The Twelve Kingdoms Forum

Not like I post here a ton or anything... in fact, I think my last post here was when I was still in college (over five years ago?). Regardless, thoughts about Twelve Kingdoms popped into my head today and I suddenly realized that it had been a fairly solid age since I read or heard anything of note ...

Actually Sugimoto is mentioned a couple of times in the first book. The first is during her bullying session at the school. The second is when Yoko is learning to use her fancy sword divination tricks.

*checks amazon*

Holy shit, I have a book that multiplied its value by 10 times.

While I very much doubt that bustling En is an entirely socialist nation, I do have to agree that it has a number of programs that could be considered socialist in nature, most notably in the programs it allocates to care for refugees and displaced Japanese people. The latter is actually enough to ...

Wouldn't work in the context of the books since they explicitly state that people die pretty much directly as a result of every shoku created by Kirin... not that that part of the continuity has any bearing on the animated version what with them not thinking twice about teleporting Yuka home (in the ...

I thought Big-O never actually got it's new season... just that the first season got finished.

Except Yoko's sword relays Sugimoto's somewhat sociopathic thoughts to Yoko in the book... which is more than just mild ecentricity. It's one thing for a character to be a loner and bullied, it's another for her to be pleased with the disappearance and likely death of one of the people who didn't ...

Objection. Sugimoto's insanity was obvious from the moment she set foot in the story. Even in the book you could immediately tell she had issues... just in the book they don't get resolved.

We can dance around the issues all day, but from the way I see it, Asano just flipping out the moment the ...

@above poster:

http://www.eugenewoodbury.com/
That guy has done some very quality translations of Thousand Leagues of Wind and Shore in Twilight. If you don't like reading the stories in Chinese, grab the ebook versions from his site.

I don't particularly feel like refinding that particular scene, but here is another one with the ministers.
From the Tokyo Pop Translation, a few paragraphs:

The three others in the chamber - Shoryu, Shuko, and Itan - stared at Seisho.
"The taiho is nowhere to be found, and none know where he has ...

His insanity didn't make sense because he was the most calm and collected character.
It also doesn't make sense how Asano keeps himself so well kempt for their first few weeks in the place, but then turns into a scraggly looking guy who appears never to comb his hair.

It makes a lot of sense ...

I find Taiki's story (the whole thing so far) to easily be the most disheartening. Hell, the crowning moment in his life right now is when he gets back to the Kingdoms, powerless, poisoned, possibly with his shirei killed off and if not, sealed until he may or may not get his powers back, and as far ...

Just a few of the tropes that apply to Asano:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... eShaggyDog
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... ssMakeover
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... balLecture
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... entHorizon

Well, as one minor point, there is a good bit more elaboration between Shoryu and the various ministers about the potential for a war before Shoryu embarks on his little infiltration game.

Sure, if by information you mean mostly minor details. It's more to get in their heads than anything else.

His insanity didn't make sense because he was the most calm and collected character. He pulled a complete 180 from being the voice of reason to being the "murder everything!" guy. It was just cheesy. Adding to that how batshit crazy companion character Sugimoto was at first and how her transition ...

Not really at all similar, but I'm going to recommend Natsume Yuujinchou and it's second series followup Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou. It has a vaguely similar protagonist, some touching fantasy elements, and I generally think it should probably appeal to just about anyone who likes 12k.

I don't know about you guys, but the last I heard even a scrap of detail about the series was this month last year. Novels or otherwise. I did manage to read that one short story about the artisan for Youko's coronation ceremony, but it seems like thats about all that can be expected for now ...

A good bit. Mostly character development through inner monologue. Most of the plot points are pretty much the same though.

Buy it to show your support for the author regardless. Hard Bound. Shower them with money.

I'd say that thats probably just about everyone's favorite set. Doubly so of people who saw the anime before reading the novels (IE: everyone).

For me it's a tie between Thousand Leagues of Wind (IE that stuff you just mentioned) and Sea of Wind (Taiki's childhood story). Thousand Leagues took a ...

They dropped a bridge on him. It phased me quite a bit at the time, but after finding out he wasn't in the novels, I realized that he was probably doomed for the start. Besides, he would have just gotten in the way of all the RakushuunxYouko shippers.

It was a really unconvincing death overall ...

Same here. I got it two days ago through Amazon.

Heroes of Might and Magic is a widely acclaimed series with a large fanbase. I don't think you are being very objective.

Why? It shouldn't be at all surprising that they would license songs for their sound track. And it isn't like Studio Pierrot is perfect (they do the anime versions of Bleach and Naruto afterall). Not to mention, as Jinx said, Hikaru no Go recycled music from Lodoss War... Hikaru No Go being another ...

It's absolutely more likely than the reverse being true... what with Heroes having been made first. Since that coincided around the time when 3DO tanked, it kind of makes sense too.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, there were actually four tracks which got used in both series... which really just ...