Ctrl-A Forum

Well since Twelve Kingdoms has gotten such a...lukewarm reception, mostly due to the WTF factor, I thought I'd ask with a pretty little poll.

Would you, the audience, like to continue watching Twelve Kingdoms?

Personally, I adore the Twelve Kingdoms. It's a fantastic series that although starts out rather slow, but once it gets into the plot, you know it's a gem. I was very disappointed with the translations of the novels TokyoPop is releasing, however. Despite being a huge fan of the anime, I had to force myself through every page. I had read some fan translations of the first few chapters, however, and had liked the novel initially, so I'm guessing it's more due to iffy translation work that anything.

I really didn't like Twelve Kingdoms for the first 4-8 episodes or so. The protagonist was the most pathetic, annoying, weak-minded girl I had ever run across in a serious-type anime.

Then she woke up. And holy crap I understood finally what those episodes meant and saw that they were necessary, every one.

I only saw the series to the end of the first arc (13? 26?) as I then went off on a work term and I think CTRL-A decided to call it quits (or marathon straight to the end, I don't know (I was on a work term)). Apparently it doesn't do so well in the second half, but all that I saw was quite well done. I even liked the ending theme

Yes, at the beginning it's pretty slow, and that they don't explain much, and they use lots of terminology, so you're left with WTF (babies come from trees, what? XD). I think I ended up liking it though, because the character develops a lot and it gets more interesting later on (once they explain stuff, you know).

I actually liked the 2nd arc the most (it's like 6-7 eps, and explains some of the backstory of how the world works), the 3rd arc is pretty good as well.

As for showing it with the club though, I'm gonna say no. It's a bit long (45 eps?) for the Friday shows, so it'd be more for a weeknight show. But I like having funny series we can poke fun at, like HnG and Saiyuki XD, at the weeknight shows...

As for the 12-Kingdoms novel, I want to read it, since the anime only covers some arcs, and at the end it alludes to other arcs that never resolved in the anime. But Tokyopop is horrible with their novel releases >___< They'd start off a series, giving you hope that it's gonna be translated, and then they stop ;__; .... it happened to Kino no Tabi (only got 1 vol out, vol 2 was supposed to come out a couple years ago, still not available yet), and it happened to the Gundam SEED novels (3/5 are translated (translation quality is pretty amateurish >__> , still waiting for the last 2 (Amazon lied, it's not out yet ;__; ) )... Dunno about the quality or availability of the novels for more popular series like Slayers or FMA.... but all the novels I want to read are discontinued as far as I know....

Tokyopop is planning on releasing the Twelve Kingdoms novels roughly one a year, and Sea of Wind (novel 2) came out last March, pretty much as expected. I'd highly recommend them (if you like the anime) as they seem to be getting a much better treatment than the Crest of the Stars novels (I still want the Banner series though).

That's good, at least they're still working on it. How much of the novels does the anime cover, and how many novels are there? (7?)

LOL I don't know Mo, I still think you should let me do Prince of Tennis. Now that is mock worthy. On so many levels.

It's a bit long, but sure? I liked the random chibi episodes, so instead of showing the whole thing, I don't mind showing random eps. Is it like Saiyuki where there's really no important plot?

Has it been completely released yet?

There are 6 novels and a short story collection (so 7 books in total), but Ono has said that she would like to write more, although there is no indication that she actually will. As far as I know, the anime does not cover all seven books, and there are some differences between the two (for example, only Yoko goes to the Twelve Kingdoms world, and the other two students do not in the novel, and apparently there was a bit more focus on Yoko in the anime than the novels). I think that most of the last 3 books are not covered by the anime, but I'm not sure.

There has been approximately 52 episodes released thus far. There's...some plot? XD But none of them are chibi, but there is some crack filler in there like Karupin's Day (The cat) XD

Could do the 52 *shrug* It's not looking good for more releases either but at least it's on the website. A slightly better chance then Hikago.