Twelve Kingdoms – 16/17/18 – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all to the halfway point of the next our of Twelve Kingdoms! This week sees the continuation of Taiki’s story along with both some interesting and not so interesting political plots. Without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, I want to talk a bit about my feelings on this arc as a whole. Because so far, it feels like a side story. Having it be told to us/Nakajima through another character, when it has all already happened, makes it feel very disconnected from current events. It makes you wonder: How is this relevant to Nakajima? How will this effect the current Kei storyline? It’s entirely possible that by the end it weaves back in masterfully, and I have not yet passed judgement one way or another. But a comment from last week by user PhilippeO doesn’t give me much hope for that. It sounds more like his arc never truly gets completed, which only goes further to making it feel like this isn’t particularly relevant. For now we will have to wait and see. I can only hope Twelve Kingdoms proves me wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, there was some very interesting stuff in these three episodes. For instance, I loved the work that was done on Keiki this week. Showing us more of his flaws, the man underneath this steely and emotionless mask. Twelve Kingdoms did a good job of showing the downsides to his brusque honesty, how perhaps he wasn’t as faultless with the Kei Queen as one might think. Seeing this happen again, but on a smaller scale, with Taiki and how he learned to be kinder, only to maybe rely on that a bit to much, did wonders for his character. If he can see this reflect in his future interactions with Nakajima and others then I think this part of the side story will be worth it. Even if we never actually get a conclusion to Taiki’s story.

Similarly, I enjoyed Taiki’s conflict when it came to choosing a Ruler. Episode 18 was the best of the 3 this week, though we will talk specific episodes later. I thought it was really interesting how Twelve Kingdoms introduced this formal process for how Rulers are chosen. How people try to curry favor with the Kirin, or attempt to threaten or scare him into choosing him, etc. Most of all though, I enjoyed this idea of a “bad” Kirin, or as bad as they can be. This idea of what happens if a Kirin doesn’t want to choose a ruler, or purposefully chooses a bad one. Is this possible? What happens to the Kingdom? What do the Gods do, if anything? It’s an aspect that I hope Twelve Kingdoms continues to explore if we are going to stick with this side-story arc.

As for the Ruler candidates themselves, I think it’s pretty obvious who the Ruler of Tai is going to be. Twelve Kingdoms did a good job not making it obvious, but the more Taiki reacted the clearer it was. Gyousou actually seems like a pretty cool character and unlike the rest of the Rulers we have seen. He looks to be much more militarily focused and well respected within Tai as well. Seeing him take down the bandits, hearing how he dueled Shoryu, the King of En, along with taming the large cat whose name I forget paints a rather appealing picture. In a word, Gyousou seems like an absolute chad, and I look forward seeing more of him. Taiki fearing Gyousou could also make for an interesting relationship, as all the other Kirin relationships have been based on something akin to love or respect until now.

That said, for every Gyousou there has to be an Asano, and in this case its the bandits. I am just… incredibly confused about the bandits, alright. How did they get in? The doors only open 4 times a year, so did they sneak in and wait since the last time? If so, how did nobody find them if this is supposed to be a secure place? How do bandits get here at all, isn’t Hou supposed to be some holy land? It just feels ridiculous with all that we know Twelve Kingdoms world. Add on top of that how apparently they still think they can force a Kirin to name them King, despite all the evidence we have seen to the contrary. Its not a big issue, but it definitely had me scratching my head as it happened on screen.

Finally we can get to the actual episodes, starting with episode 16. In all honesty, this one is actually pretty damn dull. Its all about Taiki getting used to and coming to grips with living in this new world. Culture clash, getting people to eat with him, his place as someone important, etc. The issue though is that we have already basically seen this with Nakajima through the entire first cour. And unlike Nakajima, Taiki isn’t expressive enough to carry that kind of story. He doesn’t have any sort of personal conflict, not until episodes 17 and 18 at least. The most interesting bit of the whole episode is when we meet Shinkun, the traveling God, and even that serves mostly as an info dump. There are small things about not liking his head touched, or being called a beast, but in general this episode was a miss.

Episode 17 on the other hand came back in a big way, as it worked Keiki into the story. I mentioned above how much this did for his character and I stand by that here. Keiki became a much more interesting character because of his interactions with Taiki. On top of all that, Twelve Kingdoms also teaches us about how Kirin tame Youma. Effectively staring them down in a contest of wills, rather than any serious magic. It was actually rather cute to see Taiki have better luck with actual animals, since he grew up in Japan, rather than Youma. What I am most curious of all about though has to be the blacked out countries on that magic map. We see Tai, Kou and Kei, which all make sense with what we know. But whats up in the top left I wonder, and will it be relevant?

And lastly we come to episode 18, my favorite of the week. It was a lot of political drama sure, but the political drama of Twelve Kingdoms is probably its best part. These immortal rulers dealing with their kingdoms like some weird game of Civilization. It fills the hole I expected to see Nakajima fill this cour. Watching a new ruler, or in this case Kirin, come to power and figure out how they are supposed to do their job. Denying their responsibility, knowingly or not. For all that I harp on Taiki as a character, these bits of denying what it means to be a Kirin are really interesting. I can only hope that the rest of the arc covers this. However we know that, one way or another, he ends up back in Japan. I can only hope its a more satisfactory ending than “He ran away”.

So all in all, how was Twelve Kingdoms this week? It’s definitely still a downer compared to the first cour, I will say that. But it feels like Twelve Kingdoms is starting to find its footing with what the point of this whole side story is exactly. A sort of lesson for Nakajima on denying her role as Ruler, and the consequences thereof. It if goes down that route, manages to tie it into the main plot then I will be… not exactly happy, because its still 12 episodes without Nakajima really doing anything, but content. I’ll be content that this arc served a purpose other than to burn time. What do you all think though? Enjoying this side arc, anything I am missing? Or are you also awaiting the return of our glorious queen Nakajima? Let me know below and I will see you next week!