Ask John: Will There be More Twelve Kingdoms Anime?

Question:
I was curious about your opinion of Juuni Kokki (Twelve Kingdoms) and whether you thought this type of complex, intelligent rendering was an indication of a future anime trend. Also, do you think that Juuni Kokki will ever emerge from “indefinite hiatus”?

Answer:
I have to admit that I’ve only watched Juuni Kokki (12 Kingdoms) up to episode 15, but what I’ve seen was exceptional. However, considering that it’s been months now since the series ended and a new season of TV anime is scheduled to begin in Japan next month, I wouldn’t say that Juuni Kokki is, or has been the foundation for any significant new trend of highly literate and intelligent anime. That’s not to say that most anime is unintelligent, but since Juuni Kokki ended I haven’t seen any noticeable increase in the percentage of unusually smart, complex and mature anime titles created in Japan.

It seems far more likely that Juuni Kokki was simply an exceptional highlight slipped into the usual progression of more typical anime releases. It’s not the first, and probably won’t be the last. Going back ten years to 1993, I can name a handful of similarly challenging, intelligent, brilliantly written and developed TV series: Fushigi Yuugi, Evangelion, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Berserk, Serial Experiments Lain, Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku (Now and Then, Here and There), Chikyuu Shoujo Arujuna, Uchuu no Stellvia. Yet each of these titles, just like Juuni Kokki, was a singular exception during a season or even during a year of typical and even outstanding anime titles that simply weren’t designed to be as literary or perceptive or as psychologically profound as these shows.

The Juuni Kokki TV series was originally scheduled to air 68 episodes. However, the series was ended after the broadcast of episode 45 on August 30, 2003. The Juuni Kokki fan site A Thousand Miles of Wind links to a translation of NHK’s official explanation of the series conclusion. In summation, Juuni Kokki episode 45 was the final episode of the “Higashi no Wadatsumi, Nishi no Soukai” storyline, and the final chapter of Juuni Kokki that focused on original protagonist Yoko Nakajima. Considering that from that point on the cast of the series changed, and also taking into account the fact that original Juuni Kokki novelist Fuyumi Ono has not finished writing the series, nor even published a new novel in the series since 2001, NHK decided that it was better to conclude the animation at logical stopping point than continue the show with an entirely new cast and a story with no ending.