The Twelve Kingdoms Forum

Really, you've got to love Shokei. She starts out so small a personality and becomes an impressive one. And at the age of 16 too! I like the way she's drawn: big luminous eyes and cascading hair. The only character who can compete with her is the terminally lovely Taiho of the Kingdom of Sai.

radiance wrote:Really, you've got to love Shokei. She starts out so small a personality and becomes an impressive one. And at the age of 16 too! I like the way she's drawn: big luminous eyes and cascading hair. The only character who can compete with her is the terminally lovely Taiho of the Kingdom of Sai.

Uh, biological age of 13 when we first see her, 16 later. Chronological age of 43-46. Mental age of let's not go there.

The whole "girl my own age" thing is weird. Suzu is over 100, by years lived.

he is mild mannered and wise beyond his years.

mindstalk wrote:

radiance wrote:Really, you've got to love Shokei. She starts out so small a personality and becomes an impressive one. And at the age of 16 too! I like the way she's drawn: big luminous eyes and cascading hair. The only character who can compete with her is the terminally lovely Taiho of the Kingdom of Sai.

Uh, biological age of 13 when we first see her, 16 later. Chronological age of 43-46. Mental age of let's not go there.

The whole "girl my own age" thing is weird. Suzu is over 100, by years lived.

I don't think I get this at all. Both Shokei and Suzu refer to their own age as 16 - one because she stopped aging at that point, the other because she has reached it. Shokei is obviously being characterized as a 13 year old who grows up considerably by the age of 16. The fact that she used to be a senin doesn't affect that. Not according to the story anyway, whatever might happen if there were really such things as senin. And I wasn't saying anything about MY age, I was referring to the character.

radiance wrote:

mindstalk wrote:

radiance wrote:Really, you've got to love Shokei. She starts out so small a personality and becomes an impressive one. And at the age of 16 too! I like the way she's drawn: big luminous eyes and cascading hair. The only character who can compete with her is the terminally lovely Taiho of the Kingdom of Sai.

Uh, biological age of 13 when we first see her, 16 later. Chronological age of 43-46. Mental age of let's not go there.

The whole "girl my own age" thing is weird. Suzu is over 100, by years lived.

I don't think I get this at all. Both Shokei and Suzu refer to their own age as 16 - one because she stopped aging at that point, the other because she has reached it. Shokei is obviously being characterized as a 13 year old who grows up considerably by the age of 16. The fact that she used to be a senin doesn't affect that. Not according to the story anyway, whatever might happen if there were really such things as senin. And I wasn't saying anything about MY age, I was referring to the character.

"girl my own age" was what Suzu and Shokei said about Youko. Despite the fact that one has lived 46 years and the other 100 something. The characters and story ignore the chronological age, which is what I call weird. It'd be like calling Enki 13 or En-ou 30(?) or Kyou-ou 12. Biologically true, but not otherwise...

mindstalk wrote:"girl my own age" was what Suzu and Shokei said about Youko. Despite the fact that one has lived 46 years and the other 100 something. The characters and story ignore the chronological age, which is what I call weird. It'd be like calling Enki 13 or En-ou 30(?) or Kyou-ou 12. Biologically true, but not otherwise...

I see. I guess the point is that in the story's terms you are only as old as the number of years you have aged normally, and decades or even centuries as a senin don't count as age, because...you didn't age!

One would think that Suzu had learned a thing or two in her century of servitude, but apparently she still thinks like a 16 year old.

I seem to remember a reference to Shoryu's "500 years of experience" as a swordsman, though. He didn't just stand still there. That ought to make Shokei and Suzu very experienced women. But it doesn't.

(It's storytelling, not theology. It doesn't have to be completely consistent.)

radiance wrote:erms you are only as old as the number of years you have aged normally, and decades or even centuries as a senin don't count as age, because...you didn't age!

One would think that Suzu had learned a thing or two in her century of servitude, but apparently she still thinks like a 16 year old.

I seem to remember a reference to Shoryu's "500 years of experience" as a swordsman, though. He didn't just stand still there. That ought to make Shokei and Suzu very experienced women. But it doesn't.

(It's storytelling, not theology. It doesn't have to be completely consistent.)

Well, it depends what you do with your time. Shouryuu and Kyou-ou have used their time well -- at least, I assume Kyou-ou is more mature and competent than your average 12 year old, though she had a head start. Shoukei wallowed in being a 13-yo daughter-doll for 30 years, and Suzu's had a limited range and routine and a negative attitude. OTOH Shoukei did show evidence of having learned something about politics from osmosis.

Yep. Rakushun is an awesome character. He isn't a fighter or leader, but he's not just smart, he's responsible he knows how to use his brains as well.

P.S. Welcome to the forum. Have a basket of virtual fruit.

Jinx999 wrote:Yep. Rakushun is an awesome character. He isn't a fighter or leader, but he's not just smart, he's responsible he knows how to use his brains as well.

P.S. Welcome to the forum. Have a basket of virtual fruit.

Yeah, you're right about Rakushun.

And thnx for welcoming me here.

I think it's so hard to choose a favourite character amongst such a cast! What I love is that each of the characters has specific strengths but also faults.

Taki is so adorable and full of life and love, yet heworries so much about pleasing others that he doesn't let himself be happy.

Youko has strong values, works hard and knows her limits, yet has emotional outbursts and lacks in confidence.

Gyosyou is intelligent and organized, knowing exactly what he wants, but moves to fast and sometimes is too abitious for his own good.

Even Shoryuu, who has enjoyed great success, knows he's not perfect and after 500 years still wonders if he is doing it right. Plus he can be very lazy when he feels like it!

If I was forced to pick a favourite I would probably pick Rakkushun, just because he's so smart and kind. He accepts the challenges he faces and tackles them as best he can. And he's never too busy to help someone else.

Tapir12 wrote:I think it's so hard to choose a favourite character amongst such a cast!

I agree, it's too hard to choose! I find Taiki the most lovable, but I think Rakushun is absolutely darling, too. I really appreciate Youko, she is my heroine, but I also love Shoukei's character development. Shoryu is a badass, but I think Kantai is an incredibly cool support character who I would've loved to see more of. My list goes on and on.

But I guess if I really had to boil it down to which character I'm most invested in, it would have to be Taiki (I really love Gyousou and Risai, too). There's just that sense of there being so much more potential there, and I really wish for a happy ending for the Tai kingdom.

I agree that the large cast shown in Juuni Kokki. There were great model characters such as the wise ppl: Enho, Rakushun and Sekki. And then there were the Heroic warriors: Youko, Kantai, Koshou and Risai(even though we never really saw her fight, her composure was radiating what kind of person she is and the book showed how dedicated she is to the kingdom of Tei)

But in all speculation I find Youko to be my fav because of how I could relate to her.

I love Enki and Taiki
They are sooooooo cute =w=
Enki remind me of Goku from Saiyuki too XD

I also really like Taiki, especially when he bound that one insanely powerful youma. That was possibly my favourite scene of the story arc.

I think it's so hard to pick a favorite character from this casting! What I like is that each character has strengths, but also failures.

Taki is so wonderful and full of life and love, but heworries time to please others, he can not be happy.

Youko has strong values, hard work and knows its limits, but still have emotional outbursts and lack of confidence.

Gyosyou is intelligent and organized, knowing exactly what you want, but it moves fast and sometimes too abitious for their own good.

Even Shoryuu, which was a great success, knows he is not perfect, and after 500 years still wonders if he does it well. In addition, it can be very lazy when he wants!

If I had to choose a favorite, I'd probably choose Rakkushun simply because he is so intelligent and kind. He accepts the challenges it faces, and treat them as best he can. And it was never too busy to help another.

Well, I can't vote against Rakushun, but I think after this arc, I have to vote for Youko.

Also, Hankyo gets my cool youma vote. Taiki's toutetsu is awesome, but Hankyo just looks cool all the time.

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I Think I may be the only person in the world who actually liked Yuka Sugimoto as a character. I had a hard time developing a rapport with Youko when she was a spineless crybaby in the beginning, and later when she became strong and awesome I still liked Yuka a little better because she had... attitude. She was a girl who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to reach out and go for it. I know Yuka was mostly put in as a foil to externalize some of Youko's issues, but she really worked as a character I felt. I had an easier time empathizing with her. Or maybe I'm just cursed to always like the characters that are more difficult to like. She wasn't soft and kind but I rather like her sharp edged, slightly cynical personality. She wasn't someone who was afraid to call things like she saw them. In Yuka's defense... Okay, so maybe her moral compass doesn't always point north, but if you really look at her, she's a lot sharper in some ways than her two friends. Youko should have listened to her about that farm-wife for instance, if she had they all wouldn't have nearly gotten sold to a brothel. I really felt sorry for her when she was led astray by the King of Kou. Here she is, by herself, alone in a place where she can't understand the language and along comes this beautiful kirin who tells her she has a special destiny. Who wouldn't believe a king and his kirin? Especially when they are telling her precisely what she's always wanted to hear. She's stubborn, even when she's wrong, but if you look at that another way, isn't that the same thing as having detirmination? Even if she was deluded, I don't think she's entirely one hundred percent at fault for it, and even though she and Youko were obviously set against one another let it not be said that Yuka is a girl who backs down from a fight.

Oh, I also love Taiki and Gyousou too! ^_^

~Nightheart

Ha, I started reading your post and was thinking it was a spambot that was gonna say an absurd sentence like like "I Sympathize with Yuka-chan, it is very great and Sympathetical episode and learn spanish for free online"

With that said, I sympathized with her escapism but she took it to extremes.

She did take it to extremes, but to me that's part of her charm. Her character development came through hard lessons. And remember that she was part of the king of Kou's plot, a man perceptive enoiugh to be chosen as king would have had people skills enough to see her desire and use them to his own ends. I'm not saying she wasn't responsible for everything she did, but Yuka doesn't have the sort of personality who does things by halves.

By the way, lolz on the spambot thing! ^_^

She was indeed used by Ko-ou, but still, she should have noticed. Well, I was happy when I saw she learned her lesson. Still, I thought she ended up exaggerating the other way(!!) when she told Taiki to forget about his world.

And yeah, sorry if you got offended for being mistaken for a bot. I have to deal with them the entire time, so naturally I assume all new posts as spambots.

Yuka is a decent and somewhat sympathetic character. However:

1) Youko had no particular logical reason to suspect the farm-wife from the start. The choices at the time were basically trust her or kill her. And killing strangers out of fear is not a healthy approach to life. The fact that she later turned out to be a bad person does nothing to invalidate Youko's decision - based on what she knew at the time.

1a) And trusting her got her a respite, away from her pursuers, and quite a lot of information about the world of the twelve kingdoms.

2) Being told exactly what you want to hear is when you should be especially cautious.

3) Refusing to back down from a fight, when the fight is meaningless and victory gains you nothing and losing costs you nothing, does not show good judgement.

She wasn't 100% at fault for her bad decisions. However, she's far from innocent about them and took rather too long to recognise that they were bad decisions and correct them.

those are excellent points, but I would raise a small caveat about them; Youko and Yuka both were fifteen years old. Not to sound like an old lady here but I remember being fifteen, and I've seen fifteen year old kids nowdays and I wouldn't trust them to have the discernment to be able to make good judgment calls. I will agree that of the two of them, Youko has the higher ethical and moral standards, her weakness at that point in the story was her spinelessness. Yuka was a contrast in that she possessed a very strong will, but lacked the moral and ethical discernment to put her resolve to good uses. It's not a commentary on a person's moral judgement, I'm saying that an average fifteen year old won't have the life experience required. At that point in thier lives, all Youka and Yuka both knew was the sort of things they could know.

Since I'm a writer I'd also like to make a general point about characterization, or at least my thoughts on them. I'm not the sort of person who likes simple characters, which is one reason why I love Twelve Kingdoms. The series excels in believable people, and in painting the people in it in all the shades of grey that a real person would have. That means that the villains won't always be clear-cut. Yuka was the sort of character who, while you can't point to her and consider her to be a good person, you can't quite paint her as evil either. I like a more sympathetic villain, I have ever since Londo Mollari (Babylon 5) and Avatar the Last Airbender (and many other animes as well) proved that it was possible to have a character that made bad decisions, then piled more bad decisions on top of that in pursuit of a dream that was not entirely virtuous. They waver back and forth but there's just something about them that keeps you rooting for them (and frustrated with them) when they just can't seem to get it right. Maybe I'm wrong but doesn't it feel just a little more satisfying watching a character who isn't exactly the definition of virtue and who doesn't always display moral integrity struggle and search and make frustratingly bad decisions, then finally get that epiphany that shows them thier own road to redemption.

That's why I like Yuka. She fails and she backslides. She gives her loyalty to people who don't deserve it, and she turns against people who try to help her, and she pursues what she feels to be her destiny to the exclusion of upright conduct. She get's jealous and angry those feelings twist in on her and feed each other. It takes her a long time and a lot of hard lessons but finally she comes to understand that her actions, no matter how just she thought her cause, were not the right ones, and that she was following the wrong path. Yuka doesn't show good judgement, not until the end, but her feelings of bitterness and envy made her very human. A person who doesn't start out from an essentially moral place and has to learn through hard experience to make better choices is much more interesting to me than an essentially moral character who might only slip up once or twice (or never does).

I agree with your post, and I mentioned before that I was happy when she came to her senses. Sadly it wasn't enough for me to have her among my favorites for purely subjective reasons such as what I said above and the fact she's part of "Tsuki no Kage, Kage no Umi", the novel/anime arc that I enjoyed the most.

I guess one other thing i like about her is that her story along with Taiki's left so much more for telling.