Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Ranking of Kings
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Nev999
Posts: 133 |
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Reverse image searching mostly brings up Japanese right wing blogs saying disturbing things, which isn't a fantastic sign for anyone, but it's also featured the Korea Times, and cited as part of the Robert Neff collection and it's specifically a view toward the East Gate of Seoul in the nineteenth century https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2020/12/721_301475.html. Last edited by Nev999 on Fri Feb 25, 2022 8:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2948 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Correction: It looks like someone else found the original photographer while I was combing for it, thank you and like others, I noticed the photo was linked a lot of apologist Twitter accounts, etc. I didn't notice it on the one I linked but it looks like it was there too so I removed it.
Last edited by ANN_Lynzee on Fri Feb 25, 2022 9:15 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3457 Location: Finland |
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"A view toward the East Gate of Seoul in the 19th century" < That's the description accompanying the image on this site; https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2020/12/721_301475.html Edit;Ninja'd @ANN_Lynzee I did actually consider using that site(latter link) as source, but actually reading the blog it became obvious it's entirely on the apologist side. For example, the closing quote, which kind of hits too close for comfort in this discussion of RoK...;
Last edited by Blanchimont on Fri Feb 25, 2022 9:05 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Nev999
Posts: 133 |
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I'm going to note that the blog linked here is flagrantly the same kind of nationalist and historical revisionist we're worried about the ROK author being, and says some awful things about Koreans as a warning in case anyone doesn't want to click on it and see that. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 2948 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Looking at where the photo came from (Robert Neff Collection), is write-up of the time period adds some context between how the Gyakuza are depicted in the series and history.
https://www.koreaandtheworld.org/robert-neff/
Given the links that a lot of us found while trying to find this photo, it looks like this one in particular is often referenced as evidence of the state of Korea at the time as a way to assert Japan's decision to invade. |
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Blanchimont
Posts: 3457 Location: Finland |
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If you're referring here to Robert Neff mentioned in Nev999's post, he's a researcher on Korean history who's books/collections include that photo, he's not the actual photographer(he'd be pretty old if he was, seeing as he's still alive...) On note, haven't had luck finding the names of the actual photographer(s) myself. Perhaps the books themselves have that info, but lacking that... |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 2948 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Right. I saw one page attribute it to Isabella Bird Bishop, who would have been there at the time and took plenty of photos of Korea (and wrote a book about her travels), but I can't verify if it's truly her work or not. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Neff's collection is public either. FWIW, I actually found a pdf of her book and combed all 500 pages of it but that particular photo wasn't included. It's also not included in the public collection in Edinburgh (at least not digitally) or in Getty Images.
So that's what've been up to for the past hour or so. |
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Dragneel9843
Posts: 17 |
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This problem again?! 
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AryaFan22
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I re-watched Episode 18 because of this whole "controversy". Here's the thing that I think a lot of viewers have missed on: the History is told from King Bosse's perspective. Why is that factor important? Well, memories are not exactly fully reliable, especially when it comes to specifics. We tend to misremember things as time passes and likewise when we share our memories our biases or things that we have heard from others tend to leak into them as well. Likewise, I'm surprised that no one has questioned King Bosse's motive in telling it, because motive is also key in understanding how an event is presented. It's very possible that King Bosse colored the Houma and the Gyakuza in such a way to reflect his own personal views of them or based on some agenda that we, as the audience, are not aware of. Likewise, what he shares may only represent a small portion of the Gyakuza and his limited interaction with them could have thus painted them in a very negative light.
Based on the History that we are given the Houmas are refugees, not colonizers. They are seeking for a refuge and for allies to help fight against the gods and the Gyakuza supplied them that. We don't know why the Gyakuza did so, it's possible that most of the Gyakuza pitied the Houma or they saw them as just another group of people they have to deal with. (I know that some people make the argument that the Gyakuza are the Koreans because of Korea's history, but the same could be said for the Poles and Serbs as there were periods of time when Poland wasn't even a country because it had been divided between various Imperial powers). I highly doubt the mangaka would do something as simplistic as: Houma Good, Gyakuza Bad, because the rest of the writing for Ranking of Kings has been exceptionally developed and the characters are as complex as anyone you would meet in a novel by Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Zola. As for the whole Gyakuza background looking like a photo of pre-Colonized Korea, that means nothing as far as I'm concerned. Illustrators can use historical photos as references or inspirations for their work with the fully legitimate and simple reason of: this captured the atmosphere that they wanted to convey while also being in the limits of our resources and energy. That's all it could be. It's far more likely that there is nothing to be read into it and any notion that there's some political statement to be made is merely an assumption based on nothing more than mere coincidence. Coincidences do happen and it is an inability to accept that simple fact that breeds conspiracy theories. As far as I'm concerned this whole "controversy" is just another case of Dostoyevsky's "Underground Man" from his "Notes From Underground" at work. |
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whiskeyii
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I’d certainly prefer that to be true. However, you’ll note that a lot of us actually mentioned that the lack of any further depth given to the Gyakuza people was precisely why we felt this particular subplot stood out to us as odd given Ranking of King’s previous track record (particularly in the manga where more specific and stronger language is used; check the tumblr link a few pages back for that). I’d be more than happy if the show turned the tables on us and made us rethink our position, but we’ll a) have to wait and see *if* that even happens and b) take into consideration the points about right-wing talking points made by actual Japanese readers, viewers, and residents who are more familiar with those sorts of intentional implications. |
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kakugo complete
Posts: 71 |
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So how far ahead exactly is the manga? Has there been a ton of story since then?
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1426 |
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I checked out a Korean website (of all places, I know) and it looks like there have been at least 188 manga chapters so far, and the anime is up to chapter 127 as of the latest episode. As for the controversy, like so many of you, I'm very disappointed that even an author who makes a point of empathizing with all of the antagonists and making sure none of them is fully evil can have such a blind spot when it comes to his own country's checkered history. Even before finding out the parallels with Japan and Korea, just the fact that he portrayed an entire fictional people as inherently treacherous raised a huge red flag for me. |
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Jefcat
Posts: 105 Location: Palm Desert |
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Perhaps I’m missing some symbolism, but I’m not understanding the allusion to anti Korean Nationalism in the latest review. There are definitely racist tendencies relations between Houma and Gyakuza, but beyond that I don’t see anything specifically anti Korean.
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2324 |
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Jefcat: it's discussed in most of the posts above yours, and in this other recent ANN article & thread. I think a quick summary is that the portrayal of Gyakuza as gaining immensely from modernization driven by Houma (and some of the specific text in the manga about e.g. hospitals being built) and Gyakuza not being thankful about it, as well as some of the images (of specific styles of thatched hut versus more modern large-scale architecutre) used to depict pre-Houma and post-Houma Gyakuza, look pretty similar (according to some people who seem to be native Japanese folks familiar with this kind of political opinion/conversation) to the kinds of reasoning given by Japanese right-wing nationalists who thought Korea under Japanese rule was a good thing, and that Koreans were unthankful despite how much it helped them. I believe there was also a conversation with the author linked in either this thread or the other ANN Talkback one I linked, but I haven't seen that yet, so not totally sure what was said.
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Gnardak
Posts: 5 |
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This is so disappointing. Looking at the photos I can definitely see the similarities.
It might be that this is all from Bosse's perspective and he is biased due to his relationship with Miranjo and her mother. I do think that perspective matters, it's easy to think "We did so much for them and they were so ungrateful" but that's because the other perspective is lacking. Equally it's easy to think "They tried to stamp out our culture" but that's assuming motives when you can't possibly actually know the real motives. I generally think that colonisers think "We're better than them so we'll improve their lives" what happens when they try that is due to arrogance rather than malice. But then I'm from a former colonial power so perhaps I would think that. But it's the only perspective we're given in the anime is Bosse's perspecitve so unless we're given a different perspective on the whole thing I think that is what we're supposed to come away with. Given that this whole story is meant to provide Miranjo's back story and help give some context to her actions I doubt that we're going to be given the balancing perspective because it undermines Miranjo as a character. If it turns out that she was part of a culture that colonized and tried to stamp out the culture of another people then it just makes her actions true to the type of her heritage rather than making her a more complex character. It's so disappointing that Ranking of Kings contains something so biased and lacking in nuance when the rest of it is so good. |
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