Synopsis

The Twelve Kingdoms is based on a popular series of fantasy books. It is the story of Youko, a high school student who is spirited away to another world, where she discovers her destiny as queen and struggles to overcome her weaknesses as she finds her way in this new world.

Review

I was sincerely hoping to find a memorable series in The Twelve Kingdoms. It has quite a few laudable aspects: an intriguing fantasy world, brilliantly done character designs, and a sweeping storyline. Unfortunately, the show fails to capitalize on all its best features and instead attempts to cram an encyclopedia worth of information into the minds of its unsuspecting viewers.

The beginning starts strong, with Youko being taken from her school by a mysterious man, who swears to serve her. It's all very similar to Alice in Wonderland with an Asian flavor. The first 10 or so episodes are rather exciting, as Youko and her friends encounter some of the perils of this new world.

After this point, however, the story begins its irritating habit of shifting between 4 or 5 separate and almost unrelated storylines. The episodes abandon the familiar characters in favor of introducing an entirely new cast of characters every 10 episodes or so. Youko's classmates are barely mentioned after the first story arc. Youko herself isn't even featured in some of the story arcs.

All of this meandering would be excusable if it helped to achieve effective storytelling, but all it accomplishes is boring the audience. The primary reaction I had during most of these side-trips was, "Why are they showing me this?" In fact, it's rather hard to tell what connection exists until the show is almost complete, and even then it is somewhat tenuous at best.

I got the feeling that the show's creators are more concerned with forcing people to memorize every nuance of this imaginary world than actually creating a compelling story. For instance, the sheer amount of names forced upon the audience throughout the duration of the show is tremendous. Worse than that, there are a copious amount of official titles that all sound extremely similar (many seem to differ by only a syllable) and are hard to remember. These are often used in place of names, thus adding to the confusion. There are also, of course, 12 kingdoms which all have different names as well as different rulers which are mentioned frequently. Quite a few other things have different names in this world as well. The deluge of information is truly overwhelming and disrupts the flow of the story while confusing the viewer. These elements are more acceptable in written format, but they don't transition well to the screen.

Much of the show focuses on Youko's education in the customs, traditions, and government operations of her new world. Unfortunately, the show makes everyone watching feel like they should be taking notes and are going to be quizzed at the end of each episode. The details meant to create depth serve only to create tedium.

It's truly unfortunate that this series has so many problems, because it had the potential to be very entertaining. There are quite a few redeeming qualities.

The character designs are highly imaginative, and the action is exciting in the spots where the story doesn't become muddled.

The animation is very pretty, for the most part, although certain later episodes suffer a deterioration in quality. The backgrounds are very well-detailed and the use of color is excellent.

The soundtrack is also very well done, having a haunting and melodic tone, although in some episodes it becomes repetitious.

You can really sense in several of the episodes what the show could have become. The first several episodes are all of very high quality and are sincerely compelling. The primary story of Youko's quest to become a good ruler as she struggles with internal and external conflicts is engaging and the battles with demon beasts and enemy forces are usually exciting.

There are also some touching and intense moments in the series, and several of the characters are mildly interesting. The problem is that these aspects are very sparse, separated by many episodes containing nothing but languid dialogue. If the show had focused on these strong points it could have been quite entertaining.

Near the end the story finally becomes focused and some of the loose ends are tied up, but at this point most viewers will have become disenchanted with the series anyway. Then, when the plot feels fairly complete, the creators return to their love affair with asynchronous storytelling by introducing another short storyline that serves almost no purpose and ends the series at a strange place.

Conclusion

The Twelve Kingdoms is a prime example of what bad direction and planning can do to ruin what should have been an above average, perhaps even great, series. Despite good animation and scoring, creative character designs, and an epic story, the series comes across as mostly flat and unexciting. There are moments of brilliance, but they are mired by the clunky storytelling, information overload, and disjointed timelines.

The show could probably have been salvaged if some serious editing had taken place, such as removing at least a third of the series that was totally extraneous and focusing things more on the central story. The director seemed oblivious to the fact that anime is created for the screen and left in elements that just don't work well in a visual medium.

-Review by Reptile (27 Dec, 2006)

Audio:	Nice soundtrack, decent voice acting
Video:	Mostly above average animation (with bad spots)
Plot:	Fantastic story mired by an obsession with minutia
Style:	Good fantasy setting with rich visuals
Characters:	Fairly bland cast with mostly somber personalities
Violence:	Mild (some blood)
Language:	Mild
Nudity:	None
Genre:	Fantasy
Episodes:	45
Rating:	3.5 of 5
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