Juni Taisen: Zodiac War Episode 12 – The One Wish That Must Be Granted And the Ninety-Nine That Can Be Done Without [Final]

Back to the mundane

Well, it looks like Nezumi is back to his ordinary high-school life and, apart from disintegrating his classmates in fun new ways every morning, it’s a pretty regular life.

It’s a good thing they never showed us his high-school life before. Back, right-hand corner seat by the window? We would have know the ending from the start. That’s the damn protagonist seat. It’s a surreal experience, watching Nezumi in his daily life. Here we were, watching him survive a battle royale between the strongest contenders in the world, and now we watch him sleep in class, get rejected by his crush, and take the train like everyone else.

Maybe they mentioned this beforehand and I’m spacing out, but is the Juni Taisen not known about at all? Broadcasting that the world is split up based on the results might be kind of alarming, but do the citizens know of the battle at all? I imagine it could be like the Superbowl but with fighting. It’s just surprising that no one has recognized him or any of the other families that possess superhuman abilities. Maybe it’s just locked down tight though.

Nezumi’s power leaving traces of deja vu is a very nice addition to his power. Now we know why everyone thought they had seen him before. Because they had. And already killed him multiple times…

The pain of choice

You have to kind of feel bad for Rat. He mentions he tried 100 ways to get out of the zodiac war, but none worked. Forced into it, he really only wanted to live. Now he’s forced to come up with a wish? Do you know how many stupid wishes a teenager can make? Well, we got to see 99 of them, and some of them were ridiculous. I think my two favorites were: gain telekinesis to which his rebuttal was, ‘but then why have hands’, and ‘eat the most delicious ramen.’ My man has his priorities straight.

As I guessed previously, he also has to experience the emotions and pain of each wrong path he goes down. In an instant. At least he’s creative though. He managed to come up with 100 different ways to ask a girl out. I can think of like, 10.

For each of his 99 wishes, his logical side flares up to point out the downsides. From resurrecting everyone to starring in his own manga to getting a girlfriend, with a pessimistic mind like Rat’s, he just went nowhere fast. It probably reached the most empathetic point when he starts to doubt whether he even deserved to win. With no wish, he was dishonoring the losers by shutting down their dreams with none of his own.

I mean, I get it. Trying to think up a foolproof wish that is at least somewhat beneficial on command is not an easy task. I can barely choose from a limited menu when I start to feel pressured. The waitress’s eyes burn into my soul every time.

Hindsight is 20/20

Even if you had nothing good to say about this series, it’s hard to deny that using Rat’s 100 paths to look back at the show was a cool move. We were able to see some of the other paths results and, what I think was the true beauty of his power, we got to see different sides of the characters. Learning that the legendary brothers actually thought less about money then they let on, finding out Dog has an adopted child, listening to Chicken confess she wanted more confidence. They even humanized Rabbit (or tried at least).

Needless to say, this was a unique perspective that they managed to offer us and it felt like a great reward to end the show. Plus, we got to find out that Tiger’s wish was the only one granted! Hell yeah! I love Tiger.

Your wish has been granted

Ok, I see what you did there. Do I like it? Eh, not really.

While the show was made by the writer of the Monogatari series, it never really felt like it. It seems that some elements were maybe lost in the adaptation. However, the dialogue in this episode (or maybe monologues is more accurate) was like we had transferred worlds. Maybe I was just triggered by the rapidly flashing text on screen when they went through Rat’s 99 wishes, but the style of this episode really seemed to call-back to something I’d see Arararararararararagi Araragi perform.

This is a moment I’ll probably reflect on later and appreciate. Or at least understand more than I do now. Right now though, I can say I don’t care for Rat’s wish. By forgetting, he’s effectively just running away. He’s given in to the pressure and his fear of dishonoring the fallen warriors still comes true. While there’s nothing about his personality that suggests he’d do otherwise, I can’t help but feel a bit bitter about the whole ordeal. I suppose if there was ever a wish that’d give Rat satisfaction, this would 100% be it though.

To anyone that actually wanted to watch this, I’d definitely recommend it. Like I told my friend though, don’t think of it as an action show because you’ll be extremely disappointed if you do.