This is one of my most favorite series ever.
I haven’t felt this pumped about an anime for a while. The last time I’ve developed such an obsession for an non-BL show was Rose of Versailles. Mind you, Twelve Kingdom is totally different from anything I’ve ever seen before.
There story is basically a combination of Chinese ideologies (Mandate of Heaven, Confucianism, etc..) and Chinese mythology adapted into a narrative by a Japanese person and then animated by a Japanese studio with some changes. It’s very well structured. There are laws that everything follows and when things go wrong, there is chaos.
Throughout most of the main characters, you have a theme of a development from a weak person to a stronger person. But no one is perfect and the story writers never forget to remind you that they are human.
Every character is extremely well developed.Yoko in particular has my favorite developement because her reasoning and how she got out of her little “slump” are logical. I like how she decided to rule not because her life depended on it, but because she wanted to.
My favorite character however is Taiki because he’s so damn cute. It made me really angry that they didn’t finish his story arc in the anime. From what I could find out from google and livejournal it seems that what happened to to him was that the emperor that he picked was corrupt and Taiki’s horn was somehow chopped off. Because of that, he lost a lot of his power and somehow went back to Japan. Other Kirins later helped him get back. But what happened to the Emperor of Tai? I thought the Emperor of Tai whom Taiki picked had potential to be a good or bad king because he wasn’t straight out bad or good. If the Emperor dies, then that bird would have sounded but it didn’t. It would make sense that the emperor would go into hiding but what happened? Why? I NEED MORE OF THIS STORYY!! (my sis whom watched this with me disliked Yoko but thought Taiki’s arc was very interesting. Taiki’s arc is also my personal favorite)
I though Asano was interesting too because he was such an ironic figure. He’s doesn’t really have a purpose other than being a conversation partner with Yoko in the beginning then was forgotten later on. After his death, I came to the conclusion that he was a symbolic figure of someone who can’t find their own role in life other than the one that fate decided for them but this felt meaningful because there are people in real life that are never able to find their purpose for whatever reasons.
Yuka could have been the downfall of the series. She seemed like the typical antagonist who was all bad and bitchy at first. I personally dislike it when writers make the antagonist female the worst ever just to make the heroine look better. It’s so typical shoujo and it’s one of the things that turned me off from Fushigi Yuugi and many other of Yuu Watase’s works. However, 12 kingdoms did not fell into that trap and instead, she received outstanding characterization.
TD; DR?
In short, this was a extremely well written series. There’s no moe, no BL undertones, no unnecessary fanservice. There’s only a great plot and extradorinary characters.
Things people might not like about this series is that there is no romance. (But personally, i like it)
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