Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Ranking of Kings
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PonSquared
 Posts: 246 Location: Lost in the Catskills |
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Episode 2 was so good my kids were misty eyed, I was shedding tears, and my wife was out right blubbering.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11352 |
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So far, so great. One thing I'm puzzled about is why the King and Queen are so gigantic compared to everyone else in the kingdom. It's like they're a different species of people. Is their stature supposed to be symbolic? Is Daida going to grow up to be that humongous?
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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I feel like the art style is meant to put you in mind of those old Toei fairy tale cartoons from the 80’s and lull you into a false sense of security and then wham, right in the feels. Though I have to say, I was extremely surprised to see that the person pushing hardest for Daida’s ascension spoiler[was that black mist from the opening, since we’d been misled to assume it was his mother pushing for it from Episode 1.] That definitely makes me think Bojji’s earlier encounter with the snakes was much more likely to have been an assassination attempt rather than some kind of training exercise, but who knows? The theme of hidden depths seems to extend to more than just Bojji, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
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Engineering Nerd
 Posts: 898 Location: Southern California |
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Just started the manga yesterday, regarding that question, all I can say is that it is a well-thought, critical plot point, and you will very likely getting the answer in the next few episodes, prepared to be surprised. 
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BladeBlur
 Posts: 60 Location: California |
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The show needs to stick the landing, but I would say Ranking of Kings might have had the best premiere I have seen for an anime in a LONG time.
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Lynzee, thank you for sharing how meaningful this show is to you. I’m thrilled for Disability representation in anime, especially since the sign language is accurate. I only wish more characters would learn sign language, my heart broke for Bojji because his father didn’t know it. I’m wondering if the Snake Guy (Daida’s teacher) knows sign language or just understood what Domas said based on context.
So far the show has been bittersweet. Got to give it to a show that evokes empathy for beings that kind of look like butt shaped puddles, but watching little Kage hold the hand of the man he was living with just to get a modicum of affection really pulled on my heart strings. I also appreciate the cutesy flourishes; it took me a bit to realize that “Prince Bojji” rhymes as “Bojji Ouji” in Japanese. |
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PonSquared
Posts: 246 Location: Lost in the Catskills |
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I know that this is old and probably no one will read it at this point but it's really been bothering me and kicking around in my brain so I need to cleanse myself of it. I'm kind of upset with the review for the first two episodes. The review focused on the main character giving Kage and his story the barest of mentions. Kage's story is some of the most tragic, heart-wrenching, and shocking anime we've seen in a while. It affected my family much more strongly than wven the first episode of To Your Eternity did. It was some of the best written yet most painful, most compelling stories and to simply skip it to talk about Bonjji's fight was a great disservice to the story.
Rarely have I seen my wife cry as hard as she was once Bojji and Kage found and accepted each other in Bonjji's bedroom at the end of the 2nd episode. Those tears were real, and every bit as painful/joyous as our intreped prince and his little shadow's were. As someone with Asperger's, Bojji's story reflected many of the struggles I have had to deal with in my life. Though, story that truly meant something to me not his story, but the story of the little shadow that lost everything only to find acceptance and love. Ranking of Kings is without question the best new / best series of the season (or year.) All of this pain, grief, frustration, and triumph of spirit - and it is just the second episode! If this keeps up we are in for something truly special. |
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Brack
 Posts: 281 Location: UK |
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From episode 2 onwards the anime is changing and rearranging scenes from the comic to increase the sentimentality, which in my mind is to the detriment of conveying what the comic has to say about modern attitudes to disability (or more specifically, attitudes to how society deals with disability)..
Still a good show, but it feels like it's succumbing to standard TV writing approaches that rarely have the questions the comic raises in mind. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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I dunno if that's what the show is trying to say, but the Queen decision to push for her son to inherit the throne over Bojji makes perfect sense. It sucks to say but a disability is a disability, assuming she doesn't know about the evil magic mirror, there's no reason to see Bojji as a better future king. Even if you ignore Bojji disability, all he has going for him is that he's the eldest, that's pretty thin as far as justification. Now factor in his disability and it's really hard to justify him becoming king. Every interactions he'd have with his subject/foreign leader would require someone to do sign language. That something you could justify if Bojji was somehow really gifted as a leader, but he's obviously not (or at least no one has any reason to believe he is). Even if you consider that Daida is evil/possibly controlled by an evil mirror, that's only a good justification for finding a third candidate rather than going with Bojji.
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Violet Park
Posts: 115 |
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I don't think Bebin is actually following Daida. He has noticed the mirror influence on the prince, has given Kage some unknown mission, and the whole duel thing doesn't suit him at all. He didn't try to ambush Apeas or use his snakes, I'm 99% sure he has faked his death as part of some plan.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2945 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Hey meiam, I let it go last week, but if you're going to show up each week and be ableist when this show is giving you a great opportunity to reconsider your bias about the abilities of disabled people, we are not going to have a good time.
Bojji has a ton of potential as a ruler. The show has already made it more than apparent that he isn't actually weak. His compassion is a strength as well as how he has adapted to his own shortcomings. It's his compassion that led to him befriending a giant snake that it is implied controls other, smaller venomous snakes. It's his compassion that leads him to befriend Kage, gaining him an ally with traditional "rogue" abilities. It's also his cleverness that has led to his adaptive fighting style that allows him to outmanuever his opponents who only know brute strength. We have not been given any reason to believe that Bojji could not learn the strategy necessary to oversee a fighting force, he can read lips so is also not at a disadvantage communicatively: it would be extremely simple for him to also have an interpreter when verbal communication is necessary. It's not any more of a hinderance than two leaders speaking different languages -- a very normal part of politics. Furthermore his father, who was beloved and physically strong, chose Bojji over Daida for a reason. We don't know fully why yet, other than perhaps him knowing that Bojji's differences from previous rulers will be beneficial. Lastly, while I was worried that bringing this up last week would seem like I was deflecting criticism and making things personal, I literally spent two paragraphs explaining that I'm the mother of two sons, one of which has some similarities to Bojji. Your first post in here was to talk about how the disabled simply aren't as good as those who are not and brought up a video game in which you remove/kill off the weaker offspring. Maybe think about what that comment looks like in context to the information you're responding to and how it could make others feel next time. |
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whiskeyii
Posts: 2245 |
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Well, I feel like a smart cookie for my comment about hidden depths last week, because I had also written off the queen as “Evil Stepmother” and was pleasantly surprised! (Also, just since I didn’t have a chance to gush about it last time, I was genuinely touched that the show took the time to show some depth to the human robber guy as well in his last moments; it would’ve been so narratively easy to just make him generic bad guy #687 or whatever.)
Also, knowing how Hiling actually feels about Bojji, I think her vetoing of the king’s will was less of an ambitious power grab (which was totally how I read it the first time) and more an extension of her continued (if misguided) attempts to protect Bojji from the world at large. At least that’s the impression I think the show was trying to convey with all the back to back “No, you can’t”’s. Which also makes me think that while some of the people who voted similarly may have done so out of the belief that Daida would make a better ruler—as almost no one in the kingdom seems to value, or is able to openly value, Bojji’s skillset—others may have voted with a mindset similar to Hiling’s out of a well-intentioned desire to “protect” Bojji. I was really surprised to see Domas as the bodyguard for this journey; I thought he would’ve thrown his lot in with Daida. He’s politically savvy enough to help Bojji save face, but he was so elated to fight Daida, I was sure Domas was more of a…we’ll go with “traditionalist” at heart. But maybe we’ll see the opposite with Domas, in that he’s very good at following orders (I assume maybe Hiling told him to go with Bojji?), but maybe he’s not actually quite as pleasant as he appears to be on the surface. But that’s just a hunch. ^^; |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3650 |
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I'm not sure I'm going to stick with this, but it's certainly growing on me. That fight scene with Bebin and Apis was extremely well done!
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Tanteikingdomkey
 Posts: 2346 |
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Episode 3 made me think about fruits baskets and it honestly very on point discussion about how many parents who have children that are different react to them. In particular kyos mom actually. It is not nearly as bad, but...
So first off I am not entirely convinced that bojis stepmom is the same character in episode 1 as in episode 2 or 3. Honestly it's taken some discussion among my friends to understand how it would flow together more. I do honestly think there are a lot of factors at play with her however. There absolutely is a huge shift from her royal persona and how she acts in private in regards to him at the bare minimum. She does actually sign to him but only when no one else is around which leads me to think she refuses to be seen as anything less then perfect to her subjects, and that her sign language isn't prefect and she doesn't feel comfortable doing it in public. That and with his obvious imperfections that she feels she has to be super harsh about it to distance herself and the rest of the royalty from it. That doesn't explain however why she is asking someone else if he can read lips, like they would know any better then her, about it or how she apparently never noticed this before. maybe it's just a translation issue but it seems like an oddly specific thing to pick up on, that late in the relationship. talking about the actual episode however, and what it wanted to talk about more directly. The parent of the disabled child who refuses to let them engage with the world is VERY REAL, and I do understand why they would want to humanize her in the way that they did. I did find it very interesting how it was the person who probably wanted to kill him, made her realize finally just how close she was to killing him in her own way. I really wish that more people that run certain disability charities CoughAutismSpeaksCough realized just how functionally similar they are to people who don't want people with disabilities to be alive at all. Because no matter what emotion is driving it, it has the same action of striping them of their life. I think this episode actually does do a good job showcasing that he actually isn't alone and he has many people that care about him.... It's just that they are either A) bad at showing it, or B) the way they show it has a negative impact on his life.... and I wish I could say that is not extremely common for people with disabilities...but as this show and ones like it have to constantly point out, this is extremely common. Now to be fair most people don't have to nearly kill themselves to change this behavior in others. but also most aren't anywhere near as brave and mentally strong as he is. |
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Brack
Posts: 281 Location: UK |
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This is probably because episode 3 contains content from chapters 7,8,9,10,11,13,14,15,16,17 AND 18 of the comic. Eleven Chapters! I don't think even manga adaptation speed record attempter Karakuri Circus did that. Hopefully a lot of the content they didn't use from those chapters makes up episode 4, because it's essential for the themes of the story. For those wondering "what about chapter 12?" that was entirely in episode 2. |
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