Juni Taisen: Zodiac War

dadnaya★ 4

[Spoiler Warning] Do you know what Juuni Taisen lacked? The music in comedy anime where someone does something stupid. Everything was so stupid here that it might've been better to just make it a comedy anime. And even with that my score would've been maybe 5 instead of 4 After watching all of the show, I want to say that this anime... Had potential. And a lot of it. But it went downhill really fast. I'm going to talk about the pattern of the anime, which makes almost every episode the same, the poor "border story" and why the anime which is tagged only as "Action"- doesn't doanything interesting with action. Minor spoilers but I do not specify names. So, when I first saw Juuni Taisen, I got hyped "Another Fate? Sounds cool!" and the story is pretty simple. 12 fighters, 1 wish, fight to death, last one standing (probably). Where did it fall off? Basically at the end of the first episode, but you only realize it later. Juuni Taisen repeats a pretty bad pattern for almost every episode. Show flashbacks of character->Show character's amazing plan how to win->Character dies a random, quick death. (You sit there afterwards and ask yourself what the hell has happend)->Show next episode's title which contains an animal and spoils the next death in the next episode. I have been watching it and hoping- Will the pattern break? And also, we are spoiled the order of the deaths, I do not want to spoil where, but once you see it and realize and doesn't break pattern and unlikely to.... You lose 80% of the enjoyment. The border story? None. They fight for a wish, that's it. Oh and there's some guy who started all this and introduces them in the first episode to that Juuni Taisen, we don't know who that guy is (....yet?). I wanna give props to the music (kinda), the OP and ED were top notch. The soundtrack.. Mostly forgettable. But the art on the other hand... Went downhill real fast. In conclusion, my score is 4/10. And if you're looking for a Fate alternative, you better watch Kiss X Sis because at least it's better than Juuni Taisen.

LaLeLuLiLo★ 3

Before the start of the fall anime season, Junni Taisen was one of the animes that caught my eye. The reason why is because it had the term Novel on what material it was adapted from. As in it wasn’t a light novel series or a regular novel series, but rather it was one single novel. As in all it needed to do has been done, and all that’s left is to adapt it to animation that has an ending in sight that will leave little to no loose ends. What started as mild intrigue was quickly overtaken with dissatisfaction as the first two episodesrolled around. Juuni taisen starts out in terms of its premise, as a very simple battle tournament between some of the best “warriors” in the world. The gimmick in this story is that each the the contenders is representative of each of the chinese zodiac. Add on top of that a desolate city where the contenders can do whatever they want, and you have a formula for some fun. It may not be the most smartest of stories, but it has the ability to bring many great fighting scenes which sadly never becomes the case. Backstories and their utilization One of the most noticeable aspects of this show, mostly because of how much time it takes from the show, is that it has a lot of backstories. Almost every episode has a backstory for one of the characters which is fine, I mean there are 12 characters and only 12 episodes worth of screen time for them. The problem is that each backstory is too long, and even worse is that it's the only shreds of characterization that we have for almost all the characters. I mean i’m fine with backstories as a way to develop a character and give them more depth, but it should be used as the base not the entirety of the character. It’s because of this that all the characters feel shallow, and it’s difficult to get engaged with them which in turn removes a lot of tension that could have been given to the anime. It’s also because of the overuse of backstory that during my time watching I began to wonder, how are backstories are used in a story? One of the answers i came to is the one i used a paragraph above, as a way to develop a character and give them some depth while serving as a base and point of reference for how far they have or haven’t changed through the course of the story. It could as be used as a way for characters to interact as a way to sympathize or persuade each other, as well as the characters and readers getting a chance to know the characters. Now how are they are inserted into the story? Well as stated above it could be through character interaction, but another way is through characters reminiscing over their past. A majority of Junni Taisen’s implementation of backstory is through reminiscing, which also becomes another of its faults. Reminiscing over your past is better used during the low points in the story when there is not much conflict and characters are allowed time to think about things without interruption. However since Junni taisen is mostly conflict it seems unreasonable for characters to think about their past, since they should be more busy thinking of strategy plans. It’s only used properly twice and that’s because it was before and after the battle royal, which is basically the low point, and it also does backstory via character interaction maybe once. All other backstories feel hamfisted into the story as a way to give the characters some form of depth. They should have also thrown in a record scratch and a freeze frame before delving into their backstories because at least that would give them some value even if comedic. Even worse is what comes after each backstories that turn the show into a bore which leads to. Character focus and the wheel of predictability Junni Taisen doesn’t really have a central that the story focuses on, but insteads puts focus on almost the entire cast, with each given an episode each. It did comes as quite the surprise during the first episode when only one character was given the most focus to, as well as a backstory, to the point that it was made to believe that they were the main character. Of course that thought was dashed away as they died in the very same episode. It was a nice subversion of expectations, but the problem is that it didn't go anywhere with this. It kept on doing the same thing over and over again with each character. If they are the main focus of the episode, and are given a backstory than they are likely to die soon. It may not be in the same episode, but they still die in a certain manner that holding back their death for an episode or 2 didn’t really matter. Another thing to add on top of that is the order that the characters die. All you need to do is look at the chinese zodiac wheel and after the death of the three contenders, it’s easy to see how the show is going to play out. It seems that the people of the show were aware of the predictability of the show, and made heavy hints on how it will play out via the ending title, and the name of each episode. Even so it really adds nothing to the show. The show tells you what it’s going to do and does it, and does nothing else. It’s fine but leaves nothing for the viewers imagination, and removes even more tension from the show. With a predictable story and shallow characters, it’s hard to see the point in the story as it drags on. the fuckery of the junni taisen world The world of juuni taisen doesn’t make any fuckin sense. At first there wasn’t much to the world other than a group of assassins wearing costumes corresponding to their zodiac animal meeting in the middle of a desolate city to duke it out in order to have their wishes granted by the host. Gimmicky and simple sure, but it allows for things to be straightforward and brush of things that are never explained such as, how are they able to fight in a city that seemed to be abandoned recently? Well if they are able to gather the best killers in the world than they must be stinkin rich which also could explain how they are able to grant a wish and have people evacuate the city, via money and power. However in the same first episode near the end magic is also introduced through the use of necromancy. So that leaves questions that weren’t questioned now difficult to explain because now the wish and the the abandoned city could have been explained with magic or money, but it seems the writers weren’t bothered now to actually explain it. So now you have a world where there is some sort of magic in the world and the contenders are able to use them, but it seems that one ability is restricted to one character each. It’s never explained why only one ability or how abilities such as theirs play in the world outside of people being assassins. It also leads to a power imbalance as it could be possible for one of the characters to have an op ability that can beat the rest of the contenders. I think the thing that bothered me more was the entire point of junni taisen was that it served as a proxy war so that unknown people can make bets to take counties, and the whole thing is just dumb. There’s been enough flashbacks from the series to show us that there is still war between nations and fighting over land outside the battle royal. Is there going to be a change of government are borders going to be redrawn especially for something that happens every 12 years. Even then it’s not like the citizens will be happy which can lead to civil unrest and rebellion. I was also going to go into the 12 families and the happenstance of the character aesthetics to their respective zodiac, but at this point it’s too much. Basically as more about the juuni taisen world is shown the more convoluted and contradictory it really is. It looks like a bunch of things slapped together with not much thought in the big picture. Production Value and other final thoughts The production value during the beginning was fine to say the least. I liked the character designs of the warriors mostly because of how gimmicky they are just so they can be identifiable to their zodiac. Although backstory boars combat outfit looked nice as it had a metal gear look to it. The animation was smooth although it had a rough looked to it which i personally liked even some of the cg animation was good. But that’s just the beginning as the quality in terms of both art and animation go down. Animation starts to look jagged and cg is used even though the characters are standing around which looks ridiculous. In terms of sound there’s nothing to harp about as most of it was forgettable. Characters sound like how they’re supposed to sound, and music play when it’s suppose to, but nothing truly stands out. Going into this show i was at least expecting some action shlock, but it seems that wasn't the case. There were interesting things in the show for sure such as the backstories which themselves could make interesting stories, but they are confined to this one. There was also some “witty” writing when it came to the characters and what they represent, but nothing mind blowing. This is a show that said it will do a thing, did it, and nothing more.