The Great Feminist Manga and Anime List: The Twelve Kingdoms
These reviews are to examine the feminist-friendly elements of each series as well as the problematic elements.
In other words,this is simply meant to be a guide to recommend anime feminists like me might enjoy and also give warning of any elements that might disturb or affect someone. I am also aware I am limited by my white, Western feminist context in these reviews and thus, can’t really give anything other than the perspective of a Western feminist fan on various themes. I can only say what these series mean to me and what I take away from them as an outsider who is not the primary audience. If I get something wrong or if you are aware something has an entirely different connotation in Japanese culture that I am not privy to, I would love to hear about it so please feel free to tell me about it.
The Twelve Kingdoms (also called Jūni Kokuki, "Record of 12 Countries" or "Juuni Kokki") is a story by Fuyumi Ono that is both a series of novels and an anime. It’s one of the most well constructed and positive fantasy stories I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
The most prominent narrative centers around Yoko Nakajima, a submissive sixteen year old girl who lives to please those around her, reared by her controlling father to believe a very narrow idea of what girls should be. Everything changed for Yoko when a strange man approached her at school and informed her she was being hunted by demons. The man bowed to her and offered her his protection and allegiance. Yoko was panicked into accepting his offer, and given a sword to fight demons with. She was chased by the demons into the fantastical world of the twelve kingdoms, separated from her mysterious protector and stranded. The world of the Twelve Kingdoms is filled with strange customs and dangerous creatures, and in some places the outsiders that blow in from Japan and China aren’t welcomed due to the calamity caused by the storms that blow them in. This meek schoolgirl who built her life around serving others now has only herself to count on, and she is going to have to find out who she is and what she’s really made of if she wants to survive.
If you’re looking for a story that has a) has ridiculously complex and thorough world building that delves into every facet of the mythology, geography, population and governance of a high-fantasy alternate word and b) massive character development, intense psychological examination and characters having to examine the effects of abuse of power and oppression and facing sticky moral conflicts with no easy answers and oh did we mention that these complex and conflicted characters are mostly excellent ladies….well, this is the right story, my friend.
The worldbuilding of this story cannot be understated. The mythology offers an array of unique array of creatures never seen before, and each of the twelve kingdoms are unique with distinct histories. The detail is endless. The world as a whole has a bit of Chinese influence, which makes sense as people in China blow in all the time. A lot of attention is paid to the power structure of this fictional world. For example, each of the twelve kingdoms is ruled by a king. But it isn’t a hereditary deal. Each king is picked by a divine entity that represents the will of the people. So each king starts out as a noble person, and they will have functional immortality as long as the kingdom prospers under their reign. But if they make bad decisions and power corrupts them and they start mistreating their kingdom, the land itself starts to fall prey to natural disasters and demons and the king sickens and dies. And the natural disasters and demon attacks continue until the next king is found.
Obviously, this lends itself to a lot of fascinating questions: what causes a king to stray from the path and how can they keep up a continuously good reign? What kind of God sets up this sort of system, and is it good and fair for the people to suffer so much when the king falls? How much is free will and how much is divine influence? These thorny implications are acknowledged and explored, and that’s what makes this a unique and fascinating story. The structure also really lends itself to a lot of exploration of government corruption and class structures. The great thing about the story is that it shows the reality of poverty, injustice and oppression and also shows these things aren’t easy to fix, even if you’re someone with power. It’s acknowledged that social problems are terribly complicated and difficult and that a ruler has to be among the people and understand every detail to even begin to try. Nothing is black and white.
A major storyline deals with overthrowing a corrupt government official, and though the characters at first think it will be a simple matter, they discover that this man of course has higher up corrupt people in the government who protect him so he can aid them in their corruption in a sort of complicated symbiotic relationship. And those higher up have made sure to twist the laws to their advantage so they can be protected. Even a competent ruler can’t touch them. A meticulously planned widescale revolution of the common people is required to even begin to fight those odds. The Twelve Kingdoms offers a really realistic take on fighting corruption and injustice in the power structure, but it doesn’t present it as hopeless- just difficult and requiring a lot of thought and understanding. With great power comes great responsibility indeed.
The story gives the same depth and detail to its character development as it gives to its worldbuilding. All the women in this story go on incredibly journeys of self discovery. Yoko’s situation is a pointed criticism of how girls are shoved into narrow roles. Because she was molded into her culture’s standard of the perfect polite and obedient girl, her self-esteem and self-respect is shot. Being stranded in an unknown place and hunted by demons gives her an opportunity to grow as a person and find out who she really is when freed from her culture’s constraints.
The massive growth she experiences,the twisty journey her character takes, and the complicated moral conflicts she finds herself caught up in make her one of the most complex and well-rounded characters I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. She’s pursued by a creature that embodies her self-doubt, and it’s unknown how she can defeat it. Will compassion and trusting other people get her killed or will her increasing paranoia transform her into a monster? Can she be strong and still open herself up to other people? Can she find her identity outside pleasing others? Yoko has to find out who she is, what her power is and if she can handle hardship and responsibility. Her journey is brutal and again, there are no easy answers. Yoko having to forge ahead and deal with that is what makes her such a great character.
Yoko isn’t the only lady here though. The story contrasts Yoko’s storyline with other women who are caught in horrific circumstances and have to fight their way out of it, who make tough choices and find out who they are and what they can do. These girls are initially resentful and jealous of other women, but they often discover that these other women are just trying to be strong under complicated circumstances like themselves, and they come to connect with these women. And in the end, these women support each other as they try to change the flawed world they live in. That’s right, like every narrative I love, Twelve Kingdoms is about women busting through the limitations placed on them, finding their power, understanding and forming friendships with each other and working together to revolutionize the society they live in and change the world.
It should definitely be noted that gender equality is in the very makeup of this fantasy world as well. It’s made clear that half the rulers in the twelve kingdoms are women, as are half the government officials, mystical entities etc and even a third of the army is women, with kickass lady generals and all of that. It’s not an entirely equal society, there’s still a lot of casually gender-essentialist statements from the characters, but this is still a world that says women can and should be in powerful positions just as much as men and they’ll do it just as well as men. And so even the storylines that don’t focus on Yoko will have women play an important role and be in positions of power.
As far as race goes, the book goes out of its way so that people are available in every color in the Twelve Kingdoms. Yoko herself gets darker skin when she enters the kingdoms. The books describe her skin as “tanned” and the anime represents it as sort of a weird dark orange color. It is interesting that Yoko finding her true self is synonymous with her skin darkening. The anime does show background characters in several shades, though I can only recall one prominent, powerful and positive character who is definitely brown-skinned (also red eyes and white hair- an Ishvalan?). .Though Chinese people are obviously hanging around the Twelve Kingdoms and certainly influenced the hell out of the world’s culture, a Chinese character hasn’t been encountered in the narrative thus far.
This story is pretty free of romance, hardly anyone has a love interest, and it’s kind of refreshing to have a lady protagonist without one (though the anime shoehorns in a crush for Yoko- but it’s forgotten pretty quickly as she develops.). The latest book (not adapted in the anime) has the most LGBTQ elements- there’s a cross-dressing, androgynous emperor who’s competent and fun, and lady character is described as talking “flirtatiously” to another lady character.
The anime is a fairly faithful and well-done adaption of the books it covers. The biggest changes are that the anime has Yoko transported to the other world with her “friends” Sugimoto and Asano instead of being stranded alone. Sugimoto is only in like, a paragraph of the books, so she’s basically completely made up by the anime, but I actually kind of like her, the way she contrasts with Yoko (Yoko wants to go home and is so against being “not normal” she makes a lot of mistakes, but Sugimoto hates her home and is so into the idea of being the chosen hero in this fantasy world she makes a lot of mistakes) and the fraught relationship the two girls share. Asano, however, is completely made up for the anime, a lot more awkwardly inserted and doesn’t serve much purpose, and even the anime itself seems to realize this, since he disappears from the narrative a lot. Disregarding my interest in Sugimoto, I think it’s better to have Yoko completely alone at first as in the books, because her initial isolation serves the narrative better, allows the reader to relate and understand her a lot more, and it makes for more development and focus on her journey. So, I prefer the books to the anime because they have a bit more detail and development, but the anime is a really good adaption. Basically, this story is both a must-read and a must-watch.
So if you are thirsting for epic, complicated fantasy narratives set in complex, morally gray worlds with strong and well developed ladies as much as I am, you will love Twelve Kingdoms. Check it out, you won’t regret it. You can buy the complete collection of the anime on Amazon. The books are out of print, sadly, but you can find used ones on Amazon or read these translations online.
Women and Gender: Wonderfully complicated female leads who have strong development and relationship, direct challenge and subversion of gender roles and misogyny.
Race: (a world specifically described as a diverse mix of people but the books kind of leave it up to you whether a lot of characters are PoC or not- the anime makes it clear there is at least one positive browned skinned person)
LGBTQ: (The flirtatious lady and the crossdressing emporer in the latest book might qualify, at the very least they subvert hetero-normativity)
Disability: A deathly ill character doesn’t do too well, but they’re still strong. In the latest book, a character loses her arm but still keeps going, with the disadvantages she faces explored)
Size and Weight:(I don’t recall any chubby characters)
