English Dub Review: Juni Taisen “Cutting a Chicken With a Beef Cleaver”

Pardon me, Miss Chicken. Mr. Hitchcock’s lawyers are here to see you.

Overview (Spoilers)

After making Dog’s head into a wet splatter on the wall, Chicken picks up her pitchfork and heads to take down Zombie Boar. She had lied about not knowing the abilities of her opponents. She knew all about Dog and his One Man Army drug. She sought him out so that she could get it in her system. Now hopped up on the drug, she’s ready for anything. But she isn’t stupid. She uses her birds to take down Boar of the Dead since the undead can still use their abilities. During this time, we are given flashbacks in Chicken’s life. An abused child, she eventually snapped and killed her parents in the slum apartment they lived in. In a state of near catatonic shock, she displayed the ability to control and see through birds. The Eye of the Cormorant. This drew the attention of a prominent mercenary family, who adopted her and taught her the family trade. She immediately took to espionage, using her emotionless detachment to easily slip into various roles. Utilizing her birds as drone bombers and spies, it was difficult for anyone to escape her. After her battle with Boar, she stops in a convenience store for a bite to eat. She is interrupted by Rat, who has also come up for a supply run. He remembers that she, too, raised her hand for the alliance, and brings her down to the Monkey-Cave. The entire way, Chicken considers stabbing the both of them in the back. Strangely, she finds herself spilling all sorts of intel to Monkey instead of killing her, even though the pacifist was completely turned around. She can’t even bring herself to kill Rat, who had gone to sleep right in front of her! Clearly, something is wrong, and Chicken flees to the surface. She comes to the conclusion that One Man Army must have made her more sensitive and vulnerable emotionally in exchange for increasing strength. Perhaps to fuel a berserker rage? That’s when she runs into Ox. His cold, calculating mind reasons from their brief conversation that Chicken was with Monkey, and Monkey must be nearby. Chicken’s body begins to move on its own, taking a battle stance to defend… Monkey? Utterly confused, but sure that the drug in her system would help her, she takes on Ox and… lasts two seconds. As she is dying, she thanks her birdie buddies and tells them that they can eat her. Thus, the cunning Chicken gets a Sky Burial.

Okay, I have a theory. Monkey’s ability is her overwhelming positive aura, which puts others instinctively at ease. After she’s talked to them for a while, they will fight to defend her. A form of passive mind control. As if she was casting the Friends spell from D&D on them. I am also noticing that the series titles are moving in reverse order of the Chinese Zodiac. The first episode was about Boar, and Boar is the last of the Zodiac. The Dog, then Chicken. This would mean that our next episode is about Monkey, but since she has too much loose plot wrapped around her, I don’t think she’s going to die too soon. Still, as things stand, Ox is in the lead with three crystals, followed by Rabbit’s two.

Our Take

I was stunned by the art in this episode. I had to re-watch the opening scene a couple times because I wanted to look at how they made the scene work. It was definitely made in CG, but many of the elements were flat panes with art on them. As the camera panned back to them, objects that you would see more than one side of as you passed were in 3D, the rest you would move past like looking in a pop-up picture book. It was brilliant in how much mastery of the craft it took to do a “simple” shot. The rest of the scene gave us parallax effects by having layers moving against each other. Each layer had a ton of detail in it, so much grime and garbage. The rest of the episode did not want this scene to leave it in the dust, however. There was so much expression in Chicken’s face, and it had a ton of style in it to show the various roles she was slipping into. You could tell when she was in espionage mode and when she was in killer mode by the shapes her eyes made. The final fight had great use of perspective, letting us see down the street to where Ox waited at a distance. Then, as he attacked, you saw the sword flashing up and into her eye… from her perspective. It was even better than the shot I was expecting. It had a visceral reality to it as if that is what you would see in the real world if a madman with a saber stabbed you in the eye. That’s grim, I know, but I enjoyed the animation choices here.

I am actually going to miss Chicken, you know? Monica Rial gave this character so much life and pizzaz that I just wanted to hear her inner monologue. Just like the animation and art, Rial uses slight differences in the voice between Chicken’s different intents. Her killer voice, which is used for all of her thoughts, is lower and has a wry, biting sarcasm to it. Her infiltration voice is higher and a bit more perky, with a casual innocence. Almost like the low and high clucking of a chicken. How about that? Caitlin Glass’s portrayal of Monkey has been one I was initially ignoring, feeling that it was cute but almost one-note. Then I realized that this may be intentional. If my theory about Monkey is true, and her “Killing Peacefully” is getting others to defend her, then this adorable, determined, positive tone coming from her constantly is intentional. It’s a part of her weapon, so it’s a given that she would always have it the same, and at full blast. Ian Sinclair brought the creeping doom into the picture, giving Ox a deep, sonorous voice that sounds nothing like what I have been hearing lately from him, such as Dragon Ball Super‘s Whis and Saiyuki Reload Blast‘s Gojyo. I like it. Given he is likely to be one of the last ones in the competition, I look forward to seeing more of him.

The title of the episode gave away much of the plot, especially since the last two episodes pretty much declared who was going to die. Since the plot was spoiled for me, I really have to judge the writing based off the dialogue. This show has had a habit of writing its internal monologues so that they occur over the top of existing conversations. It has a vibe of Gosford Park to it, and forces you to rewatch scenes to get all of the information since you likely missed it the first time around. The dialogue sounds natural, and it feels almost like the writers have given the characters agency, even though they likely haven’t.