“I wouldn’t mind going to that planet tho (͡• ͜໒ ͡• ) Where can I buy tickets?”
Jyu Oh Sei, The Planet of the Beast King, 獣王星
Episodes: 11
Aired Date: Spring 2006
Animation Company: Bones
Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama,Mystery, Sci-Fi, Shoujo
Synopsis: “Thor and his twin brother, Rai, are cast off to a forsaken planet by unknown masked men after witnessing the suspicious death of their parents. Given only a beam knife and a smelly satchel, they wander together in search of civilization on the primarily plant based world. They soon discover the plants have the advantage. Only the strong survive; the ones who throw away their humanity and become the beasts humans once were.” MAL
AAAAND I’M BACK! With another rather old show that no one has ever heard about. How was I able to find it ? I don’t know myself… I sometimes get lost on MAL and manage to find some odd shows this way. But eh, it’s nice to see unknown anime too, there’s good stuff that lies right in front of your eyes but that you weren’t able to see since they are buried in the depths of the anime community who has forgotten their existence too soon. Sorry if I’m starting to get a bit salty here….
Let’s not lie, the synopsis is pretty cool. It has Space, survival, monsters, fights for life and a bishounens. HOW COOL IS THAT?! Space fucking awesome, and plants are cool anyway, especially carnivorous plants. The show is labelled as a Shoujo because of the bishounens I assume, but there’s some girls too, there’s like 3 girls! Trust me, that’s a lot for a “bishounen” anime. And there’s actually only 3-4 main guys so see, it’s pretty balanced. Again, don’t worry, no Yaoi intended here, in fact, those guys are into gurls, yeah, I know, I was surprised too.
← No incest in the show, don’t worry.
So the story, well, it’s exactly what the synopsis tells or actually, it’s exactly the synopsis for the first episode, after the first episode, a lot more stuff happens. So allow me again to spoil you some stuff from the first episode.
There’s actually civilization on this planet so the two guys don’t “wander together in search of civilization”. They land on this planet and don’t have the time realize that they are going to miss the new season of Game Of Thrones that they are attacked by humans. So no, they don’t “wander” for very long time. The population of the planet is organized by Rings, there’s different rings on different territories, each one of them led by a leader, a second and a third. The aim for those rings is to fight again each other, the last leader remaining will be sacred “Beast King” and be allowed to leave this planet. So there you go, that’s pretty much what the real story is about.
The story remains coherent with its universe and with the main theme: survival. There’s actually some well thought sentences sometimes such as: “Think about it. You say you wanna leave the planet as a human, not as an animal. But what animal is more dangerous than a human?”. You know, philosophical stuff that makes you go “oooooh, he’s right, he’s so cool”. I like that very much.
The characters are great too. The cast is mostly composed by good looking guys so that’s why I decided to watch it in the first place. Because let’s be honest, Thor, the silver hair guy, is extremely hot (͡• ͜໒ ͡• ).
What?
What are you saying?
“You can’t say that, he’s a 12 years old boy”
Well , jokes on you, I was talking about adult Thor:
Who is actually 16… So that’s still pedophilia…
I …
I can’t deal with Age in Anime anymore.
Too much sin.
Those good looking guys actually have personalities and pretty interesting ones. They all have a similar goals but will employ different means to achieve them, which is interesting to see. Some characters did surprise me by doing stuff that I never thought them capable of. So they aren’t here just to be beautiful, in fact, Thor is the only one to be considered “beautiful” by the female cast. There’s also some gurls and for once, they aren’t the poor lady in distress that all the guys need to save, they are actually leaders. Because there’s a lack of females on this planet, it’s the girls who are actually choosing which guy they want to marry and reproduce with. So that’s why there’s more hot guys than hot girls, everything makes more sense now, it’s because of this, obviously not because the show wants to appeal to female viewers aha… silly me.
So yes, all the girls are strong, useful to the story and not puppets just here to give the illusion of non bishounen show. They actually have, like the guys, personalities and goals. They are strong, independent, everything I want to see. So +1 for being a show with good female characters, even if, they are a bit too quick to fall in love with everyone. But eh, no show can be perfect.
The animation is good for 2006, the fights are dynamic and I haven’t seen many “derpy faces”. I personally like the art Style, even if their noses are strange, but that’s my own taste and if you don’t like the art style, there’s nothing that I can do for you. The soundtrack isn’t memorable, OP and ED are ok. The OP is quite odd it surprised me and stroke me as unusual the first time. Then after a few times, I began to sing along. I can’t tell if I like it or not… It’s… I can’t get it out of my head… Oh well, there’s different opinions on that matter.
You can listen to the OP HERE. It also works as a trailer for once.
Now the flaws: The show is really quick, too quick. With only 11 episodes, this shows gives you the impression of a two hours movie. I think it covers 5 or 6 years in the anime, so the characters are growing and the story is progressing a lot. My main critic would be the huge ellipse in the middle of the show. After this ellipse everyone has aged and some political stuff between the rings happened. Even if everything that happened is explained I would have wanted to see it but no, you’re just left with a big ellipse, telling you “deal with it bruh”. Jyu Oh Sei could have been a 24 episodes show and it would have been a lot better.
Furthermore, some characters tropes and sub plots are sometimes quite generic. It involves things that we’ve seen and seen again. In that aspect Jyu Oh Sei doesn’t invent anything and looks a lot like an old Sci Fi movie from the 80’s, which is probably the point since it’s an adaptation of an old manga.
Finally, the ending remains quite rushed too, with a lot of unnecessary things that happen. It’s not an unsatisfactory ending though. I was pleased by it but sad that the show was over. The show in itself is pretty sad too, I seem to have a fascination for sad shows which are crushing my feelings.
The show has obviously some major flaws but it remains surprisingly enjoyable. If the short amount of episodes give a rushed impression it also benefits the show in a sense. I wasn’t bored, everything is fast paced but thus, it makes it really thrilling. I think I watched everything in one day since I couldn’t stop. Each episode was unique and different from the last one.
Jyu Oh Sei is like a breath of fresh hair. It’s short and that’s why it’s great. Everything in this anime is engaging, the story, the characters, the universe. Even if I was aware of the show’s flaws, I forgot them since what the show was showing me was so enjoyable. It’s like the own show is aware of its nature, of its flaws but decides to deal with them and to carry on. I don’t think it was pretending to be some masterpiece which pushes you to think about deep subjects but rather a nice sci-fi entertaining show.
In the end, Jyu Oh Sei remains a really enjoyable show but no a masterpiece in my opinion. In terms of entertainment it’s a strong title. It has been a while since I was that thrilled about a show, watching it all in once without getting bored. The show had a amazing story but did not managed to entirely fulfill my expectations, mostly because there’s not enough episodes.
I’ll recommend it to every one, if you’re not afraid of the art style. It’s perfect to watch to take a break from long running series that tend to go on and on, repeating the same old things again and again. Here, there’s no repetition, it happened, fine, now we move on. It’s a double edged knife, people might dislike it because it’s too fast, other might think that it’s where the genius of the show lies.
Score: 7,5/10
This show is strange, I’m aware of its flaws, but I still like it.
It’s not the best anime ever but if you like Sci Fi and survival you should definitely check this out.
Oh yeah, apparently it’s rated R – 17+ (violence & profanity)…. I personally did not see that much violence but yeah, at least I’ve warned you.