Ousama Ranking

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 in ... terms 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.

Ousama Ranking had a ton of hype, a passionate fandom and excellent reviews. The reviews mentioned, among others, a layered and nuanced story with deep, realistic characters and great originality. All those were nowhere to be found.

First of all, the positive: The art is very good. It looks a bit simplistic but it has nice, simple character designs, facial expressions and backgrounds and it is pretty fluid. Additionally, the worldbuilding is pretty interesting, the world looks vast and full of different peoples and places to explore.

Now, off to the negative.

First of all, the story is NOT realistic in any meaningful way. The anime is trying ... to show us that the protagonist is suitable to be the next king while he is a complete imbecile. It's not just that his body is weak and he is deaf and dumb, he is just stupid and completely unsuitable to be king, not making one correct decision. He only has the plot armor and the generic shonen trope that "he has heart". The guy is supposed to be something like 15 years old and he acts like a toddler.

Secondly, the other characters are also generic shonen stereotypes. Without getting into spoilers, there is the whiny rival type who will eventually accept the protagonist and join him against a common enemy, the tough looking but actually loyal and good guy, the silent badass and the useless sidekick who is a plot device to save the protagonist and spout out plot info. The main villain is the villain of a quite recent, vastly superior anime, which I am not naming in order to not spoil either anime, dumbed down for children. The only remotely interesting and layered character is the queen.

One other problem is that the anime doesn't even stick to its own rules. The deafness is NEVER important. Not only can the kid read lips but everyone speaks to him and they even shout out his name when looking for him. Also, in the rare action scene weapons costantly change size for no reason at all. Characters are saved by several Dei Ex Machina and there do not seem to be any real stakes. Also, the exclusive way the anime uses to convey character information is via long flashbacks. That's, in my opinion, the very opposite of nuance. In those flashbacks the characters are given generic, sad backstories and we are supposed to feel for them just because of that. Their actions still carry no weight whatsoever. Finally, they constantly use the greatly annoying trope of "Character sees something and has a shocked expression but you don't learn what he saw until 5 minutes later", and its best friend, "character whispers to other character, other character looks shocked and you don't learn what was said until later", as well as laughable cliffhangers as if that would make it suspenseful.

Despite all this criticism the anime is not rubbish. It looks good and is not terribly annoying to watch if you turn your brain off or if you are 12 years old. It's not actually horrible, just don't go in expecting anything even slightly mature or deep. It is a generic underdog anime to the bone and it's decent at doing exactly that. Just dont let the (for some reason extremely passionate) fandom fool you that you will be watching something special.

Ousama Ranking is well made, as is to be expected from Wit Studio, but the nice guyification of fantasy is becoming a tiresome trend. If it is not a pretense like "gray morality" that rules the day and reveling in vileness, then we are increasingly presented with (basic bitch) layered villains who have the most unbelievable redemption arcs of all time. This results in authors trying to inject a touching backstory into their villain's motivation and having the hero spare or forgive his arch-nemesis, even if what they have done is treacherous, resulting in the deaths of many and the ruination of the kingdom. The ... trend is a strange one because you'll often see the heroes ruthlessly dispatching their world's equivalent of personality-free stormtroopers or goombas without a thought, but for some reason the one giving orders is given a slap on the wrist, which smacks of social engineering, as if those in power are saying, "Yes, okay, we're responsible, but don't be too mean to us for having harmed you."

Probably more than half the cast goes through a totally fake process like this, from "good" to "bad" and back to "good," once they've been forgiven and redeemed, and the young heroes of the cast will forgive like no other, in contrast to the wrath of the mean giant father Big Bosse. That's one thing I appreciate about Kimetsu no Yaiba at least, no matter how soundly it is mocked. It wants you to cry like a baby, and it shows sympathy, or even empathy, but the only mercy granted to the villains is a blade striking them down. OR is the opposite of KnY, with the sob backstories being used to forgive. "Uwaah, young master, I see that your tears shine true, and now I am crying too; oh boohoo, let us all hug and be friends hitherto." To hell with this nice guyism. Forget forgiveness, crocodile tears, and trite moral preening seeping into fantasy. Let the heads roll and rivers turn crimson.

The post-modern heroes and villains of today are disgusting. Yes, let us give super powers to a hopelessly naive deaf-mute 5-year-old who talks like this: "UHFHFUU FHUBUFNJFNFJNF CUCUCNUNC," and he can be our moral better and spare everyone. Despite this communication issue having promise for a more dynamic story, most of the important characters understand him with ease or Kage acts as interpreter. When it comes to characters resolving their wicked ways, there are extenuating circumstances for a number of them, but it is not as easy to make the case for Miranjo and causing so much trouble just so she and Big Bosse can go on adventures again. In my estimation, the (spiritual boomer) duo's scheme is practically the equivalent of a man eloping with his mistress and killing off his family for insurance money, then burning the whole kingdom down for good measure, because why not?

The machinations and double crossing of various characters early on would lead one to believe the series will culminate in a grand tragedy, but this series has the same toddler-approved soft-pedaling as Disney applied to Brothers Grimm. The conflict can be emotional, there's a decent character dynamic between Bojii and Kage, and Daida acts as a good counterpoint as an initially more arrogant and confident character. Then Miranjo is introduced and goes on to muck everything up. It is believable that Daida would develop a bond with Miranjo in these circumstances of being trapped in darkness and vicariously experiencing what she went through, but the studio did not convey this transition well. The problem is that Daida disappears and becomes unimportant by this point, only to emerge briefly at the end, his mind changed without allowing us the opportunity of working through these changes with him; further undermining his contributions as a character is that he ends up possessed and functions as a different person in many scenes. The focus should have been more on Daida than Miranjo or at least divided between the two.

Additionally, it is unfortunate that what starts off as such a unique fantasy by anime standards rapidly devolves into a simple, linear shonen toward the end, starting when Bojii's training with Despa begins. Similar to the unseen developments of Daida, Bojii's transformation into a swordsman is not shown. He becomes a powerful fighter with an abrupt time skip, which is odd considering the slower pace of prior episodes, highlighting the grueling rise of an underdog so effectively. This lack of showing the refinement of Bojii's swordsmanship is a mistake, for it is difficult to believe that he can use a rapier so minimalist as to be a sewing needle for anything other than attempting to mend the copious number of holes and gaps in the badly stitched tapestry of plot and character motivations. Instead, he pacifies foes vastly larger and physically stronger than himself, redirecting their blows, dodging, and poking them until they concede that they have been naughty and beg for forgiveness, which Bojii immediately grants like the good boy that he is.

The most fearsome villain conveniently employs techniques that are meant to bleed his opponents out slowly rather than kill them, and you can guess this means a lot of "deaths" are going to be cop-outs or our characters will be revived, and this cheap trick becomes exasperating. Especially with everyone crying all the time, leading to desensitization due to the lack of tension and never-ending tears and snot, if not outright laughter for how absurd the whole arc is. The first half made me think this would be a solid anime if it had a great finale, but it is merely "OK" and leaves one with the impression of vain admiration for Wit's visual acuity to dazzle its audience toward undeserved generosity, much like the concept behind The Emperor's New Clothes, a fairy tale that OR clearly drew influence from, and it shows in the worst kind of way.

The other elephant in the room to address is a controversial one concerning colonialism. Is it confirmed that the author is basing the colonial segment on the Japanese colonizing the Koreans? There is no official confirmation from the author, but it makes sense for this historical event to be the influence for the colonization segment of the story. Yet it is also not a direct parallel, given this is a fantasy world, so the historical details are kind of irrelevant (and often distorted in the first place). Historically, colonization has simply been something distinct groups of humans do to other humans, and it is only in recent years that there has been moral hysteria about it. It happened, and every work needing to condemn colonialism or whichever idea is beyond tiresome. Not everything needs to conform to the status quo of the day, which is ever-changing. The thing is, this segment is not necessarily well written, and the way it is used to justify other parts of the script is hackneyed. The idea of a colonizing power benefiting the colonized nation but them being ungrateful or resentful and then retaliating is not even ahistorical. It probably happens in every instance on a small or large scale, and the brutality Miranjo was subjected to is quite realistic. Most people do not want to be colonized, but there are sometimes positives and negatives associated with the experience, and infrastructure and technological developments are often one of the (presumed) positives. Furthermore, we are focusing on the emotionalized perspective of a young girl and her family. As for everyone being forgiven in this series but not the "Korean stand-ins": This would probably be a product of the "older generation," seeing as these scenes were from the perspective of Big Bosse and Miranjo, who chose not to forgive, and there were not any obvious cues to soften the image of the "Korean stand-ins." It is Bojii and, eventually, Daida who become part of a new, more forgiving generation; even the thieving shadow puddle non-humanoid entities are forgiven, so I am willing to believe that anyone and everyone has the potential of being forgiven, no matter how villainous. The contrast in the generations is pretty obvious: big, strong, and mean versus small, weak, and nice. It is basically daddy complex, the anime. In conclusion, the oh-so-controversial "pro-colonization" segment will probably be subverted in the future, leaving egg on the face of those seething over reeeee colonialism, not that I care either way.

However, putting all of that aside, the whole point of this brutal scene was to provide a tragic backstory for Miranjo and prep us to feel sorry for her, so we can cry our eyes out for her redemption. Sorry, babe, I know what happened to you was rough, but that does not excuse what you did in the future, so there is a guillotine lined up for you. I mean... there should be, but "Miranjo OMG KAWAII UwU love wins all. She might have done many terrible things to my kingdom, but I am going to make her my waifu." Typical anime. I think this is some kind of fetish where a man wants to be horribly abused by a woman, then reforms her into his wife. When put that way, it bears a similarity to women sending letters to serial killers about how much they love them, except this is a fantastical and presumably more healthy depiction of fetishism. The fact that I have made this comparison numerous times and will undoubtedly continue to do so in the future is a good example of how deeply pussywhipped anime is.

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 is ... incredibly 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.

Most reviews are extremely subjective, so I am going to summarize the facts first and leave personal opinion at the very end, so one can skip it.

Let's start with the main thing - this is an anime. Realism in anime is as rare as the eclipses. Nonetheless, the industry is doing well without it. This particular series, however, tries to include reasonable behavior of things for no apparent reason. The MC is made prince, since a boy with disabilities would not survive even in that utopic feudalism, then display him as a complete dimwit that does not understand the impression he makes by walking half-naked ... through the town.

PseudoSmarts.
At first, one might consider the case reasonable, since the "shame walking" was a price paid for social interaction he was lacking. That, however, is not correct - it is implied that MC has talked to other fairy creatures before.

Lip-reading.
This makes sense the most, since it would be a nightmare to watch every single character signing the MC whatever they want to tell him. But, at the same time they made him to turn on being called, granted an ability to read not only lips, but whatever tool an entity uses to speak, instead of just making him able to understand fairy things by magic, which would make sense.

In short: for the reason unknown, author(s) decided that their work has to be realistic to some extent and it made this peaceful and, surprisingly, entertaining series much worse.

At first, I have given this series 1/10, since there are far more worthy series, but that would be just as unfair. It is certainly not as good as what the rest of the reviews state it is, but, so far, does not cause any nausea.

Personally (contains soft spoilers):
The "speech" of MC is incredibly annoying and the fact that he is trying makes zero sense.
The supporting characters are made to call the d e a f MC while looking for him in the woods...
The storyline of 6 episodes has better dynamic than both parts of Re:Zero's second season - is good.
Instead of logic and reason we have a product of an unholy act between author's fantasy and realism.

All these aspects of the series do not affect the viewing, if you are not analyzing every frame of it.

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.

This show had potential.
My main gripes were with the lack of character depth, and how unnatural the plot development felt; going completely off the rails as it unfolded.
A more simple and linear plot line could have bumped the score up to a 5 or 6 by allowing its positive aspects to shine.
If you expect anything relating back to title of the series, then you'll be disappointed; because the ranking system explained in the introduction is probably mentioned less than ten times in next 22 episodes.
Original ideas and themes are nowhere to be seen in Ousama Ranking, as we are shown the same,'' OMG!!! ... The hero is so disadvantaged, yet he's so determined to become stronger!!'' that's been done since the dawn of time. That trope is fine when it's done well, but here it manifests in a main character who's reactions are as predictable as they are cute.
The writers seem to think that making characters cry is all you need to create an emotional scene; so don't expect a very emotional experience.
Ousama Ranking isn't all bad. The animation is beautiful and the fight scenes are well choreographed. I also thought that the music fit the vibe of the series, with good intro and outro songs.
I didn't go into much depth in this review, but you get the gist.

I won't be watching a second season.

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 wise ... teacher 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.

I really wanted to love Ousama Ranking. And honestly, the first half had me completely sold. The animation is gorgeous, the soundtrack is doing a ton of heavy lifting, the art style is charming in a storybook way, and I have no complaints about the voice acting. Bojji is instantly likable, the world feels cruel and unfair in a way that actually hurts, and for a while it felt like I was watching something special.

Then the second half happened, and it quietly kneecapped the whole show.

The core problem is simple: this anime is terrified of consequences. Like, full-on panic attack levels of terrified. No matter ... how bad things get, nothing ever sticks. Without spoiling anything, characters get mentally wrecked, physically destroyed, stabbed, crushed, cursed, whatever and it almost always gets undone. After a while, “death” scenes stopped feeling tense and started feeling like filler, because I knew the undo button was coming.

It got to the point where anytime something serious happened, I didn't react emotionally anymore. I just sat there waiting for the heal, the save, the revival, the “actually it’s fine” moment. And I was almost always right. I felt no tension because I was conditioned to stop caring. And it’s not just the damage, it’s the forgiveness. Holy shit, the forgiveness. Characters do genuinely horrible things, and instead of dealing with the fallout, the show just tosses in a sad flashback and expects that to clean the slate. Murder? Betrayal? Manipulation? It’s fine, they were sad once. Let’s move on.

The story keeps trying to sell this as emotional maturity or kindness, but it doesn’t feel wise. It feels lazy. Forgiveness without consequences isn’t deep, it’s just the narrative refusing to get its hands dirty. The show wants to feel gentle while constantly sidestepping accountability, and that combo just doesn’t work.

Bojji himself also kind of suffers from this. What made him compelling early on was how stacked the deck was against him. He was weak, isolated, powerless. Every small win felt earned. Later, he becomes so absurdly capable that his struggles stop feeling relatable. At some point I was no longer rooting for him; I was just watching the animation flex.

And yes, the animation is incredible. That’s honestly what carries a lot of the later episodes. If this show looked average, I don’t think half of these fights or emotional beats would land at all. Underneath the pretty presentation is a story that keeps pretending it’s dark but never has the guts to commit. That’s the most annoying part. The show clearly knows how to write a cruel world. You see it in the grim backstories. You see it in the setup. But the actual present-day story takes place in a padded, consequence-free version of that world where nothing truly bad is allowed to last. It wants the vibes of tragedy without paying the price.

By the end, I wasn’t mad, I was deflated. This could’ve been something great. Instead, it’s a show with high production values and writing that keeps chickening out whenever things get uncomfortable. Pretty, emotional, and ultimately hollow.

Solid 5/10. Looks amazing. Writing’s doing the bare minimum.

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 things ... off this quickly.

Overall, it had enjoyments but ended in such a wrong note. 6-6.5/10

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 when ... King 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.

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 of ... having 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.

I really wish I could give Ousama Ranking a higher score, but I honestly don't think I can. It had a really great start, and if it kept going with the momentum it gained from those first few episodes I really think I would have easily given it an 8-9, or maybe... just maybe... a 10. The art is beautiful and the story and characters start out really strong, but over time it keeps getting worse and worse.

The story of Ousama Ranking is probably one of its bigger problems. It starts out great; it has plenty of emotional drama, tension, and some great characters. But ... a bit after it starts going, it starts to really start sagging in quality. The emotional beats hit less, the plot's pacing slows way down, and some aspects really start feeling repetitive. It still has some good moments, but it really never gets back to the quality it had in the beginning. It starts to lean to heavily into its emotional beats and shots of Boji crying, and they just stop working as a method to keep me invested and interested. The pacing also slows to a crawl, and all the tension just falls apart. The second half of the show just really drags without much to show for it. And the ending was really awful in my opinion, I won't say anything specific for the sake of spoilers and all that, but I think anyone that saw the show will agree that what happened in the second to last episode was completely stupid and didn't really make any sense at all.

The characters are a better aspect of the show in most regards, but the villains are a bit more of a weak point. Every single one of the mid to high importance villains has a backstory that is revealed at some point that is super sad and pretty much shows how they were actually really nice people and that we should actually be sympathizing with them. While that is certainly one interpretation of a "complex villain," the fact that it is repeated so many times ends up making this kind of villain really boring and simple. To be fair, that kind of villain isn't exactly "complex," but I do think they have their place in fiction, the villain through circumstance is a trope that many great villains fall under, you can probably consider Darth Vader to fall under that category, but when every character is a villain through circumstance it feels incredibly simple. While they obviously shouldn't just have made all the villains super-mega-evil, they should have definitely tried to make villains with more complex moral implications, motivations, and backstories that aren't just "a bad thing happened that made me do X bad thing."

The art and music of Ousama Ranking was hands-down the best part. The show has a beautiful, fluffy style, and bright, vibrant colors that just make the whole show look amazing. Character designs are very interesting and unique and really help give the show its fantasy aesthetic. The music is great and fits the scenes and tone well, although it wasn't one of my favorites by a large margin. The art showed how talented the artists are and really makes me think that with some better writing, this show could have been truly amazing.

I definitely didn't hate this show, but as it continued I found myself questioning its quality more and more as it continued to lower in terms of quality. I think it really could have been great, but even the amazing art was not enough to redeem its shabby writing in the later parts of the show.

I was all in for this show. And then the second half happened. I didn't want to think that the quality would dip so far. But when the main antagonist, who is not that solid of an antagonist not only suffers for the consequences of her actions, but is somewhat rewarded for them by the person she may have outright abused the most.. Like come on.

Bojji is still a standout protagonist, though sadly he seemed to plateau in quality as a character as time went on. I did not mind though as he had plenty of development. Hilling was great too. Otherwise... I could take ... or leave the other characters that didn't utterly disappoint (I am looking at you Daida, Miranjo, and Bosse)

The only reason this is not trashing the story as a whole is because the first half is still phenomenal. And the art is gorgeous, the voice acting is solid, but wow the tail end of the series just could not have dropped the ball harder. I cried at the second episode and thought that this would be among the greats. I am definitely saddened that this show wound up to not only not stick the landing, but twist both their ankles and break their knees simultaneously upon dismounting from the climax to the resolution of the story.

This started out so well I almost wasn't annoyed by the premature reviews heralding the newest anime masterpiece. Then, however, the standout story degraded into a never-ending whack-a-mole of a battle with a lot of psychodrama and endless ressurections, like the worst of mainstream kids titles. In the end, a lot of it just doesn't make sense and what sense there is, is rather primitive. Also, even though I'm not entirely against the idea that everyone can and should be forgiven and/or find the redemption, the way this already suspect idea is delivered here was mindless, just plain out dumb. To hell with these speculations ... that the baddie used to be a cute little baby and also wanted to be hugged so much, and a nice guy, on the other hand, might want to murder someone in cold blood. All this rubbish doesn't make for a complex worldview, it's sheer feel-good humbug.
The animation is fun throughout, though.

It had the makings to be a really good story but severely lacking in consequences and felt like the whole story just started resolving on it's own without needing the protagonist to earn it or even the antagonists to earn a satisfying result.

It starts off super light hearted and you're met with depression. You're on this adventure and you don't know what to expect because if you came in expecting 23 episodes you'd expecting a lot out of the story but the whole thing concludes relatively quick in the story time-line that you can't help but feel the whole pacing was dragged on for way ... too long.

There's this one enemy, let's just call him the content wall because that's really what he was, was the most annoying and uninspiring enemy you could really have. If you thought the pacing was bad, this guy felt like he was literally created to slow down the pace even more. It was almost like a big Shounen battle with how long it was but the stakes always felt high yet low at the same time.

There were so many poor decisions being made in this story and lacked so many consequences, it's quite appalling. You could say they deserved a happy ending but events that follow after their already overly generous conclusions, was completely uncalled for. There was no lessons to be learned, it felt like you can make as many wrong decisions as you wanted but in the end it'll all work out and the only reflection you need is to collect your thoughts and think of a way to be less of an asshole I guess. You can't even be happy about selfless acts because it's met in return with convenient resolutions that both party can be satisfied with, even though one party absolutely did not deserve the results whatsoever.

There was a lot of great moments in the series but were overshadowed by pretty idiotic resolutions that break the flow of the story because I'm busy getting annoyed and reflecting on what happen instead of just watching because that's how crazy some of it was.

*SLIGHT SPOILER*

The world is quite uninspiring and I am disinterested in what the world has to offer outside the kingdom that the main story took place and there was almost no story left to be told so the fact they decided to have another season is a big surprise. I will likely not watch it because it should had been finished with season 1, and the ending they had should had been scrapped to have a proper conclusion instead of what we got.

Ousama Ranking is one of the hardest anime to grade. The initial part of the show got me hooked to a point I have rarely been regarding animes, with character writing and plot development reminiscent of the early seasons of Game of Thrones (hell, it even has a prince charming losing his hand) but was only to be followed by a disappointing and cliche second act.

What is most noticeable about Ousama Ranking is arguably its very special artistic design. I cannot point out precisely what it is, but its graphic style is similar to animations in the 90's creating a more childish illusion. While being ... aware this can push away many potential watchers from the show (I was one of them), a different design does not imply poor artistic quality. Quite the contrary, the frames are rich in details and the fantasy world has a lot of diversity, enough to charm its viewers and quickly get them into its peculiarity.

The writing starts off amazing. In an original way, it subverts the typical tropes of fairy tales by presenting itself with a classical set up (evil step-mom, step-brother, the hunter, prince charming, the evil all knowing mirror, etc...) but filling the holes with touching backstories and depicting more nuanced motives along the way. It is hard not to feel attachment to the main character, Boji, a young prince cursed by all the worst afflictions one could think of, and yet remaining determined toward his goal for greatness discovering a most-needed firend along the way. The plot lines and mysteries are plenty, ranging from a group going on an adventure to a thriller to discover who is the puppet master remaining in the shadows.

The development climaxes around the mid point of the season, when all plot lines reach their point of tension, and a geopolitical dimension is added in the form of a war between kingdom, topped off by the second opening of the show (a masterpiece btw, go watch it). At this point, I would have easily graded it a 9 or 10. Then what is wrong? Once the development is over, story writing dictates that the resolution of their plot lines must follow, and Ousama Ranking's resolutions fall flat. Very flat... The epic war that was ahead of us turned out to be an army fighting a man for a few minutes then turning around to go back home. Out through the window go the nuanced characters and multiple plot lines, everybody is happy in the better of the world by the end. The main flaw of Ousama Ranking is that there is no consequences to conflicts. Everybody is forgiven in the blink of an eye, going from Game of Thrones level writing to a generic sitcom. Even disabling injuries feel like they had no more impact than getting scratched by your pet.

After watching Ousama Ranking you are inevitably left with a sour after taste wondering if you did not accidentally switched to a different anime in the middle. It brings the everlasting question: can an initial masterpiece be remembered for what it is and not brought down by its conclusion, or is the ending the most important part which can potentially waste a great development? After all, maybe it is the spiritual children of Game of Thrones...

RANKING OF KINGS REVIEW
(I had to make this review, I am insanely disappointed with this show)

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

Does a mute and deaf person have the right to be a ruler of a country? What does it truly mean to be a king? Why do good people turn evil?

TLDR:

Ranking of kings had a massive potential to be a solid 9/10 or even a 10/10, however, they screwed up big time. The first half of the show was intensely good, however, the middle part to the ending was an absolute clusterfuck. What in the world was happening? Why did they deviate from the plot? They could ... have used the Daida as a good plot for the story but they had to introduce a new villain in the form of Miranjo that has bullshit reasons for doing her actions. When I say bullshit, it is literally garbage reason because the reasons for her actions are just plain stupid. A good villain has motives towards the greater good of society but their methods and goals are just morally unacceptable and unethical (think of Thanos, he wants to make the world a better place but he wants to eradicate half of the universe because he realized that humanity itself is the parasite of this planet). A bad villain, on the other hand, is just a badly written character. Like when they just do bad stuff because they are "bad" or because they just like to do so.

Ranking of Kings deviated from its initial plot regarding the Ranking System, and they did not even provide details regarding the mystery of the reward of the Top 1 King. Why Top 1 Kings turn mad after collecting the reward from the treasure vault. The story literally focused on a side story that has bullshit plot. Miranjo did bad things because she just want to be with King Bosse (dad of the MC Bojji). In the end, King Daida (the son of King Bosse) married her father's ex-lover because of pity. See? Isn't that bullshit? Well, there's more bullshit in the story, her backstory. Despite what her mother did to help and improve their community (she even gave them lots of cash), Miranjo was tortured by citizens (skinned her face, cut her hands, hanged her in public) just because they were "Bad". Just because they were "innately bad".

Does the anime answer the question: "What does it truly mean to be a king?" "Can a deaf and mute person be a king?" The answer is NO. It did not and sadly this was the premise of the show. For people new to anime, they might find this good but for a veteran like me, this is a big oof.

Visuals (10/10)

This is definitely the strong part of Ranking of Kings. Animated by Wit Studio, the studio that animated some of your famous animes like Attack on Titan, Spy X Family (collab with Cloverworks), Seraph of the End, and etc., the visuals of Ranking of Kings is definitely top-tier. They made use of watercolor landscapes for the backgrounds. Moreover, the lining of each character is well-detailed. Animation is totally on-point especially the fighting scenes (of course they animated Attack on Titan that has intense fighting scenes). Overall, the visuals are perfect.

Sound (10/10)

The opening and opening songs were really ear-catching. For opening song, you have Boy by King Gnu and Oz by yama. I personally liked the ending song Oz. Moreover, the soundtrack for each scene was on-point and the voice acting was impeccable. This is another strong point of the anime. When you have a voice actor like Kaji Yuuki voicing one the characters, what could possibly go wrong right? This man has voiced many famous characters and hailed as one of the top VAs in Japan right now.

Characters (3/10)

This is one of the shortcomings of the anime. The characters are badly-written. The reasons of the characters for doing their actions is extremely out of place. It is not reasonable in any way and is truly out of character. I can write a whole review for each character and how badly written they are but I will hold back for the mean time. The only character that is well-written here is Kage. Kage's backstory and line of thoughts are definitely in-line with his character. Kage, the sole survivor of the shadow clan, did not know anything about society and taken advantage of. Because it was the first time that someone showed him kindness, he gave his full loyalty to the man despite the exploitation and other things did to him. From his life experiences, it is understandable that he left Bojji at the end because he is from the shadow clan and Bojji is already a king, someone like him with bad reputation will just affect Bojji's image.

Plot (2/10)

This is the major shortcoming of the anime. The plot progression was just too horrible. The show started as very promising. It can evoke lots of emotions from its viewers. Bojji's hardships and resilience plus Kage's backstory is very heart-warming. HOWEVER, why did Ranking of Kings deviate so much from the initial plot and why did it have to introduce a character that did lots of bad things because of stupid reasons? Moreover, what happened to the premise about justifying the acceptability a mute and deaf as a ruler of a nation?

The villain, Miranjo destroyed countless countries and even killed Bojji's mom (which she suggested to King Bosse - get a wife) because she wants to be with Bojji's dad forever. When in the first place they could be easily together but I dont know what drugs she took and started doing her actions.

What is also wrong here was that the king knew about everything and just let her do her actions. He knew that his 2nd wife is about to get assassinated but he just let her be. He even tested the hounds that will attack her wife. Then, to make things worse, Miranjo, the villain, who was the lover of King Bosse was married by Daida (the son of King Bosse) in the end because of pity. Excuse me wtf? You are marrying your dad's ex lover because a fragment of her memory was together with you inside the dark world? Moreover, Daida promised to make Miranjo happy so that she will forget the her bad past? Excuse me, wtf? Did you forget that this woman killed countless of people and destroyed nations because he wants to be with your father. She even had you possessed so that your dad can reincarnate in your body and you will still marry her? This is beyond comprehensible.

The story also failed to tackle the title of the show 'Ranking of Kings', there was little to almost no emphasis on the ranking system. They did not even show what is inside the treasure vault. Who are the other kings in the ranking system? Also, the plot armor of Bojji is insanely overpowered. With a guy that has zero strength, literally zero strength because all his abilities were taken away from him due to the curse of his dad, he can shatter a rock or even diamond by single prick of his needle sword. Imagine just how bullshit that is. He can even knock down guys larger than an elephant with a single attack. I can take his insane dodging ability but his ultra insane OP skill? Nahhh. He only trained for weeks, yes that is right, only weeks, and he can defeat the strongest man alive wtih much battle experience that even defeated gods. YO WTF? SERIOUSLY? That is too much for plot armor.

Overall: 6/10

If not for the fact that this anime has great visuals and soundtrack, its score would have definitely lower. Gahd, this is a waste of a good series. They literally had a gem but they turned it into a clusterfuck. This show is good for those people that are new into anime and want the one man saves all type of plot. But for people like me who had watched tons of shows, this is definitely a major disappointment. If you enjoyed Ranking of Kings, good for you but I am really upset with how things progressed.

!!!Spoilers!!!

I hate to dislike this show. While I ended up giving it a six, I dislike this show for how much I would've liked it. The first 7 episodes were flawless 10/10s for me, and even the next 5-to-10 episodes were really good, but I started to notice flaws at episode 8.

I find it unnecessary for me to describe the show, if you want a description look elsewhere, and be mindful I am going to spoil as I see fit, as that's the only way I can see myself writing this review.

So the 8th episode had two things I didn't like first of all ... Bebin was confirmed to be alive and second Boji was said to be the strongest person in the world. While neither of these are deal-breakers I will explain why I didn't like them. For starters, I think Bebin staying dead would have been much more interesting. When he died most people hated him or at least rooted for Apis over him when they fought. Yet throughout the show Bebin quickly became one of the best characters after being dead. I thought that was really cool a character thats dead is becoming one of my favorite characters, after he died how cool. To me him coming back kinda dampens that. Bebin was also the only major death (besides Bosse) in the beginning half so for him to not be dead means nobody major died in the first half. Lastly, I think the dynamics with Bebin being dead would've been interesting, how would Boji react to it, how would Apis live with it, how would the other 2 of the four react? Wasted potential. Now for Boji, I won't go into detail, but basically, I thought at the time if Boji is the strongest this quickly how will they be able to write the story in a satisfying way and to me they are not able to but I will get to that.

Now, this is the first episode I had some problems with so that's why it was its own paragraph, but after that, we get a few good episodes with no complaints. However then for me, the series goes downhill, and it's not anyone episode's fault so I will talk more about certain topics rather than specific episodes.

I'm going to start right out the gate with what I think was the absolute worst thing for me. Without this, I would've probably still given this show a 9/10 or at least an 8/10. And that's a lack of tension. So here's the deal Bosse kingdom is getting attacked by the underworlds nastiest criminals including Okuren. Not to mention Apis and Miranjo. But there is a problem Hiling she has a heal power and she can just heal anyone who is wounded. You might think well thats op there is probably a catch. Yes, there is, healing is strenuous and she cants do it very much, but guess what she can just drink magical potions and she is fine again to heal someone else woop woop. So the whole arc which should have a lot of tension considering whats going on falls flat cause im not invested. Why, because I know nothing bad will happen to any of the main cast so when Oukren nearly kills the main four, I should feel scared and suspense, but instead I dont feel anything I know all of them are going to be saved somehow. Even the bad guys get this treatment. Nobody dies, there is a huge fight with multiple factions and countries and some of the strongest in the series, yet not a single person dies. A small point I want to bring up that adds to this, Oukren is the only one capable of beating Boji (ill bring this up later) but guess what Oukren doesn't kill people he just wounds them because he likes to see them suffer. What a coincidence. I get it everyone would be dead if he didn't have this trait, but it's so convenient.

Another thing Boji becoming the strongest person hurts the story. He and Hiling healing powers are what ruin the tension. One of the strongest criminals gets absolutely trashed by him without any effort. And while I love the animation with him vs Bosse its also an easy win for Boji. Other than Oukren everything is easy. Boji is now an op mc, when they said he was the strongest person they meant it. Other then another fight with Oukren I struggle to think of a way Boji will ever struggle with a fight in the future. Maybe Bosse in his prime could be a tough fight, or maybe a god but thats all I can see. I wanted to see Boji get stronger sure, but when he goes from 0-hero in one time-lapse training period it feels forced and unearned. And it ruins the tension since he can beat anything besides Oukren with one stroke.

A subsection of this is anyone who actually gets hurt (it's nice people actually get hurt adds a bit of tension) doesn't show it. Dorshe for example loses a foot and an eye in his fight which again is nice, but he acts as if nothing happened. He lose a foot, just tie a stub on it, lost an eye nothing. Imagine he loses an eye, so we see him in a fight with the perspective of a missing eye, which hinders his fight so he loses a fight he would've won. He has actual consequences for losing an eye, but no nothing. Another example is Domas which I actually dislike even more. Domas loses a hand, during his grief over killing Boji, he cuts off the hand that pushed Boji. Now you may think so now Domas will have to deal with losing his main hand and learn to fight with his other hand, a constant reminder of his betrayal to Boji. But lol no, he just gets a metal hand off-screen which works just as well as his old hand. They are just cosmetic wounds. Imagine you give a game character an eyepatch or a pirate leg, or a claw hand. It's literally just for looks, your character isn't actually going to be half-blind, or have trouble walking. It's just cosmetic damage.

Another problem I have is how the order of the underworld is treated. This is a smaller issue, but at the start of the anime they were said to be the best knight order in the world, but during the entire arc they were just trashed on by anyone who fought them. Even the captain just got trashed. I'm not saying they should be able to beat Oukren for example, but imagine if they did. Or imagine if they beat Domas, or the Lizard criminal. They would have solidified themselves as a powerful knight core. But instead, they lose any fight they take making them look like trash. Of course, I know they took fights with some pretty strong people, but that doesn't change out they were represented. If they lost to Oukren but beat King Bo or another criminal, that would be good. But as the best knights in the world, they seem useless. The knights escorting Hiling are more intimidating them they are.

How Miranjo was treated was also really bad. She has committed terrible terrible things. Massacred people, killed Bojis mom, set this all up to kill Hiling and destroy Bosse kingdom. Sure she has a tragic backstory, but she shouldn't just be forgiven but thats exactly what happens. Everyone just forgives her including Boji, wtf. Daida even says he wants to marry her. This is so stupid not only are the characters completely forgiving her the plot is to. She was supposed to be eaten by the demon, but they cut off his head and make a deal demon head for Miranjo. I have three major problems with for one Miranjo deserves to be punished and for two Oukren actually deserves to be saved, and this makes the demon seem stupid, weak, and a nonthreat. Oukren didn't choose to be the way he is and could've been saved, but no save the literal murder. The demon seems like he will be one of the biggest end game threats, but he was taken down so easily it makes me wonder if he even is powerful beyond his wishes. I mean one lightning bolt and he's down.

I didn't even put everything, but I think I got my ideas across, I really loved the first 10 or so episodes, but the second part really just isnt it for me.

This anime is worth watching for Boji's underdog story ALONE. There, I said it.

Still here? k I'll try to detail a little more..

You can't watch this little guy struggle to achieve his dreams and not feel emotional about it, it's impossible. His friendship with Kage also really pulls at your heartstrings, 10/10 there.

But it fails at EVERYTHING ELSE. Whenever the story tries to build other characters, it makes you wish it would go back to Boji instead (except MAYBE Hilling, 10/10 best stepmom) specially Miranjo.. dear god WHAT A CLUSTERFUCK OF A CHARACTER.

Miranjo really just drags the whole story down. Won't bother with details, but ... after doing basically ALL THERE IS WRONG IN LIFE, she gets a happy ending w/o a SINGLE punishment just because she had.. wait for it.. A TRAGIC BACKSTORY *shockedpikaface*

Miranjo sucks. Just skip all scenes that dont show Boji and you will enjoy the show.