Juni Taisen Vol 2 [Review]

By Thunderheavyarm

Hey all, sorry for the late review on this title. I had a bunch of personal and life issues recently that dominated a good deal of my time. Thank you everyone who read my last review and an extra thanks to those that left a comment. Really appreciate it, and now on to volume 2 of Juni Taisen!

Summary

Every twelve years,a dozen assassins and killers take on the names of the zodiac. In abattle royale setting, they fight until there is only one survivorusing any weapons or special abilities along with their wits andfighting styles. The winner and sole survivor is granted one wishwith no limitation. This is the tale of the twelfth Zodiac War.

Story Arc

The story picks upwhere it last left off with Rat and Chicken meeting and heading intothe sewers to meet Monkey. Leaving awkwardly, Chicken is left with anodd impression of Monkey, even more so when she encounters Ox askingfor the location of other warriors. Meanwhile, Monkey and Rat have aninteresting conversation of why Monkey talking to Chicken actuallymade her weaker and that ending wars makes people lazy. Also anevident waste of time as they’re all idiots if you believe hispoint of view.

Eventually both areforced to the surface where they encounter Rabbit and the headlessSnake. Monkey tells Rat that they should subdue their enemies and notkill them, causing Rat to mention that Monkey chooses this optionevery time, confusing Monkey as Snake charges ahead into both of themand then past them. Rat leaves Monkey and Rat to fight in singlecombat.

Elsewhere, Sheepreflects on his younger self including the time that he won the lastZodiac war. He speaks with his grandson, arguing against his joiningof the Zodiac war at his advanced age. Sheep points out though thatit’s his very age that gives him an advantage over the others, alarge explosive that he intended to use to kill everyone before thecompetition could begin. Stuck now with everyone having survived theinitial blast he thinks of who to ally himself, discarding Rat andTiger as weaker warriors than himself. He continues to muse hisoptions before running into a very drunken Tiger and ends the secondvolume with Sheep and Tiger beginning their fight.

Review

Oddly enough thisvolume, didn’t have nearly as much interaction with the third partyobserver as it did in the previous edition. Which I found actualrefreshing since it didn’t cause a break in the action. That said,the series is still missing a great deal of the background that Imissed from the show. Making each warrior a rather two dimensionalcharacter while in the show they had far more characterization andmotivation for the things that they do. Except oddly enough forSheep, who has by far gotten the most background information snuckinto any of the volumes yet.

The fights are alsosuffering from a bit of disjointed action. It’s getting a littlebit difficult to tell, even over multiple panels, what exactly ishappening in any given scene and usually I didn’t even find outwhat actually happened until I flipped a page. Rather than having the“Oh Wow, that was so cool effect,” it instead left me with a“oh...okay?” and I continued on skimming until the fight ended orsome dialogue showed up to let me know what happened. Those of youthat have seen the show know what’s coming up next, and for thoseof you that haven’t, well let’s just say that things get weirdfrom this point forward.