The Twelve Kingdoms

So in my ramble about Plastic memories i said i would either be talking about Blood blockade battlefield or Kuroko
Yeah apparently i lied since the former apparently doesn't have an ep this week so it ends next week and the latter hasn't had it's final episode come up on daisuki yet (but it is listed for today that that's probably going to happen)

So instead last night i managed to get through the 12 kingdoms.

The reason i bought this dvd was pretty simple. I had seen a trailer for it on something else and i thought the music was very pretty. It also deals with a fish out of water/sent to another world theme that i really enjoy... right up there with Supernatural stuff happening in the real world and shows about baking.

And... well i didn't hate it.
It has a lot of problems but i still enjoyed it overall.

Now the story has a lot of 'complicated' terms so i'm going to cut those out and just explain things for what they are.

One day in the middle of class Youko, a girl with natural red hair, is surprised when a man appeared behind her and claims she's the queen he's been looking for.
Shortly after Mosters attack the school and to get her and her two friends who kind of get caught up in things to safety he sends them to another world.

Once in this land of 12 kingdoms Youko realizes she doesn't look the same. Her hair is fiery red and her eyes dark green. her skin tone has even changed.
However she's been separated from everyone and must try and make it to a place where she wont be killed.  She eventually finds out what the man meant by being queen and she must face her destiny.

however it's also about a young boy from japan who gets pulled into the 12 kingdoms and learns that he's actually an animal thing (called a kirin, it's closest to a unicorn if i had to describe it) who will pick a lord for one of the 12 kingdoms... however he doesn't actually want to pick a lord so that makes things difficult.

But it's also about taking office and quelling rebellions and learning all about your new people.

and finally it's about how one man died for his views that weren't necessarily evil but did go to far.

and thats part of the problem with the show... it's 4 or 5 'chapters' that have very little to do with each other and none of them actually end.
they continue on as we focus on other people... but they continue to have the framing device of Youko which i think actually hurts the overall story because you want some kind of closure.
you want to know what happens to the characters in chapter 2.... easily the most interesting of the arcs.

you want to know what happens to a certain character after getting sent away.

You don't want the entire show to end of a clip episode with a bit of story tacked on the end.

So yeah i really enjoyed the show.... but i wish there was some kind of closure... and i have a feeling the novel it's based on isn't much better since it's literally just stories from this world with little to no connection

Also not a fan of all the different terms since most feel unnecessary. The story is actually quite simple if you change all those terms to what they actually means.

Finally the packaging is terrible... my set had all the middle pieces broken so none of the disks are held in place... I don't let getting my brand new set and opening it to find it covered in scratches. so yeah Anime works... get better packaging.

Okay next should be Kuroko (for real this time) or Yamada and the seven witches.