Kingdom

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: キングダム

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: Unknown

Chapters: Unknown

Status: Publishing

Published: Jan 26, 2006 to ?

Genres: Action, Award Winning

Themes: Historical, Military

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Young Jump

Authors: Hara, Yasuhisa (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 9.01¹ (scored by 65,532 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #13²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #52

Members: 181,565

Favorites: 15,892

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@kingdom_yj

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9.01

Ranked #13Popularity #52Members 181,565

MangaYoung JumpHara, Yasuhisa (Story & Art)

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Synopsis

During the Warring States period in China, Xin and Piao are two brother-like youngsters who dream of becoming Great Generals, despite their low status as orphaned slaves. One day, they encounter a man of nobility, who gives Piao an opportunity to undertake an important duty within the state of Qin's royal palace. Parting ways, Xin and Piao promise each other to one day become the greatest generals in the world. However, after a fierce coup d'état occurs in the palace, Xin meets with a dying Piao, whose last words spur him into action and lead him to encounter the young and soon-to-be king of Qin, Zheng Ying.

Although initially on bad terms, Xin and Zheng become comrades and start on a path filled with trials and bloodshed. Zheng's objective is to bring all the warring states under Qin, and Xin seeks to climb to the very top of the army ranks. Against a backdrop of constant tactical battle between states and great political unrest, both outside and within the palace, the two endeavor towards their monumental ambitions that will change history forever.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

In 2013, Kingdom was awarded the 17th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Grand Prize. As of April 2017, the series has sold 30 million copies.

On December 12, 2012, the series won a Guinness World Record for manga written by the most people. The record was made possible due to its Social Kingdom Campaign, where artists, fans, and voice actors redrew the entire 26th volume. Each participant picked and redrew one frame; the top 100 would be given a special edition of the manga. Eiichiro Oda (One Piece), Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto), Hirohiko Araki (JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken), and many others were among the participants.

A live-action movie of Kingdom was released on April 19, 2019, a second one on July 15, 2022, a third one on July 28, 2023, and a fourth one on July 12, 2024.

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Related Entries

More characters
Characters

Xin

Main

Lei, Qiang

Main

Ying, Zheng

Main

He Liao, Diao

Main

Wang, Qi

Supporting

Huan, Yi

Supporting

Wang, Jian

Supporting

Gong, Biao

Supporting

Li, Mu

Supporting

Meng, Tian

Supporting

Reviews

Sep 16, 2024

Hukunah

Recommended

Funny

Preliminary (800/? eps)

Kingdom to me just lacks class. I think series that handle heavy and ambitious topics should be treated with adequate respect and sense of tonality/tact befitting them. Kingdom fails terribly in this regard for me, just feels like a childish iteration especially relative to the only other "War" manga I read that also covers a certain period in ancient Chinese history (The Ravages of Time). I wasn't very fond or impressed with Kingdoms characters or story. Only perspective I found genuinely interesting is Ei Sei's. The Art style wasn't a problem as I was reading it but looking back on it I just don't really ...

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Dec 5, 2024

AlexSonicfun2012

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (818/? eps)

A manga that aspires to be a Chinese seinen masterpiece but ends up as a shōnen version of Dynasty Warriors — and not even a great one at that. I’ve managed to read all 818 chapters of Kingdom, along with its short chapters outside the main series. Before delving deeper into this review, let me clarify: if you’re one of those who truly love Kingdom, that’s perfectly fine. But this review may not resonate with you. That said, I hope you’ll hear me out before dismissing my perspective.

Initial Expectations

When I first heard of Kingdom, it was through the relentless praise it received in videos and ...

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Aug 18, 2021

duylinhsss

Not Recommended

Funny

Preliminary (400/? eps)

Why is Kingdom trash.

Click bait title. Before you Kingdom fans jump on me like the way Kingdom simplifies warfare and merely depicts waves of soldiers crashing onto each other, let's be patient and think about this question: why do Shin fight? He wanted to become the best general because... he wants to be not poor? He desires to be cool? He wants to stand on top of the world? What motivates him to kill, again and again, respectable people? Well, as the first act went on, it shifted to Shin following Sei's dream of uniting China and ends the chaos. That sounds good, right?

Let ... me first tell you about the background to the story. I think many who read Kingdom is aware of the history behind it, but not to the extend that they think. Sei, or Zheng actually, is the first emperor of China. His rise to power, as in Kingdom, is full of intrigued. His father, the unexpected king of Qin, passed, and he's on the throne now. Yet the real power behind him, Lu Buwei, a famous historical figure, is rumoured to be Zheng real father, for he gave his concubine to Zheng's father. Lu Buwei's power helped Zheng secured his throne, and later Zheng executed his own brother and his family. I shall call Zheng, Qin Shi Huang or QSH, from now on. QSH, then, using an incident involving his mother, turned against Lu Buwei and removed their faction from his court, through blood. After uniting China, he executed his brutal repression of any other philosophy other than Legalism. He's famous for burning of Confucianist materials, as well as executing their scholars. He ruled China with an iron fist.
That's not all the details about his life, of course. I didn't mention much of the warfare materials that created Kingdom. Kingdom followed QSH's life pretty well, by most standards, included many important events in QSH's life as well as Qin's rise to power. This is why I feel Kingdom was a very bad take on such an important part of history. QSH can be considered the turning point in Chinese history in many ways. The modern CCP's take on how to rule China, is influenced a lot by what happened 2200 years ago. Yet, Kingdom is the Akame ga Kill of Chinese history.
Akame ga Kill is not the first, nor last, nor perhaps even the most famous example of adding violence and death to a shounen to make it more interesting. In the course of doing that, they do a inadvertently reduce the stake of the death occurred. If everyone can die, and it's all very tragic, why were they slashing through tons of people? Aren't those people too? Why is it that during those "chosen" characters death, the series turns into a sombre mood. Yet, outside of that, the death of thousands, hundreds of people are a mere background? Are we suppose to take this seriously or is this a light hearted get stronger fight next opponent kind of story? Kingdom did the exact same thing, only, it added the very important piece of history attached to it.

I want to love Kingdom, I really do. I love historical comics, I love 3 Kingdoms, I love the Warring State, I love the Iliad. To boys, there were something just melancholically exciting about stories of men dying on the battlefield. Kingdom fails completely on that front, and if it was simply trying to bring that genre into a younger audience hands, I think it is completely unnecessary to dumb down the most important period of East Asia into, shounen battle comic.
The battles, the fighting, seems well done. It depicts fighting between thousands of men, duals between generals, strategy, manoeuvres, trickeries are all here and it seems great. However, those are only skin deep. It is not the first nor last to discuss and depict warfare in detail, but it is perhaps the most famous right now. I think a comparison with something like Hawkwood is in order. Hawkwood depicts warfare but in much smaller scale. It is also depicting it more realistically. The soldiers are more important than burly generals riding out to fight on epic 1 on 1. However, because warfare is on a much smaller, realistic scales, effects are much easier to depict. A cavalry charge, flanking, archer, positioning, movement, formation, ambush, weapons, logistics, are all well drawn. This is all in Kingdoms, but it is often mentioned in passing, or sometime ignore completely. That's fine, because if Kingdom is that sort of work, akin to Iliad, then it invites something even worse.

Iliad don't depict warfare realistically. In oral's tradition of the time, Iliad is mostly dramatized, event driven tale of the Trojan War. It seems to be similar to how Kingdom is, half the time. The generals, duking it out, man to man fighting on the front, to decide who's more favoured by the gods. This seems to be shounen-esque, yet, Iliad is taken seriously by everyone. The reason for that is very simple, Iliad is truly an epic with a message, a theme, the encompass the zeitgeist of ancient Greece. Glory, fury, pride, legacy and ultimately, fate are concepts in the Iliad that resonates throughout their world. Iliad depicted glorious generals, going into battle to leave a legacy, yet all fall victim to fate. All of those famous heroes, with passages about their deeds and fame before stepping it, fought valiantly against each other, only for one to kill another. All of that, all of the heroic deeds, all of the training, the fighting, the glory, the blood, the pride of warrior, all of that, so one men can slay another. Iliad, in the end is about the meaninglessness of warfare. The king of Troy, begging an enraged Achilles, to return his son corpse. Even as enemies, they can still respect each other as men in a world rules by fate. It tells the people of the time that, glory in battle might make your mark in history, but true fulfilment lies in forgiveness and peace, not killing on another, even in a world where fate, or the gods, dictate that great men must kill one another, to be great. Kingdom has none of these nuance. The battles between generals are, just that. It doesn't have a theme to encompass the entire warfare of ancient China. It fails to honour the generals that was slain on Shin's path to be the best, because it was written as a shounen, sprinkled with seinen. A math test with some realistic physics scenario added, all skin deep to avoid any realistic complicated consideration of the scenario. For maths, that's fine, because it is meaningless. For historical figures, this is a disrespect to the story and the people that died, leaving the legacy of today's world.

If you are about to tell me that, there's the unexplored middle ground, and that Kingdom fulfils that, I say, go read 3 kingdoms. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, RoTK for short, is the dramatization of the Three Kingdoms period, which takes place at the end of the Han Dynasty. If you are familiar with RoTK, you can immediately spot the similarity between Kingdom and it. RoTK has it all, an epic retelling of events, great generals battling each other on the battlefield, political intrigues, warfare intrigues and manoeuvres, reality of the feudal system, suffering of common people, Confucianism against legalism, and best of all a theme to encompass the spirit of not just the period, but of modern Chinese thoughts in this case. If you are not familiar, well, 3 kingdoms essentially have a few storylines, but it focuses, of course, on fate of the three kingdoms, Wei, Shu, Wu, and their struggle to survive and dominates China. Most of the famous and familiar events took place in the early period, before the formation of the rivalry between the 3 kingdoms. The novel often mentions epic duel between famous warriors like Lubu, but also talking about the personality, the nobleness or wickedness in episodes to portray the characters. It also tells a lot of what happens during campaigns, manoeuvres, tricks or legends of these events. You can almost call it shounen-esque, but again, unlike Kingdom, it has a many message to tell, but the most encompassing one is the cyclical nature of rise and fall. Heroes rise, fall, rise again, just like their kingdoms. No matter how great you are, how much intrigues you performed, how extensive your list of deeds are, you are merely part of the wheel of history. The sacrifice, death, are celebrated, as well as evil deeds condemned. It is a little of a downer, perhaps. But the novel always mention glorifies actions of which are glorious, morally just rather than falling into the cynicism due to the chaos of the time. That's the nature of historical epic. You must never forget to be historical, because these are real lives, lives of those who lived it to the fullest. Reducing it to a shounen struggle to become famous, or to become just, is insulting to historical epics.

So, a supposed historical epic, completely disrespect historical epic, where else are the values of it, other than in simple minded entertainment with history sprinkled on? Could it be, the art? Kingdom art is nice, it's fine. It doesn't look great, it does look stylistic and different, but not in a way that fascinates me. I don't care for its preservation, should aliens come to earth, conquer it and then ordain the burning of comics. That's the best I can say about it.

It's really not a bad comic, after all of this. I can't fault it having bad story, bad characters, bad pacing, bad art. However, all everything it does is average. There's nothing particularly memorable or interesting about it for me, as a comic. For flavours, it added a lot of characters relationships, some personal struggles for the characters to overcome through the power of will, or friendship or just muscle. It positioned itself as a historical epic is the misstep, in my opinion. I would rather the author depicts some kind of fictional land, like Youjo Senki or Arslan, than a very interesting and rich historical period to embarrass itself. If you have no idea about the history of the period, it might captivate you. Just remember that none of the political intrigues and discussion about philosophy matters later on.

Would I recommend Kingdom? I would simply say, no. There are better works out there deserving of attention and money. Vinland Saga, does epic historical journey to be something, far far better than Kingdom. Vagabond explores philosophy of life and the sword, far far better than Kingdom. The manga, Shiji, retells the story of this period and the lesson much better. Buddha, is not comparable because it was written by a true master, the pioneer of the medium. I even prefer things like Hawkwood, Woflmund, Koukoku no Shugosha, Gunka no Baltzar depiction of battles much more than Kingdom. If some simplistic warfare is your cup of tea, why not Youjo Senki? Epic journey to be conqueror, why not Arslan Senki, Historie? For a complete replacement, why not just The Ravages of Time? That one in my opinion suffers from the same disease as this. However, that one is actually cool, with fantastic art, completely epic. Ad Astra, also terrible, but has better art. Even Drifters have better fantasy element. It performs very well, far better than many of these actual good works. I think Kingdom is just in the middle of all of them, not too technical about combat, not too serious about the period, not too much details. It appeals to the mass just like how Naruto or AgK used to be.

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Poll: Kingdom Chapter 824 Discussion logic340 - Jan 22	0 replies	by logic340 »» 5 hours ago
Poll: Kingdom Chapter 823 Discussion Mei-o_Scarlett - Jan 8	3 replies	by logic340 »» 6 hours ago
Poll: Kingdom Chapter 314 Discussion Nidhoeggr - Jan 26, 2014	35 replies	by Supported »» Dec 27, 2024 8:30 PM
How long do you think the current arc will be Jipsi - Dec 26, 2024	3 replies	by Ramkec »» Dec 27, 2024 6:47 AM
Poll: Kingdom Chapter 822 Discussion Mei-o_Scarlett - Dec 26, 2024	7 replies	by Jipsi »» Dec 27, 2024 5:48 AM

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