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Jyu Oh Sei:
Planet of the Beast King
Anime DVD Review
Okay, so... it's lord of the flies. Sorta. On an alien planet. With a complex set of rules between several rival factions. Oh, and there's a zillion man-eating plants. And into all of this is thrust a 12-yr-old boy and his twin brother, who've been cast to this incredibly harsh planet of convicts by a ruthless dictator, and the only way to get off-world is to become the ruler of the world... aka, The Beast King.
And like many anti-heroes before him, our protagonist, Thor, must learn all the rules of this planet while he single handedly proceeds to break every one of them on his way to the top.
 Lasting only 11 episodes, you can whiz through this series pretty quickly, but I warn you, don't get too attached to any ancillary characters you meet, this unforgiving world kills off people pretty quickly. And somewhere between episodes 5 and 6 Thor gains about 3 years (and his main squeeze gets more top-heavy). However, for the first 5 episodes, the voice actor for the English dub seems to be doing a pretty good impersonation of Billie Lou Watt.
There's a lot of action and a lot of plotline squeezed into these episodes (as we said, only 11), so everything takes place pretty fast and furious. There's no time for characters to even understand what's going on or mourn the death of a loved one, because another disaster is seconds away, and you're constantly in "emergency mode" with no time to slow down.
So, if you can imagine "Dune" taking place in a world full of lush, carnivorous greenery, you've got a basic handle of the scope of this series. It's a big, science fiction epic squashed down into as few episodes as possible. If you enjoyed "Crest of the Stars", you'll find this series fascinating. Also recommended for those of us who just happen to have a Venus Flytrap at home.
Below: Scenes from Jyu Oh Sei.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, January 2009
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