It's hard to not give the show credit where credit is due: the worldbuilding, characters, and storytelling is phenomenal. It introduces a fantastical world with different concepts. Rulers are bounded by heavenly mandate, and as such, the world is quite a ways different from our world today. It's not just some stupid "fantasy with magic" world set in some generic medieval European civilization. There's an actual world that was envisioned, and more than enough time was spent on building and propping up that world. The show also doesn't just throw in random information and calls it a day. It get elaborated on. In Juuni Kokuki, people are born from eggs. Most high fantasy novels just will call it a day with that. In this show, it's shown that the eggs hatch from a tree called Riboku, and that both beast and man respect the tree with respect, never fighting under it. People who want children have to live in the same village and tie a wish on the tree for a child to be born. People even get married to live in the same village, and later divorce in order to live in a better area. The world isn't different for the sake of being different. There's actual meaning that gets elaborated upon. This is something that many fantasy novels fail to do.
However, the anime is not just good at worldbuilding. It actually manages to weave in a strong cast of characters as well as have a good story to go along with it. Youko Nakajima is a timid, shy, and a meek person that just goes along the path with least resistance. She studies because she doesn't want to stand out, and wants to be praised. This type of person is then forced to go to a different world and fight for her life. The journey that Youko goes is multi-faceted. She meets many different people, becomes jaded at human nature, yet also finds redemption at the end of her journey. She experiences as much as a turmoil for survival as she does in an internal one to discover herself as a human being. The show does this not through episodic arcs, but a continuous one where it finally culminates to a climax in which she ascends the throne as Queen. There's an explosive beginning, good character development, good story, and pacing is perfect. This show deserves praise. In fact, it does what other shows and books do in less time, yet it doesn't feel rushed, and it feels holistic.
Of course, that brings me to the filler characters. The not-so-good aspects of the show. Sugimoto and Asano are 100% filler. I suppose these characters are there so that the monologue heavy novel could be adapted to anime form easier. Youko's internal monologue and her struggles are affixed to external characters in the form of Sugimoto and Asano so that there's something to watch on screen. And to be fair, both Sugimoto and Asano were actually pretty good to start off. They mesh fairly well in the story and don't stray off of the main motifs and themes of the original novel. However, it's pretty clear that near the end of the first story arc, that Sugimoto becomes a mere plot device to advance the anime original plot, and Sugimoto and Youko's conflict and relationship become trivialized. The anime writers realized that Sugimoto really had to get booted off the first story arc to stay on track, so they just crammed a million fast paced and formulaic plot points to force her to "make up" with Youko and let her basically never influence the story again. Asano wasn't as bad, but he surely was a useless character that wasn't really relevant to the story. You could tell he was filler, as he basically does not accomplish anything. His character development arc is dubious at best, and doesn't really make sense at all. It didn't help that it was rushed through since he was just a foil to Youko's sentiments and feelings, just as Sugimoto was. I think that Sugimoto made the show a lot more PG-13. The show downplayed a lot of the negative happenings in the first arc where Youko gets washed up to shore, and it continues to do so. I think the show would have been more impactful if it had been more negative and depressing as the novel was, but oh well. Have to consider the audience as well.
Other than the first arc where Youko eventually ascends to the throne, the other arc concerning Youko is also amazing. In the first arc, there were maybe one or two good characters besides Youko. Who am I kidding? It was basically Rakushun and that was it. In this second arc with Youko, there are multiple converging storylines concerning different people that really bring the story together. The multiple perspectives is not just a gimmick, but one that fits the story perfectly, and develops all of the characters so well. It's one of the few shows that manages to nail the multiple perspectives, making the individual story arcs interesting, and making the convergence of them explosive and meaningful (I'm looking at you odd taxi).
Of course, the other arcs are good, but this show honestly would be complete with just the ones concerning Youko. I say the same for the novel series as well. While all of these stories concerning other people, like King En, Enki, Taiki, etc are good foundations for creating a lot of worldbuilding and characters, it never really culminates to a story arc that makes sense for all of this worldbuilding and backstories. Most of the novel series does end up being flashbacks and worldbuilding. That's fine, but eventually, the novel should transition into story arcs that are grand in scale, involving all of the characters introduced. That simply never happens. Most arcs are individualized, and only have certain characters involved at a time, never really building off previous story arcs. It's a shame.
Still, the anime is good. Novel too. I'm a bit nitpicky with the lack of solid story arcs that don't involve Youko, but the writing is good still.
