Twelve Kingdoms – 28/29/30 – Throwback Thursday

Whoooo 30 episodes of Twelve Kingdoms! I have to say, when I first started this series I was expecting it to be a bit of a slog. 45 episodes is a respectable length after all. However to my pleasant surprise, it’s been a pretty engaging time. This week is no different there, as we Suzu and Shoukei continue their travels and Nakajima unravels a conspiracy in her kingdom. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, so much shit happened this week, it’s insane. I am continually impressed with just how much content, how much progression, Twelve Kingdoms manages to fit into its episodes. I finished 29 and was surprised to learn there was still another to go, it covered so much ground. So because of that, lets start with the easy to follow tale of Suzu, Asano and the young Seishuu. I wasn’t expecting a third member to get added to this trip, but by the end of his stay he had added a lot. Suddenly what was one person’s journey of self-discovery became some kind of parable. The three reminding me of the three monkeys with one deaf, one blind and one mute. Suzu refuses to hear any criticism, Asano is unable to speak the language and Seishuu is legitimately blind. It’s small, but made me really happy to notice.

Over the course of the parable though Suzu appears to be learning a lot. Seishuu was right when he called her out on spreading misery. She always assumes she is the most oppressed, that no ones pain can compare to hers. She has staked her entire identity on being the most wounded party, the victim, and refuses to understand anyone else. In a way this makes her feel safe, she can approach every situation, every person, in the same way. But in doing so she shuts herself off from everyone else as she refuses to understand their pain. It calls back to what Queen Sai told her, and how Suzu was choosing to be miserable. So going with that, I really liked how Twelve Kingdoms slow-rolled her transition. How her and Seishuu’s relationship played out, refusing to understand each other before slowly bonding over their mutual hardships.

Meanwhile, Asano is going crazy. I don’t mean that as a joke, the man has actually become paranoid. Part of me can’t blame him, he is trapped in a foreign land after all. He doesn’t speak the language and so far most of his experiences have been people wanting to kill him. Considering how he is an anime-only character, I fully expect him to die at some point in the future. For now though he appears to be falling down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Waving guns around, threatening officials (even if they are bastards) and getting invited to suspicious groups. I currently expect him to wind up involved in the assassination plot on Nakajima somehow. But barring that he seems like he will become the extreme case for Twelve Kingdoms. The end result of a life of refusing to understand or connect to others, to reflect our 3 leads.

Speaking of Nakajima, she had perhaps the slowest story in these three episodes, but it certainly wasn’t weak. It actually starts off with a tragedy of all things, painting how troubled her realm still is. That Youma still stalk the countryside, terrorizing towns and are able to kill an entire building of children alone. It was a bit straight forward with it, there wasn’t any real depth to their troubles, but those came later. As an introduction it was an effective way to get us on the side of the townspeople. After this though, Twelve Kingdoms managed an info dump that didn’t feel like an infodump. Explaining how land is divided, their units of measurement, and how people survive day to day. No doubt it was weight off Nakajima’s back to learn how much is managed and taken care of by lower officials.

Beyond that Nakajima also had one of my favorite scenes in her talk about winter. How what people need most in Kei isn’t shelter, in their more temperate climate, but food. With a single explanation Enho managed to point out a big difference between Japan and the kingdoms. Food, for all our faults, still isn’t that hard to come by here. Even in the worst of circumstances, we have an excess of it and it can often be found disposed of. In a medieval society though food becomes a premium during winter. They don’t have excess, they barely have enough to feed themselves. Yet just like Nakajima, I was looking at the question through our modern lens. Hopefully with this both us, the viewers, and Nakajima can start to change how we perceive the problems of this world. As not everything can be solved how we would here.

Sadly it appears that Enho is not free from doubt. As it is through him that we get the reintroduction of the political plotline, and his possible involvement in it. I really wasn’t expecting this to be frank. I figured we wouldn’t get to follow this up until Nakajima returned to the palace and there was a coup in process. So to hear of Enho’s possible involvement came as a shock. Really though, I don’t believe it. This feels far to obvious, like some sort of red herring in regards to his character. Just like Koukan, it feels like Twelve Kingdoms is putting them in our face to say “Look, these are the bad guys”. Rather, I expect Enho to be involved in protecting Nakajima. Otherwise, why would Keiki ever send her here? Surely he would notice something? Still, I suppose we will have to wait and see.

Next we come to Shoukei, who had the weirdest story of the three. Not that it was bad, more that her journey of self-discovery is slightly different from the other two I feel. She has less of an issue with understanding people and more with accepting reality. Accepting that yeah, her father did do bad things, and that yeah she did have a responsibility to them. And funny enough, it was Rakushun of all people to teach this to her. Of all the teamups I wasn’t expecting the Chad mouse to be traveling with the pampered princess, but they really work. Rakushun, as friends of Nakajima, has the position and resources for her to take him seriously. However as a Hanjyuu and scholar he also has both working and technical knowledge of how the kingdoms run. To top it all off, he also has no issue with telling her off.

It’s strange how well this pairing works to be honest. Shoukei was the least empathetic of the trio, she was the rudest and had lived a live of luxury until recently. But something about Rakushun telling her the facts, without trying to put her down or insult her really made it work. He simply laid out how her position came with responsibilities and how princes/princesses in other kingdoms acted on said responsibilities. Whether it be working as an official or building a hospital, they used their position for the people. Or how Hou was the only kingdom to punish theft with death. This was very different from the villagers who, while justifiably pissed, simply attacked her outright and never really spoke to her. Rakushun isn’t condemning her, he’s teaching her. Just like he did with Nakajima. And because of this she seems to be realizing how little she knew.

Finally I want to talk about the end of episode 30, where Suzu and Nakajima meet, if only for a moment. I didn’t actually realize they were in the same town until right up to it happening. Part of that is me being a moron, and not recognizing the names of towns. But the other part is that I never expected them to meet so early in such an innocuous setting. But having experienced it, using Seishuu like this was brilliant. Not only did it bring Suzu’s story all the way back around, really hammering home how the average persons life can go, but it threw the kingdom’s corruption in Nakajima’s face. How a Noble can just ride someone down without care, right in front the entire town. It was brief, but I am really looking forward to how Nakajima takes this and when Suzu finally meets her as “Queen”.

With that we come to the episode specific chats! I’m mostly going to go over small stuff here since we covered the sweeping story for all three characters above. Starting with episode 28, the 2 things I want to point out are Kyou and Asano. For Kyou, I continue to like how much of a reasonable bitch she is. Arrogant as Queen, decisive in her action, but not cruel like Hou. She doesn’t blame the other servants for the actions of someone she forced among them. She recognizes their long service, and treats them with respect for their work despite their differences in station. She’s hardly egalitarian, but she’s not a dictator. For Asano, it was interesting to see how much not knowing the language can affect someone. Even kind people can come off as aggressive, such as on the boat, when you don’t understand the language at all.

Moving on to episode 29, we have already touched on everything important for this episode. For Enho it was his explanation as to the land system and his involvement in politics. Suzu, it was her furthering relationship with Seishuu and their confrontation as to her wallowing in misery and for Shoukei it was her meeting with Rakushun. While this episode didn’t really have any big reveals or climactic moments, I think it was solid nonetheless. I said it above, but the explanation as to land practices was really well done, and it communicated everything clearly. At the same time, Shoukei’s lessons with Rakushun began setting the ground work for her, hopefully, eventual realizations. Because of its lack of any “final” scenes, I don’t think it will ever land as someone’s favorite episode. But as far as plot rich ones go? I think its really, really solid.

Finally, episode 30, lets talk about Ryou. For a while know we have known that the longer a Ruler lives, the more prosperous the kingdom is. Some kind of compound interest sort of thing. Thus, with King Ryou living for 1200 years, you would expect it to be a paradise, an eternal bastion of good rule. So it was very interesting to me when Rakushun began pointing out all of these… little details. These little cracks in the kingdom, showing that is slowly, ever so slowly beginning the fall. Youma on the borders, despite En being closer to Tai. Corrupt officials taking bribes to keep people out of prison, etc. In Hou we saw the end state of a failed kingdom. But in Ryou we are seeing the beginning of one. It makes me hope Twelve Kingdoms expands on it in the future, if only in the novels.

So all in all, how was Twelve Kingdom’s this week? Once again, it was engaging and once it again it continues to prove to me that it knows what it’s doing. It has handled the stories of the three leads really well, balancing them between episodes and figuring out how to work each of them into Nakajima’s story. I do still wish we got more of Nakajima, because she is my favorite character, but her story is very time dependent. Without this much time passing it would feel… contrived? As if things are happening for plots sake rather than as a natural consequence of characters decisions. So the idea to fill that time, to pass it with the stories of two other characters is working pretty well here. I have no idea where it’s going to end at this point, but I have faith Twelve Kingdoms will do it well.