seems to have with how often the warrior are willing to sit down and have a chat for some reason, but there aren't many real issues popping up during these moments. That being said, it's not fantastic either. Action scenes are kind of choppy as expected of a low budget show, but the real kicker is how the ending fights seem to crank up in intensity and end up relying on CGI in order to showcase these battles. It's a noticeable change that I'm just vaguely annoyed about after seeing it for the first time.

Overview:
+/- It's decent, but not great.

Sound:

"Rupture" by Panorama Panama Town poses a peculiar standard for the show's soundtrack. Honestly, I thought that the show would have a more high-energy and intense rock track rather than the smoother and less energetic rock that we got. Like seriously, I thought we were gonna get some super hype battle music or something, but instead we get...this. Don't get me wrong, it ain't bad, just not what I expected. Which I suppose is an upside really all things considering. I will say that hearing the artist roll their 'r's' like they are is...weird. Excessive if you ask me.

Likewise, the show's ED, "Kenshin no Kemono", is an equally smooth rock track that I didn't expect from a show as battle-filled as this. Personally, this one is less memorable to its OP counterpart, but it is by no means a bad song. Honestly, I'd say that the sound is the best part of the show, and whenever that happens, I'm always scared. I also want to bring special attention to the fact that they managed to get Hayami Saori and Sakura Ayane, some pretty well-known seiyuu to voice in this rather underground show. Iunno, that's just a detail that vaguely amuses me.

Overview:
+/- Good, but average soundtrack

Personal Enjoyment:

I really just took a swing at Juuni Taisen to see what I would end up getting by watching this show. To my surprise, the series actually showed some promise at the start. Sure I haven't seen many battle royales, but I was at least intrigued to see where it was going. Turns out, it went badly. Oh so badly. The story suffers from being overtly complex, the characters suffer the same way, the art quality wavers greatly, and the sound is more or less average. Are there any upsides to this show? Critically speaking...no. But by not thinking about things too hard like I've done with certain aspects of the show, your mileage will probably increase with this show. But probably not that much considering the show tries so hard to impress you that you end up hating yourself for falling into the show's trap and think along its lines.

Did I like this show?

Kind of? I mean there are philosophies which are interesting enough to see here (Like "Is what I'm doing right or wrong?") But in the context of the show, they don't make any sense so I'd take those words with a grain of salt.

What didn't I like about this show?

Usagi. I am sorry, but that character is just downright unsettling, and not in the good way. It's like they sat down and said "Alright, we need an OP character who's batshit crazy", threw all of the board's ideas in a hat, then just used everything in the hat anyway to create this monstrosity. A super muscley individual wearing what is basically stripper gear without any known backstory aside from killing to 'make friends' and can literally not go down even in death to fulfill the 'psychotic person' quota is just asking for trouble.

Also WHERE IS THE WAR?! You spent an entire twelve episodes establishing the fact that the world in this show is filled to the brim with war and shit, going so far as to establish a gambling ring for power with the world's countries, yet in the last episode where we're actually in the world and not in the battleground of twelve superpowered individuals, everything seems hunky dory. Even if they're past events, if the world is as war-filled as you say it is, you could at the very least make the winner watch TV and see that a war is escalating somewhere. That ain't hard, right?

Would I recommend this show?

Honestly...no. At the start I thought that at the very least I could recommend this for some good ol' fashion 'turn off your brain' fun, but the show shoves so much of what it tries to do down your throat that it's not worth the headache. If you ask me, the show tries way too hard and gets almost no satisfactory result by the end of it. You might as well have said that none of this ever happened and it was all a dream, cause that what it feels like when that's our end.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice Nice0
Love it Love it0
Funny Funny0
Show all
It’s time to ditch the text file.
Keep track of your anime easily by creating your own list.
Sign Up Login