English Dub Review: Juni Taisen “The Enemy, A Noble Primate”

Peace is a battlefield.

Overview (Spoilers)

Rat announces to Monkey that Chicken is most likely dead. Moreover, while we know that she was killed by Ox, Rat says that it was Monkey’s undying optimism and genuine concern for others that did her in. The two have a long discussion over the merits of fighting and pacifism, protecting versus killing, and whether people deserve to live. Rat sees the worst in the people whose lives he has saved. He’s a high-schooler, and every time he comes back to the “peace” of that school, he’s reminded of the garbage he just risked his life to save. Monkey, on the other hand, has a different perspective, and one that requires a good deal of flashback to explain.

We see that she learned to fight and to transmute materials at a touch from a trio of monkey sages. With that power, she decided she wanted to bring an end to all wars. From there, we see that she became a negotiator, working to prevent and end wars, broker ceasefires, and end devastation. The story focuses on one particular incident where two countries were at war over a parcel of land. Each had what they claimed was a legitimate claim to it, and had been fighting for over seventy years. When Monkey got involved, she delved into the history of the land. She discovered that it was once a struggling country that got annexed before the war. The soldiers that were fighting over the land were the direct descendants or even the same people who lived in that land before. She convinced the soldiers to defect, reforming their original country. In doing so, she predicted the war would end. It did. The two bigger countries joined forces and wiped out the deserting “rebels”. Her actions, intended to save lives, resulted in the deaths of thousands. All she could do to deal with the grief was to sit at home and bake. Sure, she sees the utter depravity of humanity. She sees the darkness and the spiritual garbage. But that doesn’t make her want to give up. She takes all that horror and burns it on her heart, to fuel her war against war itself. But, Monkey’s reverie is soon ended. A flock of zombified birds swarms the sewers, forcing her and Rat to the surface. There, Rabbit and the headless Snake await them.

So, something I noticed, which prompted a bit of research on my part. During this episode, we get a brief bit of time in Monkey’s home, where we meet her husband. At first, I was a bit confused. He didn’t wear a wedding band, but the two of them were living together as if they were married. He was acutely aware of her feelings, even when she was hiding them. I wondered, was he just a very sensitive boyfriend and they cohabitated? While that’s a possibility, I learned that in Japanese culture, rings are treated a bit differently. While the Japanese have adopted many of the Western traditions of weddings and still exchange rings, it doesn’t carry the same level of symbolism. The exchange seems to be more important than the meaning of the ring. In fact, the exchanging of rings is such an important thing to them, that there was some discussion a couple years ago of the creation of a third type of ring, the Nyuseki Yubiwa. This is because over 79.4% of people are legally married over five months before their actual ceremony, due to government regulation and paperwork. So the Nyuseki Yubiwa is the ring for when you are legally married, and the wedding band is for the ceremony. As such, many married couples will keep their rings in a box on a shelf, to keep them from being damaged. Other may choose not to wear them so that they aren’t flaunting their marital status at all times, possibly disturbing people who are distressed they aren’t married. These people may only put on their rings when going out on the town with friends. This may not have been a plot point in the episode, but it is an interesting cultural detail.

Our Take

So, wow, this was a powerful episode. Though we didn’t get any action until the last few seconds, the story was loaded with great emotion. Unlike all the other contestants we’ve seen so far, Monkey has not succeeded at everything in her life. It is her failures that define her, and the fact that she simply won’t give up. I already thought she was a nifty protagonist in this sea of jerkdom. Now seeing that her optimism isn’t born from a series of successes, but in defiance of the darkness, it makes her all the more admirable and believable. Heroes that never fail aren’t interesting. Jaded protagonists that do good, but don’t see good, are a dime a dozen since comics discovered the idea of an anti-hero. Here I see a character with real depth to go with her incredible abilities. I am pleased that her powers, which are revealed in the episode but not fully explored, are not what I predicted last week. I had thought she got others to fight for her. Really her powers are that she is just like the Elric brothers from Fullmetal Alchemist. She can transmute the state and form of molecules that she touches. I’m looking forward to seeing her put that to use against Rabbit next week. It isn’t the type of power I’d expect to see in a murder-happy show like this one, and the unexpected is so welcome. Unless it’s that one unexpected episode from 18if. I still have scars.

Even before we got to the battle, this episode was riddled with little details that were lovingly animated. The one that leaps to mind was the scene of her making and kneading the dough with all of her feelings in it. The movement looked almost rotoscoped, but it wasn’t. It was hand-drawn. I also like how we only get to see her hands at work while she bakes. Yes, it would be tempting to stare at her emotion-riddled face instead, but it is also lazy direction. Instead, we are forced to imagine how she feels. With that imagination comes empathy, which deepens our connection to the characters. It is good directing. Also, when we saw Rat eating a hard-boiled egg, the animation of him shelling it was a tiny detail that we didn’t need to see, but we got to. These shots make the world of Juni Taisen grounded enough that the characters feel real, despite their fantastical powers. It also goes to prove that just because two characters are talking, doesn’t mean the rest of them can’t be well animated and doing something. The visual direction of this episode drove up the intensity at all the right places. We got mostly high-up angled shots during the negotiation scene, and mostly straight on shots during the scenes in the sewers. This not only makes the negotiation tenser, but it also separates it from the current day scenes.

Caitlin Glass has been doing anime voice acting for a long time now, over twelve years. She’s done classic anime like Escaflowne, FMA, and Dragon Ball Z, and she’s the de facto voice of Cammy White in the Street Fighter games since number four. It’s no surprise that she dominates the vocal scene in this episode as Monkey. Even when keeping calm and carrying on, she has an edge of feelings being held in check. There are about a dozen states the character crosses through, and she properly brings all of them to the front to be witnessed. Though her typical sound is that of confident optimism, we also get to hear her with a bit of timidity as she tries to assert herself in the negotiations. Since she is often times not seen as she attempts this, Caitlin could have portrayed this in any way she wanted. Giving her that awkwardness that builds to complete command of the situation was critical to how we see the character. Rather than being a schemer that gets what she wants through manipulation, this portrayal gives a humble woman whose incredible power is second only to her cunning mind.