Whether it be Usagi’s bunny ears and high heels or Niwatori’s chicken style outfit and pitchfork for a weapon. Their designs also have elements that represent their zodiac sign. Their personalities are all very distinct and are represented by their character designs. All of them, it's funny how on point they are to the edgy battle royale genre style the show is aiming for and successfully hitting it. This opens another avenue for analyzing each character, and frankly, it's not surprising to see a writer as impressive as Nisio Isin try to innovate the battle royale genre like this. Even their deaths are directly tied to their zodiac sign.
They all have special abilities related to their sign which are revealed over time, another mystery that adds a layer of tension to the thrilling atmosphere. Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar. The cutthroat cast of twelve mercenaries/warriors are each represented by one of the twelve zodiac signs. Most of the entertainment from Juuni Taisen comes from the characters, as you’d expect from a battle royale show with a paper-thin plot. For me, it concluded the characters' stories in a satisfying way and it gave me everything I expected from the ending. The ending will no doubt disappoint some people, but its tameness didn't bother me. The backstories worked so well to get me invested that whenever the characters engaged in combat I was on the edge of my seat hoping for the more developed character to survive despite knowing the inevitable would come. Very little of the actual plot is clear, but each character’s backstory is enough to make up for its issues. Characters have special powers connected to their zodiacs, although the powers are cool and well implemented into the action they have no explanation for their existence in the real world. The city that the competitors battle in is entirely devoid of life, with little explanation to the why and how. In the backstories side characters offhandedly mentioning how the zodiac war is some myth that is typically referred to as very important, but that doesn’t come across at all during the actual war itself, as it mostly focuses on the characters. Occasionally we see anonymous bidders watching the battle, but there is little reason for these segments other than showing us important people view the game as a form of entertainment. Whenever the show draws attention to the behind the scenes of the zodiac war it feels very apparent that it’s the most undercooked part of the show. Namely, the characters, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.Īs for the setting and plot themselves, they are fairly barebones but sturdy enough to hold up the exciting action and character stories. It rubs its predictability in your face and forces you not try to figure out who will die next, but to analyze the show’s other aspects. It’s a show that acknowledges the nature of its genre, all of the opponents in a death game but one will die eventually.
Juuni Taisen understands how predictable stories in the Battle Royale genre can be, and it plays with this idea of predictability. In coming up with the score for the story I included both the actual plot and the way that the story is delivered because it is a crucial part of the experience.
Fate to be deemed “good”? Instead of trying to stand out with spectacular visuals, Juuni Taisen offers compelling characters and lots of new spins on the genre to keep you engaged. Or does every battle royale show have to be like Would it be so far-fetched to imagine that Juuni Taisen actually wanted to put an original spin on the battle royale genre? It might just be intentionally predictable!Īs if its intention was to besmirch the name of our beloved Fate and the tarnish the genre it birthed into existence!ĭid it really take everyone 12 episodes to realize that the show reveals the order of every characters’ death by the end of the first episode? I'm sick and tired of seeing people treat Juuni Taisen like trash because the plot is predictable.
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