English Dub Review: Juni Taisen “To Treat a Man to Beef From His Own Cow”

Rat is Chara?

Overview (Spoilers)

Ox is reeling from the death of Tiger. Not just because she took the hit for him, but because she reminds him of an innocent girl he met on a battlefield. But such a comparison would impugn Tiger’s strength! For those of you who missed it, yeah, that innocent girl was Tiger on a bender. However, he doesn’t have time to mourn. He’s figuring that Rabbit is gonna pull himself together, and only fire is going to stop him. Ox has to get some means of roasting Bugs Butthead. Mid-plotting, Rabbit shows up. Or, at least his parts do. Nothing has been put back in the right place, and bits of other zombies have been lashed in to plug gaps. It’s vaguely human-shaped, but the zombie formerly known as Rabbit is an abomination only lovable in R’yleh. He doesn’t have enough time to get flammables to bear, so Ox has to slow him down. He goes to slice up the Rabbit when POP! Out jumps Monkey! This was how Rabbit pulled himself together so fast. The monkey was helping him! She tackles him and holds him down while Rabbit recovers. He even tries to kill himself by biting his tongue off, but Monkey bashes his teeth in. Well, that’s it. It’s only a matter of time before Rabbit turns him into a zombie. Ya know, I’m going to let you finish dying and all, but Rat has one of Sheep’s bombs and is willing to help out. He may have killed Ox along with Rabbit, but at least Ox goes out as himself. That’s it! Rat wins the Juni Taisen.

But, we aren’t quite done yet. You see, there’s a little ritual after each Juni Taisen. Duodeculpe sits down and asks Rat about how he won. Rat declines to be interviewed, and heads for the elevator. Mid-way down, the cable snaps and he falls to his death…And he wakes up in front of Duodeculpe. Declining again, he finds that the stairs are no better a way out, and dies from getting shoved down. Each time he dies, he returns to his choice, refuses, and dies again. After around a hundred deaths, he figures it’s probably better to just agree to be interviewed. That’s when he uses his special power… SAVEGAME! He can set a point in time and continuously return to it if he doesn’t like the results. The conversation becomes a chess game. With each question, Rat saves and tries to find out the best way to answer.It seems like he is trying to get just as much information out of DuoD as he gives. After the interview is over, Rat heads for the door. DuoD reminds him that he still hasn’t named his wish. Rat says he’ll get back to him… after trying 100 different wishes and trying the one that works out best for him.

Courtesy: Funimation

Our Take

Before we get into my analysis, can we take a moment and bask in the light of “I Told You So”? Totally called in the first episode that Rat was going to win. Okay, I’m done.

This episode threw me for a loop, and in a good way. I was expecting Ox to die, but I was expecting him to kill Rabbit first. Then, next episode would be Ox versus Rat, where we’d see Rat’s ability. Instead, Rat takes all the remaining players off the board in one shot and wins with an episode to spare. Then, seeing him die just after was a shocker. I wasn’t expecting the tournament to kill off its winner, especially since we’ve met past winners. The reveal of his ability was brilliant, as it took a couple deaths or me to figure out that it was Rat doing this, and not DuoD. If you think that this ability came out of nowhere, you should look back through the series. The hint is in the one action you see him do the most: playing video games. It’s a subtle hint, and one you don’t connect to this point. This episode pulls together all the tiny, hidden threads woven throughout the series. Small things characters said and did that altered Rat’s path and ultimately allowed him to win. I find it interesting how he used so many resets trying to figure out if Monkey’s peace plan worked, and how he is humble enough to give credit to other warriors for his win. Honestly, I’m kinda hype for the next and final episode.

Let’s also take a moment to appreciate the work that went into the hob-cobble zombie Rabbit. Though he was animated in CG, he had a ton of moving parts, and they were terrifying. I was not expecting a trip to Silent Hill, here. The action portion of the episode was short and sweet but had a good transition into the CG animation. That form has one big downside: if the animation isn’t done just right, it comes off as stiff and lifeless. They used that to their advantage here, because that mish mash mangle of a man would move stiffly and without life. On the other hand, Ox is also animated in CG, and they took great pains to make him look lifelike. What little sharp edges exist in the animation is mitigated by the spartan precision of Ox’s movements, so they can get away with that. I felt like several of the scenes had a strange comedic feel to Rat’s face, however, which made his deaths feel a little awkward until they start coming at super-speed.

I wish I had such a glowing review of the voice acting. The guys in this episode were plain as vanilla pudding. They weren’t bad, but with the exception of Duodeculpe, they didn’t emote much. DuoD was the consummate showman, and it shined through in every word spoken by Mark Stoddard. But, that wasn’t enough to keep me from enjoying this episode.

Score

Summary

This episode only highlights how well thought-out the universe is. Coupled with the strong animation, it overcomes its simpleness of the voice acting. I give this episode eight Juuseki jewels out of ten.

8.0/10