Mixed Feelings
Juuni Taisen is one of the best examples of a bonafide "what if" anime: What if the show was 24 instead of 12 episodes? What if the art and animation were more consistent? What if half the show wasn't pure flashbacks? What if the character deaths weren't so laughably predictable? I really could go on, and it's a shame imagining what could have been an outstanding show. The anime is plagued by a myriad of small problems which by themselves would be insignificant and ignorable, but when you account for so many of them, it becomes detrimental to the viewing experience. On its surface, JuuniTaisen aspires to be an epic, exhilarating battle royale where 12 warriors representing the signs of the Chinese zodiac volunteer or are chosen to partake in the brawl, with the winner to be granted any one wish.
Naturally, comparisons will be made to the Fate/Stay Night series, and while that juxtaposition isn't too far-fetched, Juuni Taisen is far more character driven and in that fact lies the show's greatest strengths and weaknesses. On principle, most of us can't get attached to characters if a said character received little to no screen time, or barely any development or backstory. To meet this principle, the anime dedicates one episode to most of the characters, where we see the conflict from their point of view and learn about their past. The problem here is that their backstory is told through an often intruding and abysmally long flash back that takes up the majority of their episode. I'm not one of those guys that hates flashbacks, heck I loved the original Naruto, but the difference here is that Naruto had dozens of episodes to tell its story and flesh out all its characters; Juuni Taisen does not have that time or liberty, so to see almost all of a character's screen time be dedicated to a flashback feels like a superfluous disservice to them, however effective it might have been to their development.
Speaking of disservice, one thing I'm sure that bothered others besides me was how suddenly the majority of the characters are killed off. About 80% of all the characters perish instantly to a sneak attack or die sacrificing themselves for another character. You can hardly call this an action anime if only 2 or 3 of the characters die fighting, while the others never really even got a chance to shine in the combat they so loved. Again, I'm not an action enthusiast, but if you're going to dump a huge flashback on us only to suddenly kill the character off afterwards, you've wasted any potential for growth that character might have had, as well as what could've been a great fight.
And that leads to the other problem: Predicable deaths, very predictable deaths. The anime is very formulaic --- The episode focuses on one character, they get a 15 minute long flashback, and about 2 or 3 minutes after the flashback ends, they die, usually without a fight. While this isn't always the case, you can usually guess with surprising accuracy the next character to be killed off by just figuring out which character that previously got no screen time is suddenly getting lots and go from there. In this anime, flashbacks are the death flags, and screen time is the precursor to that.
The last bit of bad news if you're interested in this anime is the often wonky art and animation. It's all over the place to be honest, bouncing between amazing and sluggishly lazy. Honestly, at the times when the animation is downright jaw dropping, it only irks me even more for the lack of action scenes that could have greatly utilized it. Even the CGI is fluid and alive, might even be the best CGI I've seen in anime. But again, it all varies as sometimes the art devolves significantly past the point of saying its the anime's art style and just leaves me wondering "why?" But of all the negatives, this one is probably the most ignorable.
As for strengths, the biggest one is that its very character driven and knows how to make us care for characters in such a short amount of time, but it comes at the cost of the above negatives and due to the nature of the anime, the characters would not live long enough anyway to solidify a deep connection to. More episodes would have been amazing for this show, but we have to consume what we have been served. I can also say with certainty that not one of the problems I listed was enough to affect my overall positive enjoyment of the show, and my lower overall rating of 6 is mostly due to objective critique. I'm a firm believer of watching a show for the enjoyment rather that to look to criticize it, so if the synopsis interests you at all, I still recommend you give it a try. Just bear in mind the above qualms and perhaps lower expectations accordingly.
In all, Juuni Taisen presents a simple yet effective story with compelling characters, though both of these are mired down by easy predictability and a lack of focus on action where there should be more of it. There was a lot of missed potential here, but at the same time it hit just enough right marks to distinguish itself as something truly unique in its field.
