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Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Does Ranking of Kings Nail the Landing?
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5426 Location: Iscandar |
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It sort of sticks the landing, but I still consider Ranking of Kings one of the best anime shows from 2021.
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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Even without the suspected ugliness of the anti-Korean allegory and the questionableness of almost everything else involving Miranjo, I think Ranking of Kings had overall a fantastic first half that had me eager for the next episode, and gasping at revelations; and a plodding generic shonen second half where my attention started to drift. This wasn't the nosedive of something like Wonder Egg Priority, just a feeling like they put all the effort into the beginning, and decided to cruise on our goodwill for the second half narratively.
There's some hooks left open for a second season that I'm vaguely interested in, but whether this gets another chance, and whether I watch it, will depend on how I feel then. |
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Thatguy3331
 Posts: 1791 |
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The stuff with Miranjo is by far the weakest aspect of the show and it leaves *quite* a bad taste in your mouth depending on how much you scrutinize it, so it comes as a genuine compliment when I say I don't think it totally kills the show. I do agree with the consensus that it goes from being a fantastic show to being "pretty good" but, hey I'll take pretty good. I feel like this was always going to be a issue considering the manga was ongoing and there's *alot* that could happen, for better or for worse, but as a stand alone show I think it ends at the best place it could, with Boji going off to journey and form his own kingdom as opposed to ruling one that have him alot of baggage and would make his dear friend feel unwelcome.
At least that's where I hope it goes. |
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gumbaloom
Posts: 265 |
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We won't be seeing a new season for a while.
The anime more or less ends where the manga ends on volume 12 - volume 13 is comin this month. |
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Big Kahuna
Posts: 44 |
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The Miranjo backstory ruined it for me. I tried to ignore it, but kept wondering if the author had really meant it as an allegory, or he was just stupid ignorant. That said, I remember feeling similar (though vague at the time) annoyed by the Tolkien portrayal of both the goblins and the orcs,40 years ago when I first encountered LOTR, which had only grown worse through the years as it was revealed these creatures were modeled after Asians. Even as the modern culture became more "woke" (positively or negatively), there are still fantasies and science fictions today that employ the same broad brush when they depict the "bad" guys. I think that's something we in the west have to address in both past and present fictions as well.
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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This is going to be blasphemy and I have no doubt that if this were reddit I'd be downvoted into oblivion... I ended up dropping this show because I found Bojji the least interesting thing about it. I'm not saying I dislike him or that he's a bad character. I just found everything else, particularly the underworld residents, Kage, Daida, and Hillig far more interesting. I dropped it before the Miranjo stuff and going by this column I didn't really miss out on anything.
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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If it's blasphemy we're going to hell together, because I agree completely. To me Bojji by far was the least interesting character of them all, and I thought he was used for emotional manipulation way too often. Oh no the poor little cinnamon roll (outdated meme alert!) who is so pure, so strong, so amazing, heroically perseveres and sees the best in everything and everyone despite how the world treats him, etc... and as far as I watched his character development amounted to going from the above to "same but like, much more so". Yes, I understand that this was exactly why many people liked him, but characters like this are not my jam. Daida, Hilling, Desha, Domas, etc. had my attention, but when the show focused on Bojji I kept wanting to fast forward. That said, I tried to stick with it, but ended up dropping it early into its second cour, when it spent all that time on that fight that just brought out the worst issues in the writing. I considered getting back to it to see what happens with Daida, but reading the reactions I guess it's good that I didn't. |
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Dayraven
Posts: 176 |
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I’d say the broad-brush for an entire culture looks particularly bad in Ranking of Kings because of the contrast with the redemptive treatment given to so many individual characters — if not for that, it would be easier to accept that they don’t get much nuance because they’re not a major focus. |
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