Anime: Juuousei 3762s

PROPER MINDSET
Planet of the Beast King could have made a great sci-fi / action / mystery / survival anime but because of bad storytelling it ends up being nothing but a superficial shojo romance for fangirls. Do not make the mistake of expecting action or adventure while starting this anime. The story begins with a pair of twins living in a high-tech colony, having their parents murdered and themselves thrown on a savage planet where they must survive on their own. This is an instant hook with most viewers who would of course expect an epic adventure. The setting may the genres but, guess what, they are used at minimum. Most of it is tragic romance and overblown drama around pretty lads and pretty gals, thrown amidst a poorly constructed mystery / sci-fi setting.

THE STAFF
- Animated by studio BONES, so of course that means good production values and absolutely no attempt to have a decent plot.
- Directed by Nishikiori Hiroshi, who has a surprisingly variable roster that covers most genres (Angelic Layer, Azumanga Daioh, The Melody of Oblivion, Ghost Slayers Ayashi, Toaru Majitsu no Index). None of them are particularly good but at leas the guy tries something slightly different each time.

SCRIPT & CAST
The story had enough material to be a full season or more yet it was all ruined by having to be shoved inside a tiny 11 episode format, where most of its elements are left out or done in a rushed way.
- The most obvious example of which is a time skip that happens midway and practically throws out the window all the adventure and the possible action the setting could have. One moment you have a wimp weak boy starting its adventure in a savage world. The scene changes and you are told years ed and it is now a macho man who sured all challenges, conquered all the savage tribes, and became the master of the world. WELL THANKS FOR NOTHING! All the fun is watching HOW he did all that and not IF he succeeded in the end.
- The second problem with this anime is the rushed and unnatural relationships and behaviors of the cast. Romances bloom out of nowhere, and characters behave way too exaggerated before they become completely different people out of screen. You are simply not made to believe all their overblown drama is interesting since it is completely artificial and forced. You don’t care about them either because all that happens too fast to find the time to even get used to this artificial feeling.
- The third problem is the plot twists that are completely ridiculous to the point you think they were written by a 5 year old. Or in this case, the BONES staff, which is the same thing. The finale reveals the reason for all the mess in the story and it is plain ridiculous. It’s again trying to shock you with a major plot twist that happens ten minutes before the series ends and with no investment to it, you are just facepalming and wondering WHY DID I WASTE MY TIME WATCHING THIS? It came out of nowhere, without foreshadow or even further elaboration, as again nothing but an amateurish method of using SHOCK EFFECT to make you go WOW with things that were unexpected because there simply was NO WAY to figure it out yourself.

Yet I understand that the target audience for such works LOVES this overblown drama, as long as it is around tragic romances concerning pretty and very stupid people. You know what I mean; feminine boys and bimbo girls that are in desperate need to be saved by handsome men… because they are girls. So yeah, in theory it is very successful for the same reasons the Twilight movies were. Still, nothing lasts long enough for even the fujoshis to care and all you are left with is a messy plot that changes abruptly every 20 minutes just because THEY ARE RUNNING OUT OF EPISODES. All the potential the rich setting and the character interaction had was wasted right there. Plain horrible!

PRODUCTION VALUES
The best part in the whole anime is the artwork, which is very good in of colors and drawings. A minus is the DAMN huge eyes the characters have, just because this is a shojo story. Very hard to accept it in a series that takes place on a savage planet full of testosterone filled barbarians. And as I said, don’t expect any action because it sucks.

Music on the other hand is plain mediocre. The songs are full of silly Engrish and a tone that feels irrelevant with the setting. This anime is called “Bestial” and we get LULLABIES??? So we can what, fall asleep while watching the man-eating plants ripping apart their victims or the barbarian tribes gutting each other in raids? This is all out of place! And so are the voice actors; most sound like gays and bimbos despite being on a planet oozing with hormones. I guess those sentient plants are full of TENTACLES that ass-rape them twice a day in order to achieve that. Pf, the anime better fits to be called Planet of the Drag Queen.

LEGACY
This anime fails in practically all sections. Maybe it wouldn’t if a different studio had animated it. I recommend Towards the Terra as a much better variant, plus to make sure you throw this series to the ass-raping plants where it belongs.

And now for some excused scorings.

Juu-ou Sei tells the story of twin brothers, Thor and Rai, who are sent to a planet named Chimeara against their will following the murder of their parents by persons unknown. Chimeara is an incredibly dangerous planet, in which death-row criminals are sent and deadly plants abound. The brothers must survive this treacherous planet in order to become the Beast King and travel back to space in order to figure out who killed their parents.

However, though the premise is incredibly interesting, and the first few episodes are fast-paced and keep you on the edge of your seat, the series is entirely too short to do itself justice. Even with a huge time jump after the first few episodes of three years, the plot in the final episodes feels incredibly rushed and underdeveloped. This anime had incredible potential that it could not live up to in only 11 episodes. The ending wasn't too bad, but the anime doesn't really give you time to digest even the ending, by again skipping ahead to provide "conclusion" without really answering what happened to several characters.

Also, despite the many intriguing and unexpected plot twists which occur in this anime, none of them are truly shocking, nor do they provoke much emotion in the viewer. This is mostly due to the shortness of the anime, which undermines the surprise of the plot twists. It is difficult to become invested in the current setting when you know that there will be another major plot twist in 30 seconds. Had the series been longer, perhaps the plot twists would be more shocking. Also, many of the plot twists involve characters which we hardly get to know, and thus find it difficult to feel emotion when plot twists occur.

While the main characters (Tiz, Third, Thor) are fairly well-developed, especially for the fast pacing and short length of the anime, the many side characters (Zagi, Karim, etc) are given cursory development and seem to change personalities on a whim. We see Thor develop from naive child to the Beast King, killing many along the way as he struggles to survive in the harsh environment of Chimeara, and we slowly begin to find out more about the mysterious Third and his background and motives.

Besides the limited development of characters later in the series, the romance in this series felt extremely contrived. This is especially true in the love-triangle romance between Thor, Karim, and Zagi. The romance is rushed through in a single episode and somehow we are expected to believe that these characters truly love each other.

As to the animation, I was impressed by the uniqueness of the environment created in this series: the transition between the architechture of the colony and the organic nature of the planet Chimeara, with its many species of plants, was amazingly well done. Also, the animation's fluidity impressed me throughout the anime, during both fights and conversation. The character models were a bit generic, however: many of the characters looked too similar.

The voice actors performed well, though Third's voice was incredibly deadpan and boring (apparently the voice actor thought that in order to be mysterious one must use as little emotion or acting ability as possible). However, the voice actors behind Thor, both young and older, and Tiz were very well done.

I would recommend this anime: it is extremely short and very fast-paced, making it easy to watch. While you won't regret watching it, you will probably wish it was longer in order to flesh out the story and characters more. Personally, while I enjoyed this anime, I was dissapointed with the lack of depth behind the characters and the rushed feel of the plot and ending.

I had extremely high hopes for Juuousei after the first couple of episodes. The series efficiently sets up its premise, characters and world in an extremely short amount of time, after which the anime rockets off on an extremely promising storyline. Indeed, the first half of the series is excellent.

For one, the characters after episode one are all initially likeable. None of them are particularly deep, but the character designs are excellent and the seiyuu do a good job. More importantly, the pacing of the early episodes is flat out fantastic. Unlike some shows, which half-wittingly bumble through their episodes as they try to introduce everything, Juuousei is extremely good at showing the audience the world while developing the story.

Unfortunately, this efficiency ends up being the series’ downfall; put simply, Juuousei’s collapses under the weight of its own ambition. The overarching storyline is so vast and grand that eleven meager episodes can’t possibly do it justice. From the government conspiracies to the wilderness survival stories to the global politics, there’s just far too much to cover. As a result, the writers need to take massive shortcuts across the entire storyline. There’s a three year time jump. Massive plot twists abound, but are so frequent and unrelenting that the viewer never really gets a chance to digest them. The end, especially, suffers from information overload – a sloppy mess of hurried resolution, clumsy tragedy and borderline melodrama.

What’s worse, the initially likeable set of characters suffers as much as the storyline, if not more. ing characters seem almost blurred by how quickly they rush in and out of view; you’d care for them if only you could see them clearly. On the other hand, the protagonist develops so quickly and randomly that even though he’s in every episode, you don’t really feel like you know him by the end. Tiz, the primary love interest, somewhat escapes this, but certain events make her a largely unsatisfying character anyway.

This deficiency is made all the more painful from the fact that this is Juuousei’s only real weakness; everything else in the series is rock solid. Animation is amazingly clean and crisp for what was probably a small budget. As mentioned before the character designs are appealing both before and after the two year time shift, and the action scenes are always serviceable and sometimes even good. Of particular note are the backgrounds of the jungle, which are vibrant and luscious to look at. The sound also compares favorably to shows of its budget. The voice acting is fine with few exceptions, and the background music is competent at setting the mood of the show, albeit somewhat forgettable. Of particular note is the OP, which, using blaring trombones and catchy Engrish, absolutely rocks.

Still, an ambitious anime that needed to be longer is certainly better than a safe one that should have been shorter. As so many series pad their running time with meaningless side-stories and tedious flashbacks, Juuousei is notable for being fresh and new the entire way through, even as the pangs of disappointment start to kick in. Even though there have been plenty of other “survival” anime made already, Juuousei never feels trite or clichéd. Overall, Juuousei doesn’t approach some of the other titles released this year, but should provide a satisfying time to those looking for a relatively short shounen flick.

This review is of the full anime, having watched the entire series.
(Based on previous review responses, I am attempting a slightly different approach to this review to try and keep the review as unbiased as possible whilst refraining from revealing any spoilers. All welcomed and appreciated, as usual.)

If you are looking for an anime with interesting concepts, you’ve come to the right place. If you are looking for an anime with disappointments, you’ve also come to the right place.

Animation: What you see in Jyu Oh Sei is some undeniably great animation. A lot of imagination has been put on character design, the attention to detail is always present, even the background artwork has been given its fair share of effort into making this anime look great. Whether you are in space or in a jungle scenario, you are always greeted with a nice background, even small details that most viewers probably won’t notice or pay attention to, are drawn.

Next, you have character motion. It is always smooth, whether they are talking or fighting. There is never a jitter throughout the anime. The animation itself is modern, but doesn’t offer realism levels as found in animes such as Final Fantasy and Appleseed, but those animes are in a league of its own. If we compare the budget and equipment used, Jyu Oh Sei is extremely well done.

If there is one thing I especially like about this anime (and I’ve ranted about this issue in my other reviews), it is the consistency. Many modern animes have trouble keeping the animation consistent, but not with Jyu Oh Sei. From the first to last episode, everything is kept in perfect order. It is animes like this that deserves a full 10 points for animation, the effort alone surely does. Some people may not agree. Sure, there are better artwork out there, some of the characters may look odd initially (big eyes) but over time, you’ll gradually accept it.

Sound: The first problem I’ve encountered with this anime is voice acting. You will find that some voice acting seem out-of-place and rather dull (Third in episode 2 would be an example) although you'll get over this as you progress in the anime (it is the way his character is meant to be). The sudden change in voice acting for Thor may also surprise some people from episode 5 to 6. With these two minor issues aside, the voice acting is fine, most voice actors have done a great job with no exaggeration nor out-of-place tone

The opening and ending music is something I still have a question mark placed upon throughout the entire series. The opening music itself doesn’t sound right for the anime (and I haven’t even started on the use of English yet though I think I’ll save this rant for myself). It doesn’t flow into the anime and the same goes for the ending music, it doesn’t flow out with the anime. The lyrics vs the genre of the anime is questionable too, sure, the anime has a bit of romance to it but the lyrics seem to differ. All-in-all, I don’t understand how these two music got chosen by the producers. I have nothing against the music used but I don’t find them suitable for this anime.

The background music is where it saves this anime from the problems listed in the first two paragraphs of this section, but only to a certain extent. The problem to point out first is the lack of music used. I have found on several occasions that the anime seems rather quiet, simply because there is no background music to accompany those quiet scenes. Only during interesting moments do we see the use of the music, other than that, it seems the recording studio have forgotten all about it. You could also say the same for sound effects, which is underused and also repetitive. The music itself is quite good, though it isn’t something I’d go and pick up as an OST but it acts as good for many parts of the anime when it is actually used.

Story: Jyu Oh Sei offers an extremely interesting story concept, which caught my attention. To give a brief outline of the story, two well-off brothers (twins to be more exact), find their parents murdered. Without much knowledge, they are thrown into an unknown planet called Chimera, which is used as a prison for “criminals”, where only the strongest survives by verging towards an inhumane path (some refer it to being a beast). As the title of the anime hints, the aim is to become the “Beast King” where the path to leave the planet is given, or does it sound too good to be true?

One of the plus points with Jyu Oh Sei is the quick but thorough introduction to the anime. Too many animes dwell over several episodes trying to introduce the whole world to the viewers, Jyu Oh Sei gives viewers all the necessary information and moves on. Each new character and location introduced is given this similar quick introduction and it helps the anime flow smoothly with the story. There are also plenty of twists in the story to keep viewers interested. The darkness around certain characters keeps the suspense alive and it is only towards the end do viewers realise the true face of certain characters in the anime.

Where the story does fall apart is at some unexpected moments, e.g. a character you thought could have been a key player to the anime is suddenly wiped out. The story does follow heavily on “the strongest survives” idea, but at times, this idea is flawed by too many emotions (sadness/romance) being thrown around the anime. We then get to the short 11 episodes where, in all honesty, is ridiculously short for this anime. The most obvious moment would be the jump from episode 5 to episode 6, not only are you suddenly greeted by a character (Thor) who is much older (3 years to be exact), even the voice actor has changed. What happened in-between these episodes?

And I haven’t finished bashing this anime yet as we now come to the ending where I am now starting to see a common trend with many animes released lately. An ending that doesn’t really make much sense (unless you, like myself, know the story beforehand or are rather imaginative), is short due to the time constraint of the anime and kills of all forms of sentimental value for the anime... it just doesn’t float my boat. With Jyu Oh Sei, you get answers suddenly thrown at you, unexpected decisions being made and unlike before where you get an idea of how characters come to a certain conclusion they've already made up their mind before you know it, it is messy towards the end.

Characters: Most characters are likeable in this anime (for their good and evil sides), there are some characters you will find annoying (yet again, Third is in the limelight) but you could say it is to go along the flow of the story. You also get some characters that behave oddly and that throws away the balance of the anime. In the environment of Chimera, you expect everyone to be strong both physically and mentally, characters such as Karim appear strong initially but as each episode es by, she breaks down further until it is almost silly towards the end. The main character Thor is like a yo-yo effect, sometimes he is good in every way (mature being one of them), other times, he breaks down completely. Scenes between Karim and Thor also gets just as silly, there is always some form of denial between them which contributes to this silliness.

Fortunately, these drawbacks don’t shadow the good side of other characters. In general, Thor’s character evolves throughout the anime due to the change in environment, it is well done overall although the level of realism of a 12 year old being so mature… I’m not too sure. Loveable characters like Tiz acts as good throughout the anime. There is always a feeling where you’d enjoy seeing Tiz onscreen more often as she is depicted as a charming character. There are silly moments towards the end but without a character like Tiz, this anime would be rather dull.

Value: Personally, I adore this anime. Even with the flaws, it will fall into my rewatch value category. However, for sentimental value, the producers have nearly killed it. The current trend of doing poor endings for animes is a problem in itself, Jyu Oh Sei has so much potential yet it has all been wasted, not just on a poor ending but the lack of time to expand on the anime itself. With so much time and effort that has been put on the animation itself, you would have expected a lot more but I’m afraid it has turned out somewhat disappointing. The only sentimental value from what I can see is the story, the great animation and some of the characters.

Enjoyment: Jyu Oh Sei is an enjoyable anime. If you can overlook the flaws, it is a great anime. It is an anime that can certainly be enjoyed even with the silly moments. I would recommend reading the actual story to get the proper enjoyment though.

I just finished the series so I decided to update my review and give some thoughts on the conclusion.

Animation:
At first, I really didn't like the style of this show all that much. The males seemed very girly and it was hard to tell between the females and males, but I stuck with it. Luckily it improves when the story revolves around more adult characters. The males still retain a bit of feminine style, but it is much more toned down. The animation is smooth and has some awe-inspiring scenes where it really shines through. The fight scenes are fluid and well-drawn and you never really see the framerate go down or the quality slip.

Sound:
The sound work in this series is not too bad. The voices work well and the music has a nice style to it. If I had any complaints in this area it would be with the sound effects. There were times where it seemed to me that there should have been a lot more background noises, such as creatures and plants moving and rustling. Sure they have some effects, but not the overall variety necessary to really pull you in. It doesn't slap you in the face with amazing sound, but it does an okay attempt.

Story:
If this series shines in one particular catagory it would be the story. The pacing is excellent and it contains some unique ideas. It starts off with the murder of the parents of two young twins. Shortly after the discovery of their parent's bodies, the two are shoved aboard a spaceship and crashlanded onto a prison planet. The planet turns out to have quite a thriving population broken down into a number of groups or rings as they are called. Each of these rings has a distinct feel to it, whether it be jungle style or frozen tundra. The variety of locales works nice. The twins encounter these locals and the plot really takes off from there. The awesome part of the plot is you see one of the twins grow up and become an adult. This progression of maturity really adds to the story. Also it has an interesting ending too, if a bit on the sad side.

Character:
At first the main character seemed to be a big softy. As it progresses he proves that he has what it takes to stand up in the harsh environment of a prison planet. The characters are distinct enough that you will really grow to like them, even if they anger you at times. The choices they have to make and their morale fiber comes into play quite alot and its very interesting to see what they do. The characters are definately unique enough to make this series stand out.

Value:
The series moves at a nice clip and it keeps you entertained. It also doesn't feel lengthy or too short, even though it comes in at only 11 episodes. Considering it has nice production values and some good style, it might be worth a rewatch at some time or another.

Enjoyment
I was very pleased with this show. It may not be super-action heavy or have the world's greatest plot, but it does everything well. It also has enough flavor to satisfy most otakus and that's what really counts.