(L) Twelve kingdoms (Juuni Kokki)

[4Tran]

Whew, I'm finally done. Here's my write-up for episode two. I'm going to save any discussion of themes and a few other subjects for a later post. As usual, please feel free to add any comments.

Vocab
Since Twelve Kingdoms uses a bewildering amount of special terms, I'm forced to use a lot as well. I'll list a few of the more key ones for ease of understanding/remembering, and avoid, as much as possible, those I don't have to use.

• Shoku - a portal opened up by Keiki to connect our world to the world of the Twelve Kingdoms.
• Youma - monsters; they tend to have forms similar to animals.
• Kaikyaku - (lit. visitors/guests from the sea) people who travel via shoku from Japan to the coast of Kou and its neighbors.
• Kou - name of the country Youko and friends end up in.
• Kirin - a pure-white unicorn-like creature with a deer-like head, and with a deer horn protruding from where a unicorn's horn would be. This is way the creature is depicted in Japan (with some artistic liberty).

Cast
There are enought characters in the show that it's easy for even fans (like me ) to forget their names. A running tally might be a good idea:

• Nakajima Youko - a wallflowerish girl with naturally reddish hair.
• Sugimoto Yuka - a bookish girl who indulges in fantasy novels, semi-friendly with Youko. Henceforth to be referred to as Sugimoto.
• Asano Ikuya - a friend of both Youko and Sugimoto; very much the "nice guy" archetype; Youko is fond of him, but he in turn is fond of Sugimoto. Henceforth to be referred to as Asano.
• Keiki - a mysterious tall, blond man; he apparently can control certain youma, and he has the power to open a shoku. Upon appearing before Youko, he pledged his allegiance to her.
• Jyouyuu - a liquid-like youma that follows Keiki's orders, he has entered Youko's body, and grants her extraordinary combat abilities.

The Plot
The plot for this episode is relatively straightforward, even tKough it's a bit split up since the POVs are split up. Exiting the shoku, Youko and the youma she's flying with get separated as they are attacked by an ox youma. Youko falls to the earth, but she's surprisingly unharmed. She then travels inland and comes upon a village; eventually getting captured and gets taken to the village hall.

Sugimoto's situation is similar. Her gorilla youma gets defeated, and she's taken inland by an unknown wolf youma. She is dropped off and sees the wolf youma fly to a figure that looks like Keiki. Afterwards, she's also captured and taken in.

Youko and Sugimoto meet up in captivity, and we learn two key things: Youko's features have changed - her hair is now redder, her eyes have turned green, her skin has darken to a light bronze, and her face has changed shape; and that while Youko can understand the inhabitants of this land, Sugimoto cannot.

They are taken to see the village elder, and she informs them that they are now in a country called "Kou", and that they are kaikyaku. The shoku that brought them caused a great storm that devastated the nearby area, and the kaikyaku are blamed for causing it. Next day, the two are bundled off on a wagon to be taken to the prefectural capital; henceforth to be either imprisoned or summarily executed.

Concurrently, Asano is taken by Keiki's dog youma and he meets up with Keiki. They both get captured and Asano is brought to Youko and Sugimoto's cart. They are all sent off to the prefecutural capital. En route, the cart is attacked by wolf youma.


Scenes of Note
There's only one scene of note in this episode; there are a lot of other important ones, but none of them stand out in particular. That one scene is where Asano and Keiki get captured. The dog youma Asano was riding gets attacked and his blood is splattered all over Asano and Keiki. Keiki's reaction to this is to transform into a kirin and subsequently collapses. Another kirin approaches with a golden ring around its horn. This new kirin touches Keiki horn-to-horn and words start to appear on Keiki's horn. I would post screen captures, but the still images lack the power that the video composition gives it.


Production Notes
I detailed the encounter between Keiki and the other kirin because it's so darned beautiful looking. The brutality of the blood, the eerie grace and sheer whiteness of the kirin, the stark darkness of the background forest, and with the way the words on Keiki's appear - all of this combines into a scrumptious visual feast.

In fact, this brings me to the point about the way the show looks. The characters themselves are decent enough, but it's the techniques used to make the new world seem otherworldly that are especially impressive. One example is the scene when Youko gazes the sea on the coastline of Kou - instead of a normal sea state, there are numerous water swirls on surface, and the color of the water is itself unusual. One look is enough to tell her that this is nothing like the world she's used to.

To contrast with that, much of the inland landscape is more familiar. While the mountains in the background look unusual, they are similar to the ones in southern China / northern Indochina (Gulin in China being a good example of a similar landscape). The overall quality of the backgrounds is extremely high. This attention to detail continues onto the village that Youko goes to: the look of the rice paddies and the architecture are nice enough, but what I'm especially impressed with is that the creators thought to include a wall around the village, and to show that it's in disrepair. This might not seem like much, but it opens up new insights.

The background music is reminiscent of nothing other than the incidental music of Hong Kong historical dramas from the late '70s to early '80s. Outside of this period, I can't think of any other place these musical strains can be heard (admittedly, I'm hardly all that familiar with this musical era). Most of the instruments used seem to be traditional and the tunes are fairly well-suited to the rough time period-equivalent displayed. But what's perhaps most notable is the use of silence - this was largely an expository episode, so the incidental music was only present for the action sequences (dominated by drums) and a few key scenes. For the rest, it respects the viewer to not lose focus during the quieter scenes.

Magic
While much of the world of the Twelve Kingdoms looks like the China of a few centuries, there are a lot of magical elements that are in play. On closer inspection, Twelve Kingdoms is actually one of the most magic-intensive shows out there. In this episode we see the following (I'm going to avoid using specialized names whenever possible ):

• Youko's sword Suiguutou: When a villager tried to draw it from its sheath, he couldn't. Youko, on the other hand, has no such problem.
• The round stone hanging on Suiguutou's tassel: Holding it will generate warmth and lend some strength to the holder.
• Youko was uninjured after her fall: attributed to the round stone again.
• Youko's change in appearance.
• Youko could understand the villagers' language while Sugimoto could not.
• Everything to do with the youma: their ability to fly, to communicate in language, their ability to teleport in when summoned, and so forth.
• Keiki: his reaction to blood and his transformation; and whatever was done to his kirin from.
• The shoku: the passage through it and the subsequent storm.

Characterization
While this was largely an exposition episode, there is a fair bit of information revealed about the protagonist Youko. Her weaknesses are carried over from the previous episode - primarily she just wants to go back to the comfort of her home in Japan. It's an easy to understand sentiment as it can't exactly be fun to be trapped in an unknown medieval society where the inhabitants seem to hate you and you keep on getting attacked. Still, there were more constructive ways to channel that isolation, and Youko didn't go much beyond the initial self-pity.

While it might seem as if she improved a bit in promising that she would get Sugimoto back home, it was an empty promise that didn't take into account their situation or the limitations of what they could actually accomplish. It was just a bunch of perfunctory words that signified nothing - and Sugimoto recognized that. Really, all Youko had going was the hope that Keiki would pull them out of their mess, but that was obviously not going to happen.

There are positives to draw from Youko's character though - she showed a hint of strength when she got attacked by the village with the hoe. Instead of pressing her advantage, she decided to make Jyouyuu stand down. While Youko didn't really think things through, it was obviously the right decision since she literally knew nothing about the land she was in, and even if she got away without harming anyone, her chances of survival would have been low (no food, no shelter, and no help).

One other tidbit of interest is that whe Asano rejoined Youko and Sugimoto; he greeted Sugimoto first - indicating where his primary concern lay.


Discoveries and Implications
The first, and most obvious discovery is that the characters are in a world that looks like our own in some ways, but that is different in a great many other ways. Youko is temporarily confused into thinking that it's Japan because of a similarity in architecture and because she understood the villagers, but she's quickly disabused of that notion. Instead, they are in a country called "Kou" and that the inhabitants know of the place that kaikyaku are supposed to come from. And indeed, they know enough to be aware of the difference in languages. Since Kou has village, prefecture, and presumably province levels of government, it's quite obvious that it's at least a decent sized kingdom.

To build on the above, Sugimoto and Youko find out that the only way from Japan to Kou is through a shoku (which incidentally kills most of those kaikyaku), and that this is apparently a one-way trip. Moreover, they learn that kaikyaku are blamed for causing both the shoku and the ensuing storms, and so they will be persecuted for doing this. In this case, the village elder was sort of correct in accusing them as Keiki was the one who created the shoku. Technically, he's not really a kaikyaku, but he was definitely a traveling companion, and his purpose was to bring Youko to this land.

An obvious implication of this is that, since Keiki can create shokus, it should be possible for him to create one to take them all back to Japan - after all, he must have made that journey to meet Youko in the first place. This would also mean that the village elder doesn't have all the facts (there's no reason for her to lie in this instance).

Another big discovery is that Keiki doesn't appear to be quite human. He obviously had supernatural powers in commanding youma and in creating the shoku, but now he has an alternate (and perhaps native) form which doesn't look at all human. His weakness to blood is now better defined - he said that he dislike blood in the first episode, but now it's shown that it can render him helpless. Moreover, it's also apparent that there's another creature like him, and since Keiki has a human form, this other creature may have one as well.

The last items of note are all the weird things that happen to Youko. Being constantly attacked by youma is one thing, but there are other bits like her being able to understand an alien language, the way her features changed, her ability to draw her sword and the way she managed to survive a fall of several hundred meters. These will all be discussed by the show later, but I'll just throw that out there for now.


Observations
Overall, I'd say that episode 2 of Twelve Kingdoms isn't all that great for first-time viewers. Most of the content is expository in nature, and the viewer is bombarded by an immense amount of new terms and background detail. It's not too surprising that the show itself is largely regarded as starting very slowly. On rewatching it though, the sheer amount of detail and density of information in the episode is rather amazing (as the length of this post suggests ).

Mostly, the individual scenes aren't all that important. Instead, it's the overall fabric of information that they weave that is. Moreover, the setting itself is quickly becoming the most important element of the show, and that makes for some interesting challenges and simultaneously offers a great deal of storytelling opportunity. The chief among the latter is in delving into the sociological implications of what effect the actions of individuals and organizations can impart, and other weighty matters. There will be a lot more on this in the coming episodes.


Language note: this is one of the few anime out there where the specialized terminology is based on the Chinese definitions of terms rather than the Japanese one. One of the places where this comes into play is in the very name name of the show: Twelve Kingdoms is derived from the Japanese "Juuni Kokuki"; which means "Story of (the) Twelve Kingdoms". The "koku" part in Japanese means either "country" or kingdom", with empire usually written as "daikoku". However, this distinction doesn't really exist in Chinese, and the same word, "guo", can mean country, kingdom, or empire - with the difference in the latter two mainly coming down to a matter of size.

The same can be said of the queen/king/emperor/empress word choice. Aesthetically, I'd prefer the emperor/empress and empire format, but that'd make the title "Twelve Empires", and it's not the format used on either the English DVDs or novels. For the sake of less confusion, I'll stick to the king/queen and kingdom format. If anyone more familiar with etymology than I am has anything to add (or to argue against); I'd be happy to discuss them.

[Mgz]

I know about this anime for probably as long as I am here(seen in countless people suggestion lists/top 10 lists) but finally this week I have the chance to marathon it.

from the title I thought it is just a more chaotic version of RoT 3 kingdoms , 1st episode is a mix of fushigi yuugi/inuyasha but the story quickly took off and I am hooked/glued in front of the computer for hours lol, always waiting & anticipating what is gonna happen next.

google/wikipedia were very helpful in watching this movie lol, so many Kanji terms, I usually have 3 wiki tabs up and 1 google one

at eps 2x or so I hate Shoukei and Suzu with passion lol, spoiled brats and vengeful b-_- , but I am glad they were given enough characters development and become likable characters

I am kinda sad that Asano peace out tho, he deserved to be lucky as Yuka :'( . And Youko at least should return to the present world houkai and informed his parents or something

[Intranetusa]

On episode 44 (second to last episode) I'm disappointed how that Kouya kid gets a slap on the wrist after committing all those atrocities.

Spoiler for Slap on the wrist:

He fed innocent people to his giant bird, ordered his bird to eat that defenseless girl and her friend, threatened to let the bird eat a baby, and generally seemed way more malicious than that Aka-dude.

I wished he would've resisted so the emperor of En would've chopped his bird's head off and imprisoned him...

[Shinkun]

Ahh, JK brings back memories, some fond and some not so much (translating this series was a real pain the a$$!) LOL. This was definately one of my favorite series. I can't believe it's been 7-8 years!

Does anyone know where I can get the 12ktp version of the CD Drama "Chi ni Kemono"? I lost my copy in the sands of time.

[Thess]

Originally Posted by Intranetusa

On episode 44 (second to last episode) I'm disappointed how that Kouya kid gets a slap on the wrist after committing all those atrocities.

Spoiler for Slap on the wrist:

He fed innocent people to his giant bird, ordered his bird to eat that defenseless girl and her friend, threatened to let the bird eat a baby, and generally seemed way more malicious than that Aka-dude.

I wished he would've resisted so the emperor of En would've chopped his bird's head off and imprisoned him...

They glossed over that arc same as Taiki's to cram it in a few episodes. It's a whole novel with three POVs (Enki's, Kouya's and Shouryu's).

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Intranetusa

On episode 44 (second to last episode) I'm disappointed how that Kouya kid gets a slap on the wrist after committing all those atrocities.

Spoiler for Slap on the wrist:

He fed innocent people to his giant bird, ordered his bird to eat that defenseless girl and her friend, threatened to let the bird eat a baby, and generally seemed way more malicious than that Aka-dude.

I wished he would've resisted so the emperor of En would've chopped his bird's head off and imprisoned him...

1. the novel for this part was a lot longer then 5eps

2. to a Emperor treason is a bigger crime then murder. Even to someone like the King of En, Kouya's crimes are small potato.

3. Kouya has a very large part in the novels. Much bigger then it was shown in anime. He also appear during the Taiki arc in the anime and in Kyou Empress Arc in the novel.

[Intranetusa]

^ What happens to him/with him in the novels?

[Joojoobees]

Originally Posted by Mgz

at eps 2x or so I hate Shoukei and Suzu with passion lol, spoiled brats and vengeful b-_-

At the end of episode 1, I hated EVERYBODY. At first I thought I wouldn't like the series. Then it occurred to me that there was a reason -- that I was being made to hate them. As soon as that thought occurred I was hooked. I thought, "usually they would go to lengths to make me sympathize with the characters, but I actually hate them." The one I could most empathize with was Yuka Sugimoto, who was vocal about her irritation with Youko for not taking action. But when Sugimoto said she didn't care if she was possessed by a spirit, as long as she could go with them, I knew she had crossed the line, and actually shouted, "What? That's idiotic!" at the screen.

As I said, I reflected upon what I had seen (over the course of about a day -- I just couldn't stop thinking about it), and came to the conclusion that the author had to be very brave to pull a stunt like that, as she risked alienating her audience.

In the end 12 Kingdoms is my favorite anime.

[Jiji]

Originally Posted by Joojoobees

At the end of episode 1, I hated EVERYBODY. At first I thought I wouldn't like the series. Then it occurred to me that there was a reason -- that I was being made to hate them. As soon as that thought occurred I was hooked. I thought, "usually they would go to lengths to make me sympathize with the characters, but I actually hate them." The one I could most empathize with was Yuka Sugimoto, who was vocal about her irritation with Youko for not taking action. But when Sugimoto said she didn't care if she was possessed by a spirit, as long as she could go with them, I knew she had crossed the line, and actually shouted, "What? That's idiotic!" at the screen.

As I said, I reflected upon what I had seen (over the course of about a day -- I just couldn't stop thinking about it), and came to the conclusion that the author had to be very brave to pull a stunt like that, as she risked alienating her audience

This is something that I've been saying for a long time and mostly, people have shouted me down and not listened. Youko in the anime might be a bit ambiguous, but in the novel there's no question that she's not a sympathetic character at first.

Look at the capsule descriptions of her:

Originally Posted by From School Library Journal

Yoko is an ordinary high school girl with nightmares...

For high-schooler Yoko Nakajima, life has been fairly ordinary...

or better yet, this "featured reviewer" from amazon:

At the beginning the main character, Yoko Nakajima, is the person everyone imagines when they hear the phrase "good girl". She is polite, well mannered, obedient to her parents, has a lot of friends, does well in school and is even the class president. Everything that one could ask for in a high school teenager's life, right?

To which I say, WTF? Here's my review from mangajouhou:

Yoko is a high school girl with flaming red hair, going through life trying to please everyone, but inevitably failing. She is timid, deceitful, even cruel sometimes and she just wants to be liked and stay out of the spotlight. Unfortunately, living this way has the effect that she makes no real friends, and her red hair makes her teachers think she is a party girl who goes out at night.

This is probably due to a cultural difference between the West and Japan. In the West, pathetic characters are supposed to be pitied or sympathized with, usually with the fate of someone taking them "under their wing" at some point. Over the years with Japanese manga and anime, I've noticed that pathetic characters are to be treated with disdain or disgust -- pitied in the negative sense of the word.

So, yes. Bravo and thank you for saying it. Ono-sensei is taking risks with this story, and the anime makers picked up on it somewhat. I don't want to spoil, but I'll just say that IF Youko changes throughout the story, then it will make her "character arc" that much larger and more fun.

[DarkLordOfkichiku]

Thinking about the twelve kingdoms, I today came to wonder one thing: Is any kind of currency ever mentioned in the anime or the novels? I do remember that we see some coins and the like in the anime, but I dunno if it'd actually mentioned or gone very much in-depth into...?

[Jiji]

None is mentioned so far in the novels and I don't recall it in the anime at all, but it's a safe bet that it resembles Confucian Chinese (Xin dynasty, maybe?) money systems. The scheme for giving every citizen a plot of land recalls something I read about an ancient Chinese system of some sort.

[DarkLordOfkichiku]

Originally Posted by Jiji

None is mentioned so far in the novels and I don't recall it in the anime at all, but it's a safe bet that it resembles Confucian Chinese (Xin dynasty, maybe?) money systems. The scheme for giving every citizen a plot of land recalls something I read about an ancient Chinese system of some sort.

Well, a lot of things from chinese culture in fiction like this - like the belief in the Mandate of Heaven and so forth seems to go quite some way back . As I'm no expert though, hard to say when though.

Anyway, thanks anyway . I found this though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFbE5Wt0mFc

At 0:39-0:44, you can see the character "銭" - Zen being displayed, but since it can simply be translated as coins or money, it doesn't actually name a currency...

[m1thril]

i don't think this has been answered and for some reason it's been bothering me...but what happened to hou's kirin (ie is the new one currently being raised)? can someone who has read the novels shed some light for me?

[Jiji]

In the prologue to what Tokyopop has put out as book four, Skies of Dawn, (but was book five in Japan, Kaze no Banri, Reimei no Sora,)

Spoiler for Hourin's fate:

Gekkei, the Minister of Kei province in Hou slew the kirin for "choosing a king poorly, twice, and your people have suffered greatly for it." Now, this usually means a new ranka should quickly be growing on Houzan, however in one case no ranka for a kirin has yet grown for the kingdom of Tai! Hopefully this won't be the case for Hou.

All we know by the end of Skies of Dawn is that Shoukei (the ex-princess) worries about her former kingdom and hopes it gains a good kirin and king soon.

If anyone knows more from reading more than Tokyopop has so far let us, please correct me.

[Flower]

Okay ... finally began watching this series, and am on ep 14, which is a re-cap episode.

And I must admit that I am very grateful for it. There are so many new names and terms and characters and countries that I frankly lost track of much of it.

Anyhoo - thus far I am enjoying it.

[Jujubee]

So I started watching this anime recently and I'm on Episode 15 so far. I really love it. Some of the music sounded familiar but one song really hit home and I know it was more than just a similarity. In Episode 15 they play the song "Floating Across Water" which is from a video game unrelated to Twelve Kingdoms and it was done by a different composer. Does anybody know the history behind this?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Jujubee

So I started watching this anime recently and I'm on Episode 15 so far. I really love it. Some of the music sounded familiar but one song really hit home and I know it was more than just a similarity. In Episode 15 they play the song "Floating Across Water" which is from a video game unrelated to Twelve Kingdoms and it was done by a different composer. Does anybody know the history behind this?

Your guess is as good as mine. I would say that one of the comments in the YouTube video you've linked provided the best possible explanation: "Twelve Kingdoms was published on television on April 9, while Heroes of Might and Magic IV was first released in the USA on the 28th March of the same year (2002)."

Meaning to say, it's very hard to say with any certainty who copied who, since both tracks appeared at effectively the same time. Incredible though it may seem, it appears that both composers came up with a similar melody through independent means.

The other interesting trivia I just discovered is that composer Kunihiko Ryo is actually an ethnic Korean born in Tokyo.

[Zarifus]

According to wikipedia it seems a new book was released in July . While its likely too early to be hoping for a continuation of the anime, does anyone know anything of the status of the series? Will additional books be released on a more regular schedule? I did a bit of searching around but most mentions of the new book are at least a couple months old...

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Zarifus

According to wikipedia it seems a new book was released in July . While its likely too early to be hoping for a continuation of the anime, does anyone know anything of the status of the series? Will additional books be released on a more regular schedule? I did a bit of searching around but most mentions of the new book are at least a couple months old...

I saw that volume at my local Kinokuniya bookstore. It's in Japanese, though. An English version is not yet available.

News of the short story Hisho no Tori (Hisho's Bird) was first mentioned in this thread in June 2009.

Originally Posted by carmolita

If anyone is interested the story she wrote for 12k Last year was Published in The Japanese fiction magazine (Shinchosha's) Yom yom, set in the kingdom of Kei, titled Hisho no Tori (Hisho's bird), it's 90 pages long.

It's about:
its about one of the court wizards set around yoko coronation as Queen
The wizard remembers the past 3 female rulers before yoko it gives more history of what the kingdom was like when Yo-oh was Queen and the disappointments the 3 female rulers have been

another info summary:
The story of an immortal artisan of archery targets in the kingdom of Kei, who is attempting to overcome his distrust of the new Empress (Youko) and his crippling artist's block to come up with a masterpiece for the upcoming coronation ceremony.

Carmolita was referring to the short story Hisho no Tori, which was published in September 2009. The new volume published in July this year is a compilation of stories, including the titular short story.

[Archaeon]

Any news on second season?