Juuni Taisen Zodiac War Episode 12 (Final) Review: The One Wish That Must Be Granted, and the Ninety-nine That Can Be Done Without

And that’s how Juuni Taisen came to an end. A great final episode to end a show focusing on a battle royale. We got to see more fighting, more information about all the Warriors, and a deeper meaning than expected at the end.

Japanese Original Episode Title: どうしても叶えたいたったひとつの願いと割とそうでもない99の願い

Plot

After Juuni Taisen is over, we go through Rat’s everyday routine, where he is constantly thinking about the one wish that he wants to be granted as a reward for his victory. Going through hundreds of scenarios or ‘paths’ in his head, we see all the small and the big wishes that he is thinking about. In the 100 paths that he experienced in the Juuni Taisen, he managed to learn everyone’s wishes as well, which made him even more confused. In the end, he almost went crazy because he realized that he had no particular wish to be granted and even if he was granted 100 wishes he would still not be happy, so he chose the only thing that could give him inner peace, which was to forget everything.

Episode Highlights

Rat’s appearance and fighting outfit: How lovely was his haircut? The fact that his hair looked like ears was god damn adorable. Loved it. Also, did anyone else notice that he is actually wearing something like a white thong in his Juuni Taisen outfit? I think Rabbit would have been jealous.

Boar’s wish: By far that lady had the best wish ever. I didn’t see that coming at all.

100 rejections: My heart wouldn’t have been able to survive something like that. It really made you think that Rat’s power is a curse and not a blessing.

Themes & Trivia

Warrior of the Dog Tagline: ‘To kill like chewing and putting in mouth’

kande fukumeru youni korosu 噛んで含めるように殺す

At first, the literal explanation is that you chew something and then put it in someone’s mouth. But his tagline refers also to a Japanese idiom. The word kande is the te-form of the verb kamu 噛む, meaning ‘to bite’ or ‘to chew.’ The verb fukumeru means a number of things, one of them being ‘putting [something] in mouth.’ And youni means ‘like’ or ‘as if’ or ‘in a similar way.’

So if you think about it, according to the new information that we got from the final episode, it means to teach something or explain it in detail, like chewing food for a baby. So his tagline is a play on the fact he’s a teacher and he fights by biting people.

You can read more about every Warrior’s tagline here.

Comments

I was so pleased with the ending of the show. Many can argue and say that it was anticlimactic or that for Nisio’s work is very average or whatever. I think that the ending was brilliant and it felt more real than any other conclusion would. It had a deeper meaning which is something that you rarely see in anime about superpowers. According to Buddhist philosophy ‘To break free of the cycle and achieve enlightenment, one must be free of desire’. Desire leads to frustration and sorrow that traps the soul in an endless cycle of birth. So Rat decided to forget the fact he could have a wish granted and everything else that happened in Juuni Taisen so he can become free of his desires and find inner peace. And it’s completely understandable for him to wish for something like that. If you think about it, he sounded jealous that the other warriors didn’t remember the 99 paths, where he experienced great pain and sorrow, and had only a sense of déjà vu. He didn’t want to live like that and he saw his power as a curse more than a gift, so for him to find peace of mind was the ideal scenario.

100 wishes are not enough to satisfy a person’s ambition

Overall this show has been a great surprise for me. I loved and hated it for many different reasons but after episode 11 I think the plot made so much sense with the little details that were given to us that made it look so well thought out. I am still bummed that we didn’t get to see the backstory of Rabbit and he was left hanging as the lonely crazy guy, which reassures my theory that most bunnies are the reincarnation of evil itself along with squirrels. What did you think about the ending? Loved it or hated it? Cheers guys and don’t forget EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS!