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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:4585#1552] |
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Set in a fantasy-like setting and focused on the young prince Bojji, Ranking of Kings explores the prince dealing with overcoming being ostracized by others due to his small size in spite of being the son of the giant king, Bosse, and being born deaf with the inability to talk. Ranking of Kings is another anime where first appearances can be deceiving, both with its aesthetics and storytelling premise. While seemingly aimed for a younger audience with the storybook like visuals and fairy tale setting, the series is shown to have a more mature and serious focus to its storytelling with its tone and themes. The series isn’t afraid to show how cruel and merciless conflict and hostilities between others can be, particularly with the violent consequences that can result with them as Ranking of Kings can get quite brutal and bloody in showing such events off. The series also puts emphasis on the idea that initial appearances can be deceiving when judging its characters. This is best showcased with our main character, Bojji. Being deaf and not inheriting any of his father’s superhuman strength as a giant, many perceive him as being helpless and incapable of being independent. Episodes of the series show that the boy has potential to be more than what others perceive of him with his quick speed and being more aware of happenings around him, with characters gradually coming around to giving him the confidence and abilities necessary to fully make use of his strengths. In addition, the series does a pretty solid job of depicting subtle elements of Bojji’s deafness as other characters can communicate with him using sign language, he picks up on the ability to understand others through following lip movements, and his inability to properly verbally communicate with others. The recurring theme of characters having more to them beneath initial appearances also carries over to many of the characters seen throughout the series. Seemingly villainous or sinister characters are shown to have more to their personalities and motives as Ranking of Kings takes the time to flesh out many of them, the series also doing this at points to misdirect the audience in perceiving the motives of some major characters to keep its plot developments from getting too predictable. For the most part, the series does a pretty solid job dabbling into this theme as it introduces and fleshes out members of its fairly large cast. The series does have a bit of an issue in how it handles developments involving one of its characters serving as a major antagonist. Limiting spoilers, I’ll just say that the misdeeds committed by this character make it hard to sympathize with them in spite of what gets fleshed out about their backstory and what led them to commit to their actions. Plus on the subject of said backstory, it sadly goes against the themes that Ranking of Kings established with most of its other characters, as it has its irredeemable villains and is also somewhat controversial as elements of it mirror some real life historical events involving tensions between Japan and Korea. This major blemish does put somewhat of a damper a bit on my reception to Ranking of Kings, as I otherwise mostly found the storytelling and characters to be mostly solid with not judging things at surface value and deconstructing some of the typical tropes of fairy tales. Others haven’t let these problematic elements effect their enjoyment of the series and consider it a potential favorite of the year for 2022 for its high points. But I’d at least say your mileage may vary with what is fleshed out with the title’s antagonist. Last updated Tuesday, December 20 2022. Created Tuesday, December 20 2022. | ||||||||
