English Dub Review: Juni Taisen “In Like a Dragon, Out Like a Snake (Part 1)”

Oh, so that’s what Hikaru and Kaoru got up to after they graduated from Ouran High School…

Overview (Spoilers, It’s about Dragon and Snake)

Rabbit removes the jewel from Monkey and gets her zombie ready to go. Spotting the smoke from the bank fire, he surmises that Snake killed Horse, and sends Zombie Monkey (which sounds like a pretty metal band name) in to retrieve the jewel from the corpse. He’s too well cooked to be of use as a walker. In the meantime, Tiger encounters Zombie Snake. She’s much too fast for it to bring its flamethrower to bear. She removes an arm, as well as the flamethrower tank. Figuring it’s some sort of alcohol base (wrong, military flamethrowers like that one have one tank of inert propellant and one tank of gasoline with a thickener agent), she opens the tank up and starts drinking it. Now unarmed, the slithering dead holds up its remaining hand in a stance of Shequan Kung Fu. Though she is initially interested in the battle between that and Drunken Tiger, she realizes that without a jewel, it’s useless. With no horse in the fight (pun intended), she walks off. A moment later, Ox arrives on the scene. He removes the other arm of the undead hothead and is about to dispatch the zed’s other limbs when he is interrupted by Tiger. She is ANGRY and wants a piece of him, now. Before their fight can begin, however, they come under attack by… Snake? Its arms! They’ve gone bad! Moving on their own, the two limbs wrap around the combatants’ throats and choke them. Tiger begins foaming at the mouth in rage as she struggles, and that gives Ox an idea. He throws his sword next to her head, sparking her gasoline-laced drool and igniting her whole head on fire. Perhaps this will free the two of them from Snake’s grasp?

While all of this goes down, Dragon watches from high above, commenting on how Rabbit got more use out of Snake than Dragon ever did. And they’re family! He reminisces about their shared past. Beginning as petty thieves, the two always competed for who could steal the best item. Dragon’s cool head and tech capabilities meant he was always the man with the plan. Snake was often little more than clumsy muscle. Eventually, though, the pair were chosen by their families to represent the Dragon and Snake in the Juni Taisen. They were proud until they were informed that only one of them could win. Even if they worked together, eventually, they’d have to kill each other. On the eve of the Juni Taisen, they were almost the first to arrive. While Snake wanted to set traps, Dragon felt it would be useless. None of the combatants would fall for them. Of course, while they talked, Monkey was setting up her escape trap right under the meeting room floor. Then, they had the misfortune of running into a fully clothed Rabbit, who proceeded to relieve Snake of his head. And from there, the series picked up. But, what more did we miss from those crucial first minutes? Will Ox and Tiger escape the coils of the flaming dead? Find out next week on Juni Taisen!

Our Take

I may have jested a bit on my opening line, but these Tsumita brothers are almost exactly the same as the Hitachiin twins from Ouran High School Host Club. Don’t believe me?

Yellow eyes, red-adjacent hair, differentiate by parting their hair on opposite sides. One is immature and surly, the other is intelligent and somewhat thoughtful. The only thing that differentiates these pairs of twins (other than superpowers and a love of eyeshadow) is that they flipped which one was the older one. So, yeah. They gave up fashion, became thieves, got disowned, changed their name, and die in the Juni Taisen. How’s that for an ending to such an upbeat anime? /headcannon

Honestly, though, I enjoyed the story as presented in this episode. Juni Taisen does a good job of balancing its flashbacks and exposition with it’s in the moment action. Just before a flashback gets to be too much, they switch to the headless Snake attacking someone else. I was hoping for a little more to the brothers’ backstory than just more examples of how they work together, but this episode was more about Snake, and it established the personalities of these two absentee characters. I hope next episode will show us something more about how they related, and why Dragon doesn’t seem to care much about his brother’s death and reanimation. Just because you have a freeze gun doesn’t mean you have to be… nope. Not gonna do that pun. Not gonna do it.

The animation gave me mixed feelings. The direction of the shots was dynamic, especially when Tiger was concerned. It wasn’t just about the fanservice, although that was obviously an intent. Why has a girl in a bikini got on all fours that much if you don’t intend to have a bunch of compromising shots? However, these shots also had a viciousness to them that amped up the feeling that she was actually someone dangerous. Up until now, we hadn’t really gotten that. Even though she samurai-one-shot’ed Sheep, we still only got her in her drunk-stupid state. Now, she looks like a real contender. Not a smart one mind you, but a contender. My money is still in Rat, though.

On the other hand, the quality of the animation and creativity of the shots has gone down a little bit from the first few episodes. The lines aren’t always as smooth and crisp as we have seen. While we have seen some amazingly composited shots that pan back through a combination of CG and digitally drawn traditional animation pieces, we don’t get that here.It feels more like a standard anime, and less like the high-quality gem, I had gotten into this series with. I don’t think that reflects on the series as a whole, most shows have an off episode or two. I think this series is gonna pick up that slack later on.

The voice acting was right on the money. Clifford Chapin (Dragon) and Matt Shipman (Snake) sounded almost like they were the same voice actor at some points and actually managed to sync up their lines perfectly. Not only did they sound just like two brothers, they portrayed a rather wide array of emotions as they talked. So far, other than Peacock, they are the most expressive of the bunch.