Ousama Ranking 王様ランキング

2021 fall | Episodes: 23 | Score: 8.5 (365372)

Updated every Fridays at 00:55 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Producers:Aniplex | Dentsu | Fuji TV | Kadokawa | Bandai Spirits

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Synopsis

The people of the kingdom look down on the young Prince Bojji, who can neither hear nor speak. They call him "The Useless Prince" while jeering at his supposed foolishness. However, while Bojji may not be physically strong, he is certainly not weak of heart. When a chance encounter with a shadow creature should have left him traumatized, it instead makes him believe that he has found a friend amidst those who only choose to notice his shortcomings. He starts meeting with Kage, the shadow, regularly, to the point where even the otherwise abrasive creature begins to warm up to him. Kage and Bojji's unlikely friendship lays the budding foundations of the prince's journey, one where he intends to conquer his fears and insecurities. Despite the constant ridicule he faces, Bojji resolves to fulfill his desire of becoming the best king he can be. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Voice Actors

Hinata, Minami

Murase, Ayumu

News

Reviews

RawryBear
10/08/2024, 03:02 AM
Ōsama Ranking is deceptively childish. The art is simple and bright, the setting is very much a fairy tale trope, and the protagonist is a deaf-mute tiny prince whom everyone adores. Leading many people to think this might be aimed at a younger audience. But as the score here indicates, that is not the case. It is an endearingly beautiful masterpiece that takes you on a powerful but rewarding rollercoaster of emotions. Tackling themes like disabilities, living up to parental expectations, blended families, innocence, betrayal, forgiveness, friendship, kindness, and so much more. It's not one of those artsy stories either where the "depth" is achieved by depressingthemes or by confusing the audience. It's just a simple story of a boy who can not hear and can not speak, and how he befriends a thief and an outcast, and their often funny but sometimes sad adventures together in a quest to become the greatest king. The best thing about it is how it subverts tropes. Every single character is complex. There are no cardboard cutouts, despite the seemingly simple storybook setting.
GRG3
09/15/2024, 04:18 AM
Man, I'm late to the review party. I recently rewatched this; it's one of my favourites now. I'll keep this short. This has some of the best character writing you will ever see in anime. Almost every character is so 3d and has so much depth and layers to them like how is that even possible? Only the best of the best can do that. Now, it does put a blunder on one of its really good characters at the end and Ouken(different character/antagonist) is kind of just a decent character but aside from those two, every character that the anime acc trys to develop isdeveloped wonderfully. Man, I adore the character design. I mean, this anime will really make you not judge a book by its cover and its kiddish artstyle and misleading character design just adds to that so much. Queen Hilling is so so so so amazing and I SWEAR ON MY SOUL, she's so peak. She looks and acts like the typical evil stepmother in fairy tales but man, her arc. Best mother in all of anime. Boji. I love him. If I was to make a top 30 protag after I read and watch all the stuff I wanna read and watch, I guarantee he will still be in there. He's so great and Kage is such a great support character. Man, just watch for the character writing alone. Of course, the plot is amazing. I almost cried by episode 4 man omds. The message of inner strength and self love and love in general is done so well omds. I could really go into depth on why the score, artstyle(so unique and fits the tone of ranking of kings so well), direction, cinematography, overall production were done masterfully well, but there are other reviews for that. I just wanna gush about why this thing is so so peak man. Only flaw is the ending. I really was bout to give this a 10/10 but then that flipping ending. Almost ruined one of the antagonists and was just kinda gross in general. But man, the rest of the series was done so well that the ending, despite how bad it was, just puts a slight blunder on the entirety of the anime. This is one of my rougher reviews. I usually go into much more depth at everything but nah I didn't really feel like doing that with this one. All I really wanted to say was watch Ranking of Kings. Don't let this gem of an anime die out in the annals of history as a really good seasonal anime. Let it be known as a near masterpiece of an anime.
megs25
08/20/2024, 09:08 AM
(SPOILER FREE REVIEW) Yeah... This anime is a masterpiece. Perfection will always be subjective and in my eyes this was everything i could've asked for. Story 9/10; The story starts off with a young boy wanting to be the next king and the strongest in the world, nothing special, but as far as the story goes you would never expect a generic fantasy story go into such a deep, AMAZING storytelling with so many twists and turns through the whole show. Art 9/10; So let me just say this artsyle is definitely one of those that you'll either love or strongly dislike, and I am one of thosethat fell in love with it at first sight. It brings me way back reminding me of old disney cartoons but mixed with modern animation. While the artstyle might seem childish the show is far from that and thanks to the artstyle and the simple enough character designs the animation is very fluid and the action sequences are pure art. Soundtrack 8/10; The ops/eds are both amazing especially opening 2 (Naked Hero) that one really is a banger. The soundtrack aka the osts are nothing that special but they fit the fantasy world and are always played at the right time. Character 10/10; JUST WOW, you bet your ass every single character is written so damn well with great arcs all around. At some point you have no idea who to root for or are they an ally or a foe. And finally, enjoyment 10/10; I was in love.
ShattenKaramu08
08/09/2024, 07:58 AM
A would-have-been masterpiece, Ousama Ranking is a show that got quite lost from its unique direction, then finally shattering everything in 1 episode. At the start, a lot of people might be repelled by the art style of this show, or the ordinary characters. You really shouldn't though, as the plot and characters are more complex than it seemed. In fact, the first half of this anime featured one if the most colorful and sophisticated cast in anime. All characters except MC were flawed in some way. We have a stepmother who isn't evil but at first doesn't know how to love, and a wiseteacher who is effective but greedy. All these plus the anime successfully making us feel sympathy for MC and Kage, makes Ousama Ranking a very enjoyable watch for the first half. The second half has Ousama Ranking throw every valuable asset away, only to make the journey feel even more weird and slow. The studio clearly had not enough content to fill in all episodes, so the fight scenes include a lot of unnecessary scenes and seem unnatural. 2 of these episodes have ridiculous plot and fight scenes that would make you scratch your head. Still, the general plot has no major flaws and while MC is completely free from his disadvantages which has been a core plot of the show, he still develops, so it's still salvageable... Up until that scene in episode 22. First, having a sob story doesn't make everyone just forgive you and treat your past misdeeds lightly. Second, not only is the marriage proposal immoral based on the age-gap, but it's also completely ignoring the previous plot and how it affects the character. It gets even worse once you contemplate the true relationship between King Boss and the villain. That scene has made the plot lose any credibility, ruined more than half of the cast, and made this show lost its "children show" excuse. It has destroyed every reason why Ousama Ranking is interesting. Worst of all, it's completely unnecessary and the show would have been much better if it is deleted. For the characters, Queen Hilling and Despa Brothers are clearly the most sophisticated and free from errors. The 2 main characters, while sometimes mishandled, has shown development and are entertaining. Other than that, all characters deteriorated in the second half, with the 2 villains being the worst of the worst. So is Ousama Ranking an acceptable anime? I still think it is. But you use at least 50% of your brain to watch anime, then I advise against watching the second half.
AgonyOfTheGarnet
05/13/2023, 12:15 PM
Osama Ranking is a disappointment with a lot of wasted potential. It is a show with a nice premise and a strong opening trio of episodes that slowly descends into an average revenge story and bad Deus Ex Machina. Let me explain: (Minor spoilers ahead) Bojji is a mute-deaf Prince in a medieval European setting with the dream of being the best King in the world. The first impression is that the story is going to be about the emotional journey of Bojji overcoming abuse and prejudice of society and family, doing the best for his kingdom despite his disabilities. The first emotional aspect is that Bojji isincredibly aware of the mockery he is submitted to, which he can tell by not only the physical language of others but also through reading lips. Now, I get that Bojji knows he is being abused but how can a Mute-Deaf know exactly what people, and even animals say about him if he never heard a single word in his life? Not that I was expecting realism but the shows opens with heavy emphasis on Sign Language, so one would expect that this would a reoccurring element of the show, but the moment other characters learn that Bojji can read lips sign language gets thrown out of the window and characters that know it stop using it completely. The author/show had the opportunity to teach something to the audience but instead just ignore one of the distinguishing elements of the story. The biggest problems I have with the story is that the show had the opportunity to show how medieval people lived with disabilities, build a long arduous story of overcoming the odds and becoming the best King in the world but after a few episodes Bojji starts getting thrown into the sidelines and a succession conspiracy starts taking place but instead of him being directly involved in unfolding the mystery, he goes into a Training Arc while the mystery slowly unfolds regardless to him. The mystery has indeed something to do with him and he gets involved but it doesn’t feel like he truly contributes heavily nor did it feel like his accomplishments and power were truly earned. Just to add a final note on presentation and music: The art style is highly reminiscent of Princess Knight, Heidi of the Alpes and anime from the World Masterpiece Theater. Personally I love it, I grew up in Europe in the 90’s and these anime were popular on TV, the style is Old School but not necessarily bad. Music is great, it is very medieval with orchestral elements and a lot of 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures which are part of the Medieval/Renaissance style of composing. All in all, Ousama Ranking anime could have brought a lot fresh air to the anime landscape with it’s Old School style and standout premise but went to an unsatisfactory fantasy mystery I personally did not find necessary or interesting.
ZolAvi
07/13/2022, 12:10 AM
I wanted so badly to love this series in its entirety. Hells, I was warned by a friend but I didn't listen, I was drawn in to it by the beautiful animation and music - the classical literature slightly presented in a different angle - all combined to form something new. Of course I was drawn in badly, and I'm a crybaby I'll be honest I cry easily and I was perhaps in a tearful mood so this anime suited me incredibly. That is. That is. Until the ending they decided upon. I had noticed of course as the story and mystery unravels itself, themore well... Subpar it became but I held on in hopes of fully understanding and comprehending the entirety of the series' story. Alas. Alas.... My heart was stomped out the moment <spoilers> came back and said such ridiculous words in the second last episode. There would be nothing left to save this story. It was over. I merely continued watching the next episode half heartedly out of mere respect of the start and what could have been's. This could've been a truly wondrous series. Could have. Perhaps one day someone might be interested in rewriting this story, fleshing out the characters more and ah perhaps not... Do whatever this anime had gone down into. Everything that was good about this anime was ruined, nullified - by the end. A story is a whole. Even if the start is stupendous, the middle decent, but if the ending is awful - then... Then it taints the entire series into truly a poorly written one. Perhaps the writing had never been good, we were simply lured in from seeing familiar classics rehashed into what the beginning teasingly promised could be something so much more with a veil of intrigue drawing us deeper in and watching until the end for... For what are we but fools hoping to see a fantasy they were so very interested in be as good as its start? I held on my hope but I feel bitter now like it was for nothing. This isn't the animator's fault. Nor the voice actors. No. The fault lies in the writer. A poorly written but well animated and voice acted anime. ...I even sought out fanfiction but not many wrote an AU. Merely cute character interactions. Fair enough. Perhaps I'll take a turn at it one day. Perhaps not. I have other priorities. But I suppose this is just like reality isn't it, such disappointment is... a stark reminder of life. I wanted this to be a spoiler free review but I have to first of all - address the incredibly disturbing thing at the end. <SPOILERS FROM HERE ONWARDS> . . . . . . . DAIDA IS A CHILD. MIRANJO IS NOT. JAPAN STOP WITH YOUR RIDICULOUS CHILD/ADULT RELATIONSHIP FANTASIES HELLS
KyomaBritannia
07/02/2022, 02:34 AM
Simply appalling. The first few episodes are nothing special, but you get the sense that you are about to watch a decently written underdog story set in a fantasy world that has a small semblance of originality. But the writers were just tricking you into wasting your time. The story quickly devolves into nonsensical plot threads with characters acting completely unnatural, and the main character completely skips any sort of journey and just becomes OP on the spot. Characters that have been established as baddies are forgiven with literally 0 explanation, no matter how many or who they've killed in the past. Dozens of people dieduring the story, but not really because one character runs around fixing them all up every time. They pretend to throw a wrench in the cogs when one time they are out of power, but the situation is resolved within 3 seconds. I could keep going on and on about all the failures in this show, but I won't. That's because I sit here and ponder WHY this show is the way it is. The only explanation I can come up with is that it was done on purpose. What was the purpose? I'm not sure, I can only come up with some guesses. To sum it all up, utter garbage, and they have thoroughly succeeded in wasting a few hours of my time.
Ivanictor
05/20/2022, 10:12 PM
Ranking of Kings is one of the first anime with a score higher than 8.5 that was a complete disappointment for me. And I will explain why considering what was the anime's main purpose and what it really became after everything ended. The purpose: Ranking of Kings was supposed to be a different fantasy story. It shows a little prince called Bojji, a deaf and mute boy that expects to be the king of his kingdom, but is ignored and despised due to his physical conditions. Nor the people of the king and not even his relatives trust him to be the future king whenKing Bosse, his father and very strong king dies, but he still believes to do so. Ranking of Kings starts well. It presents us the main character, his desires, and after shows another characters and develops them with flashbacks. Even the least important characters have some story to tell. But this is not good news for you. In not a distant past, people criticized Naruto, one of the most known anime, for not developing its secondary characters. A lot of characters were forgotten and simply wasted. I don't know if the author of Ousama Ranking listened about it, but his idea of developing everyone went really bad. There are almost no connections among them. Nothing. Ranking of Kings spent a lot of time simply throwing flashbacks with no connection among them to "develop" its characters, but did nothing with them. They became useless stories that happened in a distant place and have no relation with the current time, but the character presence. Where is the kingdom that killed the shadow clan? Where are the gods of Miranjo backstory? Why the anime is called Ranking of Kings if the ranking itself is mentioned only a couple of times in the anime? Not even Black Clover and Naruto, animes that are famous for developing characters with flashbacks, do a so horrible work with it. And the problems are not only these. I said before Ranking of Kings wanted to be a different anime. But it isn't. Have you ever seen a main character that wants to become a king of a whole people before to get "recognition" from them? Have you ever watched an anime where all the main villains are forgiven for no reason and with no fair redemption before? You may have watched them trying something better than what this author did in Ranking of Kings. One of the kingdom's bodyguards betrayed Bojji and tried to kill him. He simplely cried at Bojji's feet and got forgiven. Nothing was done. Has this author thought that the character he created tried to take a kid's life? If so, why did he try to force Bojji to forgive him in the first time they met again? This a typical cliche of shonen anime. And it's not the only, since there are lots of them broadcasted in the anime, such as the training sessions with a master and the fact that nobody dies, no matter how hurt they are. The worst thing that appeared in Ranking of Kings is the villain called Miranjo and her backstory. The anime tries to call its fans dumb. Their biggest villain is the main responsible for most of the current problems of the kingdom. The King Bosse came to back to life, Daida was trapped in a dark place and forced to give his body to Bosse. Bojji's mother was killed in the past. Miranjo killed lots of innocent people and freed some bandits of other kingdom to attack the kingdom in order to get her life with King Bosse. What happened to her? She was forgiven. The author created a "sad" flashback and showed it to the characters. They felt sorry for Miranjo and forgave her without any punishment, Someone thought that it would be enough to say that she suffered in the past to justify this absurd. She wasn't only forgiven, she even received a marriage offer from the person who suffered the most due to her actions. Daida didn't have mercy even of his older brother, but easily forgave the woman that most made him suffer in the World. To complete the entire disaster, there is Miranjo's backstory. After all this appaling sequence, the only way the anime could become even worse is showing us a terrible backstory. Well, congratulations for the author, that's exactly what he did. Sosuke Toka recreated the japanese colonization of Korea, from his point of view, in the anime and handled it as Miranjo backstory. Being more accurate, he used the flashback to tell what he thinks about the history. He created a kingdom called Homura, representing Japan, that was full of kind people that helped the other kingdom to strengthen a future ally in the fight against "gods" that didn't even appear in the anime before. These gods were the metaphor to the western countries, that were advancing over Asian and wanted to increase their influence to China, Japan and Korea. The other kingdom, Gyakuza, is representing Korea. a backward country full of ignorant people. Homura one-sidedly helped to develop Gyakuza, that responded torturing and mutilating Homura's people, including Miranjo and her mom. That's what the author of this thinks and what he wanted to show us, not Miranjo backstory. This was supposed to be enough reason for us to forgive Miranjo. The despicable intention of using Miranjo to retell Japan's invasion to other country became a problem to the anime. During all the time they told us that we should forgive the other people because they were not evil in fact. Even without a proper redemption. But now the anime showed to the watchers a kingdom of evil people, of black eyes that had no depth or development. No mercy or redemption is waiting them, they are just evil people. It's a complete contradiction with the whole development that Ranking of Kings created. It was able to be wrong presenting both, good villains and evil villains, an absolute failure for the story. The author was so lost that he did not even know what to do wit h King Bosse. He appeared and defeated Ouken, the enemy controlled by Miranjo for no reason and after got defeated by Bojji, who couldn't defeat Ouken. We don't know what Bosse was doing, can't comprehend why he wanted to be strong or why Miranjo sacrified herself to grant him power. In the end, Bojji got to be the king and gave up in a month, nobody cares about the kingdom people and not even what they think about it. The story ends with Bojji deciding to create a new kingdom with Kage, his mouthpiece, for no reason. As you can see, the author destroyed completely the rest of the story he had created in favor to tell us his "positive" point of view of the event where Japan invaded Korea, arguing that it was good to Korea because they developed their infrastructure (to explore their natural resources), despite all the tragedy and violence they brought. Final messages: Forgive every beautiful girl that does cruel things to you, no matter how terrible her actions were. And according to the author, Korea is an ungrateful country for refusing Japan's kind help, and doesn't deserve mercy for it. Japan's colonization wasn't violent, nor reprehensible, the guilty is Korea, a people with "bad culture", in the words of the anime.
gadool
04/19/2022, 03:32 AM
The best way I can sum up my experience with Ousama Ranking is disappointment. The series has a unique art style and interesting concept. I liked how the bright “picture book” style contrasts with some of the darker themes that come up. I was invested for the first 10 or so episodes because of the story, art, great music, and good fight animation. However, the writing and pacing destroyed my investment in the second half of the first season. In order to avoid spoilers, I will not list anything specific, but pretty much all of the deaths got reversed in some way. This is theBIGGEST problem I have with the series, so it’s not something I could avoid mentioning. It destroyed the stakes in the story, because if a character seemed like they were definitely dead, they would get “revived” not even an episode later. It got so out of hand that I started rolling my eyes and hoping for characters to die for good. It’s especially bad because one of the strengths of the series is that it does a good job fleshing out the backstories of side characters. After mourning the “death” of a character, seeing them come back makes it feel like the writers are toying with your emotional investment. It feels like nothing has weight in the story. Rather than a serious story with a childish art style, it turned into just a childish story, because they were unable to let even somewhat major characters die, over and over again. Another downfall of the second half of the first season is that they would interrupt intense fights. Although I love learning more about characters and their backstories, they would tease an intense fight with a cliffhanger, but then show a flashback or irrelevant scene and cut back to the fight already being over. I don’t know if it’s because of budgetary reasons, but it’s a huge letdown and seriously frustrating. On the flip side, I looked forward to the fights because they would show some pretty awesome/unexpected moves and had great animation.. it just sucks that they would interrupt the flow and then sometimes skip it altogether. My last gripe is with the progression of the main character’s strength. I love a good underdog story, but the whole point is that the underdog works to gain their strength throughout the story. The main character starts off being weak and incompetent, which is fine, but I expected him to grow his strength by facing off with stronger and stronger opponents throughout his journey. Instead, he becomes one of the strongest people in the world after training, mostly off screen, for 2-3 episodes. After training we see him battle small fry once, and the other strong characters (with an exception) instinctively know that he’s unbeatable. At his core, he did not change, despite there being a few scenes where they attempt (and fail) to show some sort of growth in his resolve. His power feels forced and unnatural, like something given to him rather than something gained through true growth. He becomes way too powerful, absurdly fast. I see some people recommend this as a series you can enjoy if you want to shut your brain off, but I disagree. I think it’s just disappointing and not worth a watch.
cld9100
04/02/2022, 04:22 AM
The first five episodes of Ousama Ranking are the best first five episodes of an anime I've ever seen. No exaggeration: the art and music is top-notch; characters defy easy categorization and feel lived-in, each one capable of both mistakes and heroic moments of growth; the world is built on childish whimsy and nods to old fantasy tropes, but the story is deceptively mature, balancing light comedy with family drama, political intrigue, and sudden violence; the fights are visceral, gorgeously animated, and *restrained* to a degree nearly unprecedented in the genre. This is masterful stuff. It's such an incredible shame how the writing nosedives after that.There are scattered moments of greatness in the next eighteen episodes, and the technical aspects remain elite, but the story consistently declines in quality and never recovers. What initially seemed like a commitment to morally grey characterization soon starts to feel like a cynical reliance on twists. The first time a character does something that goes against their established motivations, it makes them interesting; by the tenth time, there is no character left. Most of the cast eventually morphs into the same indistinguishable ball of contradictions, shifting loyalties on a whim. The restrained action of the first five episodes is abandoned in favor of unnecessary, egregiously lengthy fights with no consequences. If a major character ever gets injured or seems to die, just give it a few minutes... healing magic is on the way. Sometimes, the story doesn't even bother to give us "magic" as an excuse; it just blatantly ignores any earlier scenes that become inconvenient, like they were only written in the first place for cheap shock value. A renowned swordsman has his own right hand cut off in a dramatic display of penance. A few episodes later, he's acquired a prosthetic hand offscreen and swings a sword like nothing happened. Another man gets his leg ripped off above the ankle and loses an eye in the same fight. After, he wraps up his stump and somehow walks normally on it. Neither injury has any impact on his fighting ability or is ever mentioned again. A shocking early death is retconned, but the mechanism by which the character survived is never explained. Throw in a truly irredeemable villain who gets no comeuppance simply because everyone seems to adore her for no discernible reason (what's a little murdering-your-entire-family between friends, anyway?) and a random marriage at the end of the season between two characters who had zero romantic interactions prior to the proposal, and it's safe to say the first five episodes of Ousama Ranking were a fluke.
ThatAnimeSnobRE
03/26/2022, 05:39 AM
Ranking of Kings was a standout in the roster of 2021 by looking like a European fairy tale. It also began as a typical underdog story about a weak prince nobody takes seriously trying to win his right to the throne, before becoming more elaborate by including themes such as psychological issues and political intrigue. Unfortunately it doesn’t do much from a point on and thus it never escapes the fairy tale vibe it began as. Most of the conflicts are resolved way too fast and in ways that insult your intelligence. 1) Selfish people and traitors will be changing their mind when they see theprince cry a lot or never give up, and will be forgiven almost immediately. 2) Bad guys are turned into misunderstood people with a last moment sad flashback that is making them tragic in an instant (even if they have caused harm to thousands of innocents) and are never punished. 3) Most negative consequences such as fatal injuries go away before you know it. Also fake deaths are abundant. 4) There is no sense of tension or high stakes when betrayals, horrible acts, and injuries can be undone so easily. It wouldn’t be a problem if the author never made it seem like stakes exist, but he does all the time and constantly deflates every conflict with cheap fixes. It’s nice to see a show taking a more serious approach with its material, but let’s not pretend it does an exceptional job. The lack of negative consequences make it come off like yet another escapism fantasy for people who wish they will be forgiven for all the shitty things they have done, simply by crying a lot. We live in a society where someone can have his entire life ruined by eating a jelly bean, and the easiest method for making people forget all the crap you have done is to manipulate them through their emotions by crying in front of a camera. Ranking of Kings relies way too much on people crying for making you think they deserve a happy ending instead of punishment for all the crap they did, and it reaches levels of insanity the closer it gets to the ending. One of the characters is even given a marriage proposal as a reward for crying despite being the most horrible person in the world. Also ignore anyone who considers this to be an instant classic or something as grand as that. It’s a very niche show that appeals to fans of fairy tales who seek something more elaborate. Most casual anime fans will not bother watching something that looks like a European fairy tale or will not be fond of a simple coming-of-age story they can find elsewhere, preferably with magical samurais and big titty ladies. As for the veteran watchers, they will most likely dislike how it gives a happy ending to people that deserve years in a torture chamber.
BackwardsEpa
03/24/2022, 08:29 PM
Ousama Ranking (aka Ranking of Kings) is what you would call the “Underrated Hidden Gem of the Season” with it’s first two episodes being standouts in the anime community due to the story’s underdog Bojji, the protagonist of the story who even while being the son of the king, is deaf and mute and his nice to a fault personality causes the townspeople to make fun of him and insult him. This, along the sad backstory of Kage, a sentient shadow looking creature who becomes Bojji’s friend, makes the audience care for this story’s two main characters and root for them in the mission ofhaving Bojji become the best king he can be. A strong main plot, along with mysterious political intrigue and two-faced characters in which the plot takes a new twist in every single episode makes Ousama Ranking one of the best anime of the Fall 2021 season and one of the best anime of 2021. Well, that is until the opening of the show changes and the quality drops faster before you can say “wow the op is amazing”. During the first eleven episodes the screen time of characters varied with a minimum of three story threads happening at the same time which is great for the pacing of the show, especially when you have a fairly big size of characters and your protagonist can literally not speak. This also allowed for us to know more about the side characters of the show, with the most interesting stories being about the Big Four, four warriors of the kingdom whose entire character is different compared to your first impressions of them in where the same character can be hateful and turn into someone to root for or be someone you liked revealing themselves to be someone you can easily root against after you know more about them. This even applies to Daida and Hilling, the second prince and queen of the kingdom who at first seem like absolute jerks, but after you get more time with them you see that they are actually not that bad. These multiple perspectives also enhance the mystery element of the show because you know that a big conspiracy is taking place below our protagonist’s nose and it makes the audience wonder how the rest of these characters will affect the overall story. Honestly, all of this praise for the first half really makes the decline of the second half hit so much harder. The multiple perspectives that were utilized in the first half are no longer a thing in the second half and while that may not look like a negative, it drastically impacts the pace of the show in the later episodes. I am not kidding when I tell you that the first few episodes of the second half feel like filler because it takes so long for the plot to progress and every scene takes so much time from the episode when the characters that are taking part of the scene end up influencing nothing of the plot. We pass one episode in one fight in which it feels like it never ends because one dude keeps getting healed, another episode in which one dude protects a staircase, and we have another episode that seems incredibly relevant to the show just for that conflict to be resolved astonishingly quickly. Conflict is taking place, but the pace in which it is resolved and the way it IS resolved is so boring, especially considering this is supposed to be the event that the first eleven episodes of the season led up to. It really feels like the story was padding itself and stalling for time just so that Bojji resolves the problems the characters are facing, and I am not exaggerating. Bojji resolves all the problems like a living mcguffin and all the plots introduced go as follow: Enemy shows up, side character fights, they do good for some time and then get wrecked, it looks like they will die oh no, Bojji shows up, they are scared Bojji will die and tell him to not do anything, Bojji does the thing and wrecks the enemy, side character is amazed and chill with Bojji until they tell him what to do next. It’s so repetitive and predictable that the only time it isn’t repetitive is when they have him fight a freaking immortal being just for it to really only be padding time until Bosse shows up, wrecks the thing, and we move on. The pacing is flatlined, the story beats are repetitive, whole episodes feel like side quests to get to the final battle, and the mystery element is gone as they just spit out exposition to the audience mid episode about the mastermind of this whole conflict. The character department also takes a hit because the only characters that do anything from the good side are Bojji and Hilling (and Hilling only does things because she has hax abilities) so the Big Four that got screen time and depth in the first half are just irrelevant and are just there to take a beating until Bojji shows up like the second coming of Christ and saves the day. Dorshe is a punching bag, Apeas is a walking L, Bebin does nothing during the first episodes of the second half aside from being the one they give exposition to, and Domas who got the most character so far only gets to prove himself by talking the talk and not walking the walk. Kage the one who started off as a thief in the start of the show descended into someone so naive and stupid that it hurts to watch and really just felt like they put Bojji’s personality into him but the difference is that he can actually talk. What about the antagonists that were present in the first half? Well they only give exposition or are given exposition to that’s really it and there really is nothing you can expect from the immortal dude who can’t even make a word and who’s only character traits that makes him relevant are that he is immortal and that he’s crazy. Finally, the second half has what I believe is one of the worst tropes in media and that is when the main characters forgive someone, not because they went through a redemption arc and actually redeemed themselves, but because they are just nice and because the bad person has a sad backstory that they should be exempt from all blame. The first half of this anime had betrayals, ones that hurt and which took a lot for the characters that were betrayed to forgive the person that wronged them and it took a lot of effort from the evildoer to try to properly redeem themselves, not by giving out a sob story, but by showing that they have become better. So when the person who objectively did the most wrong is forgiven not by proving anything, but because they have a sad backstory that I just cannot accept, and that is one of the reasons that the second half of Ousama Ranking hurts the show’s quality. Even though the second half of Ousama Ranking did not live up to the expectations that the first half set up, I still gotta commend the art and animation department of this anime along with the sound department. The art is very different from your average anime and the fact that Wit Studio did not only make the style work, but also enhanced it through the use of color and shading combined with amazing and fluent animation makes this anime at points look like a movie due to the direction and cinematography of the episodes. The music in this show is also great with the background music exuding a mythical and medieval vibe to the scenes and when it hits IT HITS. The openings are also amazing and the direction of the second opening is amazing and really just shows how much effort Wit Studio put into this show. Unfortunately, art, animation and music does not make a show good automatically and even though the first half is great and truly deserving of an 8/9 and even possibly an 9/9 score, the decrease in quality in regards to the story and character aspect of the show plummets in the second half and because of that I just can’t give Ousama Ranking anything higher than a 6/9. However, don’t take my score as gospel and give Ousama Ranking a try yourself because even though the second half didn’t work for me, the first half is amazing and who knows maybe unlike me you actually enjoy the second half of this anime. So even with a score of 6/9, I recommend this anime if you yourself want to watch it because I believe that there is a chance that other people will find this anime to be greater than I did.
EDOSHINRATENSEI
03/24/2022, 05:38 PM
Ousama Bojji The first half of this anime was fun and heartwarming. Bojji is very cute, and I wanted to see his journey to overcome his challenges. Also, there’s a main mystery plot that got me excited and more invested in the outcome. The animation might throw some people off because it is simple and made the show leaning towards to kids. But I didn’t mind it because of the story that built up. However, the second half where everything went down was a major disappointment. The character decisions at the end were both surface-level and baffling. It’s not often that I see an ending that threw thingsoff this quickly. Overall, it had enjoyments but ended in such a wrong note. 6-6.5/10
mythical_k
03/24/2022, 12:48 PM
Spoiler Warning: Whenever I think of the phrase, "Never judge a book by its cover," this anime will always come to mind. Ranking of Kings was an experience I never expected to be good, but now, I understand that I truly love this anime to bits. There were so many incredible moments that made me tear up and cheer for the protagonist to achieve his dreams, which made this anime even better. Even though I never read the web manga it came from, Ranking of Kings is one of the rare moments an anime is better than the said manga. There are many things theanime did incredible with while occasionally having its flaws. So many events occurred in both cours of the anime that each had their moments of excitement. At the same time, it was heartbreaking, showing the audience why this anime got classified as a seinen series. The central moral that I noticed is never giving up on your dreams and achieving them despite the challenging obstacles. Throughout the series, the anime progresses from the protagonist getting mocked for his physical disabilities to earning respect from the entire kingdom for his brave actions towards the series's climax. What this anime did phenomenal on is the backstories of many central characters. They all connected perfectly and made the story even more intriguing to learn about other characters' perspectives. However, the double-edged sword in this anime was giving characters who committed unforgivable acts redemption. Although they suffered, the fact that they get off the hook seems unrealistic, but I can somewhat understand why they would go that route. The overall pacing combined with these aspects is neatly done, and I enjoyed seeing all of them watching this anime. The story primarily focused on the main protagonist's growth as a person and as the prince of his kingdom. In the beginning, there were many character introductions, showing what the characters appear to be like, but in reality, they act differently from their appearances. After the smooth beginning, the anime progresses to the protagonist's training arc, the chaos begins to bloom back in the central kingdom, which sets the tone for the second half of the anime. Despite the slow pacing for the second half, it gave the series its share fair of justice. Even though some parts of the second half were slowly paced at times, what they did right was the emotional impact that it left on the audience. The emotional backstories and the motivations on both sides made this anime a roller coaster of emotions, making each episode worth watching. As for the ending itself, I loved how it ended, and if they continue to make a second season from there, I would be down to watch it. What I loved the most about Ranking of Kings is the characterization of the central cast. Not only are their designs give off reminders of Studio Ghibli movies, but it also takes the phrase, "Never judge a book by its cover" very seriously. The protagonist, Bojji, is one of the most relatable anime characters I've ever seen. Even though I'm not deaf like him, seeing Bojji working hard to save his kingdom brought me to tears, as I can personally relate to his journey. His progression to one of the strongest characters in the series made him one of my favorite anime protagonists of all time. Another character, Kage, although he seemed evil at first, he eventually became a great friend for Bojji, always being by his side, and became one of my favorite anime duos to date. As for the other characters, such as Queen Hilling may look mean, but they have endearing sides to them that made their characters more likable. As for the villain, Miranjo, I feel like her redemption wasn't the best, but with time, it could be worth it, but I still don't forgive her for causing the anime's events, even before it occurred. Overall, the central cast in the anime is one of my favorites in terms of characterization, and I loved how they did this route for them. I was not expecting the animation and the visuals to look amazing, but Wit Studio was able to make it work for the art style. The fluid animation during the action scenes and the colors for this anime was a sight to behold. It easily matches the tone for both parts of the anime, and I enjoyed how much love it got. However, I felt like the animation for the second half was decently done, but it's understandable as Wit Studio is still going through financial problems. Aside from that, the quality was consistent, rarely any mistakes, and gave the right impact for when there were fight scenes in a few episodes, such as episode 21, which I consider to be the best episode in the series. Thank you, Wit Studio for animating this series, and Vivy. I enjoyed your animation so much, and you're my favorite anime studio ever. The music in this anime was consistent for when the tone for each scene was right, either making it emotional or intense. It matches the fantasy and medieval theme Ranking of Kings has and made me feel like I was also in that world. The opening and ending songs were phenomenal, combined with the stellar animation. For the first half of the anime, Boy by King Gnu matches Bojji's character in terms of tune and is easy to listen to whenever it plays. The ending song, Oz by Yama, is beautiful, making the music sound emotional, showing how much emotional impact is for the anime. In the second half, Naked Hero by Vaundy and Flare by Milet matched the change in tone the anime took smoothly and sounds incredible to listen with the beautiful visuals used for the openings and endings. Each song has its moments, and they all suit the entire series to a T. Overall, Ranking of Kings is another masterpiece created by Wit Studio, and I'm glad I didn't skip this series last fall. Even though there were slight flaws in the anime, it also matches the moral of how you can be amazing even with those flaws. Thank you, Yousuke Hatta and Makoto Fuchigami, for directing this adaptation and Jefferson Melo for the incredible writing. Watching this anime meant a lot to me, and I will dearly miss this series so much. Even if they decide to release a second season, I was satisfied to experience this masterclass anime until the very end.
brillante
03/24/2022, 12:26 PM
I am forever grateful to have watched Ousama Ranking each week, and I’m sad that I will never see it with fresh eyes again. This anime was truly a treasure from the beginning to the end. I’ll keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, but just in case, you’ve been warned. On the surface, Ousama Ranking (or Ranking of Kings) appears like a fairytale, a classic Hero’s Journey about a young deaf-mute prince who wants to be the hero and save everyone, accompanied by his shadowy but loyal sidekick. But as you watch, you’ll find a story that respects these classic tropes even when it subvertsthem. Even if this story is something we’ve seen before, in one way or the other, it’s still told uniquely thanks to a complex cast of characters that are a joy to watch on screen. It hooks you in and doesn’t let go, and after every episode ended I eagerly looked forward to the next week to see what happened next. One of the most common complaints you’ll see about this show is that the art style looks too juvenile, and therefore not palatable. Funnily enough, I was actually drawn into the show because of the art style, which is reminiscent of both the classic days of anime and traditional storybook illustrations. The aesthetic evokes nostalgia while creating shots that are always beautiful to look at. Even when production values fluctuated between episodes, the anime looked vibrant in both static and sakuga. The character design and direction elevates the show so much that it’s never dull to look at. When the animation needs to hit, IT WILL HIT. Just wait until you get to episode 21. The music helps elevate it as well, providing Ousama Ranking with a soundtrack that is both heroic and emotional. It does what it needs to do for this medieval fantasy world. However, the standouts are absolutely the OPs and EDs of the show, especially OP 2 (Hadaka no Yuusha by Vaundy), which might have claimed OP of the Year only a few days into 2022. We’ll see how long that holds up, but each of the opening and closing sequences brought in artists that were dedicated to sharing the themes of the show. I absolutely love this show, but there are a few flaws that hold me back from calling this show a masterpiece. The first half was so masterful that it paled in comparison to the second half, where the pace felt too slow in the middle, and too fast towards the end. And of course, since this is an adaptation of an ongoing manga, not every loose end got tied up. And then there's the controversy with...Daida’s arc. It's VERY iffy, and his actions directly affect the fate of the villain. I’m not on board with it. If it were saved for later in another installment, when there's been more development to justify it, maybe I would have. However, I feel like we're in a Darling in the Franxx situation again, where people are letting it overshadow the rest of the anime. - it's a very complicated controversy that deserves absolutely be discussed, but in truth, the revelation didn't sour my evaluation of the whole series. That whole thing aside, I still really enjoyed the second half, even if it's noticeably weaker. Ousama Ranking is a mature, but feel-good story about loyalty, kindness, and perseverance that will steal your heart away with its adorable protagonists. It has something for everyone, from mystery, action, drama, and even a bit of comedy. I have no doubt that this anime will linger as a classic among fans. If I were to score just by cour, the first would be a 10, and the second falls to an 8. The average of that would be 9, and I think it's suitable for this series. I hope that one day, we’ll get a second installment because there is so much left to be told.
Dukino
03/24/2022, 11:41 AM
Masterpiece. Not afraid to call this anime a masterpiece. Front to back excellent storytelling spearheaded by the most perfect main character an author could write. While there may be some I enjoy more, Bojji checks every single box for a well written, well developed and well rounded protagonist. Bojji not only drives the story but showcases a message that speaks to the heart. One that no matter how looked down upon you are, or no matter how people might underestimate you, we can all get stronger and we all have worth. Despite how alone you might feel there's hope to keep going and become better.Bojji brought many tears to my eyes throughout this show through not only his suffering but his perseverance. Plenty of happy tears were shed seeing Bojji rise above the pain surrounding him. While having one of the best anime companions to ever be written. The finale truly brought it all home showing how much Kage lit Bojji up. Kage is absolutely Bojji sun, bringing out the in Bojji at every turn. Always there to give Bojji encouragement and support. A true best friend and ally to Bojji, someone he needed for a long time and finally found. I'm so happy they are going off to journey more together. It might be a miracle for them to stay on the same path for the rest of their lives but if anyone deserves a miracle its these two. Its definitely the two lead characters who bring this show up above most others. But that's not to discredit the other amazing aspects around them that help it stand out as well. The supporting cast is extremely strong. Hiling alone top tier anime mom but others like the Big Four, Despa, Desha, Hokuro, and even Daida have excellent writing given to them so we see their characters grow. All the way down to the minor characters like Gigan, the Underworld Guard Captain, and Mitsumata get spotlight and have great moments. The villain Miranjo is probably the most polarizing and prickly part of this whole story. While some might consistently condemn her, which I understand, I can allow her rebirth since she vows to help as many people as possible for the rest of her life. Its not a perfect solution but it works well enough. Daida by her side Miranjo will atone. Bosse himself also kind of a villain in all this, he took away so much from Bojji its hard not to dislike the guy. Bosse acted very selfishly but we could see it didn't sit well with him what he'd done once he actually reached the end of the rainbow so to speak. Once Bosse attained ultimate power it all felt pointless. All these characters are just so well written they're all a complicated web of motivations and feelings. Topping off the impressive writing is the production. Top notch the whole show as well. Wit Studio outdid themselves with this one. Exceeding anything it thought we would see in this show when I started it. I could tell from the previews it would look good but wow did it look good! Every action scene pops and has such great flow. Its amazing to see an already well written story get to look so good too. Overall this is a show that deserves every ounce of praise it's been given and then some more. It blew me away the whole ride and idk if I've ever cried so much watching an anime. I grew very attached to Bojji and that's something that will never go away. So I mist gush and heap congratulations to everyone involved in such an experience. I will never forget something as special as this. 1000000000000000/100
BigDaddyTuesday
03/24/2022, 10:37 AM
TL;DR Ranking of Kings had several amazing first few episodes and if the rest of the series followed it could have easily been a 9. There were legitimate stakes, the mystery surrounding the characters was intriguing, and the struggles of the protagonists were well handled. The middle half of the show is not as gripping as the first handful of episodes. Character motivations get spelled out for the most part and they do not live up to the mystery and intrigue shown at the beginning of the show. There are also issues with pacing, an overuse of tropes, and some characters getting completely shafted interms of development and screen time. What follows is a resolution that does not fix the previous issues and instead makes weirdly questionable decisions morally. There are also some badly injected takes on real world events concerning Japan and Korea that paint Korea as one-sidedly evil. The politics do not apply to most viewers; however, they are concerning when viewed in a vacuum. The art style invokes that of a clean looking storybook fantasy and holds up for the most part. The opening and ending songs and visuals are stellar throughout the run of the show as well. I don't normally watch shows as they air, but Ousama Ranking's first half had me gripped to the point where I wanted to see everything that followed as it unfolded. What I got was disappointment. Below is a much more in depth look at why I feel this way. Spoilers are present to fully explain why I gave this show a 5. ------------Story and Characters - 5------------ What initially drew me to Ranking of Kings, the story, starts out with immense promise. Two competing sons for the right to the throne; Bojji, the designated successor yet crippled from birth as well as kindhearted and talented in his own right. The other Daida, a younger stronger and much more arrogant prince. The first few episodes of the show revolve around who supports which prince, with each character having various stated and unstated reasons for doing so. Characters with development at this point were multilayered and had compelling individual struggles. The protagonist Bojji struggles to fit in because he is weak, small, gullibly kind, deaf, and mute. He finds a friend in Kage who recognizes his will and talent in combination with his kindness as something great. The sword master in charge of Bojji struggles between loyalty to his master and the potential he saw in another. Queen Hilling was shown at first to be harsh towards Bojji for his gullible demeanor and fully supported Daida over him, yet it is also shown how much she truly cares for him as her son. The mysterious Spear Master and Snake Charmer had their own reasons for being loyal to Bojji and Daida respectfully with each showing potential for further development. Daida himself is power hungry and craves to be as strong and as great as his father. Together with a magic mirror giving advice, Daida was willing to do anything to cement his rule. When first watching the show, I was not sure what to expect from any of the characters and I found myself pleasantly surprised at the quality of writing despite the simplicity of the premise. Eventually, the contention between the two princes is put on hold and the rest of the show starts to slowly falter. There are many debates as to whether or not the second half of the show is worse or not. Some say the quality is the same, some say it is not. I'd say the second 2/3rds of the show start to show significant problems and do not hold up overall. There are a handful of reasons for this being the character developments, the plot as a whole, pacing, the political allegory, and the tropes used. -----SPOILERS------ Starting with minor complaints, some segments of the show focused one-sidedly on either Bojji and Kage or people living in the kingdom. Some episode plots were paced weirdly and going up to two episodes with barely any development for Bojji's plot thread felt weird after seeing him every episode. Similarly, suddenly cutting to the kingdom which had been irrelevant for several episodes was also jarring at times. There are also multiple unresolved plot threads and characters introduced that go nowhere or are irrelevant. The source material is a web manga currently being published so I hope they eventually go somewhere meaningful. As far as characters go, everyone from the underworld remains fine as a character, the spearman is the most compelling of the four knights and Hilling is fine aside from one aspect. The rest of the cast did not fare well in terms of development. The biggest aggressor to this is Kage, who started out as gruff yet supportive and ultimately ended up as nothing but a mouthpiece for Bojji. His troubled past led to a sour demeanor that eventually changed when he decided to support Bojji, which he did by protecting his life and paying for his training. After this, Kage does not do anything of note except talk for Bojji because he is mute, give play by play commentary during fights and altercations, and cry. Kage hardly ever shows off his once gruff personality, instead it feels as if he was created to serve as a way for the viewer to understand Bojji's every mumbled word. In particular, his emotional crying is overused to a ridiculous degree. The swordsman tries to kill Bojji in episode 5 and then spends the next 18 episodes wallowing in pity over the fact that he betrayed his master. He went from driven and experienced to being lectured by every character in the show and being treated like a child. His student, a supporter of Bojji from the beginning, is portrayed as inexperienced and naive yet he is shown in a more mature and knowledgeable light than the swordsman on multiple occasions. In addition to this, the swordsman resorts to comical levels of self harm and pity on multiple occasions. Even after swearing newfound loyalty to Bojji, he constantly looks for ways to get himself killed in atonement even after multiple characters tell him he is wrong for doing so. What started out as an experienced tutor who questioned loyalty over potential was reduced to a bumbling sob story who can't decide between loyally serving, killing himself for redemption, or crying on the floor for forgiveness. In particular, his crying is overused to a ridiculous degree. The spearman is the most compelling of the initially introduced knight cast, struggling between two factions of loyalty. This isn't particularly groundbreaking and his hypocrisy and wishy washy nature is even frustrating at times, but, comparing him to other cast members he oddly stands as one of the few mildly decently handled characters. Like others, he still breaks down and cries but not to the point of significant overuse. The snake charmer does not get any character development aside from a handful of lines and scenes that show he is kind but pretends to be mean as a facade. He doesn't cry which makes him alright. Last of the knights is the big muscleman in charge of protecting Hilling, he does just that and is one of the few characters to actually suffer consequences from being attacked. You could easily argue that this makes him the best character between the four knights which I find sad considering he barely has any nuance in his personality. Overall, each of the knights showed promise at the beginning and by the end two were barely developed. One was bastardized from a multilayered man with ambition and drive into a devout Bojji afficionado who can't control his suicidal impulses or his waterworks, and only one of them ended up being passable as a character. An additional small gripe I have with all of them is that they decide to support Bojji over their king in the end. Even the Snake Charmer who was entirely in support of Daida and Bosse decides to support Bojji. Speaking of Bojji, some find issue with the fact he went from essentially powerless to potently strong in a 4-episode training arc. Personally, I don't have issue with it because the logic behind why it worked flowed well. Bojji was initially already very swift, he was just taught how to take advantage of that. I don't have many issues with Bojji as a protagonist, but he does cry too much for emotional scenes to feel effective. I do take issue with the fact that nearly every single one of his doubters form the beginning changes their tune with ease. Bojji went from misunderstood as stupid and naive to being seen as a driven saint compared to everyone else. I wish that other characters were not as quick to immediately fall head over heels for the newly strong Bojji. Daida is betrayed by the mirror and locked away and his consciousness in his body is replaced by Bosse. During this confinement Daida has a complete change of heart from entirely ruthless to sobbing over the misfortune of the brother he ordered executed. The Mirror, a woman named Miranjo. becomes the primary antagonist. Bosse is left ambiguous for most of the show, all that was known about him was that he was a strong king. Through flashbacks, we find out that Bosse one dimensionally cared about strength and the relationships he developed aside from Miranjo were all superficial. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this development, however the writing concerning the events and how Bosse developed as a character leave much to be desired. All the loyalty and trust he inspired as well as the loving relationships he had feel hollow and pointless in the grand scheme of things. He claims to love Hilling and his sons yet could care less about their deaths. Bosse cried at least 4 times about Miranjo, yet he did not have a single emotional crying scene for either of his sons or wives. More meaningful content happened in flashbacks and past events than anything that Bosse did in real time during the story. We also find out that Miranjo basically caused every single bad thing to happen in the entirety of the story. I wont go into specifics but Miranjo made Bosse a king because he made her happy. Then she wanted to spend more time with Bosse which involves stripping him of his kingdom so she tries to get everyone in his family killed. Bosse just sits back and agrees with this because all of his relationships are superficial. The ultimate resolution to this is Bosse rightfully dies and Miranjo is completely forgiven and Daida decides he wants to marry her. Daida decides to do this because he spent 17 episodes in a mental prison watching her past unfold. After watching the 3 to 4 year old and cradling her, he watches her grow up and develop feelings for his father. After all of this, he decides to marry her. This single development brought down the score of the show from a 7 to a 6 for me, it completely comes out of nowhere, is morally questionable, and the resolution for the cause of all their suffering is given a '''''happy''''' end. We are then left with the horrendous quote 'hate the sin not the sinner,' which is horribly ill fitting considering a particular aspect of the flashbacks shown. Some argue that the author wanted each character to get a happy end and that is the purpose for why he wrote this story. There is nothing wrong with that, but the way he did it was horribly executed. In multiple flashbacks throughout the show, characters die, are disfigured, tortured, and have lasting consequences. During the real time events of the show not a single major character dies. There are multiple fake out deaths of which include multiple characters getting stabbed through the chest, given poison, ripped in half, mauled by beasts, and bonked on the head really hard. Every single one of these mortal injuries was cured by Queen Hilling's healing powers. By the third or fourth complete reversal of death on hilling's behalf it became apparent that there were literally no stakes in the second half of the show. Even towards the end when her healing abilities were spent and everyone was essentially dead everyone was miraculously brought back to life. The way in which this story was written established death and stakes before immediately backing out and taking away the possibility entirely. Emotional fight scenes are undermined by the fact that they probably have no real stakes when the only shown stake can easily be fixed with healing magic. Emotional scenes in general rely far too much on characters crying, realizing the error of their ways and then resolving to change or just keep crying. It is easier to name members of the cast that do not break down and cry than it is to name each one that does. I have brought the subject of crying up multiple times because I personally believe that its overuse to a ridiculous degree was that detrimental to the quality of the show. My final large complaint concerns the flashbacks to a conflict between two cultures. One culture is fighting for freedom and helps out a poor culture while the poor culture turns out to be entirely evil and sadistic and willing to betray the kind culture at the drop of the hat. What we are given is a thinly veiled allegory for Japanese and Korean conflict, with the Japanese depicted as the benefactors to an ungrateful and 'evil' Korean culture. I am in no position to lecture anyone on the morality behind the political allegory used in this show, however, from an outsider's perspective, the author let his politics get in the way of conveying a story. That awful quote from before 'hate the sin not the sinner' loses all meaning when you look at how the author portrays the Korean people. They are literally irredeemably evil and torture an innocent girl for the sake of doing so. The audience is not meant to sympathize them, but we are meant to sympathize with the girl they tortured who ended up doing just as many horrific actions because she wanted to make someone else happy. There is no moral ambiguity for the Koreans in the flashbacks, the audience is fully meant to hate the sinner in this case. Again, supposedly the author wanted a fairytale everyone is happy ending, yet he decided to make one sided ethnic racism a key component to his happy feel good story. I am in no position to lecture anyone on their politics but I found this incredibly distasteful and immensely detracting from the show. ------------ Overall 5 ---------- I really wish the rest of the series was as good as the first few episodes. The author wanted a happy fairytale where everyone got a good ending yet set the scene for a completely different story. Emotional development is reliant on crying, there are no real stakes, and characters are a mess by the end. The best part of the show is that the art style is clean aside from a few minor animation issues and the opening and ending songs and animation are good. If you can overlook those aspects, then maybe you'd enjoy Ranking of Kings. I did not end up enjoying anything past maybe episode 8, but those first few episodes were good enough to not bring this show down even lower.
KANLen09
03/24/2022, 09:55 AM
From a classic folktale (The Emperor's New Clothes) to an allegory that's worth more than a thousand words, absolutely NO ONE ever could've fathomed that mangaka Sosuke Toka's work would become more than just a classic underdog story. And instead, it took us the audience to new foundations and heights that really stand amongst the best of the best in the only way that this relative unknown author could've done, teaching us cases of human charateristics in morality, friendship, sacrifice and so much more that we just underestimated how grand everything just naturally works in every step of the way. Simply, wow, and I mean,WOW. The thing that makes Ousama Ranking a.k.a Ranking of Kings work feels childish (or childlike rather) and tomfoolery, but trust me, it just simply works and exudes nothing but quality and quantity as the series progresses with each mysterious step into pure whimsical fantasy as one could get. And for a show that really is this coming-of-age story that's set in medieval times about a deaf boy becoming king and his Shadow companio escaping the treaches of malign, I'd thought that I was watching the game "A Boy and His Blob" come to life, and it is THAT engrossing to seal the deal about the protagonist Bojji and his companion Kage about their own life journeys. But what Sousuke Toka did to elevate a simple story, to simply say that we weren't prepared for what's to come, is truly an understatement to how this is a classic case of subverting tropes and naturally glossing them together to make a plot so life-manipulatively magnificent to knock our socks away. It's a tactic building upon tactics that just warrants you to pay VERY CLOSE attention every minute and every second, because one blink, and you'd miss a beat (unlike SOME people who just chooses to be ignorant and remain full of bias). Case in point, I would've never thought that the generic clash of "good vs. evil" will have that many metaphors built right into it, and Ousama Ranking is without a doubt, the new master in knowing what makes the core theme work without having to fall behind to tropes (y'know, just like all shows out there being so generically contagious). This adventure fantasy feels tight, slick, filled with all of the feelings and emotions that would wreck any viewer (plus yours truly), and above all, shines best in its own right that there's no equal out there that could match the likes of Ousama Ranking. To wedge the knife cutting deep into the heartstrings, how does one manage to do character writing so deep and rich in philosophical humanity that there's always answers for every question? Only Sousuke Toka can do that, and for all the basis of watching Ousama Ranking in these past 6 months, I have felt nothing but happiness, love, sadness, anger, and the most important of all: the fear factor that continues to shake as the series progresses. Every character is not just a cardboard cut-out, because each and every one of them has a purpose to carry their own dreams and ambitions to the extreme points of sacrilegious lamentation, even going as far to the point of pursuing infighting when things go south. I don't wanna go too deep with the characters here, because that would make for an absurdly long essay that could match the likes of Wikipedia (and technically spoil the series for what's to come). But, make no mistake that from the simplest (Bojji and Kage) to the most complex (kings Desha and Bosse) of characters, nothing says more than rareified exquisity when human beings (plus a shadow) can very naturally be their imperfect versions of themselves the way they see others too, topping up with the mysteries of their own backstories that filled with tremendous amounts of weight that is both heartfelt and relatable. This is to the point where I can finally mention the currently famous meme out loud: *smack slipper on the floor* "E-M-O-T-I-O-N-A-L D-A-M-A-G-E"! And boy, Ousama Ranking is truly an emotionally damaging series for all the right reasons, which are layers upon layers of what defines perfect, yet imperfect humans, with no-nonsense "padding" drama. Author Sousuke Toka's manga art style isn't the best and feels rough, and that's where Wit Studio under the guidance of debut director Yousuke Hatta comes in, and it truly elevated this unknown manga that has gone without an English translation right until the anime came out. Speaking about Wit Studio first, the animation studio is obviously going through a transition phase that's leaning away from the days of Attack on Titan and (hopefully not) Vinland Saga. And what came out of it is a totally brand new Wit Studio that is once again ready to experiment on shows of other formats like Great Pretender, Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song and the upcoming season's Spy × Family collab with CloverWorks, all while retaining the same quality that the studio has garnered the notoriety from all these years. And I still have to say that ANY Wit Studio production will never ever miss the mark when it comes to strikingly beautiful visuals and breathtaking animation, and Ousama Ranking is no different in that regard. Being a childlike fantasy that meanders close to Studio Ghibli's stories, and filled with an action-packed adventure that can rival studios like Ufotable and Studio Bind (because Mushoku Tensei really set the bar too high to insanity), Wit Studio always delivers, and delivers hard with passion and dedication to the craft that it's basically next to flawless at all. And what's a studio without the dedication and hard work of the staff team behind Ousama Ranking, most particularly debut director Yousuke Hatta. Having worked as episode director with high-profile people like Shingo Natsume (One Punch Man S1, Boogiepop 2019, ACCA: 13) and Yuzuru Tachikawa (Death Parade), it left more than enough experience for the newbie director to execute his own craft in Ousama Ranking, and it really shows considering the unique and vibrant aesthetics with distinctive art style with simplified faces and expressive animation that fits well, almost the point of paying an omage within the lineage of the directors who helmed Sonny Boy and Mob Psycho 100 respectively. The staff team under Yousuke Hatta also MUST be given props for going above and beyond to adapt the manga up to 11, because it could not be said enough that this was a team effort that's a match made in heaven. Most crucially, what's an anime without music, and while most cases the music always is anime's saving grace when everything else fails, but Ousama Ranking just clearly defies logic to present 2 sets of OSTs that just more than fits the theme and mood of the series. And while I prefer the 1st Cour's arrangement with King Gnu and yama, Vaundy and milet aren't slouch musical artists either, and all 4 songs are great in their own right. In the 1st Cour, the happy-go-lucky aesthetics served Bojji and Kage's journey well with King Gnu's OP song "BOY" which is one hell of a bop, and yama's ED song "Oz." that's a reference to The Prince of Oz to signify the symoblism of a not-so-simplistic fairytale journey. And when the 2nd Cour came in with Vaundy's "Hadaka no Yuusha", that's when all hell broke loose with a slow, but steady gung-ho song with the finest sakuga OP animation heralded by Jujutsu Kaisen's OP director Shingo Yamashita, it's yet another impressive work in the books and you can feel every inch of that influence. milet's ED "Flare" is a nice song to purposefully round things up as a whole, or should I say "People makes the world go round". To say that Ousama Ranking is perfection, more than subjectivity and the classic tale of what it means to be an underestimated underdog's rise to success, I'd think that there's a better way to sum this show as a whole, and that's starting and ending with metaphors. See, this show has laid the hidden meaning of "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link", and putting this in Ousama Ranking's context, realistically sums it up as: "You're as strong as your weakest link." There is NOT a single shred of doubt in my mind that Ousama Ranking will be remembered for months and years to come, and it's the new, modern classic of jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring motivation at its finest.
Dramaddict
03/24/2022, 09:31 AM
Spoilers When a poster of a boy sitting on a throne wearing nothing but his underwear and a cape next to a shadowy figure whose unique design I’ve never seen before, you best bet I was intrigued. Scrolling through seasonal anime on MAL, this one quickly caught my eye. As I always do, I added it to my list and I wait. This one seems special, and I don’t want to dampen the experience by watching something weekly. But as the season went on, the show grew in popularity, and it rose to the top of the MAL charts. Now that intrigue has turned into interestand, dare I say, excitement. I’m not one to buy into the hype; I’ve been disappointed one too many times, but there was something mysteriously captivating about that poster. It was simple; it didn’t try to cram in the entire cast; it was itching my curiosity in a way I haven’t felt in a long time, inviting me to explore its world and story. After months of delayed gratification, there were finally enough episodes that I can comfortably binge, and so I did. What came of it? Well, I was already well-prepared to be disappointed, but certainly wasn’t prepared for the deep, emotional satisfaction this 9-hour journey Ousama Ranking put me through. Holy fuck, the animation quality is on another dimension. Like what in the fuck am I watching? How is this even possible for TV anime? And guess what? Most of it is hand-drawn goodness. Unlike Attack on Titan, where they have 2D characters soar through a 3D landscape, the backgrounds here are hand-drawn. Watching all of these fight scenes, especially Prince Bojji vs King Bosse, was a sight to behold. Seriously, watching a hand-drawn background move around as Bojji flies through the air made me deeply nostalgic for no reason. And the actual fight choreography was nothing short of impressive. The movements felt crisp and had a good flow from action to action, but it was also snappy when it needed to be. I could actually follow what’s going on for once, and with none of the flashy nonsense we see in Demon Slayer. What’s even crazier is how the characters emote in the middle of a fight. I remember in the first episode, when Prince Daida had a spar with Domas using wooden swords, I could see the frustration building up in Daida, and then he shook his head to refocus. The way his cheeks moved in a goopy manner and the sweat flying off his face was so cool to see. And well, speaking of emotions, Ousama Ranking has some of the best crying animation I’ve ever seen. Crying is usually attributed to 1 or 2 emotions, usually overwhelming joy or grief, but really, crying can run the whole gamut of emotions. Be it frustration, anguish, or fear, the way tears fall and how the eyes and face contort communicate so much information visually that it’s hard to describe in words. It’s Wit Studio, so I’m sure they used CG here and there, but it was so well integrated that I legitimately couldn’t tell. Legit, whenever I thought I saw CG, I paused to stare at the freeze-frame, and I swear it was hard to tell the difference. I would go as far as to say Ousama Ranking has set a new production standard for other studios to strive for. This is some next-level KyoAni shit. But enough gushing over the animation. It’s no good if there isn’t a good story to back it up, and I’m glad to say it does. First and foremost, Bojji and Kage’s relationship is a dynamic I don’t think I’ve seen before. Well, protagonist and mascot sidekick is something we’ve seen a million times (everyone knows Pokemon, right?), but Ousama Ranking has a different take on this trope. You see, mascot characters typically serve 1 function, and that’s to be cute. They’re only there as a pet that follows the protagonist around for emotional support, but these charas can get tiring after a while. Not only are they amorphous blobs that don’t take human shape, but a lot of them also have a vocabulary strictly limited to their name and some weird noises. Emotions are conveyed through facial expressions and tone of voice, so needless to say, these charas can only communicate a very limited set of simple emotions, but Ousama Ranking switches this up a bit. Bojji is deaf, so he can’t speak. Kage can speak, but has an amorphous body. This presents a unique challenge for both the animators and voice actors to convey emotions in a more expressive way, and I love it. Just the way these 2 charas act and interact breathes so much life into the show; it’s so much fun to observe such a refreshing dynamic. Bojji, being the one who can use facial expressions, serves as the emotional core of the duo, while Kage is the mouthpiece that connects them to the outside world. It’s a beautiful, symbiotic relationship that I can’t help but adore. Even after only a couple of episodes, when Kage disappears for an extended period of time, his presence was missed. I would like to point out that most of the characters have very literal, straightforward names. King Bosse is the boss of his Kingdom, duh; Queen Hiling is a healer, duh. Anyone who’s seen Naruto knows that “kage” means “shadow,” and well, Kage is literally a shadow…and metaphorically. Yes, all of these very literal names also have metaphorical implications, but most notable of them all is, of course, Prince Bojji himself. I’ve seen enough anime to know that “Bocchi” means “all alone” in Japanese, so Prince Bojji is literally--and metaphorically--all alone. And what happens when you’re all alone? Well, you’re only left with your shadow. The story following Bojji is your typical shounen underdog packed with a hidden OP ability and hyperbolic time chamber, but considering how charming Bojji is as a character, this is hardly an issue. What’s more compelling is the unfolding conspiracy at his home kingdom and how each character plays a role in that conspiracy. It’s been a while since I’ve seen characters this multi-faceted. Some characters we believe to be allies, like Domas and Apeas, end up betraying Bojji at some point in time. Other characters that initially appear to be antagonists turn out to be our friends, like Hiling and Bebin. This makes the plot unpredictable in a way I enjoy. Not only are their motivations well-justified, but it also highlights how there are many angles to a given conflict. There are no “picking sides” in this story like you would see in Star Wars; there isn’t a “good side” and “evil side.” Real life is hardly ever that simple. No, there’s only the individual, and each individual has their own idea of what’s righteous and just; what one person thinks is “the moral thing to do” will hardly ever align with the next. Not only that, there’s a constant battle within each character to “do the right thing” and not cave in to their selfish desires. A good example is king Desha. In order to overthrow his tyrannical father, he was forced to commit genocide because it was the “right thing to do.” He experienced anguish and guilt over the atrocity, but how much of that was motivated by greed for power? It’s kind of impressive how pretty much every relevant character has a duality to them. Hell, the devil only wanted to stay pretty, and even the drunken no-life rando who raised Kage has a sympathetic side to him, and it really makes for a compelling story. And probably the most sympathetic character of them all is Miranjo, who serves as an excellent foil to Bojji. They’ve both suffered a childhood riddled with betrayal and loss, but what separates them is that Miranjo caved into selfish desires. Miranjo lost trust in the world, while Bojji had the strength to forgive and the courage to trust his allies, both of which are fairly traditional western values. By the way, there’s a lot of Westen symbolism in here: David vs. Goliath, Snow White, Holy Mother Mary. I feel like I’m rambling at this point because I’ve only finished the show like half an hour ago and scrambling to organize my thoughts. Anyways, Ousama Ranking is a great show, and it didn’t disappoint. Thank you for reading.
Marinate1016
03/24/2022, 09:26 AM
*Contains slight Spoilers* While on the surface, Ousama Ranking may appear to be a cute Ghibli-esque show full of magic and wonder, it’s so much more than that. It’s a riveting tale of loss, grief and overcoming obstacles, and is by far one of the best anime of the past year. Admittedly, I was a bit slow to pick up Ousama Ranking. I normally watch every seasonal every season, but wasn’t really gripped by the promotional PV and posters from the show. I assumed it would just be some cute adventure story with a prince. It wasn’t until about a month and a half ago thatI gave it a try and I instantly regretted not watching it from the start. From the very first episode, Bouji’s story grabs your attention and you can’t help but want to see him succeed. A little deaf boy who is seemingly disregarded and not taken seriously by his attendants and even his own family. Despite his handicap and preconceived notions about him, Bouji sets out to become stronger. He doesn’t allow his disability to dictate his life and is determined to become someone worthy of the crown. Who doesn’t love an underdog story, right? On Bouji’s journey, we’re introduced to a slew of interesting characters with their own motivations and backstories, as well as a sinister plot to undermine his kingdom. Each one of the characters we meet adds something new to the story and aid in Bouji’s development. What I really liked about the type of storytelling we got here, is that it reminds me of literary classics in the sense there’s not really anything deep or crazy intricate going on in the plot, instead we have a simple story of overcoming adversity. As everyone knows by now, simplicity does not equate to bad writing. In fact, being able to adequately get the point of a story across in such a short and concise way is really a sign of literary talent. While Ousama Ranking’s story is simple and sweet, it’s not without its flaws. Without going too much into spoiler territory, I was disappointed with the way Bouji’s brother Daida’s arc was wrapped up. In the second to last episode, he makes a proposal to a certain character that I really feel undermined his arc and was questionable writing at best. It’s one thing to get the tradtional shonen talk-no-jutsu “I forgive you” spill that we’re accustomed to, but to do that… just really made no sense to me. Alas, nothing’s perfect and I was still largely satisfied with the way Ousama Ranking turned out. Its combination of lovely art, surprisingly good sakuga, great voice acting and a powerful tale of overcoming adversity made it one of my shows of the year. Ousama Ranking gets 10 mirrors out of 10.

Ousama Ranking 王様ランキング

2021 fall | Episodes: 23 | Score: 8.5 (365372)

Updated every Fridays at 00:55 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Producers:Aniplex | Dentsu | Fuji TV | Kadokawa | Bandai Spirits

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Synopsis

Voice Actors

Hinata, Minami

Murase, Ayumu

News

Reviews

RawryBear
10/08/2024, 03:02 AM
Ōsama Ranking is deceptively childish. The art is simple and bright, the setting is very much a fairy tale trope, and the protagonist is a deaf-mute tiny prince whom everyone adores. Leading many people to think this might be aimed at a younger audience. But as the score here indicates, that is not the case. It is an endearingly beautiful masterpiece that takes you on a powerful but rewarding rollercoaster of emotions. Tackling themes like disabilities, living up to parental expectations, blended families, innocence, betrayal, forgiveness, friendship, kindness, and so much more. It's not one of those artsy stories either where the "depth" is achieved by depressingthemes or by confusing the audience. It's just a simple story of a boy who can not hear and can not speak, and how he befriends a thief and an outcast, and their often funny but sometimes sad adventures together in a quest to become the greatest king. The best thing about it is how it subverts tropes. Every single character is complex. There are no cardboard cutouts, despite the seemingly simple storybook setting.
GRG3
09/15/2024, 04:18 AM
Man, I'm late to the review party. I recently rewatched this; it's one of my favourites now. I'll keep this short. This has some of the best character writing you will ever see in anime. Almost every character is so 3d and has so much depth and layers to them like how is that even possible? Only the best of the best can do that. Now, it does put a blunder on one of its really good characters at the end and Ouken(different character/antagonist) is kind of just a decent character but aside from those two, every character that the anime acc trys to develop isdeveloped wonderfully. Man, I adore the character design. I mean, this anime will really make you not judge a book by its cover and its kiddish artstyle and misleading character design just adds to that so much. Queen Hilling is so so so so amazing and I SWEAR ON MY SOUL, she's so peak. She looks and acts like the typical evil stepmother in fairy tales but man, her arc. Best mother in all of anime. Boji. I love him. If I was to make a top 30 protag after I read and watch all the stuff I wanna read and watch, I guarantee he will still be in there. He's so great and Kage is such a great support character. Man, just watch for the character writing alone. Of course, the plot is amazing. I almost cried by episode 4 man omds. The message of inner strength and self love and love in general is done so well omds. I could really go into depth on why the score, artstyle(so unique and fits the tone of ranking of kings so well), direction, cinematography, overall production were done masterfully well, but there are other reviews for that. I just wanna gush about why this thing is so so peak man. Only flaw is the ending. I really was bout to give this a 10/10 but then that flipping ending. Almost ruined one of the antagonists and was just kinda gross in general. But man, the rest of the series was done so well that the ending, despite how bad it was, just puts a slight blunder on the entirety of the anime. This is one of my rougher reviews. I usually go into much more depth at everything but nah I didn't really feel like doing that with this one. All I really wanted to say was watch Ranking of Kings. Don't let this gem of an anime die out in the annals of history as a really good seasonal anime. Let it be known as a near masterpiece of an anime.
megs25
08/20/2024, 09:08 AM
(SPOILER FREE REVIEW) Yeah... This anime is a masterpiece. Perfection will always be subjective and in my eyes this was everything i could've asked for. Story 9/10; The story starts off with a young boy wanting to be the next king and the strongest in the world, nothing special, but as far as the story goes you would never expect a generic fantasy story go into such a deep, AMAZING storytelling with so many twists and turns through the whole show. Art 9/10; So let me just say this artsyle is definitely one of those that you'll either love or strongly dislike, and I am one of thosethat fell in love with it at first sight. It brings me way back reminding me of old disney cartoons but mixed with modern animation. While the artstyle might seem childish the show is far from that and thanks to the artstyle and the simple enough character designs the animation is very fluid and the action sequences are pure art. Soundtrack 8/10; The ops/eds are both amazing especially opening 2 (Naked Hero) that one really is a banger. The soundtrack aka the osts are nothing that special but they fit the fantasy world and are always played at the right time. Character 10/10; JUST WOW, you bet your ass every single character is written so damn well with great arcs all around. At some point you have no idea who to root for or are they an ally or a foe. And finally, enjoyment 10/10; I was in love.
ShattenKaramu08
08/09/2024, 07:58 AM
A would-have-been masterpiece, Ousama Ranking is a show that got quite lost from its unique direction, then finally shattering everything in 1 episode. At the start, a lot of people might be repelled by the art style of this show, or the ordinary characters. You really shouldn't though, as the plot and characters are more complex than it seemed. In fact, the first half of this anime featured one if the most colorful and sophisticated cast in anime. All characters except MC were flawed in some way. We have a stepmother who isn't evil but at first doesn't know how to love, and a wiseteacher who is effective but greedy. All these plus the anime successfully making us feel sympathy for MC and Kage, makes Ousama Ranking a very enjoyable watch for the first half. The second half has Ousama Ranking throw every valuable asset away, only to make the journey feel even more weird and slow. The studio clearly had not enough content to fill in all episodes, so the fight scenes include a lot of unnecessary scenes and seem unnatural. 2 of these episodes have ridiculous plot and fight scenes that would make you scratch your head. Still, the general plot has no major flaws and while MC is completely free from his disadvantages which has been a core plot of the show, he still develops, so it's still salvageable... Up until that scene in episode 22. First, having a sob story doesn't make everyone just forgive you and treat your past misdeeds lightly. Second, not only is the marriage proposal immoral based on the age-gap, but it's also completely ignoring the previous plot and how it affects the character. It gets even worse once you contemplate the true relationship between King Boss and the villain. That scene has made the plot lose any credibility, ruined more than half of the cast, and made this show lost its "children show" excuse. It has destroyed every reason why Ousama Ranking is interesting. Worst of all, it's completely unnecessary and the show would have been much better if it is deleted. For the characters, Queen Hilling and Despa Brothers are clearly the most sophisticated and free from errors. The 2 main characters, while sometimes mishandled, has shown development and are entertaining. Other than that, all characters deteriorated in the second half, with the 2 villains being the worst of the worst. So is Ousama Ranking an acceptable anime? I still think it is. But you use at least 50% of your brain to watch anime, then I advise against watching the second half.
AgonyOfTheGarnet
05/13/2023, 12:15 PM
Osama Ranking is a disappointment with a lot of wasted potential. It is a show with a nice premise and a strong opening trio of episodes that slowly descends into an average revenge story and bad Deus Ex Machina. Let me explain: (Minor spoilers ahead) Bojji is a mute-deaf Prince in a medieval European setting with the dream of being the best King in the world. The first impression is that the story is going to be about the emotional journey of Bojji overcoming abuse and prejudice of society and family, doing the best for his kingdom despite his disabilities. The first emotional aspect is that Bojji isincredibly aware of the mockery he is submitted to, which he can tell by not only the physical language of others but also through reading lips. Now, I get that Bojji knows he is being abused but how can a Mute-Deaf know exactly what people, and even animals say about him if he never heard a single word in his life? Not that I was expecting realism but the shows opens with heavy emphasis on Sign Language, so one would expect that this would a reoccurring element of the show, but the moment other characters learn that Bojji can read lips sign language gets thrown out of the window and characters that know it stop using it completely. The author/show had the opportunity to teach something to the audience but instead just ignore one of the distinguishing elements of the story. The biggest problems I have with the story is that the show had the opportunity to show how medieval people lived with disabilities, build a long arduous story of overcoming the odds and becoming the best King in the world but after a few episodes Bojji starts getting thrown into the sidelines and a succession conspiracy starts taking place but instead of him being directly involved in unfolding the mystery, he goes into a Training Arc while the mystery slowly unfolds regardless to him. The mystery has indeed something to do with him and he gets involved but it doesn’t feel like he truly contributes heavily nor did it feel like his accomplishments and power were truly earned. Just to add a final note on presentation and music: The art style is highly reminiscent of Princess Knight, Heidi of the Alpes and anime from the World Masterpiece Theater. Personally I love it, I grew up in Europe in the 90’s and these anime were popular on TV, the style is Old School but not necessarily bad. Music is great, it is very medieval with orchestral elements and a lot of 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures which are part of the Medieval/Renaissance style of composing. All in all, Ousama Ranking anime could have brought a lot fresh air to the anime landscape with it’s Old School style and standout premise but went to an unsatisfactory fantasy mystery I personally did not find necessary or interesting.
ZolAvi
07/13/2022, 12:10 AM
I wanted so badly to love this series in its entirety. Hells, I was warned by a friend but I didn't listen, I was drawn in to it by the beautiful animation and music - the classical literature slightly presented in a different angle - all combined to form something new. Of course I was drawn in badly, and I'm a crybaby I'll be honest I cry easily and I was perhaps in a tearful mood so this anime suited me incredibly. That is. That is. Until the ending they decided upon. I had noticed of course as the story and mystery unravels itself, themore well... Subpar it became but I held on in hopes of fully understanding and comprehending the entirety of the series' story. Alas. Alas.... My heart was stomped out the moment <spoilers> came back and said such ridiculous words in the second last episode. There would be nothing left to save this story. It was over. I merely continued watching the next episode half heartedly out of mere respect of the start and what could have been's. This could've been a truly wondrous series. Could have. Perhaps one day someone might be interested in rewriting this story, fleshing out the characters more and ah perhaps not... Do whatever this anime had gone down into. Everything that was good about this anime was ruined, nullified - by the end. A story is a whole. Even if the start is stupendous, the middle decent, but if the ending is awful - then... Then it taints the entire series into truly a poorly written one. Perhaps the writing had never been good, we were simply lured in from seeing familiar classics rehashed into what the beginning teasingly promised could be something so much more with a veil of intrigue drawing us deeper in and watching until the end for... For what are we but fools hoping to see a fantasy they were so very interested in be as good as its start? I held on my hope but I feel bitter now like it was for nothing. This isn't the animator's fault. Nor the voice actors. No. The fault lies in the writer. A poorly written but well animated and voice acted anime. ...I even sought out fanfiction but not many wrote an AU. Merely cute character interactions. Fair enough. Perhaps I'll take a turn at it one day. Perhaps not. I have other priorities. But I suppose this is just like reality isn't it, such disappointment is... a stark reminder of life. I wanted this to be a spoiler free review but I have to first of all - address the incredibly disturbing thing at the end. <SPOILERS FROM HERE ONWARDS> . . . . . . . DAIDA IS A CHILD. MIRANJO IS NOT. JAPAN STOP WITH YOUR RIDICULOUS CHILD/ADULT RELATIONSHIP FANTASIES HELLS
KyomaBritannia
07/02/2022, 02:34 AM
Simply appalling. The first few episodes are nothing special, but you get the sense that you are about to watch a decently written underdog story set in a fantasy world that has a small semblance of originality. But the writers were just tricking you into wasting your time. The story quickly devolves into nonsensical plot threads with characters acting completely unnatural, and the main character completely skips any sort of journey and just becomes OP on the spot. Characters that have been established as baddies are forgiven with literally 0 explanation, no matter how many or who they've killed in the past. Dozens of people dieduring the story, but not really because one character runs around fixing them all up every time. They pretend to throw a wrench in the cogs when one time they are out of power, but the situation is resolved within 3 seconds. I could keep going on and on about all the failures in this show, but I won't. That's because I sit here and ponder WHY this show is the way it is. The only explanation I can come up with is that it was done on purpose. What was the purpose? I'm not sure, I can only come up with some guesses. To sum it all up, utter garbage, and they have thoroughly succeeded in wasting a few hours of my time.
Ivanictor
05/20/2022, 10:12 PM
Ranking of Kings is one of the first anime with a score higher than 8.5 that was a complete disappointment for me. And I will explain why considering what was the anime's main purpose and what it really became after everything ended. The purpose: Ranking of Kings was supposed to be a different fantasy story. It shows a little prince called Bojji, a deaf and mute boy that expects to be the king of his kingdom, but is ignored and despised due to his physical conditions. Nor the people of the king and not even his relatives trust him to be the future king whenKing Bosse, his father and very strong king dies, but he still believes to do so. Ranking of Kings starts well. It presents us the main character, his desires, and after shows another characters and develops them with flashbacks. Even the least important characters have some story to tell. But this is not good news for you. In not a distant past, people criticized Naruto, one of the most known anime, for not developing its secondary characters. A lot of characters were forgotten and simply wasted. I don't know if the author of Ousama Ranking listened about it, but his idea of developing everyone went really bad. There are almost no connections among them. Nothing. Ranking of Kings spent a lot of time simply throwing flashbacks with no connection among them to "develop" its characters, but did nothing with them. They became useless stories that happened in a distant place and have no relation with the current time, but the character presence. Where is the kingdom that killed the shadow clan? Where are the gods of Miranjo backstory? Why the anime is called Ranking of Kings if the ranking itself is mentioned only a couple of times in the anime? Not even Black Clover and Naruto, animes that are famous for developing characters with flashbacks, do a so horrible work with it. And the problems are not only these. I said before Ranking of Kings wanted to be a different anime. But it isn't. Have you ever seen a main character that wants to become a king of a whole people before to get "recognition" from them? Have you ever watched an anime where all the main villains are forgiven for no reason and with no fair redemption before? You may have watched them trying something better than what this author did in Ranking of Kings. One of the kingdom's bodyguards betrayed Bojji and tried to kill him. He simplely cried at Bojji's feet and got forgiven. Nothing was done. Has this author thought that the character he created tried to take a kid's life? If so, why did he try to force Bojji to forgive him in the first time they met again? This a typical cliche of shonen anime. And it's not the only, since there are lots of them broadcasted in the anime, such as the training sessions with a master and the fact that nobody dies, no matter how hurt they are. The worst thing that appeared in Ranking of Kings is the villain called Miranjo and her backstory. The anime tries to call its fans dumb. Their biggest villain is the main responsible for most of the current problems of the kingdom. The King Bosse came to back to life, Daida was trapped in a dark place and forced to give his body to Bosse. Bojji's mother was killed in the past. Miranjo killed lots of innocent people and freed some bandits of other kingdom to attack the kingdom in order to get her life with King Bosse. What happened to her? She was forgiven. The author created a "sad" flashback and showed it to the characters. They felt sorry for Miranjo and forgave her without any punishment, Someone thought that it would be enough to say that she suffered in the past to justify this absurd. She wasn't only forgiven, she even received a marriage offer from the person who suffered the most due to her actions. Daida didn't have mercy even of his older brother, but easily forgave the woman that most made him suffer in the World. To complete the entire disaster, there is Miranjo's backstory. After all this appaling sequence, the only way the anime could become even worse is showing us a terrible backstory. Well, congratulations for the author, that's exactly what he did. Sosuke Toka recreated the japanese colonization of Korea, from his point of view, in the anime and handled it as Miranjo backstory. Being more accurate, he used the flashback to tell what he thinks about the history. He created a kingdom called Homura, representing Japan, that was full of kind people that helped the other kingdom to strengthen a future ally in the fight against "gods" that didn't even appear in the anime before. These gods were the metaphor to the western countries, that were advancing over Asian and wanted to increase their influence to China, Japan and Korea. The other kingdom, Gyakuza, is representing Korea. a backward country full of ignorant people. Homura one-sidedly helped to develop Gyakuza, that responded torturing and mutilating Homura's people, including Miranjo and her mom. That's what the author of this thinks and what he wanted to show us, not Miranjo backstory. This was supposed to be enough reason for us to forgive Miranjo. The despicable intention of using Miranjo to retell Japan's invasion to other country became a problem to the anime. During all the time they told us that we should forgive the other people because they were not evil in fact. Even without a proper redemption. But now the anime showed to the watchers a kingdom of evil people, of black eyes that had no depth or development. No mercy or redemption is waiting them, they are just evil people. It's a complete contradiction with the whole development that Ranking of Kings created. It was able to be wrong presenting both, good villains and evil villains, an absolute failure for the story. The author was so lost that he did not even know what to do wit h King Bosse. He appeared and defeated Ouken, the enemy controlled by Miranjo for no reason and after got defeated by Bojji, who couldn't defeat Ouken. We don't know what Bosse was doing, can't comprehend why he wanted to be strong or why Miranjo sacrified herself to grant him power. In the end, Bojji got to be the king and gave up in a month, nobody cares about the kingdom people and not even what they think about it. The story ends with Bojji deciding to create a new kingdom with Kage, his mouthpiece, for no reason. As you can see, the author destroyed completely the rest of the story he had created in favor to tell us his "positive" point of view of the event where Japan invaded Korea, arguing that it was good to Korea because they developed their infrastructure (to explore their natural resources), despite all the tragedy and violence they brought. Final messages: Forgive every beautiful girl that does cruel things to you, no matter how terrible her actions were. And according to the author, Korea is an ungrateful country for refusing Japan's kind help, and doesn't deserve mercy for it. Japan's colonization wasn't violent, nor reprehensible, the guilty is Korea, a people with "bad culture", in the words of the anime.
gadool
04/19/2022, 03:32 AM
The best way I can sum up my experience with Ousama Ranking is disappointment. The series has a unique art style and interesting concept. I liked how the bright “picture book” style contrasts with some of the darker themes that come up. I was invested for the first 10 or so episodes because of the story, art, great music, and good fight animation. However, the writing and pacing destroyed my investment in the second half of the first season. In order to avoid spoilers, I will not list anything specific, but pretty much all of the deaths got reversed in some way. This is theBIGGEST problem I have with the series, so it’s not something I could avoid mentioning. It destroyed the stakes in the story, because if a character seemed like they were definitely dead, they would get “revived” not even an episode later. It got so out of hand that I started rolling my eyes and hoping for characters to die for good. It’s especially bad because one of the strengths of the series is that it does a good job fleshing out the backstories of side characters. After mourning the “death” of a character, seeing them come back makes it feel like the writers are toying with your emotional investment. It feels like nothing has weight in the story. Rather than a serious story with a childish art style, it turned into just a childish story, because they were unable to let even somewhat major characters die, over and over again. Another downfall of the second half of the first season is that they would interrupt intense fights. Although I love learning more about characters and their backstories, they would tease an intense fight with a cliffhanger, but then show a flashback or irrelevant scene and cut back to the fight already being over. I don’t know if it’s because of budgetary reasons, but it’s a huge letdown and seriously frustrating. On the flip side, I looked forward to the fights because they would show some pretty awesome/unexpected moves and had great animation.. it just sucks that they would interrupt the flow and then sometimes skip it altogether. My last gripe is with the progression of the main character’s strength. I love a good underdog story, but the whole point is that the underdog works to gain their strength throughout the story. The main character starts off being weak and incompetent, which is fine, but I expected him to grow his strength by facing off with stronger and stronger opponents throughout his journey. Instead, he becomes one of the strongest people in the world after training, mostly off screen, for 2-3 episodes. After training we see him battle small fry once, and the other strong characters (with an exception) instinctively know that he’s unbeatable. At his core, he did not change, despite there being a few scenes where they attempt (and fail) to show some sort of growth in his resolve. His power feels forced and unnatural, like something given to him rather than something gained through true growth. He becomes way too powerful, absurdly fast. I see some people recommend this as a series you can enjoy if you want to shut your brain off, but I disagree. I think it’s just disappointing and not worth a watch.
cld9100
04/02/2022, 04:22 AM
The first five episodes of Ousama Ranking are the best first five episodes of an anime I've ever seen. No exaggeration: the art and music is top-notch; characters defy easy categorization and feel lived-in, each one capable of both mistakes and heroic moments of growth; the world is built on childish whimsy and nods to old fantasy tropes, but the story is deceptively mature, balancing light comedy with family drama, political intrigue, and sudden violence; the fights are visceral, gorgeously animated, and *restrained* to a degree nearly unprecedented in the genre. This is masterful stuff. It's such an incredible shame how the writing nosedives after that.There are scattered moments of greatness in the next eighteen episodes, and the technical aspects remain elite, but the story consistently declines in quality and never recovers. What initially seemed like a commitment to morally grey characterization soon starts to feel like a cynical reliance on twists. The first time a character does something that goes against their established motivations, it makes them interesting; by the tenth time, there is no character left. Most of the cast eventually morphs into the same indistinguishable ball of contradictions, shifting loyalties on a whim. The restrained action of the first five episodes is abandoned in favor of unnecessary, egregiously lengthy fights with no consequences. If a major character ever gets injured or seems to die, just give it a few minutes... healing magic is on the way. Sometimes, the story doesn't even bother to give us "magic" as an excuse; it just blatantly ignores any earlier scenes that become inconvenient, like they were only written in the first place for cheap shock value. A renowned swordsman has his own right hand cut off in a dramatic display of penance. A few episodes later, he's acquired a prosthetic hand offscreen and swings a sword like nothing happened. Another man gets his leg ripped off above the ankle and loses an eye in the same fight. After, he wraps up his stump and somehow walks normally on it. Neither injury has any impact on his fighting ability or is ever mentioned again. A shocking early death is retconned, but the mechanism by which the character survived is never explained. Throw in a truly irredeemable villain who gets no comeuppance simply because everyone seems to adore her for no discernible reason (what's a little murdering-your-entire-family between friends, anyway?) and a random marriage at the end of the season between two characters who had zero romantic interactions prior to the proposal, and it's safe to say the first five episodes of Ousama Ranking were a fluke.
ThatAnimeSnobRE
03/26/2022, 05:39 AM
Ranking of Kings was a standout in the roster of 2021 by looking like a European fairy tale. It also began as a typical underdog story about a weak prince nobody takes seriously trying to win his right to the throne, before becoming more elaborate by including themes such as psychological issues and political intrigue. Unfortunately it doesn’t do much from a point on and thus it never escapes the fairy tale vibe it began as. Most of the conflicts are resolved way too fast and in ways that insult your intelligence. 1) Selfish people and traitors will be changing their mind when they see theprince cry a lot or never give up, and will be forgiven almost immediately. 2) Bad guys are turned into misunderstood people with a last moment sad flashback that is making them tragic in an instant (even if they have caused harm to thousands of innocents) and are never punished. 3) Most negative consequences such as fatal injuries go away before you know it. Also fake deaths are abundant. 4) There is no sense of tension or high stakes when betrayals, horrible acts, and injuries can be undone so easily. It wouldn’t be a problem if the author never made it seem like stakes exist, but he does all the time and constantly deflates every conflict with cheap fixes. It’s nice to see a show taking a more serious approach with its material, but let’s not pretend it does an exceptional job. The lack of negative consequences make it come off like yet another escapism fantasy for people who wish they will be forgiven for all the shitty things they have done, simply by crying a lot. We live in a society where someone can have his entire life ruined by eating a jelly bean, and the easiest method for making people forget all the crap you have done is to manipulate them through their emotions by crying in front of a camera. Ranking of Kings relies way too much on people crying for making you think they deserve a happy ending instead of punishment for all the crap they did, and it reaches levels of insanity the closer it gets to the ending. One of the characters is even given a marriage proposal as a reward for crying despite being the most horrible person in the world. Also ignore anyone who considers this to be an instant classic or something as grand as that. It’s a very niche show that appeals to fans of fairy tales who seek something more elaborate. Most casual anime fans will not bother watching something that looks like a European fairy tale or will not be fond of a simple coming-of-age story they can find elsewhere, preferably with magical samurais and big titty ladies. As for the veteran watchers, they will most likely dislike how it gives a happy ending to people that deserve years in a torture chamber.
BackwardsEpa
03/24/2022, 08:29 PM
Ousama Ranking (aka Ranking of Kings) is what you would call the “Underrated Hidden Gem of the Season” with it’s first two episodes being standouts in the anime community due to the story’s underdog Bojji, the protagonist of the story who even while being the son of the king, is deaf and mute and his nice to a fault personality causes the townspeople to make fun of him and insult him. This, along the sad backstory of Kage, a sentient shadow looking creature who becomes Bojji’s friend, makes the audience care for this story’s two main characters and root for them in the mission ofhaving Bojji become the best king he can be. A strong main plot, along with mysterious political intrigue and two-faced characters in which the plot takes a new twist in every single episode makes Ousama Ranking one of the best anime of the Fall 2021 season and one of the best anime of 2021. Well, that is until the opening of the show changes and the quality drops faster before you can say “wow the op is amazing”. During the first eleven episodes the screen time of characters varied with a minimum of three story threads happening at the same time which is great for the pacing of the show, especially when you have a fairly big size of characters and your protagonist can literally not speak. This also allowed for us to know more about the side characters of the show, with the most interesting stories being about the Big Four, four warriors of the kingdom whose entire character is different compared to your first impressions of them in where the same character can be hateful and turn into someone to root for or be someone you liked revealing themselves to be someone you can easily root against after you know more about them. This even applies to Daida and Hilling, the second prince and queen of the kingdom who at first seem like absolute jerks, but after you get more time with them you see that they are actually not that bad. These multiple perspectives also enhance the mystery element of the show because you know that a big conspiracy is taking place below our protagonist’s nose and it makes the audience wonder how the rest of these characters will affect the overall story. Honestly, all of this praise for the first half really makes the decline of the second half hit so much harder. The multiple perspectives that were utilized in the first half are no longer a thing in the second half and while that may not look like a negative, it drastically impacts the pace of the show in the later episodes. I am not kidding when I tell you that the first few episodes of the second half feel like filler because it takes so long for the plot to progress and every scene takes so much time from the episode when the characters that are taking part of the scene end up influencing nothing of the plot. We pass one episode in one fight in which it feels like it never ends because one dude keeps getting healed, another episode in which one dude protects a staircase, and we have another episode that seems incredibly relevant to the show just for that conflict to be resolved astonishingly quickly. Conflict is taking place, but the pace in which it is resolved and the way it IS resolved is so boring, especially considering this is supposed to be the event that the first eleven episodes of the season led up to. It really feels like the story was padding itself and stalling for time just so that Bojji resolves the problems the characters are facing, and I am not exaggerating. Bojji resolves all the problems like a living mcguffin and all the plots introduced go as follow: Enemy shows up, side character fights, they do good for some time and then get wrecked, it looks like they will die oh no, Bojji shows up, they are scared Bojji will die and tell him to not do anything, Bojji does the thing and wrecks the enemy, side character is amazed and chill with Bojji until they tell him what to do next. It’s so repetitive and predictable that the only time it isn’t repetitive is when they have him fight a freaking immortal being just for it to really only be padding time until Bosse shows up, wrecks the thing, and we move on. The pacing is flatlined, the story beats are repetitive, whole episodes feel like side quests to get to the final battle, and the mystery element is gone as they just spit out exposition to the audience mid episode about the mastermind of this whole conflict. The character department also takes a hit because the only characters that do anything from the good side are Bojji and Hilling (and Hilling only does things because she has hax abilities) so the Big Four that got screen time and depth in the first half are just irrelevant and are just there to take a beating until Bojji shows up like the second coming of Christ and saves the day. Dorshe is a punching bag, Apeas is a walking L, Bebin does nothing during the first episodes of the second half aside from being the one they give exposition to, and Domas who got the most character so far only gets to prove himself by talking the talk and not walking the walk. Kage the one who started off as a thief in the start of the show descended into someone so naive and stupid that it hurts to watch and really just felt like they put Bojji’s personality into him but the difference is that he can actually talk. What about the antagonists that were present in the first half? Well they only give exposition or are given exposition to that’s really it and there really is nothing you can expect from the immortal dude who can’t even make a word and who’s only character traits that makes him relevant are that he is immortal and that he’s crazy. Finally, the second half has what I believe is one of the worst tropes in media and that is when the main characters forgive someone, not because they went through a redemption arc and actually redeemed themselves, but because they are just nice and because the bad person has a sad backstory that they should be exempt from all blame. The first half of this anime had betrayals, ones that hurt and which took a lot for the characters that were betrayed to forgive the person that wronged them and it took a lot of effort from the evildoer to try to properly redeem themselves, not by giving out a sob story, but by showing that they have become better. So when the person who objectively did the most wrong is forgiven not by proving anything, but because they have a sad backstory that I just cannot accept, and that is one of the reasons that the second half of Ousama Ranking hurts the show’s quality. Even though the second half of Ousama Ranking did not live up to the expectations that the first half set up, I still gotta commend the art and animation department of this anime along with the sound department. The art is very different from your average anime and the fact that Wit Studio did not only make the style work, but also enhanced it through the use of color and shading combined with amazing and fluent animation makes this anime at points look like a movie due to the direction and cinematography of the episodes. The music in this show is also great with the background music exuding a mythical and medieval vibe to the scenes and when it hits IT HITS. The openings are also amazing and the direction of the second opening is amazing and really just shows how much effort Wit Studio put into this show. Unfortunately, art, animation and music does not make a show good automatically and even though the first half is great and truly deserving of an 8/9 and even possibly an 9/9 score, the decrease in quality in regards to the story and character aspect of the show plummets in the second half and because of that I just can’t give Ousama Ranking anything higher than a 6/9. However, don’t take my score as gospel and give Ousama Ranking a try yourself because even though the second half didn’t work for me, the first half is amazing and who knows maybe unlike me you actually enjoy the second half of this anime. So even with a score of 6/9, I recommend this anime if you yourself want to watch it because I believe that there is a chance that other people will find this anime to be greater than I did.
EDOSHINRATENSEI
03/24/2022, 05:38 PM
Ousama Bojji The first half of this anime was fun and heartwarming. Bojji is very cute, and I wanted to see his journey to overcome his challenges. Also, there’s a main mystery plot that got me excited and more invested in the outcome. The animation might throw some people off because it is simple and made the show leaning towards to kids. But I didn’t mind it because of the story that built up. However, the second half where everything went down was a major disappointment. The character decisions at the end were both surface-level and baffling. It’s not often that I see an ending that threw thingsoff this quickly. Overall, it had enjoyments but ended in such a wrong note. 6-6.5/10
mythical_k
03/24/2022, 12:48 PM
Spoiler Warning: Whenever I think of the phrase, "Never judge a book by its cover," this anime will always come to mind. Ranking of Kings was an experience I never expected to be good, but now, I understand that I truly love this anime to bits. There were so many incredible moments that made me tear up and cheer for the protagonist to achieve his dreams, which made this anime even better. Even though I never read the web manga it came from, Ranking of Kings is one of the rare moments an anime is better than the said manga. There are many things theanime did incredible with while occasionally having its flaws. So many events occurred in both cours of the anime that each had their moments of excitement. At the same time, it was heartbreaking, showing the audience why this anime got classified as a seinen series. The central moral that I noticed is never giving up on your dreams and achieving them despite the challenging obstacles. Throughout the series, the anime progresses from the protagonist getting mocked for his physical disabilities to earning respect from the entire kingdom for his brave actions towards the series's climax. What this anime did phenomenal on is the backstories of many central characters. They all connected perfectly and made the story even more intriguing to learn about other characters' perspectives. However, the double-edged sword in this anime was giving characters who committed unforgivable acts redemption. Although they suffered, the fact that they get off the hook seems unrealistic, but I can somewhat understand why they would go that route. The overall pacing combined with these aspects is neatly done, and I enjoyed seeing all of them watching this anime. The story primarily focused on the main protagonist's growth as a person and as the prince of his kingdom. In the beginning, there were many character introductions, showing what the characters appear to be like, but in reality, they act differently from their appearances. After the smooth beginning, the anime progresses to the protagonist's training arc, the chaos begins to bloom back in the central kingdom, which sets the tone for the second half of the anime. Despite the slow pacing for the second half, it gave the series its share fair of justice. Even though some parts of the second half were slowly paced at times, what they did right was the emotional impact that it left on the audience. The emotional backstories and the motivations on both sides made this anime a roller coaster of emotions, making each episode worth watching. As for the ending itself, I loved how it ended, and if they continue to make a second season from there, I would be down to watch it. What I loved the most about Ranking of Kings is the characterization of the central cast. Not only are their designs give off reminders of Studio Ghibli movies, but it also takes the phrase, "Never judge a book by its cover" very seriously. The protagonist, Bojji, is one of the most relatable anime characters I've ever seen. Even though I'm not deaf like him, seeing Bojji working hard to save his kingdom brought me to tears, as I can personally relate to his journey. His progression to one of the strongest characters in the series made him one of my favorite anime protagonists of all time. Another character, Kage, although he seemed evil at first, he eventually became a great friend for Bojji, always being by his side, and became one of my favorite anime duos to date. As for the other characters, such as Queen Hilling may look mean, but they have endearing sides to them that made their characters more likable. As for the villain, Miranjo, I feel like her redemption wasn't the best, but with time, it could be worth it, but I still don't forgive her for causing the anime's events, even before it occurred. Overall, the central cast in the anime is one of my favorites in terms of characterization, and I loved how they did this route for them. I was not expecting the animation and the visuals to look amazing, but Wit Studio was able to make it work for the art style. The fluid animation during the action scenes and the colors for this anime was a sight to behold. It easily matches the tone for both parts of the anime, and I enjoyed how much love it got. However, I felt like the animation for the second half was decently done, but it's understandable as Wit Studio is still going through financial problems. Aside from that, the quality was consistent, rarely any mistakes, and gave the right impact for when there were fight scenes in a few episodes, such as episode 21, which I consider to be the best episode in the series. Thank you, Wit Studio for animating this series, and Vivy. I enjoyed your animation so much, and you're my favorite anime studio ever. The music in this anime was consistent for when the tone for each scene was right, either making it emotional or intense. It matches the fantasy and medieval theme Ranking of Kings has and made me feel like I was also in that world. The opening and ending songs were phenomenal, combined with the stellar animation. For the first half of the anime, Boy by King Gnu matches Bojji's character in terms of tune and is easy to listen to whenever it plays. The ending song, Oz by Yama, is beautiful, making the music sound emotional, showing how much emotional impact is for the anime. In the second half, Naked Hero by Vaundy and Flare by Milet matched the change in tone the anime took smoothly and sounds incredible to listen with the beautiful visuals used for the openings and endings. Each song has its moments, and they all suit the entire series to a T. Overall, Ranking of Kings is another masterpiece created by Wit Studio, and I'm glad I didn't skip this series last fall. Even though there were slight flaws in the anime, it also matches the moral of how you can be amazing even with those flaws. Thank you, Yousuke Hatta and Makoto Fuchigami, for directing this adaptation and Jefferson Melo for the incredible writing. Watching this anime meant a lot to me, and I will dearly miss this series so much. Even if they decide to release a second season, I was satisfied to experience this masterclass anime until the very end.
brillante
03/24/2022, 12:26 PM
I am forever grateful to have watched Ousama Ranking each week, and I’m sad that I will never see it with fresh eyes again. This anime was truly a treasure from the beginning to the end. I’ll keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, but just in case, you’ve been warned. On the surface, Ousama Ranking (or Ranking of Kings) appears like a fairytale, a classic Hero’s Journey about a young deaf-mute prince who wants to be the hero and save everyone, accompanied by his shadowy but loyal sidekick. But as you watch, you’ll find a story that respects these classic tropes even when it subvertsthem. Even if this story is something we’ve seen before, in one way or the other, it’s still told uniquely thanks to a complex cast of characters that are a joy to watch on screen. It hooks you in and doesn’t let go, and after every episode ended I eagerly looked forward to the next week to see what happened next. One of the most common complaints you’ll see about this show is that the art style looks too juvenile, and therefore not palatable. Funnily enough, I was actually drawn into the show because of the art style, which is reminiscent of both the classic days of anime and traditional storybook illustrations. The aesthetic evokes nostalgia while creating shots that are always beautiful to look at. Even when production values fluctuated between episodes, the anime looked vibrant in both static and sakuga. The character design and direction elevates the show so much that it’s never dull to look at. When the animation needs to hit, IT WILL HIT. Just wait until you get to episode 21. The music helps elevate it as well, providing Ousama Ranking with a soundtrack that is both heroic and emotional. It does what it needs to do for this medieval fantasy world. However, the standouts are absolutely the OPs and EDs of the show, especially OP 2 (Hadaka no Yuusha by Vaundy), which might have claimed OP of the Year only a few days into 2022. We’ll see how long that holds up, but each of the opening and closing sequences brought in artists that were dedicated to sharing the themes of the show. I absolutely love this show, but there are a few flaws that hold me back from calling this show a masterpiece. The first half was so masterful that it paled in comparison to the second half, where the pace felt too slow in the middle, and too fast towards the end. And of course, since this is an adaptation of an ongoing manga, not every loose end got tied up. And then there's the controversy with...Daida’s arc. It's VERY iffy, and his actions directly affect the fate of the villain. I’m not on board with it. If it were saved for later in another installment, when there's been more development to justify it, maybe I would have. However, I feel like we're in a Darling in the Franxx situation again, where people are letting it overshadow the rest of the anime. - it's a very complicated controversy that deserves absolutely be discussed, but in truth, the revelation didn't sour my evaluation of the whole series. That whole thing aside, I still really enjoyed the second half, even if it's noticeably weaker. Ousama Ranking is a mature, but feel-good story about loyalty, kindness, and perseverance that will steal your heart away with its adorable protagonists. It has something for everyone, from mystery, action, drama, and even a bit of comedy. I have no doubt that this anime will linger as a classic among fans. If I were to score just by cour, the first would be a 10, and the second falls to an 8. The average of that would be 9, and I think it's suitable for this series. I hope that one day, we’ll get a second installment because there is so much left to be told.
Dukino
03/24/2022, 11:41 AM
Masterpiece. Not afraid to call this anime a masterpiece. Front to back excellent storytelling spearheaded by the most perfect main character an author could write. While there may be some I enjoy more, Bojji checks every single box for a well written, well developed and well rounded protagonist. Bojji not only drives the story but showcases a message that speaks to the heart. One that no matter how looked down upon you are, or no matter how people might underestimate you, we can all get stronger and we all have worth. Despite how alone you might feel there's hope to keep going and become better.Bojji brought many tears to my eyes throughout this show through not only his suffering but his perseverance. Plenty of happy tears were shed seeing Bojji rise above the pain surrounding him. While having one of the best anime companions to ever be written. The finale truly brought it all home showing how much Kage lit Bojji up. Kage is absolutely Bojji sun, bringing out the in Bojji at every turn. Always there to give Bojji encouragement and support. A true best friend and ally to Bojji, someone he needed for a long time and finally found. I'm so happy they are going off to journey more together. It might be a miracle for them to stay on the same path for the rest of their lives but if anyone deserves a miracle its these two. Its definitely the two lead characters who bring this show up above most others. But that's not to discredit the other amazing aspects around them that help it stand out as well. The supporting cast is extremely strong. Hiling alone top tier anime mom but others like the Big Four, Despa, Desha, Hokuro, and even Daida have excellent writing given to them so we see their characters grow. All the way down to the minor characters like Gigan, the Underworld Guard Captain, and Mitsumata get spotlight and have great moments. The villain Miranjo is probably the most polarizing and prickly part of this whole story. While some might consistently condemn her, which I understand, I can allow her rebirth since she vows to help as many people as possible for the rest of her life. Its not a perfect solution but it works well enough. Daida by her side Miranjo will atone. Bosse himself also kind of a villain in all this, he took away so much from Bojji its hard not to dislike the guy. Bosse acted very selfishly but we could see it didn't sit well with him what he'd done once he actually reached the end of the rainbow so to speak. Once Bosse attained ultimate power it all felt pointless. All these characters are just so well written they're all a complicated web of motivations and feelings. Topping off the impressive writing is the production. Top notch the whole show as well. Wit Studio outdid themselves with this one. Exceeding anything it thought we would see in this show when I started it. I could tell from the previews it would look good but wow did it look good! Every action scene pops and has such great flow. Its amazing to see an already well written story get to look so good too. Overall this is a show that deserves every ounce of praise it's been given and then some more. It blew me away the whole ride and idk if I've ever cried so much watching an anime. I grew very attached to Bojji and that's something that will never go away. So I mist gush and heap congratulations to everyone involved in such an experience. I will never forget something as special as this. 1000000000000000/100
BigDaddyTuesday
03/24/2022, 10:37 AM
TL;DR Ranking of Kings had several amazing first few episodes and if the rest of the series followed it could have easily been a 9. There were legitimate stakes, the mystery surrounding the characters was intriguing, and the struggles of the protagonists were well handled. The middle half of the show is not as gripping as the first handful of episodes. Character motivations get spelled out for the most part and they do not live up to the mystery and intrigue shown at the beginning of the show. There are also issues with pacing, an overuse of tropes, and some characters getting completely shafted interms of development and screen time. What follows is a resolution that does not fix the previous issues and instead makes weirdly questionable decisions morally. There are also some badly injected takes on real world events concerning Japan and Korea that paint Korea as one-sidedly evil. The politics do not apply to most viewers; however, they are concerning when viewed in a vacuum. The art style invokes that of a clean looking storybook fantasy and holds up for the most part. The opening and ending songs and visuals are stellar throughout the run of the show as well. I don't normally watch shows as they air, but Ousama Ranking's first half had me gripped to the point where I wanted to see everything that followed as it unfolded. What I got was disappointment. Below is a much more in depth look at why I feel this way. Spoilers are present to fully explain why I gave this show a 5. ------------Story and Characters - 5------------ What initially drew me to Ranking of Kings, the story, starts out with immense promise. Two competing sons for the right to the throne; Bojji, the designated successor yet crippled from birth as well as kindhearted and talented in his own right. The other Daida, a younger stronger and much more arrogant prince. The first few episodes of the show revolve around who supports which prince, with each character having various stated and unstated reasons for doing so. Characters with development at this point were multilayered and had compelling individual struggles. The protagonist Bojji struggles to fit in because he is weak, small, gullibly kind, deaf, and mute. He finds a friend in Kage who recognizes his will and talent in combination with his kindness as something great. The sword master in charge of Bojji struggles between loyalty to his master and the potential he saw in another. Queen Hilling was shown at first to be harsh towards Bojji for his gullible demeanor and fully supported Daida over him, yet it is also shown how much she truly cares for him as her son. The mysterious Spear Master and Snake Charmer had their own reasons for being loyal to Bojji and Daida respectfully with each showing potential for further development. Daida himself is power hungry and craves to be as strong and as great as his father. Together with a magic mirror giving advice, Daida was willing to do anything to cement his rule. When first watching the show, I was not sure what to expect from any of the characters and I found myself pleasantly surprised at the quality of writing despite the simplicity of the premise. Eventually, the contention between the two princes is put on hold and the rest of the show starts to slowly falter. There are many debates as to whether or not the second half of the show is worse or not. Some say the quality is the same, some say it is not. I'd say the second 2/3rds of the show start to show significant problems and do not hold up overall. There are a handful of reasons for this being the character developments, the plot as a whole, pacing, the political allegory, and the tropes used. -----SPOILERS------ Starting with minor complaints, some segments of the show focused one-sidedly on either Bojji and Kage or people living in the kingdom. Some episode plots were paced weirdly and going up to two episodes with barely any development for Bojji's plot thread felt weird after seeing him every episode. Similarly, suddenly cutting to the kingdom which had been irrelevant for several episodes was also jarring at times. There are also multiple unresolved plot threads and characters introduced that go nowhere or are irrelevant. The source material is a web manga currently being published so I hope they eventually go somewhere meaningful. As far as characters go, everyone from the underworld remains fine as a character, the spearman is the most compelling of the four knights and Hilling is fine aside from one aspect. The rest of the cast did not fare well in terms of development. The biggest aggressor to this is Kage, who started out as gruff yet supportive and ultimately ended up as nothing but a mouthpiece for Bojji. His troubled past led to a sour demeanor that eventually changed when he decided to support Bojji, which he did by protecting his life and paying for his training. After this, Kage does not do anything of note except talk for Bojji because he is mute, give play by play commentary during fights and altercations, and cry. Kage hardly ever shows off his once gruff personality, instead it feels as if he was created to serve as a way for the viewer to understand Bojji's every mumbled word. In particular, his emotional crying is overused to a ridiculous degree. The swordsman tries to kill Bojji in episode 5 and then spends the next 18 episodes wallowing in pity over the fact that he betrayed his master. He went from driven and experienced to being lectured by every character in the show and being treated like a child. His student, a supporter of Bojji from the beginning, is portrayed as inexperienced and naive yet he is shown in a more mature and knowledgeable light than the swordsman on multiple occasions. In addition to this, the swordsman resorts to comical levels of self harm and pity on multiple occasions. Even after swearing newfound loyalty to Bojji, he constantly looks for ways to get himself killed in atonement even after multiple characters tell him he is wrong for doing so. What started out as an experienced tutor who questioned loyalty over potential was reduced to a bumbling sob story who can't decide between loyally serving, killing himself for redemption, or crying on the floor for forgiveness. In particular, his crying is overused to a ridiculous degree. The spearman is the most compelling of the initially introduced knight cast, struggling between two factions of loyalty. This isn't particularly groundbreaking and his hypocrisy and wishy washy nature is even frustrating at times, but, comparing him to other cast members he oddly stands as one of the few mildly decently handled characters. Like others, he still breaks down and cries but not to the point of significant overuse. The snake charmer does not get any character development aside from a handful of lines and scenes that show he is kind but pretends to be mean as a facade. He doesn't cry which makes him alright. Last of the knights is the big muscleman in charge of protecting Hilling, he does just that and is one of the few characters to actually suffer consequences from being attacked. You could easily argue that this makes him the best character between the four knights which I find sad considering he barely has any nuance in his personality. Overall, each of the knights showed promise at the beginning and by the end two were barely developed. One was bastardized from a multilayered man with ambition and drive into a devout Bojji afficionado who can't control his suicidal impulses or his waterworks, and only one of them ended up being passable as a character. An additional small gripe I have with all of them is that they decide to support Bojji over their king in the end. Even the Snake Charmer who was entirely in support of Daida and Bosse decides to support Bojji. Speaking of Bojji, some find issue with the fact he went from essentially powerless to potently strong in a 4-episode training arc. Personally, I don't have issue with it because the logic behind why it worked flowed well. Bojji was initially already very swift, he was just taught how to take advantage of that. I don't have many issues with Bojji as a protagonist, but he does cry too much for emotional scenes to feel effective. I do take issue with the fact that nearly every single one of his doubters form the beginning changes their tune with ease. Bojji went from misunderstood as stupid and naive to being seen as a driven saint compared to everyone else. I wish that other characters were not as quick to immediately fall head over heels for the newly strong Bojji. Daida is betrayed by the mirror and locked away and his consciousness in his body is replaced by Bosse. During this confinement Daida has a complete change of heart from entirely ruthless to sobbing over the misfortune of the brother he ordered executed. The Mirror, a woman named Miranjo. becomes the primary antagonist. Bosse is left ambiguous for most of the show, all that was known about him was that he was a strong king. Through flashbacks, we find out that Bosse one dimensionally cared about strength and the relationships he developed aside from Miranjo were all superficial. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this development, however the writing concerning the events and how Bosse developed as a character leave much to be desired. All the loyalty and trust he inspired as well as the loving relationships he had feel hollow and pointless in the grand scheme of things. He claims to love Hilling and his sons yet could care less about their deaths. Bosse cried at least 4 times about Miranjo, yet he did not have a single emotional crying scene for either of his sons or wives. More meaningful content happened in flashbacks and past events than anything that Bosse did in real time during the story. We also find out that Miranjo basically caused every single bad thing to happen in the entirety of the story. I wont go into specifics but Miranjo made Bosse a king because he made her happy. Then she wanted to spend more time with Bosse which involves stripping him of his kingdom so she tries to get everyone in his family killed. Bosse just sits back and agrees with this because all of his relationships are superficial. The ultimate resolution to this is Bosse rightfully dies and Miranjo is completely forgiven and Daida decides he wants to marry her. Daida decides to do this because he spent 17 episodes in a mental prison watching her past unfold. After watching the 3 to 4 year old and cradling her, he watches her grow up and develop feelings for his father. After all of this, he decides to marry her. This single development brought down the score of the show from a 7 to a 6 for me, it completely comes out of nowhere, is morally questionable, and the resolution for the cause of all their suffering is given a '''''happy''''' end. We are then left with the horrendous quote 'hate the sin not the sinner,' which is horribly ill fitting considering a particular aspect of the flashbacks shown. Some argue that the author wanted each character to get a happy end and that is the purpose for why he wrote this story. There is nothing wrong with that, but the way he did it was horribly executed. In multiple flashbacks throughout the show, characters die, are disfigured, tortured, and have lasting consequences. During the real time events of the show not a single major character dies. There are multiple fake out deaths of which include multiple characters getting stabbed through the chest, given poison, ripped in half, mauled by beasts, and bonked on the head really hard. Every single one of these mortal injuries was cured by Queen Hilling's healing powers. By the third or fourth complete reversal of death on hilling's behalf it became apparent that there were literally no stakes in the second half of the show. Even towards the end when her healing abilities were spent and everyone was essentially dead everyone was miraculously brought back to life. The way in which this story was written established death and stakes before immediately backing out and taking away the possibility entirely. Emotional fight scenes are undermined by the fact that they probably have no real stakes when the only shown stake can easily be fixed with healing magic. Emotional scenes in general rely far too much on characters crying, realizing the error of their ways and then resolving to change or just keep crying. It is easier to name members of the cast that do not break down and cry than it is to name each one that does. I have brought the subject of crying up multiple times because I personally believe that its overuse to a ridiculous degree was that detrimental to the quality of the show. My final large complaint concerns the flashbacks to a conflict between two cultures. One culture is fighting for freedom and helps out a poor culture while the poor culture turns out to be entirely evil and sadistic and willing to betray the kind culture at the drop of the hat. What we are given is a thinly veiled allegory for Japanese and Korean conflict, with the Japanese depicted as the benefactors to an ungrateful and 'evil' Korean culture. I am in no position to lecture anyone on the morality behind the political allegory used in this show, however, from an outsider's perspective, the author let his politics get in the way of conveying a story. That awful quote from before 'hate the sin not the sinner' loses all meaning when you look at how the author portrays the Korean people. They are literally irredeemably evil and torture an innocent girl for the sake of doing so. The audience is not meant to sympathize them, but we are meant to sympathize with the girl they tortured who ended up doing just as many horrific actions because she wanted to make someone else happy. There is no moral ambiguity for the Koreans in the flashbacks, the audience is fully meant to hate the sinner in this case. Again, supposedly the author wanted a fairytale everyone is happy ending, yet he decided to make one sided ethnic racism a key component to his happy feel good story. I am in no position to lecture anyone on their politics but I found this incredibly distasteful and immensely detracting from the show. ------------ Overall 5 ---------- I really wish the rest of the series was as good as the first few episodes. The author wanted a happy fairytale where everyone got a good ending yet set the scene for a completely different story. Emotional development is reliant on crying, there are no real stakes, and characters are a mess by the end. The best part of the show is that the art style is clean aside from a few minor animation issues and the opening and ending songs and animation are good. If you can overlook those aspects, then maybe you'd enjoy Ranking of Kings. I did not end up enjoying anything past maybe episode 8, but those first few episodes were good enough to not bring this show down even lower.
KANLen09
03/24/2022, 09:55 AM
From a classic folktale (The Emperor's New Clothes) to an allegory that's worth more than a thousand words, absolutely NO ONE ever could've fathomed that mangaka Sosuke Toka's work would become more than just a classic underdog story. And instead, it took us the audience to new foundations and heights that really stand amongst the best of the best in the only way that this relative unknown author could've done, teaching us cases of human charateristics in morality, friendship, sacrifice and so much more that we just underestimated how grand everything just naturally works in every step of the way. Simply, wow, and I mean,WOW. The thing that makes Ousama Ranking a.k.a Ranking of Kings work feels childish (or childlike rather) and tomfoolery, but trust me, it just simply works and exudes nothing but quality and quantity as the series progresses with each mysterious step into pure whimsical fantasy as one could get. And for a show that really is this coming-of-age story that's set in medieval times about a deaf boy becoming king and his Shadow companio escaping the treaches of malign, I'd thought that I was watching the game "A Boy and His Blob" come to life, and it is THAT engrossing to seal the deal about the protagonist Bojji and his companion Kage about their own life journeys. But what Sousuke Toka did to elevate a simple story, to simply say that we weren't prepared for what's to come, is truly an understatement to how this is a classic case of subverting tropes and naturally glossing them together to make a plot so life-manipulatively magnificent to knock our socks away. It's a tactic building upon tactics that just warrants you to pay VERY CLOSE attention every minute and every second, because one blink, and you'd miss a beat (unlike SOME people who just chooses to be ignorant and remain full of bias). Case in point, I would've never thought that the generic clash of "good vs. evil" will have that many metaphors built right into it, and Ousama Ranking is without a doubt, the new master in knowing what makes the core theme work without having to fall behind to tropes (y'know, just like all shows out there being so generically contagious). This adventure fantasy feels tight, slick, filled with all of the feelings and emotions that would wreck any viewer (plus yours truly), and above all, shines best in its own right that there's no equal out there that could match the likes of Ousama Ranking. To wedge the knife cutting deep into the heartstrings, how does one manage to do character writing so deep and rich in philosophical humanity that there's always answers for every question? Only Sousuke Toka can do that, and for all the basis of watching Ousama Ranking in these past 6 months, I have felt nothing but happiness, love, sadness, anger, and the most important of all: the fear factor that continues to shake as the series progresses. Every character is not just a cardboard cut-out, because each and every one of them has a purpose to carry their own dreams and ambitions to the extreme points of sacrilegious lamentation, even going as far to the point of pursuing infighting when things go south. I don't wanna go too deep with the characters here, because that would make for an absurdly long essay that could match the likes of Wikipedia (and technically spoil the series for what's to come). But, make no mistake that from the simplest (Bojji and Kage) to the most complex (kings Desha and Bosse) of characters, nothing says more than rareified exquisity when human beings (plus a shadow) can very naturally be their imperfect versions of themselves the way they see others too, topping up with the mysteries of their own backstories that filled with tremendous amounts of weight that is both heartfelt and relatable. This is to the point where I can finally mention the currently famous meme out loud: *smack slipper on the floor* "E-M-O-T-I-O-N-A-L D-A-M-A-G-E"! And boy, Ousama Ranking is truly an emotionally damaging series for all the right reasons, which are layers upon layers of what defines perfect, yet imperfect humans, with no-nonsense "padding" drama. Author Sousuke Toka's manga art style isn't the best and feels rough, and that's where Wit Studio under the guidance of debut director Yousuke Hatta comes in, and it truly elevated this unknown manga that has gone without an English translation right until the anime came out. Speaking about Wit Studio first, the animation studio is obviously going through a transition phase that's leaning away from the days of Attack on Titan and (hopefully not) Vinland Saga. And what came out of it is a totally brand new Wit Studio that is once again ready to experiment on shows of other formats like Great Pretender, Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song and the upcoming season's Spy × Family collab with CloverWorks, all while retaining the same quality that the studio has garnered the notoriety from all these years. And I still have to say that ANY Wit Studio production will never ever miss the mark when it comes to strikingly beautiful visuals and breathtaking animation, and Ousama Ranking is no different in that regard. Being a childlike fantasy that meanders close to Studio Ghibli's stories, and filled with an action-packed adventure that can rival studios like Ufotable and Studio Bind (because Mushoku Tensei really set the bar too high to insanity), Wit Studio always delivers, and delivers hard with passion and dedication to the craft that it's basically next to flawless at all. And what's a studio without the dedication and hard work of the staff team behind Ousama Ranking, most particularly debut director Yousuke Hatta. Having worked as episode director with high-profile people like Shingo Natsume (One Punch Man S1, Boogiepop 2019, ACCA: 13) and Yuzuru Tachikawa (Death Parade), it left more than enough experience for the newbie director to execute his own craft in Ousama Ranking, and it really shows considering the unique and vibrant aesthetics with distinctive art style with simplified faces and expressive animation that fits well, almost the point of paying an omage within the lineage of the directors who helmed Sonny Boy and Mob Psycho 100 respectively. The staff team under Yousuke Hatta also MUST be given props for going above and beyond to adapt the manga up to 11, because it could not be said enough that this was a team effort that's a match made in heaven. Most crucially, what's an anime without music, and while most cases the music always is anime's saving grace when everything else fails, but Ousama Ranking just clearly defies logic to present 2 sets of OSTs that just more than fits the theme and mood of the series. And while I prefer the 1st Cour's arrangement with King Gnu and yama, Vaundy and milet aren't slouch musical artists either, and all 4 songs are great in their own right. In the 1st Cour, the happy-go-lucky aesthetics served Bojji and Kage's journey well with King Gnu's OP song "BOY" which is one hell of a bop, and yama's ED song "Oz." that's a reference to The Prince of Oz to signify the symoblism of a not-so-simplistic fairytale journey. And when the 2nd Cour came in with Vaundy's "Hadaka no Yuusha", that's when all hell broke loose with a slow, but steady gung-ho song with the finest sakuga OP animation heralded by Jujutsu Kaisen's OP director Shingo Yamashita, it's yet another impressive work in the books and you can feel every inch of that influence. milet's ED "Flare" is a nice song to purposefully round things up as a whole, or should I say "People makes the world go round". To say that Ousama Ranking is perfection, more than subjectivity and the classic tale of what it means to be an underestimated underdog's rise to success, I'd think that there's a better way to sum this show as a whole, and that's starting and ending with metaphors. See, this show has laid the hidden meaning of "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link", and putting this in Ousama Ranking's context, realistically sums it up as: "You're as strong as your weakest link." There is NOT a single shred of doubt in my mind that Ousama Ranking will be remembered for months and years to come, and it's the new, modern classic of jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring motivation at its finest.
Dramaddict
03/24/2022, 09:31 AM
Spoilers When a poster of a boy sitting on a throne wearing nothing but his underwear and a cape next to a shadowy figure whose unique design I’ve never seen before, you best bet I was intrigued. Scrolling through seasonal anime on MAL, this one quickly caught my eye. As I always do, I added it to my list and I wait. This one seems special, and I don’t want to dampen the experience by watching something weekly. But as the season went on, the show grew in popularity, and it rose to the top of the MAL charts. Now that intrigue has turned into interestand, dare I say, excitement. I’m not one to buy into the hype; I’ve been disappointed one too many times, but there was something mysteriously captivating about that poster. It was simple; it didn’t try to cram in the entire cast; it was itching my curiosity in a way I haven’t felt in a long time, inviting me to explore its world and story. After months of delayed gratification, there were finally enough episodes that I can comfortably binge, and so I did. What came of it? Well, I was already well-prepared to be disappointed, but certainly wasn’t prepared for the deep, emotional satisfaction this 9-hour journey Ousama Ranking put me through. Holy fuck, the animation quality is on another dimension. Like what in the fuck am I watching? How is this even possible for TV anime? And guess what? Most of it is hand-drawn goodness. Unlike Attack on Titan, where they have 2D characters soar through a 3D landscape, the backgrounds here are hand-drawn. Watching all of these fight scenes, especially Prince Bojji vs King Bosse, was a sight to behold. Seriously, watching a hand-drawn background move around as Bojji flies through the air made me deeply nostalgic for no reason. And the actual fight choreography was nothing short of impressive. The movements felt crisp and had a good flow from action to action, but it was also snappy when it needed to be. I could actually follow what’s going on for once, and with none of the flashy nonsense we see in Demon Slayer. What’s even crazier is how the characters emote in the middle of a fight. I remember in the first episode, when Prince Daida had a spar with Domas using wooden swords, I could see the frustration building up in Daida, and then he shook his head to refocus. The way his cheeks moved in a goopy manner and the sweat flying off his face was so cool to see. And well, speaking of emotions, Ousama Ranking has some of the best crying animation I’ve ever seen. Crying is usually attributed to 1 or 2 emotions, usually overwhelming joy or grief, but really, crying can run the whole gamut of emotions. Be it frustration, anguish, or fear, the way tears fall and how the eyes and face contort communicate so much information visually that it’s hard to describe in words. It’s Wit Studio, so I’m sure they used CG here and there, but it was so well integrated that I legitimately couldn’t tell. Legit, whenever I thought I saw CG, I paused to stare at the freeze-frame, and I swear it was hard to tell the difference. I would go as far as to say Ousama Ranking has set a new production standard for other studios to strive for. This is some next-level KyoAni shit. But enough gushing over the animation. It’s no good if there isn’t a good story to back it up, and I’m glad to say it does. First and foremost, Bojji and Kage’s relationship is a dynamic I don’t think I’ve seen before. Well, protagonist and mascot sidekick is something we’ve seen a million times (everyone knows Pokemon, right?), but Ousama Ranking has a different take on this trope. You see, mascot characters typically serve 1 function, and that’s to be cute. They’re only there as a pet that follows the protagonist around for emotional support, but these charas can get tiring after a while. Not only are they amorphous blobs that don’t take human shape, but a lot of them also have a vocabulary strictly limited to their name and some weird noises. Emotions are conveyed through facial expressions and tone of voice, so needless to say, these charas can only communicate a very limited set of simple emotions, but Ousama Ranking switches this up a bit. Bojji is deaf, so he can’t speak. Kage can speak, but has an amorphous body. This presents a unique challenge for both the animators and voice actors to convey emotions in a more expressive way, and I love it. Just the way these 2 charas act and interact breathes so much life into the show; it’s so much fun to observe such a refreshing dynamic. Bojji, being the one who can use facial expressions, serves as the emotional core of the duo, while Kage is the mouthpiece that connects them to the outside world. It’s a beautiful, symbiotic relationship that I can’t help but adore. Even after only a couple of episodes, when Kage disappears for an extended period of time, his presence was missed. I would like to point out that most of the characters have very literal, straightforward names. King Bosse is the boss of his Kingdom, duh; Queen Hiling is a healer, duh. Anyone who’s seen Naruto knows that “kage” means “shadow,” and well, Kage is literally a shadow…and metaphorically. Yes, all of these very literal names also have metaphorical implications, but most notable of them all is, of course, Prince Bojji himself. I’ve seen enough anime to know that “Bocchi” means “all alone” in Japanese, so Prince Bojji is literally--and metaphorically--all alone. And what happens when you’re all alone? Well, you’re only left with your shadow. The story following Bojji is your typical shounen underdog packed with a hidden OP ability and hyperbolic time chamber, but considering how charming Bojji is as a character, this is hardly an issue. What’s more compelling is the unfolding conspiracy at his home kingdom and how each character plays a role in that conspiracy. It’s been a while since I’ve seen characters this multi-faceted. Some characters we believe to be allies, like Domas and Apeas, end up betraying Bojji at some point in time. Other characters that initially appear to be antagonists turn out to be our friends, like Hiling and Bebin. This makes the plot unpredictable in a way I enjoy. Not only are their motivations well-justified, but it also highlights how there are many angles to a given conflict. There are no “picking sides” in this story like you would see in Star Wars; there isn’t a “good side” and “evil side.” Real life is hardly ever that simple. No, there’s only the individual, and each individual has their own idea of what’s righteous and just; what one person thinks is “the moral thing to do” will hardly ever align with the next. Not only that, there’s a constant battle within each character to “do the right thing” and not cave in to their selfish desires. A good example is king Desha. In order to overthrow his tyrannical father, he was forced to commit genocide because it was the “right thing to do.” He experienced anguish and guilt over the atrocity, but how much of that was motivated by greed for power? It’s kind of impressive how pretty much every relevant character has a duality to them. Hell, the devil only wanted to stay pretty, and even the drunken no-life rando who raised Kage has a sympathetic side to him, and it really makes for a compelling story. And probably the most sympathetic character of them all is Miranjo, who serves as an excellent foil to Bojji. They’ve both suffered a childhood riddled with betrayal and loss, but what separates them is that Miranjo caved into selfish desires. Miranjo lost trust in the world, while Bojji had the strength to forgive and the courage to trust his allies, both of which are fairly traditional western values. By the way, there’s a lot of Westen symbolism in here: David vs. Goliath, Snow White, Holy Mother Mary. I feel like I’m rambling at this point because I’ve only finished the show like half an hour ago and scrambling to organize my thoughts. Anyways, Ousama Ranking is a great show, and it didn’t disappoint. Thank you for reading.
Marinate1016
03/24/2022, 09:26 AM
*Contains slight Spoilers* While on the surface, Ousama Ranking may appear to be a cute Ghibli-esque show full of magic and wonder, it’s so much more than that. It’s a riveting tale of loss, grief and overcoming obstacles, and is by far one of the best anime of the past year. Admittedly, I was a bit slow to pick up Ousama Ranking. I normally watch every seasonal every season, but wasn’t really gripped by the promotional PV and posters from the show. I assumed it would just be some cute adventure story with a prince. It wasn’t until about a month and a half ago thatI gave it a try and I instantly regretted not watching it from the start. From the very first episode, Bouji’s story grabs your attention and you can’t help but want to see him succeed. A little deaf boy who is seemingly disregarded and not taken seriously by his attendants and even his own family. Despite his handicap and preconceived notions about him, Bouji sets out to become stronger. He doesn’t allow his disability to dictate his life and is determined to become someone worthy of the crown. Who doesn’t love an underdog story, right? On Bouji’s journey, we’re introduced to a slew of interesting characters with their own motivations and backstories, as well as a sinister plot to undermine his kingdom. Each one of the characters we meet adds something new to the story and aid in Bouji’s development. What I really liked about the type of storytelling we got here, is that it reminds me of literary classics in the sense there’s not really anything deep or crazy intricate going on in the plot, instead we have a simple story of overcoming adversity. As everyone knows by now, simplicity does not equate to bad writing. In fact, being able to adequately get the point of a story across in such a short and concise way is really a sign of literary talent. While Ousama Ranking’s story is simple and sweet, it’s not without its flaws. Without going too much into spoiler territory, I was disappointed with the way Bouji’s brother Daida’s arc was wrapped up. In the second to last episode, he makes a proposal to a certain character that I really feel undermined his arc and was questionable writing at best. It’s one thing to get the tradtional shonen talk-no-jutsu “I forgive you” spill that we’re accustomed to, but to do that… just really made no sense to me. Alas, nothing’s perfect and I was still largely satisfied with the way Ousama Ranking turned out. Its combination of lovely art, surprisingly good sakuga, great voice acting and a powerful tale of overcoming adversity made it one of my shows of the year. Ousama Ranking gets 10 mirrors out of 10.

Ousama Ranking 王様ランキング

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Ousama Ranking 王様ランキング

North American Anime & Manga Releases for August

'Ousama Ranking' Gets New Anime Movie

North American Anime & Manga Releases for October

'Ousama Ranking' Gets Special Episode in 2023

Fall 2021 Simulcast List [Update 12/26]

Fall 2021 Preview

'Ousama Ranking' Unveils Additional Cast, Opening Theme Artist, First Promo

'Ousama Ranking' Reveals Supporting Cast, Character Promo

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