Another crazy one is gone in Juuni Taisen. I really enjoyed Chicken’s backstory. I like how we get to see little information about each character just before they die so you can sympathize more with them and understand their reasons behind their actions.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 牛刀をもって鶏を裂く

Plot

Chicken was crazy since she was young. She killed her parents and then had severe amnesia about the incident due to stress. She was took in by the Niwa family who did experiments on her to give her the power of controlling and communicating with birds and fed her thirst for blood by training her to become a killing machine. After seeing how she has manipulated and betrayed a lot of people in her life, she herself knew that she was no longer sane and unable to be compassionate for other human beings.

Back to the battlefield, she took the jewel from the Dog and headed towards Boar. She annihilated her by pecking; the birds basically ate what was left of her flesh. She then stumbled upon Rat who took her to Monkey, since Chicken had raised her hand to the truce pact at the beginning. Chicken’s intention though was to kill and betray everyone and not to make peace with them but for some reason she started giving in to Monkey’s ‘kindness’. She then decided to leave them and started wondering around by herself realizing that Dog’s poison didn’t only change her physical state but her mental one as well. Unfortunately, soon after that, Ox finds her and brings her to her demise in split seconds by taking her jewel and the one she obtained from Dog.

Episode Highlights

Chicken’s backstory: I am glad that we got to know more about her before she died. It’s always interesting to see what made the character go insane in the first place.

Monkey & Chicken dialogue: Oh my god, that scene was so intense! I was on the edge of my seat and couldn’t stop thinking all the possible attacks that they could do to each other instead of sharing some milked tea.

One-man-army affected her mental health as well: That was an interesting detail to add in the mix. Making her not only physically stronger but mentally as well was very smart and useful to the plot for many reasons. I idea that because she was unstable she was also weak was a good way to make us sympathize with her character even more.

Themes & Trivia

Violence censorship in anime: Japanese television censors almost everything that could be considered inappropriate. Nudity, blood, and of course guts and gore. Why? Because instead of banning something from TV, they decide to make it look like shit in order for them to profit. And it’s not for the viewer’s protection because this is just bullshit. I remember since I was young, if I watched Naruto or One Piece in a US cartoon network, everything was black in the fighting scenes because of the blood censoring. Even then, however, I knew what blood was like and it made me more confused as to why it’s black and not red.

I don’t know about you but I’ve always been bugged about censoring violence in anime. If an anime is violent it means that it’s addressed to a certain audience and that it should be broadcast in an appropriate time for it. Censoring it doesn’t change the outcome because even a 5 year old can tell that for example in this episode: Dog’s face was smashed and Boar was eaten alive and pecked to pieces by birds. It’s also a way for them to say: You know what, go and buy the blu-ray so you can see the full GORE of everything, go and spend MORE money, yes. Same happened with Tokyo Ghoul and I was not happy. Not happy at all.

Comments

I have to say I love the opening of Juuni Taisen. The music, the animation, and the cinematography are so nicely done. Other than that, I loved the background music that was playing when Monkey and Chicken were having a conversation. Needless to say that during that whole scene I was wondering: IS THERE MORE POISON IN THE TEA?

I think in this episode we were kind of hinted on Monkey’s ability. She can probably make people around her tell the truth or she can kind of control them to her willing or something, hence the killing peacefully. Because she is going to kill for sure as well. I don’t know what Rat’s deal is, but I’ve made up my mind that he is my favorite. Him and maybe Rabbit…

Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head

Is Horse dead? Is the zodiac chain of death going to change? Is Snake going to have any screen time? Are Chicken’s birds still hungry after eating their own ‘master’? How do they feel about it? We will definitely learn more in the next episode. Cheers and don’t forget to read the rest of our Fall 2017 reviews!

NEXT TIME: The Enemy, a Noble Primate (敵もさる者ひっかく者)

Juuni Taisen: Zodiac War

3 October | Anime Info Page | Part of MANGA.TOKYO’s weekly anime reviews for Fall 2017.