Twelve Kingdoms Vol. #08: Alliance

By Chris Beveridge     October 21, 2004
Release Date: October 26, 2004



What They Say
Shokei never knew humility until she witnessed her parents' murder. Now humble and penniless she meets the mouse-man Rakushun who becomes her teacher. Meanwhile, Yoko, the new Queen, goes to live among her people to gain experience.

The Review!
As the lives of all the women start to orbit each other more closely, a lot of things fall into place in a way that only a story like this could really pull off this well.

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. Suzu takes the center stage here with the two men she falls in with as she starts to take seriously what's going on in the world. 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. All of what's listed on the back is actually in the insert as there are no on-disc extras. The insert takes the front cover from this volume and essentially switches the wording from the top to bottom. 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:
None.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the eighth installment of Twelve Kingdoms, the show shifts back to five episodes per disc (and will remain so through the final volume) and we get a lot of things going on here. While there is a fair amount of recap material in the beginning, this continues to be a series where I don't mind it at all since it helps catch up on the events of the previous volume or two and puts it all in an easy to understand streamlined version that serves to help set up the next part of the arc with the information you really need to have for it. It may be a saving device for the creative staff but it's something that I think is very needed for this show until they can make a brain implant that will help me remember all the names, faces and new words that are in here.

While it's not surprise, the three lead women of this particular arc continue their individual stories in this volume. Each of them get something of a small recap of what's led them to where they are now and we see how they're all circling each other initially from their wide orbits and now how they're getting much closer together. Shoukei's story is probably the one I still find the most interesting since she's had the most to change throughout it and the most to learn in a way. As she's journeyed from Hou to Kei, she lucks out the most as well by coming across Rakushuu and he does his usual good job of being a guide and simply talking a lot which helps explain things to her and to the viewer. Before Shoukei even realizes that Rakushuu is friends with Youko, she's come to understand and trust this Hanjyu so well that when the revelation does come her views on Youko are so easily shifted that it changes the course of her destiny at the same time, particularly with the group of people she falls in with once in the kingdom of Kei.

Suzu's tale is a bit more all of the map at times, largely due to her grief over what happened to Seishuu. With Asano basically being abandoned to his own ways, Suzu tries to deal with the way that nobody seems to want to help her seek justice against the man who did it. Her story is the most straightforward of the bunch in a way since it gets us the closest to the "villain" of this arc in Shoukou, the person in charge of this part of the province. He's widely regarded as a fairly evil man with the way he levies the seventy percent tax on his citizens, the way he kills them freely for being even a penny under and the way he keeps such an iron control over it all and gets away with it. Much of the people live there in fear and Suzu has a hard time really coming to grips with it. She ends up blaming Seishuu's death not on Shoukou directly but she blames Youko for it as the Queen in that she lets someone like Shoukou remain in power while someone like the lord of Baku is removed from power. Suzu ends up falling into the planned insurgency group that lives in the area after she reveals her intent and this brings her into some interesting new areas.

Youko's tale continues on as she spends her time in the Rike and we see her exploring more of the surrounding area as she tries to understand the way of the world. What comes strongly to her as she learns more and more is that so much of what goes on in this world in how things happen are controlled by the Heavens. Being from Hourai this is difficult for her to accept but it's something that becomes key to her finding her place within this world. What's really interesting with Youko is that over the course of the five episodes she ends up coming into contact with both Suzu and Shoukei at different times and pulling their orbits closer together. Though they only know her as Youshei and not as the queen, she ends up causing a ripple effect that's causing events she started herself during the assassination attempt to work down this far into society and work its way back up.

The time spent here in Wa Province is very illuminating but its taken time to get there for it. The original assassination attempt, as expected, is part of a bigger maneuver than originally thought and Youko's making discoveries and learning her Kingdom well here, though it does allow the ministers to continue to try and consolidate their power while she's gone. Keiki's counsel is amusing since his honesty ends up infuriating her more due to her inability to listen back when it was important that she seem like she was thinking for herself and to now realize just how much more of a mess she made. But I still think it was more important that she end up out in the real world to see what's going on, though she ended up a bit too stationary by hanging around with Enho and at that Rike, which lead to some of the nastiness found here.

In Summary:
Twelve Kingdoms gets more and more complex with each volume but still manages to explain much of itself at the same time that it can be a maddening show but with an immense payoff. So much is going on here and almost all the focus is finally on the kingdom of Kei that it's bringing so many elements together in a really neat and fascinating way. There is a lot of intrigue and politics afoot in this volume tied together with some good action sequences and a lot of character development and growth. This is one of those must-see series that it seems like few people are really seeing or talking about like they should be. Very highly recommended.

Features
Japanese 2.0 Language,English 2.0 Language,English Subtitles

Review Equipment
Panasonic PT50LC13 50" LCD RP HDTV, Zenith DVB-318 Progressive Scan codefree DVD player via DVI with upconversion set to 720p, Sony STR-DE835 DD/DTS receiver, Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.