Kingdom

May 15, 2015

HaXXspetten

Recommended

Preliminary (431/? chp)

I've always been a bit puzzled as to why Kingdom isn't any more popular on this site. Despite having been publishing on a consistent weekly basis for nearly a decade by now, and despite being one of the highest rated manga on MAL, I still essentially never see anyone talk about it. It almost feels like people aren't even aware that it exists. I think this is very unfortunate, because they're missing out on what is perhaps the most inspirational manga I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

The story takes place during the Chinese Warring States period. After a full 500 years of constant warfare ... between the various states of China, the bloodshed still shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. It is here our story begins with a young man named Shin who has the naïve dream of becoming the greatest general in all of China. After accidentally becoming involved in a conflict over the royal throne of the state of Qin, he eventually ends up serving under the new young king who has the ambition to one day unite all of China under one banner.

As a result, Kingdom is a manga of epic proportions, containing large scale warfare with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, advanced military strategizing and incredible intensity. The battles are long and complicated, but perfectly understandable as the author's style of writing is extremely detailed and also utilizes tons of tactical maps, overviews and time jumps to explain the flow of combat. It's intelligent but without requiring much from the reader in order to keep up with the plot.

At the same time Kingdom also has extremely in-depth national politics and diplomacy between nations, further enhancing the overall sense of realism. Speaking of which, it should be stated that the manga is in fact based on true events and characters from Chinese history. Of course it's only loosely based on it as the historical records only dictate *what* happens, but the author is the one who decides *how* it happens. In other words he manages to create a story which is perhaps exaggeratedly epic, yet still never contradicts the actual true events.

The best part of Kingdom however is undoubtedly the characters. The story covers many years of time, and thus you get to see how everyone gradually grows and evolves over the course of time in very high detail. There are hundreds and hundreds of notable figures in the story, consisting of generals, commanders, soldiers, civilians, politicians, royalty and more. Especially the main military figures are superbly written, with incredible charisma and all with their own individual traits. The vast majority of them are almost impossible to dislike, regardless of which state they may come from. The amount of color they bring to the battlefield simply cannot be understated, and it feels like they're not just raising the morale of their respective soldiers in the manga itself, but the morale of the readers as well. At the same time, some of the death scenes in this manga are some of the most tragic and emotional death scenes I've ever seen in media. When one of your favorite characters passes away, you will truly feel it. Furthermore, the sheer amount of inspirational and downright moving speeches throughout the course of Kingdom is simply astonishing. The author truly knows how to touch the hearts of the readers with the way he's written the story. I really cannot praise him enough for it.

The art is extremely high detail and helps to amplify the level of intensity of the story. Especially the armies and the battlefields look simply fantastic and sometimes it makes you feel like you're really there. While it may not exactly be on the level of something like Berserk in terms of visuals, it's still more than enough to appropriately showcase the cold and harsh reality of the field of battle, and deliver that atmosphere to the readers first-hand.

Kingdom has some very long arcs occasionally during the more drawn-out battles, and I'll just say here and now that when you're in one of those segments, it's effectively impossible to stop reading it. Why? Because every single chapter ends in a huge cliffhanger! This is one of those stories which just keeps teasing you and forces you to keep reading the next chapter. And the next one. And the next one. And the- ...you get the idea. Point being that despite it having over 400 chapters published at the time of writing this, you can still easily read through all of it in just a few days, no problem whatsoever. It's just *that* addictive once you start.

Overall, in my eyes Kingdom is a manga which seriously needs more attention. I'm still not sure exactly why so few people have read it, but I really wish more people would give it a chance because it truly is one of the most influential and impressive manga out there. It stands out as a very atypical manga to begin with, but above all it is exceedingly rare for a story to be so action-packed, so intelligent yet so incredibly emotional all at the same time.