This Week in Anime

Does Ranking of Kings Nail the Landing?

Nicky
I too, enjoy Kirby games.

And potentially just as powerful! Bojji really is a contender for one of the Best Boys in anime. But is he strong enough to hold up the rest of the show?! We'll find out with the second half of Ranking of Kings!

The first half held a promise of adventure, political machinations, and fairytale-esque wonder. But after entering the underground for training with King Desha's brother, the cunning Despa, and then swiftly exiting to defend Bojji's home kingdom from the evil doings of the witch Miranjo controlling a group of freed dangerous criminals, I've found the second half to be mostly a straightforward series of battles interweaved with backstory for our antagonists.

The second half is both more straightforward plotwise but it's much less focused than the first as it's juggling a lot more pieces, motivations, and characters. There's a lot of battles and Studio WIT does a great job of delivering them. Lots of side characters get their own time to shine in the fighting ring. Even Queen Hiling gets a piece of the action with her super strong healing powers at play! As casual viewing, it's a fun watch and the animation mostly delivers with how many fights there are. Some look better and worse than others.

She's so on point, she's my second favorite character after Bojji even though she has a mean introduction. The show goes through a lot of lengths to show how she really just cares about being a good mom to her sons and that means you really don't want to see her get murdered. Ranking works best when it keeps things simple and Hiling is a good example of that. I also think her and bodyguard Dorshe are cute together, but so is the lady knight Ann. We also saw Hiling pushed to her limits here and as we see, she can't really do things like replace limbs, or eyeballs.

This is bisexual culture. Also, both of them are WAAAY better than her husband Bosse who has taken over the body of their younger son, Daida through magic forbidden blood rituals involving a Corpse Slushie.

It's actually kind of hard to get why so many of the Four Pillars respect him other than his brute strength. In the first half he's shrouded in mystery and I can't say the second half really deepens his character. Like, I guess he killed some orcs at some point? I wanna know his tax policy.

or daughter crimes, apparently, or war crimes, really a lot of crimes happening.

Miranjo was equally shrouded in mystery for the first half. Her motivation seemed to stem out of pure love for Bosse but of what nature it's hard to tell. They seemed to have a bit of a tragic romance vibes to them, but the show never really clarifies and then Bosse says that and it becomes very confused what the audience is supposed to think of them. Like yo, she killed Bojji's mom in front of him!! Before she gets attacked herself.

At first, I was trying to give Miranjo benefit of the doubt, as a witch, and one who lost her body, I really expected to be able to parallel her to Bojji's disability struggle and ostracization as a witch. But that's not really what happens?

Not that bad and horrible things don't happen to her but the explanation is uhh...messy....

That also happened to be heavily similar to the real-world historical Korea and Miranjo's people clearly are an analogue for Japanese people who can use magic. And then use that magic to "help" these poor backwards people who should clearly be grateful for their generosity! And then it's Oops! All Historical Revisionism!! King Bosse reveals the backstory of these two nations in his Mind Palace Theater, and it's generally hard to swallow how the story makes this comparison at face-value once you realize what it is. It's not presented with any subversive commentary and while Bosse has no reason to lie, he's also an asshole. He's also obviously biased due to his guilt from killing Miranjo's unnamed wizard father with his club.

And worse, it makes you doubt the creator's intentions with depicting such a tale so callously once you realize the parallel. Such beliefs aren't uncommon in Japan among right-wingers and are used to discriminate against Korean diaspora. Depiction isn't necessarily belief but it should be done carefully. For those who want further reading can check Lynzee's episode reviews (Episode 18, specifically) and this article.

Honestly, it's an extremely small part of the show that'll likely fly over people's heads that are unaware of the history but turns out to be a MASSIVE bummer once you recognize it. It's also too complicated to linger on for the scope of this TWIA for how separate it is without taking up the whole column, but it really shouldn't be ignored.

You don't really need the parallel for that though, and having Miranjo come from a privileged group doesn't really make me sympathize with her more, and I didn't need it to sympathize with her. I could already tell she had a lot of problems from Daida's perspective inside The Sunken Place. But honestly, even if it wasn't there? I didn't really feel convinced by the rest of their backstory either, especially with the aforementioned vagueness around their relationship. And I'm a sucker for found families!

And we get much less time dedicated to them. Which is a shame because most of the actual episode count is trying to figure out how to get around Ouken's terrifying power of immortality and loss of sanity/humanity. Honestly, the fights with Ouken feel the most drawn out, but I ultimately like the reasoning behind it and they're always well choreographed and an immortal fighter is the pure kryptonite to Bojji's pacifist technique.

I don't even mind all the groups running around, I loved seeing King Desha come in with all his glorious Waluigi-ness and try to assess the situation within the castle only to run into Domas' party of two who are trying to do the same. They confront each other only for Domas to get totally humiliated and kicked in the balls and also crying and also a lot of stupid things that maybe stimulates the morosexual part of my brain like when a man asks what the Spanish word for tortilla is.

You gotta constantly dunk on men to cleanse the toxicities, until they become full Himbos. But even the show doesn't entirely let him off the hook. Bojji feels conflicted when he sees him and I really liked how the show doesn't push him to forgive someone who betrayed his trust even if he's truly very sorry and isn't going to do anything to hurt him anymore. Which is a lot more scrutiny than Miranjo gets tbh. Despite being a much smaller conflict, it's an important conflict for Bojji and really displays his growth and the support he gets from others.

Episode 21 is basically a full episode of pure undiluted animation. One of the biggest displays of raw artistic talent of any show this season. And this was already on TOP of having one of the most beautiful and banger OPs that's somehow even more stand-out than the first one!

The ED's no slouch either. And focuses on Kage's ever adorable support and loyalty to Bojji in a charming picture book style.

He's such a good egg. He also got one over Ouken once and saved everyone. And even got to talk to his momma egg in the underworld.


And it's all that little stuff that makes it hard to dislike Ranking even when it flounders. Besides, production and pacing, it's a breeze to watch, especially week to week like I did. Watching an episode was never a bad time and it's only when I had to start scrutinizing some of the show's logic that some parts didn't hold up.

Though it doesn't mean those parts aren't a bit of a blight either. Ranking went from a bonified S-tier show to maybe a B-tier, and at worse a C-tier show, and it flips based on whatever particular moment my brain chooses to focus on. There's still a lot of it that didn't really make a lot of sense or felt undeveloped for me, some of the cast members could've been utilized or explored more or simply didn't feel necessary. I could've gone for more Snake Dad Bebin but he and most of the Four Pillars, don't ever really end up having a whole lotta impact despite having a lot of set-up.

And a lot of other sections of the plot feel like they wrap too neatly to feel satisfying.

Also, DAIDA IS YOUNGER THAN BOJJI!! MIRANJO IS LIKE AN ADULT?! I think, it's hard to tell with the art style and the unclear timeline of events. And also Daida maybe is similar to Bosse in many ways including his confused relationship with Miranjo where he sees her as a mentor and something to be protected? It's all sorts of hecked up. And everyone else besides Hiling who is an overprotective mom figure is just...cool with it? Even Bojji is just fine with it! Look, just because she suffered in the past doesn't mean she'll be held accountable, or that everyone hurt by her will be okay with it. See what I mean by earlier when Domas is held more responsible for a single attempted murder vs Miranjo's laundry list of suffering? Some of which is very personal!

Also we got this one glimpse of Hilling holding her two beloved children right before that so maybe it's Good Actually.

I also maybe have a whole folder of Domas' stupid dumb face crying and/or blushing because some people on the animation staff keep trying to feed me (a mistake). I am a woman of simple needs and 2/3rds of them can be covered by looking at some drawings of really attractive anime characters.

I see no difference. I also really do love how it wraps things up for Bojji's character arc. You can see how much everyone comes to grow and respect him and his true strength of character.

That's a good place to leave the show on. I admit, I'm still invested in the wider world that I wouldn't be against coming back for more, but I'd also be more wary of the execution with how everything got handled. But on it's own, this much is satisfying. Let's all give three big cheers for our boy,

Bojji!!

Hip, Hip, Hooray!!