Juni Taisen Zodiac War Vol. 4 [Review]

By: Thunderheavyarm

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 final fourwarriors have entered the continuing battle. Ox and Tiger maintaintheir alliance against Rabbit. Meanwhile, Rat seems to havedisappeared for the most part after spotting the zombified corpse ofMonkey. The final battle plays out in this exciting fourth and finalvolume of Juni Taisen.

Review

It took me awhile tofigure out how I wanted to write the story arc for this one.Previously I tried to just hit the high points that I read in earliervolumes. But this last volume was so jammed full of high action andreally great dialogue that I would have ended writing up every panelinto the story arc section. I tried to pick a few of my favoritemoments to put into it, but they required so much of the momentsbefore and after them to have the correct impact, I thought it betterto leave this shortened explanation.

With that out of theway, I found myself getting sucked into this volume, as you’veprobably guessed from my earlier paragraph. The fight scenes weren’twhat got my attention though, it was the sudden characterization thatI got ambushed with. Since it’s been awhile when I last saw theanimated series I had forgotten if this section even happened. I hadto wonder why it wasn’t more spread out through the series toimprove the characters of the other warriors, instead of it being soheavily filled it at the end.

The way that theseries ended was actually better than what I could remember of theseries. As it better explained Rat’s powers. Although the lose ofhis ending story being replaced was a bit of an awkward trade. Sinceit also gave some insight into the other warriors and managed to addan extra layer to the ones that died early in the story. I stillenjoyed the breakdown Rat suffered from deciding on what his wishshould be. Even if it did take me a little while to understand whyhis wish was so necessary for him.

While the wholeseries isn’t a piece of majestic literature, it’s still a funread. I’ll always prefer the animated version over the graphicseries simply because it’s better suited for the fight scenes.Being able to read the dialogue actually improved what I knew aboutthe show from before and helped me catch the subtle nods that werescattered throughout. The animated version also lacks the third partyobserver which I can kind of see a purpose to it, I still disagreethat it needed to be there. That being my only real complaint aboutthe entire series, if you’ve watched the animated version thegraphic novel is worth a watch, and if you haven’t, this is a greatprimer before watching the series for all those great action shots.

That’s all forJuni Taisen, everyone give a round of applause!