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dlamp-dictator · 6 years

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Allen’s Rambling: Murder, Death, Kill!

Quick note folks, some mild spoilers to the Dangan Ronpa series, the Magical Girl Raising Project Series, and the Fate series up ahead.

Despite saying I’d stop keeping up with seasonal anime, I have been checking into the latest Death Battle Anime, Juni Taisen: Zodiac Wars for the past few months. This anime follows a type of genre I’d like to call Murder Death Kill, named after a line said by Rin Tosaka in BlazingAzureCrow’s UBW Abridged Series... and as of editing this essay, that series has updated to episode two, and as a sidenote I recommend checking it out because it is hilarious.

But anyway, the Murder Death Kill genre is basically anything involving a death game, battle royale, or a general premise that is very focused on killing off established characters. Magical Girl Raising Project, Fate/Zero and Fate/Apocrypha, Future Dairy, Dangan Ronpa, the 999 series, and so on are all examples of this. I usually like to watch and play series like this because they help with my action fix or in the case of Dangan Ronpa and 999 I find the deaths and figuring out the end game a good brain scratcher. But... I don’t feel the same about Juni Taisen. I’m a little disappointed in it in fact.

I think my main issue is the fact that the show is solely a death battle with no real reason for it. Just to catch some of my followers up to speed since I haven’t exactly been making noise about this, Juni Taisen is about a tournament that happens once every 12 years, where twelve factions/families representing each of the Chinese Zodiac send a representative with special abilities to fight to the death in a battle royale where the winner’s wish granted. So basically, it’s Fate/Stay Night: Zodiac Edition. This premise alone leaves me with some questions, but I’ll save that for later. For now, let me just break down a few of my issues with this anime.

The Premise

Now I’m going to start asking those questions I had with the plot. The main one being if the Juni Taisen organization even can grant wishes in the first place. For all the special powers and abilities I’ve seen in the show, a lot of the rules of reality and laws of physics still apply. These are humans with special powers, but those powers are actually pretty subtle. Okay, maybe not subtle, but they aren’t exactly magical or fantastical in a way that I could believe this is a world where wishes can be granted. For all the wars and conflicts we’ve seen in everyone’s backstory, their powers are more handy abilities for their jobs and not battle-deciding superpowers. Outside of the powers these characters have, they fight normally. Some with guns, some with melee weapons, some with martial arts, with only a few really using their abilities at all. I know that’s for the sake of keeping thing grounded in reality, but when the fights are to the death and the winner gets their wish granted, I’d expect more... flippant use of superpowers for the sake of survival, but I digress. Since this world is grounded in reality and the way backstories are shown I doubt these characters would honestly believe something as fantastical as a wish could be granted. They’ve seen the horrors of war, most are actually very jaded and probably only in the Juni Taisen out of obligation or payment. I’m fine with that being the premise, but the plot synopsis tells me these guys are in this for their wishes being granted, so I’m going to harp on that point.

My second question is if the Juni Taisen organization can truly grant wishes, why are the representatives able to make a wish for themselves and not for their faction? This is just... something that was nagging in the back of my mind when I read the premise. If wishes can be granted, then why doesn’t each family have a set wish for themselves? Fate/Zero answered this by having the 3 main families of Tosaka, Matou, and Einsbern trying to reach “The Root” through the Holy Grail, as that is the main goal of the Holy Grail War to begin with and anyone else just bought into the idea of granting wishes, as well as the original purpose of the Holy Grail War being lost after a hundred or so years. The Fate series also has a lot of fantastical elements to it that let’s us buy into the fact that fantastical wishes can be granted. they are truly in it for honor and whatnot.

My third and last question about the premise leads me to another issue I have with Juni Taisen and that’s:

The Motivations

What does everyone want to wish for? After 10 episodes, it really hasn’t brought up of what every character wants to wish for save for Sheep. I don’t know anyone’s wish, and that makes it really hard to care when these people start dying. Why is everyone fight in this war if the show hasn’t told us what they wish for? For giggles? I can buy Boar just wanting to uphold family honor since her family won the last war, but... again, that clashes with the premise of a death battle for a wish to be granted. I can buy Sheep just sacrificing himself so his grandkid didn’t have to join the war, but that also clashes with the premise. If this was more like a Hunger Games scenario where everyone was just forced into the Juni Taisen I might care more, but... I don’t. That’s not to say they don’t have a reason to join, but that reason isn’t for a wish, which bugs me. And again, I don’t know if the Juni Taisen organization can even grant wishes to begin, nothing has assured me they have that power unless the wish is a matter of funding in the right places. Can they bring back the dead so the winner can undo the killings they’ve done? Can they enforce world peace?

With the Fate series, I can buy that a wish can granted because, again, the world of Fate is very fantastical despite how subtle the characters act about it. If people can come summon a female King Arthur to fight Heracles in a sword fight to the death, then I think a mystical cup can probably grant a wish. I’d go further into that, but the lore and world building of Fate and the Nasuverse in general makes me cry everytime I have to crawl over to the Type-Moon wiki to research something.

Magical Girl Raising Project had given an incentive for the characters to partake in the Murder Death Kill: survival. And trust me, that’s a pretty powerful motivation as the series goes on, and it doesn’t even turn into a Murder Death Kill battle royale until about halfway into the show. My knowledge of Future Diary is a bit hazy since it’s been about 2 years since I watched the show, but God literally told everyone partaking in the Murder Death Kill how things were going down way, so we could believe that a battle royale to decide the new God was going to be a thing. Dangan Ronpa killed off a character in roughly the first 2 hours just to show how serious a pretty they were about the Murder Death Kill, in both 1 and 2, and while I personally don’t count it as a Murder Death Kill scenario, Ultra Despair Girls did I great job showing how possible and real death was in that game by setting a good atmosphere.

The Lack of Main Characters

My other issue with Juni Taisen is that there doesn’t seem to be a focus character. Now I’ve heard that’s part of the appeal since we don’t know who to root for or who will survive, but I’m gonna’ say not having a main character who’s perspective we can look to for at least half the ride and constantly switching the lens makes it hard to care about any of the characters. Again, Magical Girl Raising Project did this well by giving us three to four main characters out of the 16 to look at. Snow White, Ripple, and Swim Swim I would say are the “main” characters. Snow White representing a typical magical girl being appalled by the Murder Death Kill, Ripple representing someone with a realistic mindset about the Death Murder Kill and actively trying to survive it, and Swim Swim representing someone who was broken/transformed by it, causing most of the deaths within the Murder Death Kill. So basically an Idealist we can pray won’t die and find a peaceful solution, a Realist who we can root for to survive and ideally beat the antagonist, and an Antagonist to hate and examine as they do most of the planning and killing... well, I wouldn’t call Swim Swim an antagonist given the context of her murder spree, she is the main killer so...

Anyway, following this line, most Death Murder Kills usually have these 3 types of characters in it. So just using the other shows/games as an example to show this is a thing.

Dangan Ronpa

Idealist: Makoto

Realist: Kyoko

Antagonist: The Mastermind

Dangan Ronpa 2

Idealist: Nanami

Realist: Hajime

Antagonist: Nagito

Fate/Zero

Action... Fate/Zero breaks the mold a little since Idealism vs. Realism and Utilitarianism vs. Hedonism are sort of the themes of the show, but if I had to categorize it...

Idealist: Saber

Realist: Kiritsugu

Antagonist: Ryuunosuke (1st half) & Kotomine (2nd half)

I’d give an example with Fate/Apocrypha and Future Diary, but I’m still waiting for Netflix to catch up with F/A, and my memory of Future Diary is hazy at best so I don’t want to mischaracterize anyone, and as far as the 999 series is concerned, I’ve only watched playthrough and I don’t feel comfortable talking about I series I haven’t personally played myself.

The point is, most Murder Death Kills usually have these three types of mindsets in focus throughout the show. With Juni Taisen... I don’t know who fits where. Well, let me be more accurate, all three of those mindsets are present, but they were either killed off immediately after seeing them (like with Chicken, Monkey, and Boar), or we never got to see their point of view to begin with (Like with Rabbit and Ox). I’d say Monkey was the Idealist, but she died soon after we learned her story. I’d say Rabbit was the Antagonist, but... I have... opinions about Rabbit I’ll keep to myself for now. I’d say Ox is the Realist, but... Ox is a boring character, so I don’t care.

Speaking of the characters...

Character Deaths

I feel attached to few of them. Like... by the time I saw someone with a decent backstory, personality, and strategy, they were killed off. Chicken had an interesting mindset that landed her into the Realist role with the chance of being an Antagonist, but was killed off once that possibility was there. Monkey was slowly starting to make for a good Idealist with enough grounding in reality to make me root for her, but she died before I could even hear her plan to peacefully end the Juni Taisen. Tiger had an interesting backstory and was in the game long enough for me to care about her, but... I felt her death was pointlessly trying to give Ox character... because he has none.

Now, Magical Girl Raising Project did the same thing. When we saw a character’s backstory, they were probably gonna’ die that episode or the next. The only exceptions to that being La Pucelle and Ripple if memory serves me correctly. But... that works a bit better because, again, we had main characters we knew would survive long enough to root for and grow attached to. Without that, everyone in Juni Taisen just feels... there.

The Lack of a Clear Theme

I think my last issue with this show is the lack of a theme, something tying everything together in terms of a narrative. Dangan Ronpa’s theme is to not lose hope even in the darkest despair, and always face forward. Fate/Zero’s theme is... a little complicated for me to figure out, but I think can be boiled down to Ultilitarianism vs. Hedonism. Magical Girl Raising Project’s theme is, believe it or not, the traditional magical girl themes of believing in friendship, never losing hope, and making a difference in the world anyway you can. I don’t have a solid enough grasp on Fate/Apocrypha to say what it’s theme is yet, and my haziness on Future Diary doesn’t make me want to take a stab in the dark on that, so I’ll leave those two examples alone for now. And... the less I talk about 999′s themes the better.

Now those are just my interpretation’s on the themes, but I think you get the point. Juni Taisen... has no theme, no clear one to me anyway. Now, there’s this nice little piece on Juni Taisen being an exploration of the ugliness of war, and the fact that this Zodiac War having no real point being an extension of that theme. Honestly, if that’s the case then I don’t think it telegraphed that theme clearly enough due to the winner getting a wish. In fact, I thank the writer of this article for giving me a clear theme to look at that might make me relook at this series if I ever come back to it, but I honestly don’t think the show itself went deep enough if that was the goal of this anime.

Overall... I’m disappointed in this series. I’ll be keeping up with it until the end, and even check out some of the dubbed episodes (especially since Colleen Clinkenbeard is apparently voicing Tiger), but... if you guys want that action-y death battle fix, Magical Girl Raising Project is honestly a better series to look at as far as anime is concerned. It’s even got a light novel series that’s recently got its second book localized. Dangan Ronpa has a murder mystery twist to the Murder Death Kill formula, and all of the main games are localized and dubbed if you prefer it that way. Fate/Zero is on Netflix and Crunchyroll, Future Diary is on Funimation and Crunchyroll, and I’m sure there’s probably some other Death Murder Kill fanfics somewhere on the internet, so... yeah.

And since I’ve been using a term from it so much, I again recommend you guys check BlazingAzureCrow’s UBW Abridged Series, especially if you’re a Fate fan, it’s funny and endearing to watch.

Good Points of Juni Taisen

Okay, I’ve been ragging on this anime for awhile now, but I have stuck with it for 10 episodes now for a good reason, there are nice things about this show I like. So allow me to go over some of the points I do like about this show.

As much of a death flag as it is, I do think all the backstories are done well, every character makes sense in personality and motives, Chicken, Tiger, and Boar’s were the best in my opinion.

Even though I ragged on it, I do I like the fact that the powers aren’t game-beakers and require characters to be strategic about how they use them, as little as we see of it.

I love a lot of the character designs. Much like with Magical Girl Raising Project, I feel like these could be fighting game characters, and I would very much buy a Juni Taisen fighting game on the spot, even a 3D brawler of it. I especially like a lot of the girls, with Tiger, Chicken, and Boar being my favorites.

“But Allen, aren’t those just basically animal-themed stripper outfits?”

Yes, but need I remind you that I’m the guy that plays Senran Kagura, Rumble Rose, and School Girl Zombie Hunter? My taste have been trash for awhile now. Anyway, back onto the good points.

The animation is pretty good, even the CG stuff. Actually, it’s very good. I think the CG is done very well to the point where I wouldn’t mind if this whole anime was in CG if it meant a higher focus on action.

From what little I heard of the English voice acting, it sounds solid. I don’t like watching the dub along with the sub since I get overloaded pretty easily, but the if episode is anything to go by, the dub is solid.

And those are my thoughts on Juni Taisen. For all the issues I have with it, I’m gonna’ stick with it until I see the end, if only to rag on it some more when it does, but... hey, at least the girls in it are cute. I dunno’, what do you guys think of Juni Taisen? I’m up for some differing opinions here, so feel free to reblog this with you’re rebuttals, thoughts, favorite character, and so on.

...

Huh, usually, I say who best girl is when I do these rambles about shows and video games, but... I’m having a tough time, I like all the female characters in this series so far.

Chicken is Best Girl, if only because I like her design the most.

With Tiger being a close second since I like her backstory the best.

#juni taisen #Dangan Ronpa #magical girl raising project #fate series #your dictator is speaking

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