The Twelve Kingdoms Forum

Hello !

I am sure many of you are familiar with this gallery :

http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/theknigh ... llery.html

My question is about the woman which appears in some pictures riding a white tiger. I really don't know how to describe her very well and I can't put the links to her pictures since...well, the entire gallery has the same link, so putting it over and over won't do much good.

She is riding a white tiger with black stripes, she is brunette and has long hair and brown eyes. If you check the 12k category, the 4th row of pictures, you can even see a portion of the tiger's fur. That is one of her pictures.

My question is: who is that woman? I see that she is painted with Shouryuu sometimes, but I can't place her anywhere. I have seen the entire anime, but only just began to read the books, so if she's a character in one of them, that would explain why I don't recognize her.

I don't think she is Ribi. Nor Risai. And these are the closest characters I could imagine.

For those of you who have a few minutes to check and know the answer to my question, please do so. Thank you in advance for all your answers!

All the best!

So I have to guess here, but I actually think this is not a woman at all. The link says this is "taisi", so I would guess this is a veiw of Taiki (all grown up of course).

it is taiki ^^
after his 2nd return to juuni kokki...he was around 15-17 i think when they finally found him

Well that's an answer I wasn't expecting !

I can see it now...sort of. I still think he looks a bit feminine, but now I can definitely link him to the young Taiki. Take that hair out and the face does resemble his.

Thanks for clearing that up. Strangely, I never had that problem with Keiki.

hehe would be interesting to see keiki as a little kirin
him being small and that serious look on him plus getting teased by the sages

Why is every male in Junni Kokki often confused for a female? :/

Neko-chan wrote:hehe would be interesting to see keiki as a little kirin
him being small and that serious look on him plus getting teased by the sages

Oh, yes! I would pay to see that! I think he has potential to be even cuter than young Taiki, him being so serious and all.

Neko-chan wrote:Why is every male in Junni Kokki often confused for a female? :/

Well, they are a bit feminine. But perfect nonetheless.

Shoryu is not feminine! D:

I don't think that is Taiki. Actually, I think he is the second prince of Sou. He appeared in Tonan no Tsubasa and played a role in helping Kyou-ou ascend Mt Hou. He is also friends with Shoryu shown in one of the stories in Kasho no Yume (Kizan, if I remember correctly) where they talked about the prospects of Kingdom of Ryu.

Hmmm...Maybe the best way would be to ask the owner of the gallery. Just to be sure.

That's Rikou, from Tonan no Tsubasa, not a woman.

Yup that's the name of Prince Sou

I really want to see more of Sou's 600-year reign.

thesmokingman wrote:

Shokou wrote:Why is every male in Junni Kokki often confused for a female? :/

I think the androgynous appearance of many characters speaks to the lack of traditional gender roles present in the Twelve Kingdoms. Women and men are viewed as equal and can hold the same positions.

Not really. The views on gender roles seem fairly modern, i.e. not completely absent. This is radically different from Confucian China, but not the same thing as absolute equality.

The androgynous appearance is a common Japanese esthetic, seen in a LOT of anime and manga, especially the shoujo variety. It does NOT correlate to a lack of traditional gender roles. In general, the gender roles in shoujo anime are much more pronounced than in shonen anime, but the gender roles are far stronger and more traditional.

Why do most people have the despicable problem of trying to confuse bishounen/androgynous men for women? That's what pisses me off the most...for me, it's a man until I clearly see otherwise.

I may love the universe of Juuni Kokki, but don't you find it a little too unrealistic for so many fantasy worlds to have gender equality?

I don't know...if I were her, in bad kingdoms, I would add all sorts of discrimination, to make them look worse, and to an extent more realistic...if people are suffering, they have to place the blame on a group, you know?

Yeah...discrimination against Hanjuu and Kaikyaku are all over the place...even En dscirminates against Rakushun, sadly.

I just found it odd that women can easily occupy government ranks. <<

Kei has a bit of discrimination against women empresses, due to a poor record. But we're told other kingdoms (Kyou?) wouldn't be thrilled by a male one.

Women aren't tied down with childbirth, and the gods enforce that 50% of the higher ruling class is female. I don't see anything odd in there being women officials, given the circumstances.

From what I can see, many women in the world of Juuni Kokki are still "fragile"(Shokei). That is always a problem that can lead to discrimination.

The level of sexism in the twelve kingdoms is considerably less than any pre-modern civilisation I can think of off-hand. (I'm disregarding cases where "historians" have projected their own desires onto civilisations we know nothing about.) However, I would not say that total equality exists. There isn't any legal impediment to the jobs women can perform, but there does appear to be some social differences.

I don't have first hand experience with Japanese society, so I can't compare the two things. However, I don't believe the artistic style reflects the level of sexism in the twelve kingdoms. There are too many manga and anime series with effenimate bishonen and blatant sexism, for me to believe that there is a connection here.

Are you saying ancient matriarchal societies some historians speak of are false? D:

Yes. When a historian claims that a a society we know very little about must have been radiacally different from every society we do have historical records for, I regard these claims as EXTREMELY dubious and require a LOT of evidence to support them.

But it sort of makes sense for some isolated societies to be different...I usually see anthropological reports of very unusual civilizations being found in my country(Brazil).

Historical or Current? Either way, I'm inclined to cynicism.

(Hey. Post 75. I just got promoted!)