Discussion Juni Taisen: Zodiac War

Episodes: 12 | Source: Novel | Genres: Action, Suspense, Gore, High Stakes Game
Synopsis
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Every 12 years, mercenaries who possess the highest caliber of brute strength, cunning wit, and deadly precision gather to participate in the Zodiac Tournament. Each warrior bears the name and attributes of one of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. With their pride and lives on the line, they engage in vicious combat until only the victor remains.

The 12th Zodiac Tournament begins in a desolate city, devoid of any evidence of the half million people who recently lived there. To raise the stakes, each warrior ingests a poisonous gem, thus setting a time limit on the tournament—and on their life. With one wish for the victor up for grabs, the Zodiac Warriors start their cutthroat battle for survival.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

 

Episode 1 was good. I was actually pretty invested in the beautiful psycho Toshiko warrior of the boar. So her father was victorious in the previous Zodiac Tournament, and selected her younger sister Kiyoko as the next participant between the two sisters, this utterly devastated Toshiko. Kiyoko was apparently obsessed with killing (animals) and Toshiko seemed to be the less favoured of the two, so was jealous. Toshiko trained her and kept pushing her to kill people, which eventually drove Kiyoko insane and she killed the attendants of their family. Kiyoko got locked up in a form of isolation as a result, and Toshiko then gave her a weapon to kill herself with.

Toshiko finally is getting to participate in the Zodiac Tournament 12 years after her father, with the prize being any wish granted. The participants all swallowed a poisoned object they have to collect all of to win. They will die in 12 hours without the antidote, and the winner will also receive the antidote after the rest are all dead.

Toshiko seemed to have her strategy to win down and was mostly weary of Sharyu. Usagi also seems like a complete psychopath and had killed one of the contestants before anything started. Usagi is a Necromantist, allowing him to control those he killed, and so Toshiko seems to have died to him.

 

Episode 2 was good. Everyone seems to be of the opinion that Ushii warrior of the ox is the most dangerous and strongest of the group. Interesting to see it confirmed that the entire city of 500,000 people was cleared out for a single night. Not sure if they were killed or just moved. So the person to set off the explosion was the one to offer the peace treaty, Sharyu the Monkey warrior. Nezumi, warrior of the rat is the one who agreed to team up with her and they have escaped into the sewers for now.

Niwatori warrior of the chicken found the hiding spot of Dotsuku, warrior of the dog's hiding spot, and in the end, Dotsuku agreed to an alliance, although he intends to just use Niwatori and kill her off. Dotsuku also seemed to think he counteracted the poison, as his killing technique revolves around poison he injects into victims when biting them.

Using Niwatori's ability to control/communicate with birds, they continue keeping tabs on Usagi and his two bodies, planning on taking him out. Dotsuku bit Niwatori, poisoning her only this one was a power up. He intended for her to take out Boar or die trying. In the end, it backfired and Niwatori killed him by exploding his head.

Uma warrior of the horse had an unfortunate run in with Ushii.

 

Episode 3 was good. Niwatori was just playing the trusting part the whole time, and was always intending to betray and kill off Dotsuku after getting the power up from him. Niwatori has a pretty sad backstory herself. As a child she was abused by her parents, and ended up in some psychotic break and slaughtered her parents. The events caused her to have a form of amnesia and forget everything about herself and the events, basically making her a blank slate. This lead to her being adopted into Niwa family and was trained as a warrior in espionage and killing. Doing that line of work has warped her so she no longer can tell friends from enemies.

Niwatori had her birds take out and devour Toshiko, and when she was getting food from a store, had a run in with Nezumi. She debating killing Nezumi, but ended up agreeing to go with him into the sewers and to Sharyu, even though she originally planned on joining them in the alliance falsely to later betray them. The interaction with Sharyu had her acting strange, not sure if that's Sharyu's ability, or the side effects of the poison of Dotsuku as Niwatori seemed to think. Niwatori ended up splitting off then had an unfortunate encounter with Ushii. She was intended to pull the fake out tactic and betray him, but reacted to protect Sharyu, so I can only assume it's Sharyu's ability. She ended up killed by Ushii.

The interesting thing about Nezumi is everyone that has an encounter with him seems ot feel like they have met him before.

 

Episode 4 was good. Seems like Sharyu was trained by three monkey sages, that saw themselves as one. It's not overly clear how powerful she is, but presumably very. She helped end a lot of wars, and witnessed a lot of horrors over her life. I wonder if her relationship also ended because of her constant battlefield ventures. Almost seemed that way, but not 100%.

Sharyu and Nezumi encountered some zombie birds, so it seems like Usagi is controlling Niwatori despite not killing her himself. The showdown between Sharyu and Nezumi against Usagi and his minions begins now, with Sharyu wanting to only restrain them.

 

Episode 5 was good. So some influential people bet in the Juni Taisen at the half way point, and the purpose is to settle disputed between lands and there was even talk of controlling the world. Ox is already in the lead with 3 Juseki jewels. Dragon and Rabbit are second with 3 each with the rest having 1 each. So the old man Hitsuji warrior of the Sheep won the Juni Taisen at one point three decades ago. When he won, his wish was to peacefully grow old. He was thankful to be able to see his children and grandchildren grow up. His grandchild was selected for this Juni Taisen, and he entered in their place. Makes me kind of hope he wins.

Hitsuji was very smart, he never actually swallowed the poisoned Juseki jewel, he just pretended to. So his plot revolves around offering to use his supposed ability to retrieve the Juseki jewel from an individual he wants to partner with. Presumably he would just give up his own jewel, to pretend it worked before taking them out strategically although he presumes they would decline to start with. Ushi got his location, and Hitsuji barely scaped, but the bomb likely didn't take Ushi out. Interestingly, Ushi didn't actually kill Uma, he managed to escaped. Hitsuji stumbled upon Tiger ad she noticed him despite getting drunk.

 

Episode 6 was good. Damn, Tora just speed blitzed and killed Hitsuji like instantly. He was way too overconfident. Her fighting style revolves around her being drunk. Likewise, Sharyu was way too overconfident and got herself killed being a pacifist. Usagi lead her away from their fighting area and to where he had Snake's head mounted above, which allowed him to see behind him to attack Sharyu when she planned to restrain him from behind.

The betting commenced and the current favourite remains Ox, with Rabbit as the second. Rat is last, so I am assuming he might even pull the win.

Uma got critically injured and almost died fighting in a war. He went through a lot of experimental treatments/body modifications to get stronger and a more resilient body. Even still, he ended up holed up in the room, and he seemed to think his body was adapting to the poison, so it was likely he'd survive waiting it out. Nezumi somehow managed to get in, seems like he can slip through even the tiniest of cracks in spaces. After some psychological talk with Uma, Nezumi disappeared and the Snake set that whole building on fire, leading to Uma's suffocation.

 

Episode 7 was good. Seems like the identical twin Tatsumi brothers weren't overly attached to each other, but they good along well enough. It was still shit they were put in a position that only one of them would live as the goal.

Tora took off the arm of the controlled Takeyasu before deciding to flee seeing as she only wanted to fight alive opponents. Ushii arrived and took the other arm off. Tora seems to have a grudge against Ushii, and they were about to fight before Takeyasu used both arms which were cut off to strangle them with 100% strength. Usagi's ability seems way too broken. Ushii asked Tora for a duel, provided she agreed to his plan to get out of their predicament, which she did. The plan was for Ushii to throw his sword creating sparks to light the alcohol that Tora was foaming out, which lit her head and the arm on fire.

Seems like Usagi got another puppet with Uma too.

 

Episode 8 was good. Things delved into their backstory. The things they were involved in was to take whatever jobs for money, then would basically swindle the employers by playing both sides and making out with riches. They would then give the riches out to the poor people, but that just usually ended up with the poor people dead too. Their robin hood appearance was pretty much just that. They were even involved in some court case over how they handle things prior to the Juni Taisen, it's interesting that the warriors are known and accepted and basically have their own separate laws to abide by.

Fire seems like the key to countering Usagi's ability, with Ushii and Tora able to get out of their position. But, they still have to finish off the main body. Likewise, Nagayuki plans to make his move, and thinks he'll work together with his controlled younger brother.

 

Episode 9 was good. Got Tora's backstory. So her family owned a dojo, with her father as the head of it. Over time, Tora became the uncontested strongest there, and was heading towards being the new head and with her strength, there wasn't any complaints against her anymore. Things went to shit when her father had her fight in wars. She saw the worst of humans, and fell back on drinking as a way to cope with things. This is how she invented her drunken style of fighting. So got to the point of basically constantly being drunk, and fighting alone due to not being able to tell allies/enemies apart, and seems like she basically forgot basic things like reading and writing, etc as she went along. Maybe not literally, but in her drunken fighting state. It ended with her father throwing her out, when he's the one that sent her off as a young girl to start with.

Usagi killed the other twin, and then the twins together faced off against Tora and Ushii. Tora picked up on Ushii's hint about the ice weapon likely being hydrogen, so shattered it which froze them both. Usagi arrived, and Tora and Ushii cut him to bits together. Now their alliance is over and they're facing down. I hope somehow Usagi didn't survive, I doubt it though, as he's literally cut to tiny bits.

 

Episode 10 was fantastic. So the history between them is that Ushii mistook Tora for a child on the battlefield and helped her to a safe location after taking out the enemies in the area. During their meeting, Tora posed a question about how he did the right thing without fear, hesitation or mistakes. Ushii indicated that it was as simple as doing the right thing when wanting too. Doing good isn't accidental and is a conscious effort to help people. If someone's inability to do the right thing causes them suffering, then it's because they don't even try to do the right thing. He also advised her to not go near a battlefield again.

The meeting with Ushii inspired Tora to train herself hard and get back to some semblance of herself prior to her falling into that drunken despair, in hopes of meeting Ushii again on the battlefield. She never met him again, but she ran into an old acquaintance student who told her about the Juni Tiasen and when Tora realised Ushii would be there, ended up pleading with her father to compete, and he agreed.

What spurred Tora's grudge, was that Ushii didn't recognise her, and also she thought Ushii never went through pain/hardship. But the grudge wasn't overly serious. Just when they were about to have their duel, in a dogshit twist, Usagi attacked and Tora took a critical hit to save Ushii from the sneak attack, thus repaying him helping her in the past. Ushii carried her off to safety after slicing Usagi up further with no success. It's speculated he turned himself into a zombie by biting his own tongue before being sliced apart to control himself after death. Feel like that shouldn't work.

As a last request, Tora asked for Ushii to slay her, so she didn't come back as a zombie and die by Usagi's hand. Ushii agreed and requested she present her name in the formal way the warriors do to make it a duel she died in.

 

Episode 11 was good, but anticlimactic. It seems Ushii did remember Tora when he saved her, but didn't realise they were the same person. Ushii prepared to deal with Usagi and did well in the fight, until he was caught off guard by Sharyuu jumping out of Usagi and pinning Ushii to the ground. Usagi had Sharyuu put his body back together from the pieces around and in such a way she could fit inside. Somehow very smart. Ushii was preparing himself to take his own life, but was finding it tough, which is when Nezumi appeared with the bomb of Hitsugi. Nezumi gave Ushii some comfort by giving Tora credit for taking out Hitsugi allowing him access to the bomb, which allowed Ushii to die without regret, as at least he wasn't doomed to be Usagi's toy.

Turns out Nezumi's ability is basically being able to run through up to 100 different scenarios at the same time, and look in the one that is beneficial to him. The restriction being, that he can never do the exact same moves more than once so each path is unique. This was demonstrated when he ran through 100 scenarios of him leaving the Juni Taisen, while refusing the interview, which lead to him dying a lot of times. So, he locked in doing the interview. Nezumi did give Sharyuu credit for being the one to take out the zombies, as she had requested he destroy her body if she dies, plus pointed him to the bomb. He never learned what her peace plan was, but the host believes it was genuine. Seems like in most scenarios, things were more often than not poised for Usagi to win. Nezumi decided to run through the 100 different wish scenarios to pick the best one.