The Twelve Kingdoms - 2002-2003 TV Series animated by Studio Pierrot. 45 episodes based on the light novels by Fuyumi Ono.

The Twelve Kingdoms is a fantasy anime series with a very typical anime plot set up, but exceptional execution. Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: A Japanese high school student is spirited away to a fantasy magical world where its their destiny to save the world or something like that. Yeah, it’s been done countless times before whether it’s Fushigi Yugi, Magic Knights Rayearth, Inu Yasha, El Hazard, Tweeny Witches, Yu Yu Hakusho, Escaflowne, the list goes on and on. 

Before I saw it I didn’t know much about this show at all except the Anime World Order review which I didn’t remember much of except when they said it was “Fushigi Yugi but doesn’t suck.” Sure enough, that assessment is totally correct but it still doesn’t say much about the series. When working at anime conventions I occasionally met people whose eyes lit up upon seeing the DVD for sale saying how much they loved the show, but I still didn’t know much about it.

The anime is based off of a series of fantasy novels. There’re seven volumes in total but the anime only covers four separate story arcs. Most anime are based off of manga which can have pretty big back story, but one thing that’s apparent about this anime is that this is a richly detailed and fleshed out world that deserves an encyclopedia on its own.

From the DVD booklet. It takes a while, but we learn at least a little bit about every kingdom.

It’s not often you have a show with made up words for just about everything in the world. If you google search “The twelve kingdoms encyclopedia” you’ll find several pages like this wiki article listing the terminology for things in the world or this more extensive one. The DVD singles release has a small glossary for each volume, but I’m not sure if the thinpak does. Unfortunately the singles are probably very difficult to find now (and some were plagued with mono-only audio). Lots of shows might have unique terminology, but this show just thrusts you into the center of it, and even with the glossary you have to learn it as you watch.

Having only seen the anime series I hesitate to compare it to something like “The Lord of the Rings” since that’s one of the most detailed fantasy worlds in modern fiction, but I think in some ways it’s applicable. Whereas J.R. Tolkien’s story is a Western European sort of influenced setting, The Twelve Kingdoms is very Eastern with heavy Chinese and of course Japanese source material.

When watching this show you can tell the author put a lot of thought into creating this very rich and detailed world out of a very typical premise. The result is the show creates its own logic and backstory that it adheres to through all the stories. When you’re watching it you’ll be asking lots of “hows, whats and whys” that you’ll find are explained eventually in one story or another. More on this a bit later.

Since this is a fairly big show I’m going to split this review into parts for each story arc because there are things in each story arc that I love, and think are deserving of their own separate discussion.

Story – The main character is Youko, a red haired girl in high school. One day in school, a tall blond haired man in strange robes named Keiki approaches her asking that she accept his protection of her throne and that she come with her. The school is then under attack by a large bird creature. They flee to the roof and a battle between the giant bird and other creatures Keiki summons out of portals. Youko is then taken away along with two fellow students Yuka Sugimoto and Ikuya Asano. 

If you see a massive portal like this in the ocean, it probably leads to another world.

The first 13 episode story arc is about Youko’s journey of self discovery and eventual rise to power as ruler of one of the Twelve Kingdoms. I haven’t read the novels yet (they’re currently being translated and released by Tokyopop. As of this writing 3 volumes have been released) but one difference is the characters of Yuka and Sugimoto. They aren’t in the novels, but were added to the anime adaptation in order to let Youko express some of her feelings that were internal monologue in the novels. Yuka is a girl who reads lots of fantasy novels, and finds herself bored with the world she lives in so when monsters start popping out of everywhere she’s absolutely thrilled and is convinced that this is happening because of some greater destiny she possesses.

"Sweet! Now that I'm going to a real fantasy world I don't have to LARP anymore!"

When they arrive some strange things happen. Youko’s face changes and she can apparently understand the native language which Sugimoto and Asano cannot understand at all. This is one story deceit that is sometimes used for convenience with little or no explanation (like in El Hazard), but rest assured there’s a good explanation for it that makes sense within the story’s own logic. I really respect a show that can create a really convincing logic and backstory. Turns out people are often whisked to and from Japan fairly often. So often that in one kingdom there’s a registration office for people who find themselves there from Japan where they get your name, zip code (proof you’re from Japan so they know you’re not a native trying to cheat the government out of benefits for people from Japan who are referred to as Kaikyaku).

Youko spends the first four episodes or so as the whiny, reluctant character crying when things don’t make sense. Just when you think it’s going to get tiresome her character changes. This first story arc is really all about Youko’s character development and understanding of her own identity. She has a hallucination of a monkey-like guy whom echoes her own worst fears and anxieties. Sometimes internal monologue can get boring and repetitive (like in His & Her Circumstances aka Kare Kano), but Twelve Kingdoms I think is a very well paced show. Action scenes help to both move the story alone while also give Youko more stuff to think about. Youko’s character development is very believable from one step to the next, and it’s enjoyable to watch her change and grow.

This world sucks!

In the entire series there are no filler episodes. There are recap episodes after each story arc, but nothing within each story arc is filler. In fact, just about every episode will end right when you don’t want it to. Watching it while it aired must’ve been torture. I could talk forever about the specifics and intricacies of the world, but I think part of the joy of this show is learning more about the world of the Twelve Kingdoms. So much jargon, terminology, names and concepts are just thrown at you that it can feel overwhelming at times. At the same time though, each new thing you learn about the world makes everything that much more interesting, and you’ll find yourself wanting more.

This is a riboku which grows ranka that contain people or hanjyuu which sometimes are caught in a shoku bringing them to Hourai. These Taika sometimes return, and people think they're kaikyaku from Wa when actually... don't worry, it all makes sense later

So what else makes The Twelve Kingdoms so exceptional? One thing that many other animes fall prey to is a badly done romance subplot. It seems like an obligatory plot element to have, but this show never succumbs to it. There are certainly characters who I could see people pairing Youko up with in fan fiction, but the progression of the story is such that there’s really never time for a romance subplot. If they did then it would drag the story down significantly.

Okay, this episode we're going to use super detailed character designs. Why? Because we CAN

At a technical level, the animation in Twelve Kingdoms is exceptional. The show is only six or so years old and since it’s a digitally colored show, its age doesn’t really show at all. The character design, creature design and costumes are all very appealing and the action scenes are well done with not a lot of animation cheats. Episode 9 in particular has very detailed character designs that stand out amongst what is already a really great looking show. Music is also great with some really epic sounding orchestral pieces. The opening credits sequence eschews the typical anime opening with pop music and flashy visuals instead for a more subdued sequence of what look like ancient illustrations depicting the world and history of The Twelve Kingdoms. 

Opening credits. What do you think? Needs more L'arc-en-ciel or something? Naaaaaahhhh...

I think The Twelve Kingdoms is also a very mature story. Even though Youko is a high school student, her character growth is something that makes the show very engrossing. Later on in the show the politics of the world become a big part of the main plot which isn’t something seen often in anime shows. It’s hard to try to classify what genre the show fits into. It’s certainly a fantasy show, has its share of action, but its characters and story just make a show that is truly greater than just the sum of its parts. I’m really not sure how the average Cartoon Network watching fanboy or fangirl nowadays would react to a show like The Twelve Kingdoms since it doesn’t follow so many anime show clichés that people are almost expecting in a show. The ending theme song is a vocal song with similarly unflashy animation.

Man, being inside my head sucks...

DVDs - When the first DVD singles came out there was an error where some of the audio was mono only instead of stereo, but if you buy this show now you’re going to be getting the discs that were eventually fixed. The singles release had a glossary, map and guide to some characters in a booklet, but I believe the economy pack doesn’t have any of these nice extras. Like said before, the show looks great. Translation is very good with I’d say only a few errors across all 45 episodes which is pretty darn good. I happen to know that the translator had read all the novels previously to working on this title so their deep knowledge of the story helped them make the best translation possible. Small things like knowing when Japanese words weren’t to be directly translated because they were actually being used as proper nouns e.g. there’s a university called “Daigaku” which in Japanese means university, but as it’s used in the show in a manner that it’s more proper to keep it that way. 

The next seven episodes which I’ll talk about in another post are about a totally different character from Youko. The way they keep her in the story is that a character is narrating to her the story of this new character. Because I had grown to like the character of Youko so much I was worried that I wouldn’t be as interested in the second story arc. But the second arc is one that really expands upon the world, and I didn’t mind the shift in protagonist at all.

What are you waiting for? Go and watch this show!!!