Twelve Kingdoms Vol. #06: Oppression

By Chris Beveridge     June 25, 2004
Release Date: June 29, 2004



What They Say
Youko assumes the throne of Kei, but she is far from comfortable with her many new responsibilities. In the Kingdom of Sai, a young girl named Suza learns of Youko and wishes for the new queen to come to her aid. Suzu is also from Japan, a lost Kaikyaku who has been subjected to one hundred years of servitude under her benefactor, the immortal Riyou.

So begins the third book of the Twelve Kingdoms.

The Review!
As the new story arc begins, we're introduced to some new settings while also following Youko's grappling with the problems of ruling a kingdom.

Audio:
For our primary viewing session, we listened to this show in its original language of Japanese. The series has a very good stereo mix that lets the varying amounts of directionality flow nicely across the forward soundstage. Dialogue is clear and distortion free and we had no issues with dropouts. We listened briefly to the English track and had no issues during the areas we checked there.

Video:
Originally starting its broadcast run in early 2002, Twelve Kingdoms has a very good-looking transfer here with very fresh materials. The main areas where things don't look as good as one would hope is the opening sequence where there's a bit of cross coloration pixilation going on. Once in the show proper, colors are excellent, with the vibrant areas such as the green eyes or the color of skin coming across in great layers. A lot of the backgrounds and look of the worlds is done in somewhat drab colors, going for the realism look (especially when you have everyone without colored hair). Aliasing is very minimal with only a few areas showing some during panning sequences.

Packaging:
Using the same style as previous volumes, the artwork for this continues to look amazing. For the start of this new arc, we get the beautiful image of the three principle characters, two of them huddled at Youko's feet while she sits in the throne all regal in nature. This piece is just richly illustrated and provides such a strong impression of these episodes. The series logo is nicely done along the bottom with the subtitle of the opening arc storyline. The top of the border gets the volume/chapter listing. The character art inside is just fantastic. The back cover provides two stripes of shots from the show blended together really well, giving a nice feel to the flow of things. The summary is pretty brief and gives the basic premise of things. The discs special features are clearly listed but can be confusing. Most of what's listed on the back is actually in the insert while actual on-disc extras aren't even listed. The insert takes the front cover from this volume and essentially switches the wording from the top to bottom. The insert opens up to provide a translated map of the world and a focus on the areas we visit on this volume. There's a brief encyclopedia section that covers various terminology and their meanings. An important and useful piece is a hierarchy chart for the court that Youko oversees. The back of the insert provides the chapter listings for the episodes.

Menu:
The menu layout is nicely done here with the front cover background used here as the background but swaying like water, since the static image over it is the non-text version of the world map while some of the nice instrumental music plays along. Movement is decent across the menu as each of the sections provides a selection, all of them invisible until you move over it. Access times are nice and fast and submenus load quickly. Unfortunately the players' language presets were ignored by the disc.

Extras:
Included in the actual on-disc extras and seemingly not listed anywhere is a fourteen minute interview with Producer Ken Suekawa, which you don't realize who he is until the interview kicks in after a few seconds. It's an interesting piece and details his knowledge of the show and the transition from novel to anime.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the last volume concluding that particular arc, volume six kicks off a new one entitled "A Great Distance in the Wind, the Sky at Dawn" that brings Youko more to the forefront but forces her to share the time with two other women around the same age as herself. And by bringing in these two other women, it allows the show to expand greatly as each of them is in their own respective lands so we get to see more of kingdoms we hadn't seen much of before.

Which, with a series as richly detailed as Twelve Kingdoms, means that we get several episodes that feel like exposition. Now, mind you this isn't a slam in the least, but a good chunk of these four episodes really do feel like pages out of a novel where passages of a countries history are given to you to bring you up to speed on why the place is the way it is in the present time. Since we're covering three kingdoms here, even though we do know more about Kei than the others, it means that we're really given a number of history lessons that are tied to personal stories. These are highly engaging and fascinating to watch, almost like watching something on one of the history or discovery channels, but it makes for a very difficult descriptive review.

The thrust of this arc in the beginning is the tying together of the three women. Youko is now fully in charge in the Kingdom of Kei and is struggling with all the rules and customs associated with it. Since the Kingdom was previously ruled by something close to a madwoman, there's all sorts of problems with various ministers and provincial leaders who are wary of Youko's ascension to the throne. So there is a good amount of court intrigue associated with Youko's plight but it's made worse due to the fact that she has to learn it along the way as well. This is really problematic since she doesn't want to seem indecisive or leaning too heavily on any one minister and insulting the others, or with Keiki himself. At the root of the problem though is that Youko starts to realize her life is being lived the same was at it was in Japan, by the expectations of others. Her struggle here is fascinating and it really helps bring more of what the Kingdom of Kei is like to the fore after it had been nearly ruined by the previous ruler.

To complement her story, we're given insight into two other kingdoms. The first starts ninety years prior to the present as we see another young Japanese girl swept from her lands and into this new world of the twelve kingdoms. Suzu finds herself lost in this strange new land without the ability to communicate with anyone since she can't understand the language and unlike some of the other kaikyou, she can't seem to learn the language of the land either. For three years she travels around with a group of performers before she's placed before a rather elegant looking woman. Since she still can't communicate, she sings a childhood Japanese song, something which the woman recognizes and finds a certain amount of distaste over since it's something she considers beneath her station. But when she says this, it's something that Suzu can understand since Lady Riyou is a Sein-en and can understand any of the languages. Suzu ends up making a deal with her to do anything if she takes her in as she can't stand the life she's living.

Of course, when you make a deal like that, it won't end well and Riyou renames Suzu to Honma, which literally means pathetic woman. She becomes a servant of Lady Riyou in her mountain home along with other servants. Her life there is harsh and brutal and something she deals with for most of the ninety years of her time there as she's been given status as a Sein-en as well, so she doesn't age at all. The only thing that starts to help her survive her days is when she learns of the ascension of a young queen, someone her own age and from her own lands, in the Kingdom of Kei. She begins to use Youko's title as something of a prayer and a sliver of hope of finding a future that doesn't involve her near torture at the hands of Lady Riyou.

The other arc we follow is that of Shoukei, the daughter of the King of Hou. She's the jewel of her fathers eye and the most beautiful young woman in the palace. But Hou is one of the most desperate kingdoms around at this time due to the way her father is enacting the laws of the land. Finding that peace and happiness can only be found through the law, he has enacted laws that are so restrictive that just about anyone can be called a criminal. And there looks to be only one penalty and that's execution by beheading. The King has had thousands and thousands executed over the years since he's gone in this direction and it's only gotten worse. Tales of mothers executed for staying home to help a sick child, executions for stealing a slice of bread due to extreme poverty and more are commonly told, but the tales don't reach up to the palace. All we see are the massive lines of people tied up and being lead to their executions.

It all falls down though when one of the Lords of the Kingdom of Hou decides that he cannot wait for the heavens to strike down the King and he leads a rebellion against the King. With nearly three hundred thousand executions in the last year alone, many are with him as he and the military storm the castle and take control of things. This is all a huge shock to Shoukei who can't imagine why anyone would want to rebel since she believes that people that don't break the laws should be happy and those who do break them ought to be punished. Her life goes for a massive change with some really brutal moments here, but moments that make this series as strong as it is.

While things like the beheadings are done off-camera, it's the straightforward nature of such events and the unflinching way those who lead others in this series do what need to be done. The usual wishy-washiness of other shows doesn't apply here as the leaders don't have time for that, which gives it again more of a historical feel and something like a documdrama almost. There is so much going on in these episodes and so much that the viewer has to take in and learn, particularly with Youko's court as the hierarchy of the ministers and aides is critical to her making decisions, that it can get a bit overwhelming. But the payoff for it is simply beautiful, and much like Youko, you wonder how it will all play out.

In Summary:
Each time a new story arc begins I have the fear that it won't live up to the prior arcs and that the introduction of new characters won't be as interesting. With this new arc we're given a trio of young woman whose lives are all thrust in unexpected directions and whose destinies are likely tied to each other in ways we can't even imagine yet. Twelve Kingdoms continues to be one of the most richly detailed worlds that I've seen animated and with fascinating characters that are all leading vastly different lives with different experiences. This is a show that demands to be watched the minute a new volume arrives and this release is no exception. Fantastic material, very highly recommended.

Features
Japanese Language,English Language,English Subtitles,Interview with the producer

Review Equipment
Panasonic PT50LC13 50" LCD RP HDTV, Panasonic RP-82 Progressive Scan codefree DVD player, Sony STR-DE835 DD/DTS receiver, Monster component cable and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.