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Twelve Kingdoms, episodes 14-18
Episode 14: total recap, and not really worth watching for the five seconds of frame story, although that five seconds includes a sweet moment between Yoko and Rakushun, and Rakushun cutely protesting that he can't take care of Yoko's pet bird that eats silver pieces 'cause he's a struggling student. (Rakushun, my sweetness, you need to become BFF with the supreme divine monarch of some kingdom that doesn't have cash flow issues. Go talk up En! He's an friendly dude, and you did do him a big favor. I bet there's a scholarship out there for helping to save a neighboring kingdom and reducing the financial burden of caring for the local refugee population.)
Episodes 15-18, and also like the last thirty seconds of episode 13: oh hai, so that's where Taiki went, although I don't currently know how or why. And I'm not supposed to even know who he is, yet.
Yuka is all up in Kaname/Taiki's business! I don't mind this nearly so much as her intrusion on Yoko's arc, because A) she's no longer a homicidal lunatic, and B) I haven't actually read the novel(s) dealing with any part of the story after Taiki's original disappearance and life on Mt. Hou, or Yoko's life after she ascends the throne of Kei, and I have no idea to what degree the animators might be butchering this part of the story. Ignorance is bliss!
That moment on the stairs when one of what I can only assume is Kaname/Taiki's shirei is asking Yuka if she's an enemy of the king, and she, rightly freakin' terrified by the writhing, monstrous shadow presence and ominous supernatural voice, stammers that she's a friend of Queen Kei--that was intense. And eek, I think the Yoko/Yuka friendship thing is kinda growing on me. All I have to do is pretend that she didn't spend about seven episodes trying to kill Yoko, and it's great. That's! The Power! Of Friendship!
(I'm also pretty sure that all of the accidents and people getting hurt around returned-Kaname/Taiki are because his shirei are protecting him from bullies and anybody or anything else that they perceive as threatening to him--though that might be less blindingly obvious if I didn't know he was a kirin, or about the kirin/shirei pacts. Unclear is whether Taiki is aware of them, or in control of them. Probably not--we know that kirin are naturally peaceful and compassionate, I think he'd have to been really insane to be deliberately destructive or murderous that way.)
--Oh my god, baby Taiki is so cute. Not as cute as mouse-Rakushun, but no one could be.
--Scratch that. The look of overwhelming JOY on baby Taiki's face when his first request--to be able to eat his meals in the company of the attendants of Mt. Hou--is enthusiastically accepted, is, in fact, the most adorable thing in the universe. (He comes across as a really young ten-year-old, but I attribute that to his delayed experience of a sense of love and companionship and belonging. When you've been suffering long enough, even a little bit of pleasure can make you giddy.)
Really, his overall happiness at being on Mt. Hou is heartrending, contrasted as it is here with the closed-off misery of the amnesiac older Kaname/Taiki that Yuka meets. I mean, man, to go from that rotten childhood to the joy of those months on Mt. Hou, and the eventual deep satisfaction of finding and serving his king, and then to LOSE it--even if he can't remember what's he's lost, he must feel it. Fucking tragic.
--I would have been very confused by that giraffe remark if I hadn't recently looked up the kirin on Wikipedia.
He tries to stretch his neck so he'll be more like the kirin he knows about (a giraffe)! God, that's precious! I think I'm going to use up my lifetime allotment of uses of the word "precious" during this arc.
--Who is this Shinkun god fellow? He must be from later novels...?
--Mokurin also.
--Keiki clutching at Taiki, begging him not to cry again because the attendants will scold him--egads, how cute. Taiki says, "They scold you, too?" and Keiki sighs mournfully and replies, "Of course...they have their way with kirin." LOL. Keiki is so dignified that it's really funny to see him discomfited this way.
---Aaaaand, we finally get to see baby Taiki freak out over the idea that his shirei are gonna munch on his mouldering kirin corpse someday. Hee hee. Keiki is so matter-of-fact about it, and Taiki's face is a study in DANGER WILL ROBINSON.
--He randomly befriends a non-Youma demon leopard. I think Taiki just likes things with spots, like giraffes and leopards and Sanshi.
--I love how he attaches himself to Risai. Socute. And the weird mini-family they form with Gyousou...Mama General, Papa General, and baby kirin. I think maybe I ought to get some sleep...
--As with the novel, I think they do a good job with Taiki's reaction to Gyousou--given how often we've heard Taiki be told that he'll feel a revelation when he meets his king or queen, the reaction he has to Gyousou ought to be an immediate giveaway to the audience that this is the one, but because it's such a negative, unpleasant sensation for Taiki--a sensation of fear, and being reminded of blood when he sees Gyousou's eyes (blood, of course, freaks out all kirin to the point of leaving them prostrate on the floor), the aura of command--we're temporarily misled, just as Taiki is.
One of the cool things about Ono's world is that even with all the divine revelation and divine order, individual personality and interpersonal relationships are still key to how events unfold--whatsername's dysfunctional obsession with Keiki, for instance, or the way that Rakushun's friendship helped to save Yoko's soul. Gyousou's fully developed, adult personality, his ambition, and aura of uncompromising will to action is just too much for inexperienced, gentle, child Taiki. We know there's kind of a yin-yang balancing action going on between the king, who has to sometimes be ruthless to be a good king, and the kirin, who is the voice of compassion and kindness, but, at least at the moment of their meeting, and partly because of the circumstances in which they meet, Gyousou and Taiki are pretty extreme examples of their types. No wonder it never occurred to Taiki to interpret that unpleasant sensation as a divine revelation (aside from his general confusion about the form of a revelation, and his insecurity about his kirin abilities). Man, I feel for him--he was definitely forced to choose too soon, before he'd had enough time to assimilate to this world, and the way it works. I bet if he'd had even another six months to get used to it all, he wouldn't have been so confused when he met Gyousou.
Episodes 15-18, and also like the last thirty seconds of episode 13: oh hai, so that's where Taiki went, although I don't currently know how or why. And I'm not supposed to even know who he is, yet.
Yuka is all up in Kaname/Taiki's business! I don't mind this nearly so much as her intrusion on Yoko's arc, because A) she's no longer a homicidal lunatic, and B) I haven't actually read the novel(s) dealing with any part of the story after Taiki's original disappearance and life on Mt. Hou, or Yoko's life after she ascends the throne of Kei, and I have no idea to what degree the animators might be butchering this part of the story. Ignorance is bliss!
That moment on the stairs when one of what I can only assume is Kaname/Taiki's shirei is asking Yuka if she's an enemy of the king, and she, rightly freakin' terrified by the writhing, monstrous shadow presence and ominous supernatural voice, stammers that she's a friend of Queen Kei--that was intense. And eek, I think the Yoko/Yuka friendship thing is kinda growing on me. All I have to do is pretend that she didn't spend about seven episodes trying to kill Yoko, and it's great. That's! The Power! Of Friendship!
(I'm also pretty sure that all of the accidents and people getting hurt around returned-Kaname/Taiki are because his shirei are protecting him from bullies and anybody or anything else that they perceive as threatening to him--though that might be less blindingly obvious if I didn't know he was a kirin, or about the kirin/shirei pacts. Unclear is whether Taiki is aware of them, or in control of them. Probably not--we know that kirin are naturally peaceful and compassionate, I think he'd have to been really insane to be deliberately destructive or murderous that way.)
--Oh my god, baby Taiki is so cute. Not as cute as mouse-Rakushun, but no one could be.
--Scratch that. The look of overwhelming JOY on baby Taiki's face when his first request--to be able to eat his meals in the company of the attendants of Mt. Hou--is enthusiastically accepted, is, in fact, the most adorable thing in the universe. (He comes across as a really young ten-year-old, but I attribute that to his delayed experience of a sense of love and companionship and belonging. When you've been suffering long enough, even a little bit of pleasure can make you giddy.)
Really, his overall happiness at being on Mt. Hou is heartrending, contrasted as it is here with the closed-off misery of the amnesiac older Kaname/Taiki that Yuka meets. I mean, man, to go from that rotten childhood to the joy of those months on Mt. Hou, and the eventual deep satisfaction of finding and serving his king, and then to LOSE it--even if he can't remember what's he's lost, he must feel it. Fucking tragic.
--I would have been very confused by that giraffe remark if I hadn't recently looked up the kirin on Wikipedia.
He tries to stretch his neck so he'll be more like the kirin he knows about (a giraffe)! God, that's precious! I think I'm going to use up my lifetime allotment of uses of the word "precious" during this arc.
--Who is this Shinkun god fellow? He must be from later novels...?
--Mokurin also.
--Keiki clutching at Taiki, begging him not to cry again because the attendants will scold him--egads, how cute. Taiki says, "They scold you, too?" and Keiki sighs mournfully and replies, "Of course...they have their way with kirin." LOL. Keiki is so dignified that it's really funny to see him discomfited this way.
---Aaaaand, we finally get to see baby Taiki freak out over the idea that his shirei are gonna munch on his mouldering kirin corpse someday. Hee hee. Keiki is so matter-of-fact about it, and Taiki's face is a study in DANGER WILL ROBINSON.
--He randomly befriends a non-Youma demon leopard. I think Taiki just likes things with spots, like giraffes and leopards and Sanshi.
--I love how he attaches himself to Risai. Socute. And the weird mini-family they form with Gyousou...Mama General, Papa General, and baby kirin. I think maybe I ought to get some sleep...
--As with the novel, I think they do a good job with Taiki's reaction to Gyousou--given how often we've heard Taiki be told that he'll feel a revelation when he meets his king or queen, the reaction he has to Gyousou ought to be an immediate giveaway to the audience that this is the one, but because it's such a negative, unpleasant sensation for Taiki--a sensation of fear, and being reminded of blood when he sees Gyousou's eyes (blood, of course, freaks out all kirin to the point of leaving them prostrate on the floor), the aura of command--we're temporarily misled, just as Taiki is.
One of the cool things about Ono's world is that even with all the divine revelation and divine order, individual personality and interpersonal relationships are still key to how events unfold--whatsername's dysfunctional obsession with Keiki, for instance, or the way that Rakushun's friendship helped to save Yoko's soul. Gyousou's fully developed, adult personality, his ambition, and aura of uncompromising will to action is just too much for inexperienced, gentle, child Taiki. We know there's kind of a yin-yang balancing action going on between the king, who has to sometimes be ruthless to be a good king, and the kirin, who is the voice of compassion and kindness, but, at least at the moment of their meeting, and partly because of the circumstances in which they meet, Gyousou and Taiki are pretty extreme examples of their types. No wonder it never occurred to Taiki to interpret that unpleasant sensation as a divine revelation (aside from his general confusion about the form of a revelation, and his insecurity about his kirin abilities). Man, I feel for him--he was definitely forced to choose too soon, before he'd had enough time to assimilate to this world, and the way it works. I bet if he'd had even another six months to get used to it all, he wouldn't have been so confused when he met Gyousou.
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And I...think that when he's with Taiki is the only time I really like Keiki.
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(I seriously heart Enki, who is a really excellent blend of snarky, spiky-haired shounen youth and immortal badass, with a hearty dash of genuine goodness and decency.)