RAI-COMMENDATION: JUUNI TAISEN

Juuni Taisen: Zodiac War, or Wars of the Twelve, is an action filled anime. Its first season has 12 episodes, with each episode highlighting a specific warrior; their goals, skills, and background.

The Juuni Taisen is a battle held every 12 years by the Juuni Taisen organization, bringing together the world’s finest 12 warriors, each representing one of the 12 beasts of the Chinese Zodiac, in a battle to the death. Of course, a battle with some rules and limitations, but still no end until at least 11 bodies drop. Yes. All the contestants could die, and the organizers would just say, “they were too weak.”

This year’s battle takes place in a city that has been evacuated for the specific purpose of letting the warriors fight with no constraints or worries. They are all invited to gather in this city for information on how the battle will be conducted and what the rules are.

First each warrior is given an obsidian-coloured crystal and instructed to ingest it before everything begins. Once they have all consumed their crystals, Duodecuple (the referee), reveals that the crystals are poison, and the war is a game of fetch. In order to win, you must secure the most crystals from your opponents, and the committee doesn’t place any restrictions on how you do so. Just keep in mind that the poison kills an average human within 24hrs so you might want to start collecting crystals quickly.

However, like the humane organizers they are, they have developed a cure to this poison and it will go to the last one standing as a bonus prize. Now let’s meet our warriors.

If you don’t want spoilers, then take my advice, and leave now, because I will spare no detail.

Let’s start with The Boar – Inonoshishi. Sis had me in the beginning. Being introduced as the daughter of the winner of the previous Taizen, and a master killer, I had such hope for her and really expected more. They even gave us a backstory of driving her own sister crazy to ensure her place as the Inonoshishi successor, only for her to be one of the first to fall. More exploration into her character would have been interesting to have.

We can grasp from her backstory that she was skilled in hand-to-hand combat. From the snippets of her on missions, to seeing her train her young sister, she displayed expert proficiency. We are also shown that she was on the soft side when her missions began. It was her father who taught her how to kill without hesitation if she valued her life because mercy is pointless.

Though her technique, Non-reload, would be so OP (Overpowered) on a battlefield, it really didn’t help her out in this war. The fact that the other warriors already had so much information on her due to how famous she was may have not helped her much even if she survived looking at the power levels of some of the other contestants.

The Dog – Dotsuku. For all his talk he was easy to trick and fell so easily for Niwatori’s sweet girl act. In a gathering of warriors do you really think she would have been able to enter this battle after a sheltered upbringing? He underestimated an opponent and paid the price. It’s as simple as that. Not to mention how he gave up so much information for free! Like… really? It was a smart idea to exchange knowledge, but he should have at least found out who she had knowledge on before giving away his own.

Then we add on the fact that he just kept talking and talking even when she tried to interject on some points. Dotsuku was overconfident without knowing the full scope of Niwatori’s powers. The way she kept asking questions and exposed one of her abilities so freely should’ve been the first red flag.

The Chicken – Niwatori. RED FLAG. DO NOT BELIVE THE SWEET GIRL ACT!!!!!!!! Niwa (I got tired of typing Niwatori so this is her nickname now) was so smart in how she played her cards against Dotsuku.

I admire her strategy and good use of her talents. She knew the other warriors would underestimate her because of her slender body and incompetency act, and she used that to her advantage quite well. Hiding her ability to fully control avian species while only revealing that she can see through their eyes was a great tactic that helped her get Dotsuku to give her his drug. He knew nothing about her and was oblivious to her truly violent plan.

We’re told from the beginning that she had a wild upbringing; She was abused so badly that her mind blocked out the trauma, leaving no memories of her early life. It is a sad story of how she came to be the way she is, but it’s also something that gives her character strength. Her blank slate allowed her to become the cold-hearted, cunning killer we see in her flashbacks, as well as her disposal of Inonoshishi with her death by pecking style.

However, we are also shown that she has a heart, and can be swayed by the emotions of others such as her encounter with Sharyuu. Her mind knows to go for the kill, but her body fails. Then Sharyuu’s trusting aura gets her to freely give away information of what’s happening above ground. Of course, we’re able to deduce later in her encounter with Ox that this kindness was likely caused by Sharyuu’s ability, but her ending makes me think otherwise. How she uses her final breath to give the birds permission to eat her corpse makes me think she cared about them to a certain extent.

Maybe I’m wrong and she just wanted to keep her corpse away from Usagi. We may never know.

The Sheep – Gramps was quite smart and calculating. I like how tactical he tried to be with the game. We get to see from his back story that he is an arms dealer & weapons expert (specifically bombs), but we do get to see him use a rifle too. Not to mention how he won the Taisen he participated in by blowing up the other contestants.

He had gratitude for the Tsujiie family for adopting him, which is honorable. One thing that is really brought out about him is that he really cares about his family, and the only reason he’s here in the first place is to protect his grandkid.

However, this view of weakness he has towards some of the other warriors, thanks to how fragile and precious he perceives his grandkid, ends up being his demise. He walked into this battle with little knowledge on the other warriors except for Ox, Monkey, Boar, Dragon, and Snake. And even then, he seemed to have little knowledge on their abilities besides the fact that Ox would kill him on sight.

When he encounters Tora he lowers his defenses, with no knowledge of what she can do. But because she’s a small woman in a skimpy outfit he believes she’s weak, and that was a poor choice on his end because he got what he was asking for. He gets brownie points for not eating the crystal though.

The Monkey – I don’t like Sharyuu. Maybe it’s the “ultra-strong character chooses not to use their power” motif, or the “joins a war but is a pacifist” trope. There’s something about her character that just irritates me.

All the other warriors consider her to be the second strongest in raw combat – right behind Ox who from what we saw floored half of them. From what we saw in her backstory and fight against the rabbit, she is more than capable of holding her own in one-on-one combat, as well as being able to anticipate her opponents’ moves well. This shows she may still have some live combat experience after her monkey training.

When it comes to her powers, they are never fully explained. All we know is that it has something to do with getting people to open us to her as well as trust her – what happened with Niwatori. This ability helps with her diplomatic work as well and explains why she had so many successful negotiations. It wasn’t of match help against Rabbit & Snake though, mainly because Rabbit’s only concern was to win and “make friends”. Talk-no-Jutsu doesn’t work on such foes.

One thing I did like about Sharyuu is that she is human. We see her mourn failed talks, worry about failing to save enough people, and even get a glimpse of her home life with her partner. It adds a layer of sadness to her end when you think of how he was waiting for her at home.

All this showed how they developed and learned about sustainable farming practices like crop rotation, environment-friendly methods of farming that reduce pollution and increase soil fertility, and energy conservation, through eco-friendly habits. There were so many more farming practices that they learned, that I can mention just through the video game.

One of the most annoying things, I experienced whilst playing the game was when pests and butterflies would show up. You had to eradicate them by spending money you had made from your previous harvest to buy pesticides, and yes, there’s a limit to how much pesticide you can put that wouldn’t damage your crops.

The Horse – Uuma. For a former fighter who went through such gruesome training to get his body in peak fighting and defense capabilities, he’s surprisingly timid. Is timid the right term? Maybe we should call him too scared. Did he really approach this battle with the intention of forming a team? He seems to already have information on Ox & Monkey, so if he was so sure of how weak he is against them, what plan did he enter this battle with? Maybe he was just free-balling and bet it all on his physique to win.

There isn’t much to say about his abilities in this game.

The Dragon – Nagayuki Tsumita, Elder Tatsumi brother. Heaven’s Holding. The man who flew up and did nothing. We get from his back story that he is calculated, and is the brains of the Tatsumi operation. The kind of guy who plans everything out and only moves when he’s sure of his chance of success. He keeps his young brother focused on the mission at hand, as well as bailing him out when needed. The ploy of each working with rival bosses and then turning on then in battle to take the loot for themselves was excellent.

We are mainly shown a side of the brothers that is driven by money and only cares about profit. However, it is revealed in the Nezumi episode when speaking to them separately that he doesn’t really believe in the value of money or care about it. He only believes in himself. While his younger brother just sees money as a thing to be stolen; like a game.

When it comes to combat, we can estimate his skills to be decent by the fact that he is a warrior. We don’t get to see him fight while he is alive so it’s difficult to make a good judgement of his skill. It is notable though, that he has the ability of flight, and fights using an ice-thrower powered by liquid nitrogen. This allows him to have a dragon’s eye view of the battle, and rain cold fire on his foes from a safe distance.

His abilities made him a promising candidate to win, and I would have liked to see more of him in battle

The Snake – Takeyasu Tsumita, Younger Tatsumi brother. Earth’s Guidance. His ability was interesting. His Geomancy in being able to locate movements through sound vibrations accompanied by his flamethrower, would’ve been a killer combo with his brother’s power of flight, if he had lived long enough.

From their backstory we saw that snake was a hot-head, which led to his death, but there isn’t too much I can say about him with how little we know.

The Tiger – Tora is a decently complex character. She is improperly introduced as a skimpy drunk in her encounter with Sheep, but as the battle plays out, we get to learn more about her; how she grew up strong and dignified until the horrors of battle tainted her, to her breaking point. It reminds me of what the Boar put her young sister through. Both went crazy and blood became a drug to them in different ways.

Tora is a skilled martial artist, and is also capable of fighting with weapons such as guns and knives. However, she also has her self-taught Drunken Fist that she is shown to rely on against Sheep, Ox, Snake, and Dragon.

When faced with so many horrors and seeing so many lives lost on all sides, she gives up her mind to alcohol. It becomes normal to silence her mind and fight. She drinks until the only thing on her mind is blood and going hunting. Tora’s once refined and precise fighting style becomes sullied, and she takes a more animalistic stance in battle. Moving on all fours, discarding her gun for her claws and teeth; she turns into a true tiger on the battlefield to bathe in the blood of her foes.

Underneath it all, she is a hurt and conflicted lady. She continues to fight and kill, as is her duty as a warrior. But it pains her to the point where she almost loses her own mind. Her encounter with Ox really gives a lot of insight into her character and how she longs for peace and acceptance.

The Ox – Ushii. The systematic killer and most feared warrior. We honestly don’t get a backstory on him; what drives him, how he became a warrior, why he is a warrior. We know very little. What we do see is tidbits from Tora and Nezumi’s stories.

We are shown from the very beginning that Ox is a levelheaded killing machine. He decides what he wants to do and does it. His philosophy is simple in words but hard in practice, yet he makes it seem easy. His weapon of choice is a sword which can be countered by larger weapons & ranged weapons; but his speed, agility and raw power make him a formidable foe. We get a sample of his strength when he cuts through a concreate floor while hunting down Sheep. His speed is shown when he executes Niwatori in the blink of an eye, as well as against Tora, Usagi, Snake & Dragon.

Hailed as a genius of slaughter it is a surprise that his methods aren’t gruesome but refined. Ox focuses on the fact that this is his duty and does it with honor. He doesn’t kill for fun or enjoyment as Usagi and Boar do, but also isn’t against violence like monkey. He is even shown to uphold the rules of war and protect civilians. Such as his first encounter with Tora, when he mistakes her for a civilian and escorts her to the safe zone.

He is very smart and plans his battles well to ensure his victory. Had Usagi been a second too late in activating his powers, Ox would have won.

The Rabbit – Usagi was a true psychopath who enjoyed his kills and had a wild fighting style. However, I would also like to highlight how smart and calculated he was. His strategy to split his forces so they could divide and conquer their foes, the decision he made with having the snake’s head in a tree for extra vision, and the way he perfectly timed his ability so he would kill himself but allow his corpse to continue fighting!! Never have I ever thought it would be cool to be a necromancer until I saw this.

Usagi was an interesting character, and it truly is a shame that we didn’t get to have his backstory told in the anime. What was his upbringing? What was his family like? What’s the story behind his want for friends? There are so many things I would like to know that go unanswered.

In what we see of him in the main story as well as the Nezumi episode revelations, he seems to be quite simple-minded. He just wants friends but for some twisted reason he considers a friend someone under his control. His drive from Episode 1 to Episode 11 is simply to kill everyone and make them his friends. I really wonder what his wish would’ve done to the world.

The Rat – Nezumi won on brains alone. His power, 100 paths of Nezumi, is the most overpowered ability in the show as it stands; granting him the ability to return to a “save point” in reality as though life were a game. This allows him to make a choice, play it out and if it doesn’t end well return to his save point. There is only so much he can do about avoiding certain situations, since he is limited to 100 paths or 100 possible scenarios. The downside of his power is that it does have a physical cost leaving him constantly tired and taking the mental toll of remembering all paths.

Nezumi may be the youngest participant, with him being shown to still be in school while the others are already of adult status. Considering his status as a warrior, we can expect him to be above par in physical combat, although we don’t get to see him fight for long. He is also shown to carry a sword strapped to his lower back and can use it proficiently when needed.

However, he is more the type to sit on the sideline and observe a battle, which is what he does for a large portion of the show. His priority isn’t fame or glory or righteousness; he simply does his duty as a warrior and aims to survive. He couldn’t care less about humanity and is shown to have conflicting feelings about his role in protecting people when he would rather see his entire class dead if they weren’t a waste of a wish.

He is smart and cynical, but not too cunning. He doesn’t approach the other warriors with malice, but with the intention to side with whoever grants him the best chances of survival. He reveals in the finale that on one of his paths, he and Usagi even hit it off and worked together well.

With his ability and smarts, I think it makes sense why he won, and I can’t dispute it too much, though I do not like his wish; when he wins, he goes through every possible path on what to wish for and can’t make a choice. While I do think money would be a waste, and he as a character is not ambitious enough to wish for power, the wish to forget just comes off as such a waste. I understand that he got tired of overthinking all the possibilities and whether his wish would be a waste, but the wish to forget everything that transpired? Really?

The Referee, Duodecuple. Creepy, very creepy. What more can I say about the host of a slaughter fest? All we can do is speculate on who his benefactors are, if not the world’s most powerful. He doesn’t really do much aside from introducing the rules of the war and haunting Nezumi’s nightmares.

The only issue I had with this ending was that at no point did we get the Rabbit’s story. He just dies leaving the image of him as a violent psychopath. No explanation or background into his decisions like they did for the other characters. All we know is that he was a bloodthirsty necromancer who wanted friends. The same goes for the Ox, specifically his backstory.

Maybe the manga goes into more detail about all characters, but that’s an endeavor for future me if she can find it.

Now time for a couple of questions

My final view of the show is that I found it entertaining. It was worth the watch, and I recommend it highly to anime watchers. The characters are well-written, the plot unfolds at an accelerated pace that keeps up with the life-and-death battle they are holding. I like that aspect of the story, and it really drew me to wanting to see the next episode. So, if you are interested in some morally grey warfare, and light violence then please check it out.

Juuni Taisen: Zodiac War Trailer: https://youtu.be/aAcsOkUnOAk?si=p3LxE5J-1PqFD_ns

Watch on Crunchyroll: https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/G6K51X9GY/juni-taisenzodiac-war?srsltid=AfmBOopbXNHA-ptoVfW0WBkx2dps0GsKBNqUBRVZROboW9BIDloQSsF9