I went into "Twelve Kingdoms" without any expectations. I had only vaguely heard of the title in passing; but the box art intrigued me, and fantasy is one of my favorite genres, so I decided to give it a go. Low-hype shows like this are more often than not on the bland side, so I was prepared for a very neutral experience. I was also prepared for a nice surprise or a total suck-fest. What I was not prepared for, however, was one of the most interesting explorations of the fantasy genre I've experienced in years.

The general plot of the series is very basic and almost a cliche, but the execution successfully exploits that fault and turns it into a major virtue. Basically, "Twelve Kingdoms" concerns the adventures of Youko, a sweet, gentle, and highly put-upon teenager-that girl that was always too kind to say no to an unnecessary responsibility, and as such everyone walked all over her. As tends to be the nature of these things, a mysterious stranger from another world, Keiki, appears one day at Youko's school and proclaims her the chosen one to whom he is sworn to protect, causing quite the ruckus in the process.

After a series of battle scenes with a newly arrived demonic bird, Keiki, Youko, and two tagalong psuedo-friends get transported through a mysterious sea-storm to Keiki's home world-a sort of ancient eastern and medieval mishmash of the usual fantasy archetypes. Once they arrive, the teenagers quickly lose track of each other and their supposed guide; though once they regroup things don't exactly get much better. The entire world's out to get them (foreigners from unknown "mythical" lands are considered bad omens here and are usually executed), they haven't a clue how or if they can get home, and they don't really like each other anyway. Oh yeah, and there's also some rather generic business about a fake queen or something.

Taken with only its basic trappings, "Twelve Kingdoms" is only mildly above average. The plot and characters are well written, with the progression of both obviously well thought out and are quite serviceable (this isn't all too surprising, as the script seems to be lifted rather faithfully from a popular line of Japanese novels). But unfortunately, the show really does nothing to distinguish itself from the milieu of other people-from-our-world-in-fantasy-world-to-answer-special-calling anime in these first five episodes. The title of the series emphasizes the kingdoms themselves, and if the politics and geography are indeed going to be two of the main focuses of the anime then so far several more layers need to be added to those aspects, because so far I'm only feeling the standard low-technology farm/trade countries surrounding by forests deal. Heck, I often have no clue where the characters are in respect to the world around them, even though the map shown at the beginning of every episode is clearly indicating that they're moving all over the place. However, I will concede that the series in total clocks in at a very respectable forty-five episodes, so they certainly have more than enough time to flesh out the weaker aspects.

There is, however, another layer of depth to "Twelve Kingdoms," and it is this one that I think just might take this anime into serious heights of entertainment. The series is quite enamored with exploring the conventions of the genre, those little expectations we always hold about how things will turn out for our protagonist(s). "Twelve Kingdoms" throws those expectations in our face with the character of Sugimoto. She's clearly a girl who's lived her entire life in these fantasy worlds through her books, and her sudden displacement from her home world into the realm of the Twelve Kingdoms is nothing short of a dream come true. But one thing she didn't count on is that she isn't the heroine here, not the "chosen one" she's always hoped to be; and her total rejection of minor character status will lead to some extremely dodgy decisions that turns her from a miserably secondary protagonist to a nasty primary antagonist for poor Youko. The series also plays with some other cliches in minor ways, such as providing a knowingly convenient reason for Youko to be able to speak the language of the fantasy world, and what's more, that explanation even works within the given plot.

But if I make the show sound like a metatextual exercise in total eggheadedness, then I've done a poor representation of the content within. The character arcs may be intentionally designed to go against the usual grain of the genre, but they are workable arcs nonetheless; and the sharp writing totally sells the characters. I never once doubted the character of Youko, and her uncertainty and passiveness are credible faults that I look forward to seeing Youko grow out of. To be honest, all signs thus far point to an ultimately traditional ending for the girl, but if the ride's good then I'm not complaining. I also found myself connecting on a more pitiful level with Sugimoto; heck, in high school I was her, the cynic who preferred her books and imagination over the gray world around her that she found wanting. And her total failure to live up to the hero position she so unabashedly wants is a very realistic terror that seems to ask us "Are we worthy of our dreams?" with cold apathy. These characters, and also Asano-who is likewise instantly recognizable from real life-provide intriguing players for us to behold with a fine mixture of analysis and amusement.

Obviously, the series' art can't really hold up to that of a more popular work (which has the aid of bigger budgets), but it does make do. The color palette is the general mix of browns for towns and green and blues for forests, though a little darker than is typical of the genre-a nice match given the rarely lighthearted tone of the story. The line work is especially nice, though, as each scene felt like a fluid whole, with each character capable of standing on their own in terms of artistic quality. I was a little underwhelmed by the youma designs, though. I realize that the general nature of "Twelve Kingdoms" doesn't allow for any truly over the top designs, but if you are going to do a story with wildly varying sorts of monsters then you can at least be a little more creative than an unusually unattractive parrot.

Media Blasters's presentation is an entirely bare bones release, not supplying anything more in the way of DVD extras than a collection of trailers for other series and a text-free version of the OP animation. Oh goody, now that's something I've never seen before. To be fair, this is only the first of nine volumes, so spreading the extras thinly over each installment is naturally the way to go, but in the age of routinely extravagant DVD releases this is more than a bit ridiculous and could easily dismay potential buyers. Of course there's a paper insert that helpfully lists the proper annotations, but that's more of a necessity when we're talking about a fantasy release. Or maybe I'm just spoiled-either way me no happy.

"Twelve Kingdoms" was easily the best surprise in anime I've experienced over the holiday season. The meta elements take the show to a much more intellectual level than I had expected, but the core of the show is fully grounded in sheer storytelling. It still has several hurdles to overcome - namely the total lack of flavor in the fantasy world itself and the occasionally lapses into nigh-campy melodrama - but on the whole the good outweigh the bad. The plot arcs in this series seem to be organized into "books," maybe based around the original novel series, with this book ending at episode twelve. However, I have a feeling that once you crack open the first "chapter," you'll be in it for the complete run. I know I am.

Distributor: Media Blasters
Creator: Studio Pierrot
Released: 2002

Video Quality: A
Audio Quality: B+
Presentation: B+
Content: A
Overall: A-