The Twelve Kingdoms Forum

One point. It is unlikely for a Ranka to be swept away to Hourai. It is also unlikely for someone in Hourai to be swept away to the Twelve Kingdoms. Therefore the chance of a random person being a Taika is very unlikely indeed. As Hanjuu are a small minority, a Hanjuu Taika is EXTREMELY unlikely.

However, if this person is the Kirin or future Emperor, then they'd be looked for, by someone capable of crossing the Kyokai. All the rulers among the Taika were found and brought back by somebody. They didn't have to be randomly swept away to the Kingdoms.

That said, there ARE an excessive number of Taika rulers.

First, two of the known Taika are En-Ou and Enki. Even the dimmest scholar are likely to have heard of one of the most notable of kings and his Kiren.

Second, if I remember correctly, the guy who explained to Youko about Taika was Rakushun, who could hardly be described as any scholar.

Quite possibly. I can think of several possiblities.

1) Although Taika are rare, it is such a notable event that people hear about them anyway, similar to how we hear about Ebola, even though it hasn't actually killed that many people and occurs in distant and obscure places.

2) There is actually much more transfer back and forth than it seems and quite a lot of Ranka are lost to Shoku and quite a lot of people are spirited away from Hourai. This seems unlikely.

3) There is something about Taika which makes them more likely to be caught up and transported back to the Twelve Kingdoms. They still maintain some kind of connection or something.

There are exactly four ruling taika: En-ou, Enki, Kei-ou (Youko) and Taiki. Enki says that the En pair are used to being the only ones, so we can rule out others, and for the past 500 years there've been only 2 -- still a lot out of 24, but then again the grain size is only 1/24. Youko and Taiki are the same age AFAIK, and could possibly have been swept away by the same shoku.

We haven't met any "swept back" taika, though they must exist, since the kaikyaku teacher in En comments on their lack of language ability (and thus Youko's fluency meaning something was up.) Memory says that kaikyaku survivors on the order of a few a year, though enough pile up for a district to form in En, which the aforementioned teacher doesn't live in, for some reason. Does Japan lose that many people in storms? Well, 150 million people in Japan, I guess there's enough fudge factor there. As far as kaikyaku go, we meet the teacher, the old guy who tries to sell out Youko, and Suzu.

"A few a year" and their being blamed for bad luck is enough to justify people, at least in the eastern kingdoms, being aware of kaikyaku, and people losing their prayed-for ranka to shoku is probably enough to keep the idea of taika alive, out of hope.

Given that the 12 Kingdoms seem to be 12 copies of classical China in petri dishes -- it's not just random fantasy world resemblance, they use Chinese characters -- it's plausible to me that the gods sometimes choose taika to add fresh blood to the rulers. I wondered if a flawed Jo-ou (Keiki thought she wouldn't do the minute he met her) was selected precisely so that they could bring in Youko later (less for her own sake and more as a modern Japanese, period)... and if the gods hadn't planned for Jo-ou to go under quite that quickly, sticking them with a pre-college Youko.

If there is a divine plan on Tentei's part, Seioubou doesn't seem in on it, given her willingness to sacrifice Taiki, though his modern ten-year-old attitude is probably less important than Youko's role.

Oh, four rulers, I said -- but the new Hou-ou ranka seems to have been swept to China, so five coming up. Hmm, maybe that was a planned replacement for Taiki, since that would have happened after the disaster in Tai. Yeah, Seioubou says they don't control the shoku; I'm skeptical.

DimensionW wrote:En-ho, the guy from Horai who was a scholar and fairly skilled at the language near the end of Sea of Shadows, and plenty of others also have knowledge of what Taika are and even seem capable of identifying them. Also, in order to find Enki in the first place, the concept of the Taika would probably have to have been known wouldn't it?

I think there is more to it than what has been suggested. Perhaps a little less rarity than what is mentioned really.

En-ho is a major sage, and like 400 years old, and with an interest in Japan (he quizzes Youko a lot.) Heki Rakujun, the "guy from Hourai", obviously had studied kaikyaku issues, for obvious reasons.

Regarding kaikyaku frequency: En has a department set up to deal with them. With an office in an inner sea port, far from where kaikyaku would wash up. Presumably that office usually had other duties -- oh yeah, prefecture building (chapter 48). Even weirder is the idea that officials are taught Japanese just so that they can deal with kaikyaku. I guess it's not so silly if you accumulate enough of them (but, a few hundred out of millions?) and the novel doesn't actually specify that they knew Japanese (though how else would they normally communicate with kaikyaku?)

Enki and maybe En-ou must really *care*. We know Enki makes annual trips to the homeland, so is well placed to tell people about postal codes and area codes, but the whole thing still seems profoundly weird.

wonder what would happen if a half beast ranks gow swept away by a shoku?

matonic wrote:wonder what would happen if a half beast ranks gow swept away by a shoku?

Like other Taika, I guess she would appear human in Hourai. However she may show subtle signs of her heritage, like Youka's red hair. She'd get a nasty shock if she ever returned to the Kokki, though.

ya well maybe not as much. she/he could apear in human form like the dude who changes into a bair. one thing i thought was intresting thoe was the fact that the bair dude could talk to people from horai. is he a sage or somthing?

He was a provincial general, which might be high enough rank to be sennin; is Risai sennin? Can't remember. But also, if you're thinking of him talking to Asano and being understood, that was anime-only. In the books the only Japanese people he talks to are Youko and Suzu, and of course they're both immortals already, universal translator included.

ahh i see well im gonna buy the book shortly so i sopose those questions would have been revealed