of emperors, kirin and talking mice

So, yes, I am now the last anime fan on the planet to finally get around to seeing Juuni Kokki/Chronicle of the 12 Kingdoms. Have seen the first half and must reiterate what everyone has already said, to whit, if you have any love for epic fantasy, unicorns, or unbelievably adorable giant talking mice, you owe it to yourself to go watch this series with all due haste. Lovely stuff.

More specifically - go girl power! Yoko manages to morph through about four distinct anime hero types in the course of the first seven episodes, from shy schoolgirl to terrified bishoujo to crazy-ass battle bishounen to epic shounen hero. Most impressive.

Is it possible to watch the show and not want to pinch Rakushun's ears to see them twitch? And he and Yoko would be the cutest couple.

Love Enki as well, atarimae da. His seiyuu alone guaranteed that (speaking of which - naye, I missed a chance to see Yamaguchi Kappei-sama again? Nooo~! Say it ain't so!! Dammit, I need a job so I can afford seiyuu-stalking!)

And while staying spoiler-free, I must say, on a one to ten scale of cruelty to fans, when one is the Fushigi Yuugi anime's so-perfectly-sappy-it-makes-me-cry conclusion, eight is Forever Knight's "we don't know what to do so let's kill off most of the cast" finale, and ten is the infamous end of Twin Peaks--the utter non-resolution of the Taiki story rates about a thirteen. WTF? gnine filled me in on some of the happenings in the novels that the show didn't get to. It didn't help. Stopping a story in certain places should be illegal, dammit.