Review (with spoilers):
So we continue our way down the zodiac with Snake and Dragon biting the dust (though noteworthy that zombie Monkey has not yet been dispatched so potential for some sort of final spanner in the works to at least break up the monotone that is this story). Rabbit also was sliced and diced in mere seconds making for yet another lacklustre and unsatisfying fight sequence.
Though, like with the zombie monkey, there are a couple of points about the rabbit that might actually lead to something resembling a twist in this so far incredibly dull and by the numbers plot. Firstly, the Rabbit didn’t get a flashback. We went from Dragon’s story to Tiger’s, for the very first time this whole series skipping a step in the zodiac. Secondly, given the Rabbit has been resurrecting dead characters left and right (including non-character birds) and the very obvious shot of his head and open eyes at the end of this episode, there is certainly potential for Rabbit to not be as out of this as expected given he was dismembered.
Though, even if Rabbit isn’t dead, I’m still suspecting that little of interest is going to happen from a narrative point of view. Even the Ox, who has been all but a non-character for most of the story delivering only a handful of wooden lines and finally making a decent appearance only to demonstrate an extreme lack of personality or likability, has done nothing to convince me this is going anyway but what most viewers predicted way back after the Dog became the second victim.
Also, we spent the majority of this episode (where three characters died mind you) in Tiger’s past. And none of that past gave us any indication of why she has some sort of rage toward Ox. Given that is literally the only plot point of note that we have to cling to at this point in time (Rabbit is a psycho, Rat is missing, Ox has no personality and everyone else is dead), I don’t get why they decided it was more important to tell us why Tiger is a drunk over why Tiger hates Ox. I know which one would make me more invested in what may happen next in this story and it isn’t that burned out warriors on the battlefield sometimes like to take the edge off.
Seriously, let the poison kill them all at this point. That at least would be a surprise.
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Thanks,
Karandi James.
I see you haven’t review episode ten. After they killed monkey, I started to believe Rat was going to be the last one standing, but maybe Ox is the last one standing. Either way, I have to say that neither character is interesting enough to keep me watching at this point. Ox is dull, never showing any emotion or personality, and Rat is just an emo who thinks putting effort into anything is meaningless. I could careless about who wins at this point. Tiger was the last interesting character I thought was left. If Rabbit wins as a dismembered corpse, I am going to …
I initially thought Juni Taisen was going to be 12 episodes, but I can see how they are going to gives us a satisfactory conclusion at this point. There are only 2 episodes left. We haven’t seen Ox, Rat, and Rabbits backstories. They haven’t revealed who the people betting on the game are. Although I have already figured the mysterious people betting on the game are the heads of the twelve families.
Review of ep 10 out later. And basically I agree. I haven’t been particularly interested in this series at all after it started (though it was one I was looking forward to this season) but it is just the same thing over and over and the characters have all been pretty dull. Even if they are interesting, they are just going to die after we get to know them anyway so zero reason to care. This one is definitely a dud for the season.
At least the animation stepped up again in this episode. We haven’t seen it look this good since the start of the series.
I’m trying to avoid the (justifiable) knee jerk reaction of thinking all this is pointless and see if I can’t figure out the goal of this show. It’s really hard to understand why we go into the background of these characters, most of which does nothing to promote sympathy or likability (save for the case of Monkey), only to kill them sometimes literally 2 seconds later.
There has to be a reason, right? Else it could have been a straight up action show with some drama built up around the alliances that formed.
I would love to believe there is a reason but to be honest, evn if there is, this show has been pretty boring with only tiny moments that have been interesting. Maybe it might be another Sagrada where the ending brings everything together so beautifully I’ll be happy I sat through it, but I just don’t think it will at this point in time.