Juni Taisen: Zodiac War (anime discussion)

Got bored, added folders for the ?sequel? characters even though we only have pictures atm.

Since the book is out, hopefully translations and info should start coming out.

I say he lucked out because there was no guarantee of success even with 100 chances. Rat's not a badass like the others - he's still a highschool student. there's only so much he can realistically do to any of the warriors that luck needed to be on his side.

Shame that Boar caused her little sister to kill herself. Would have been interesting to see her in the next cycle of the tournament.

Ironic as well, since she essentially wiped out her family in the process. Killed her sister for nothing, since she ended up dead as well.

Dads still there he could make another heir.

Also there are probably cousins or something. Families like that tend to have a few spare relatives lying around in case of accidents.

Good wrap up, though I'd imagine not everyone will be satisfied with the conclusion.

Nice touch with showing some of the rejected paths, to flesh out the other fighters a bit more.

• Boar wishing for a harem, which is really just more of her seeking love in abundance as opposed to finding something real.
• Chicken wishing for the confidence to develop an actual sense of self.
• Dog's actual backstory finally getting revealed was nice with the reveal the "generic operation" was actually him rescuing the little girl he adopted. She's so adorable, I actually feel bad for him now since he had something important to go back to.
• Rabbit being both incredibly creepy and genuine at the same time. Interesting that Rat befriended him by revealing his powers wouldn't work if he was reanimated. It makes sense, since it would be impossible for him to choose realities as a zombie.
• Of course the old man would recognize the value of youth. Like they say, youth is wasted on the young.
• Horse having the super inferiority complex, and feeling like only a wish could give him natural talent.
• Tiger getting her wish, in spite of losing. T_T
• Nice touch of the brothers both going MONEY MONEY YAY but then privately each admitting they know the other one doesn't actually mean it.
• Monkey and Ox too pure and good for this world. I think he was probably right that Monkey wouldn't have been happy with him only resurrecting her and leaving the others dead.

I think it makes a lot of sense that ultimately he couldn't settle on a wish, because he suffers from the problem often seen with people that are seers or otherwise can see/decide the future. Because he's been used to basically seeing how futile things were and drifting through life, he didn't have some driving goal or great ambition. He didn't join the tournament to fulfill some goal or achieve his dream, he was forced into it and basically was just focused on survival. And being able to have basically ANYTHING is overwhelming to the extreme. So he just....erases all the trauma and suffering he went through.

Everything you just said? I agree with.

Found info about the sequel light novel, it's....interesting?

The entire thing is an AU, resulting from a glitch of Rat's powers and the powers that be wanting to punish him.

• Cancer was the champion of the 8th tournament, and gathered 11 other war criminals to challenge the Eastern warriors. All the Criminals hate war, and want to disrupt the Juni Taisen via this conflict.
• Both sides are teams, cooperating together instead of it being a battle royale.
• Aries has hypnotic powers, and can disguise herself within corpses. She infiltrates the Eastern warriors by murdering Rat and replacing him. Kills Ox and Rabbit, killed by Boar.
• Taurus is a crazy baby-snatcher, and can create mook "warriors" from herself that die after a few minutes. Commits suicide.
• Gemini: twins created in a lab to be the perfect warrior, but considered a failure. It is a brother and sister, who share a single mind. Dies ???.
• Cancer: is the champion of the 8th Juni Taisen, and a broker of treaties to bring eventual peace. He is the mastermind behind the whole thing. Kills Sheep. Dies ???.
• Leo is a former soldier and tried to overthrow the government. Tries to use explosive missiles on the Warriors, Monkey makes good use of Hoist by His Own Petard.
• Virgo is a boy raised as a girl to avoid conscription. He has an electro-staff modeled as a broom, and can use it to fly. Commits Suicide with Taurus.
• Libra is a former judge, and apparently had run-ins with the Tatsumi brothers.
• Scorpio is a nameless, masked assassin. Famous but most people don't think he really exists. Used as a decoy, killed by Boar.
• Sagittarius was a member of a prominent family with government contracting ties, who leaked major information. Kills the Tatsumi brothers by tag-teaming with Aquarius. Dies ???.
• Capricorn: is a child born on a battlefield, to a mother killed by a landmine. She is wheelchair-bound, and uses explosives to kill. Dog scouted and recruited her. Commits suicide via explosives along with Pisces.
• Aquarius is an arsonist that controls liquids, including water and even blood. Kills Tatsumi brothers with Sagittarius, drowns Chicken. Killed by Boar.
• Pisces is a former student of Dog, and a mad scientist. Poisons Tiger and Monkey, shoots Dog. Tag-teams Horse with Taurus, uses him as a puppet/decoy. Drains Boar's blood with some kind of syringe/machine. Blows herself up with Capricorn.

In terms of deaths, it is a reverse of the Zodiac order from the main series. The Western criminals are kinda all over, with many of them committing suicide as part of their larger plan. Boar, Dog, and Monkey are the heavy-hitters this time around.

edited 19th Dec '17 4:05:22 PM by harostar

Cancer is cancer.

Reasonably decent episode, if a bit slow at times

Series overall is probably the single most erratic thing I've ever watched. Sometimes it's amazing! Other times it's terrible. Don't regret watching it, but don't think I'd recommend it

I thought about the show a bit, especially the moral and point in it. I remember hearing someone throwing the term "nihilistic" but I don't think that's the point but rather the idea that drive and belief is the most important thing for a human. The top contenders all had a reason for existence: Monkey believed in peace no matter how crushing reality is, Ox believed in childish justice which might be simple but is appealing nonetheless and Bunny will kill himself for his wish. The other contenders also go on the scale: Boar, Dog and Sheep are convinced in their simple wishes, Snake and Dragon have a fake wish which they know is worthless, Tiger has a whole arc about her losing her drive and getting it back through Ox and Horse gets his drive broken by Ox and loses completely despite his many advantages. Bird and Rat are ironically the same, they live an empty existence and both gets their will broken by watching Monkey who has an actual goal, the former with instant (and lethal) results and the latter in the end realizes that he doesn't deserve a wish, it's not nihilism that causes him to wish to forget it all, but rather realizing that he doesn't have a single goal to go to and how it could have been better for the world if others had won.

Also a pretty interesting motif is the anti climax. We don't get to see the backstory for Bunny, the big (apperant) villain, we don't hear Monkey's plan for world peace, a couple of characters dies in a stupid and easily preventable ways, the implication that the contest is rigged for Bunny is never addressed and the apperant "gary sue" badass who you are convinced will display a game breaking power in the last fight.... has a power of rolling the die a lot of times and hoping really hard that the butterfly effect will save his ass. Any sane show would have expanded on those points.

Overall I liked the show, it's got the John Wick feel that we have a massive world just beyond our reach with battle androids, shadow governments, courts for lawyers and fucking space station battle royale.

So, I never checked out this entire series. I caught a bit of the final confrontation with Rat, Ox, Zombie Monkey and Zombie Rabbit because I heard of Rat's powers.

The real reason I did so was because I was interested in Duedecuple, especially when I heard that he somehow managed to murder Rat 99 times without fail when the latter tries to just not make a wish. I mean, the first time with the Elevator could have been seen as just really bad luck, but then the second time comes with him being pushed down the stairs and now you know shit is suspicious.

After that...the sheer ridiculousness of the ways in which Rat died were pretty over the top. Especially him getting machined gunned, stabded through a bus stop by a sword, shocked by a railing when he touched it (how did he know to set up the shock trap right there).

Man, these dudes are serious about making a wish.

I'm morbidly curious to check out the rest of the series, and that might happen one day, but for now I understand to just not mess with Top Hat dude. Could probably kick everyone's ass if he saw fit.

...I'm also confused about this alternate manga universe with the Western Zodiac:

How does Rat even die with his powers?

If every possibility results in Death he'll die.

As he learned when Every Possibility with a girl he liked ended with him rejected.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Nov 25th 2018 at 7:29:15 AM

Yeah he only gets a 100 shots. If he fails all of them then nothing can be done.

Also Duedecuple did not kill him a bunch for refusing to make a wish, it was for refusing the Winners Interview.

Well same thing.

He basically killed him for refusing to play the game and quite easily at that.

It's also especially horrific since (1) it means that there's no issue about killing the winner if they don't do as their told; (2) this guy could fuck everybody up if he saw fit.

I still want to know what the hell he is.

Wow... I never knew that the anime has a thread. Anyways, any new things on this anime?

No. It ended a few months ago I believe. I just kinda necro'ed it.

Double post:

So, as I gain a bit more context on things, it dawns on me that certain warriors may have been purposely placed into the war to facilitate a certain result.

Rat was forced to compete right? Despite having no combat skills, but I think that's because he was the only one who could find a way to defeat Rabbit, who Rat believed would win 90% of the time (and with his wish, that's not a good thing).

Why was Rabbit there? To keep Monkey from ending things too early, since she has a rep for stopping conflicts (and apparently did try to get everyone to ally together, though I haven't watched the earlier eps to get better context on that).

The others are hard to say: they may have just been normal picks.

Triple post:

Ok so I've gone through the earlier episodes, and combined with what I've seen later, I've more or less gone through the entire series.

Ox and Tiger's fight against the Zombie Snake bros was balls out Crazy Awesome. Two Bad Ass super warriors vs a headless armless corpse that can only kick and a separated upper and lower torso?

Dammit Rat! You could have at least remembered so that you could spread the story of that fight! It deserved to be remembered!

From what I can tell, Sheep, Dog, Ox Boar and Monkey (and maybe Horse) were the veterans and well known, while Rat, Chicken, Tiger and Rabbit were the unknowns. Considering that, they only had first impressions to judge on. It's possible that there are some occasional duds among the chosen warriors, so while it doesn't totally justify guys like Dog and Sheep getting cocky, it does explain it a little.

Monkey is more forgivable, because while she knew about the Necromancy, she couldn't have been aware that he could see through the zombies eyes. Her biggest mistake was choosing to chase after Rabbit I'd say. I am annoyed that we never learned what her plan was. I'm assuming the author didn't know either hence her keeping her mouth shut on it.

I just realized that Snake's death did serve a purpose. We learn later on that fire is a good way to destroy the zombies, and considering Rabbit's strategic skills despite his nasty case of bat shit insanity, it's possible he immediately recognized Snake's potential threat, and that's why he took him out. The same might apply to Dragon to a lesser extent (his coolant could stop them in their tracks).

Finally, it's kinda funny how even as a mindless Zombie, Monkey barely harmed anyone. She threw Snake's head into the air, then did the same with Rabbit, and his most violent act was knocking out Ox's teeth, and even that was to prevent him from killing himself. It's like she's still sticking to her ideals even in that utterly twisted state: she's still killing peacefully.

Wacky little series. I do want to know why some people seem to actually have animal parts (wolf, Sheep and Ox most specifically).

Honestly, I love Monkey, she's my personal favorite character in the series. Ox probably came in second though but yeah, sometimes the story is rather predictable (Which I don't mind)... But my main issue that I had with the anime is that the battle is kind of anticlimactic at best which makes the tension in actions kind of lacking