I am having difficulty remembering another series which came with such strong recommendations and was so disappointing as Twelve Kingdoms. I think the last case for me was the Toei's Kanon. I lasted 5 episodes of that, hated every minute of it, but wanted to give it a good chance. In this case, I am making a pause after 3, to recharge my batteries and vent on the blog.

Wakaranai had a positive review, and of course Nick is a major fan (he uses the mouse for a favicon). Neither of them ever mentioned how unpleasant the members of the main trio were. Youko is a whiny fool. The dude I would describe as a typical worthless harem lead without a harem. Yuka... If I may borrow from Jason Miao: "kinda transparent character", with all the envy, resentment, and being generally a cold murderous bitch (I'm sure treacherous as well, although we haven't seen it yet).

Production values are pretty good, but I'm so peeved that I cannot enjoy them.

By the way, when they talked about Youko's face changing, I thought that she didn't actually change. And when I looked at screencaps it was the case, except the skin tone.

UPDATE: Nick misunderstands: I dropped 2002 Kanon, but 12K is running for the moment.

UPDATE: Oh noes, DiGiKerot writes that it may take 3 volumes before the anime starts in earnest. I really hope he meant 3 episodes.