Kingdom

China’s Warring States period, a raging dragon that would raze the land for 500 years, saw many kingdoms rise and fall, making way for the next generation of kings and generals to fight for supremacy. Eventually, seven powerful states emerged from the endless cycle of warfare.

In the kingdom of Qin, Xin, a war-orphaned slave, trains vigorously with fellow slave and best friend, Piao, who shares his proud dream of one day becoming a Great General of the Heavens. However, the two are suddenly forced to part ways when Piao is recruited to work in the royal palace by a retainer of the King.

After a fierce coup d'état unfolds, Piao returns to Xin, half dead, with a mission that will lead him to a meeting with China's young King, Ying Zheng, who bears a striking resemblance to Piao. Kingdom follows Xin as he takes his first steps into the great blood-soaked pages of China's history. He must carve his own path to glory on his long quest to become a Great General of the historic Seven Warring States.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Xin Main

Morita, Masakazu Japanese

Lei, Qiang Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Ying, Zheng Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

He Liao, Diao Main

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Wang, Qi Supporting

Koyama, Rikiya Japanese

Gong, Biao Supporting

Saitou, Shirou Japanese

Li, Mu Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Duanhe, Yang Supporting

Sonozaki, Mie Japanese

Teng Supporting

Katou, Akio Japanese

Chang Pin Jun Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Kamiya, Jun Director

Takakuwa, Hajime Sound Director

Noshitani, Mitsutaka Episode Director

Kawai, Shigeki Episode Director

Reviews

Jun 5, 2024

Dompa112

Recommended

This show is a perfect example on not judging something only by its looks. And yes ill admit. I was close to doing just that with Kingdom. I did have a quite hard time at the start. I just couldnt get into it with the ugly CGI. But i stuck by it and thank for that. Since then its a great show. The battles are great. Great large cast of characters. Intruiging plot. Conspiracy. Tactical battles. Politics. Music is generally good throughout.

Also if you stick by season one. Animation gets better. Sawano joins the team.

Looking back its almost like they didnt believe ... in it from the start and didnt want to put money and effort into it. But from season seeing rise in popularity and great source material to deem it worthy of better production value.

Patience is a virtue. Give this a chance. I did and not regretting it.

I give first season a 7. The later ones 8. Everything would be 8 if they decided to give it higher production value from the start.

The only slightly negative thing i can say about thr show. Its long. So many political intrigues. Long between seasons. With so much happening keeping track of it all can be a bit difficult at times.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 25, 2024

Caeruleus_CCXVI

Mixed Feelings

In my long journey of waiting for Once Piece to conclude or at least waiting for an announcement of the end, I have finally come to Kingdom:

Kingdom Season 1 is physically pretty had to watch, having essentially PS1-2 Graphics. I feel like we got the Berserk 2016 treatment which is pretty shit. Similar to FF14 if you can get past the first part, the pay off is pretty good, but the first... 15-20 ep, are pretty bad and unbearable to be completely honest. If it was not for the fact that I was 'watching' this while working, and it having my 2nd or 3rd thing ... for my attention I never would have made it past ep3 or so.

Kingdom is a Historical Fiction based on the forming of China about 2300 years ago, from what I can tell if you look at everything from the big pictures, like what generals, what countries and what battles were fought, all of that is more or less true history, everything else is filled into to be a drama. This is personally my favorite genre of story telling so I am a huge sucker for this. In reality Kingdom is basically Dynasty Warriors the Anime/Manga with how overpowered anyone with a Name really is, and because of this, I get some Berserk Golden age vibes too which really hits home.

Honestly if you NEED something to watch, and you can get passed the first 20 episode garbage then the pay off is worth it, as season 2 IMO is like a 6.5-7/10. But if you dont NEED something, I would probably push this down your backlog of things to watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Nov 26, 2022

perseii

Not Recommended

Funny

Well-written

Kingdom Season 1 is a big disappointment. The show is a historical epic about wars and heroes, but it does not dig into the setting deeply. It is closer to an action adventure show about a kid fighting strong opponents, but follows a simplistic, obnoxious protagonist that barely develops. On top of these, the poor production quality hampers the excitement and the storytelling.

I had a somewhat high expectations for Kingdom:
- I had heard the manga described as one of the great historical epics, mentioned in the same breath as Vinland Saga. I had not read either, but I was absolutely blown away by Season 1 ... of Vinland Saga.
- I was very interested in its setting, the warring states period of ancient China, since I enjoyed reading "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
- Kingdom Season 4 was airing at the time and holding one of the highest MAL user ratings of that season.

I appreciated how Kingdom S1 takes great care in depicting warfare. I enjoyed the build-up to a battle, when generals discuss strategy and foot soldiers prepare themselves. Once the battle starts, the show frequently explains strategies and the thinking behind them. On the ground, characters are constantly figuring out how to carry out orders without dying, and the emotions go through highs and lows along with the flow of battle.

However, the show is severely lacking on the visuals side to really deliver the full impact of the battles, and it hurts especially in 2022. While the use of CGI allows sweeping camera shots and huge melees, the extremely stiff and simplistic animation fails to make them convincing or exciting. One-on-one fights are not much better; the characters simply swing their weapons at each other really hard. It does not help that the environment design and background art often looked completely flat and uninspired.

Some of the hand-drawn animation does look more pleasing and expressive, and I wish the show had more of it. Also, the character designs manage to be a lot of fun. The characters have simple, distinct personalities with a variety of backgrounds and motivations, and their looks clearly communicate them and make the cast memorable. This brings us to the biggest problem I have with the show...

The main character, Xin, is very annoying and uninteresting. He is a country kid, the simple-minded and brash type, always excited to battle, with boundless ambition and confidence, and most importantly, LOUD. He has no other memorable personality traits or quirks to him, and he is given little motivation beyond "I'm gonna be the very best". He does not develop much through the season, because he is very rarely seriously challenged in his beliefs or suffers failure. On the battlefield, he displays superhuman strength and agility from the very beginning, which is never really explained. He is consistently rewarded for these personality traits and his martial prowess. This style of writing, combined with stiff CGI models, makes it hard to understand or sympathize with Xin.

Kingdom S1 spends an overwhelming majority of its time with Xin, so the other characters are not given much time to shine. Zheng is introduced as "the other half" of the story (as seen in the poster), and he offers a very different type of story and point-of-view from Xin's. However, his story almost completely takes a back seat to Xin's later in the season. We do spend a lot of time with one particular side character, exploring his personality, motivations, and battles. He becomes a stand-out in the show for me, and even has some impact on Xin as a character, but he comes late in the season.

The show misses out on exploring other storylines by focusing so heavily on Xin. With a large cast entangled in power struggles and wars, the show could have explored palace intrigue, statecraft, diplomacy and espionage, and even everyday lives of the commoners and the nobles, etc. While the show touches upon some of these briefly, it does not follow up on them; for example, a powerful figure is introduced as the de facto ruler of the country and a dangerous rival, only to disappear from the story shortly afterwards. The later seasons supposedly expand on what has been set up, but I am struggling to have faith in the series.

Despite my many complaints and general dissatisfaction, I have sat through all 38 episodes of the season. A part of me just wanted to be able to say I finished it (and leave a review), but another part of me wanted to see it improve and realize its potential. The show does steadily get more interesting as the season progresses, but the earlier parts are much too clunky, and the later improvements are not significant enough. Kingdom has announced a Season 5 at the time of writing, so I may come to enjoy Kingdom more in subsequent seasons. However, after these disappointing 38 episodes, I will not be bringing myself to watch Season 2, at least for a long while.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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