~Story~
The story itself appears to be generic and nothing new at first glance - an orphan,young boy called Xin, who aspires to become a great general, meets the young emperor Piao. This is of course not as simple as it sounds: military conquests, political strive, drama and death will be the fate of these two protagonists. The narration is well presented, gradually improving as the story progresses, while at the same time managing to introduce suspense as well as enabling the reader to immerse himself in the story. The pacing of the story is slow, at times, but improves over time. Readers may find the beginning of the narrative slow, as the author dedicates it to explore the motives of the characters, as well developing them; nevertheless, the reader will be rewarded with a good and well paced story, progressively becoming more interesting as it continues.
This applies to the battles that take place too: these don't only consist of raw fighting. It is bundled together with clever warfare. These are explained very well, which gives a good insight on how warfare was executed in that period. The clever narration together with the military strategies gives a feeling of realism. However, there is a problem involved with the military warfare. Important figures such as generals or the main characters are ridiculously overpowered, often making strategies on the battle fields pointless, partially destroying the realistic touch it created. Nevertheless, battles not involving these were well executed.
The story is not entirely focused upon the main characters. Through background stories of other characters, it manages to maintain the reader interested, as well as building and showing the world of current China. When Kingdom isn't focused on military warfare, it presents slice of life moments. One lacking aspect was that it didn't focus on developing characters.
~Characters~
The cast of Kingdom is big, but the reader is introduced to a handful characters in the beginning; however, as the story develops, a lot of characters are introduced as wars extend to a larger scale. This leads to a problem; a big amount of characters lack depth and are a bit generic. This does not mean that all of them are uninteresting, as for example the emperor or other secondary characters have quite an interesting background, which makes it possible to understand the decisions and motivations of the characters.
Taking as example Xin, who wants to be the greatest general of all China. This character is the usual shonen stereotype, hard-working, dumb, and ridiculously overpowered when it comes to very dear situations with power ups without too much training. This breaks the gradual character development I personally like to see, besides of loosing credibility. Nevertheless, this didn't bother me that much, as the story already since the beginning hinted at this.
As for the secondary characters, back ground stories would have been desireable in order to understand their actions and motivations. For example, the "enemies" of the protagonists are shallow, and have no real purpose other than being the enemy. Most of them are suggested to be very famous; more information on the why and how they were so famous would be enticing as well. This will probably be explained later on, but this remains yet to be seen.
~Art~
Let me begin by saying that the art of the characters at first glance are not that appealing; however, I found it a very nice change to the current design of characters of the current mangas, which are all very similar.
The art style fits really well with the era in which it takes place: The era of warring states. The style does not evolve significantly over time, but the way how combat scenes are drawn does. One thing I liked are the angles at which the scenes were drawn: this gave a good insight on the magnitude of the battle, as well as making it more interesting for the reader.
Backgrounds, when drawn, are well done and at times spectacular. nevertheless, there is often a lack of backgrounds on scenes and panels, which would be desirable to fill that white void. However, this doesn't hinder the story.
~Enjoyment~
After finishing the anime, it left me intrigued on how the story continued; however, I began reading it from the beginning in order to not miss a single thing, and I must say, it was very well worth it. I generally like reading military/historical mangas, and so far I must say Kingdom is one of the best I have read so far. From the impressive story, the epic battles with clever explained military strategy to the different and outstanding art, as well as the amount of characters that were presented, Kingdom is definitely one of my favourite mangas.
So if you are interested in military/historical mangas, want a change on the other mangas that are out there, or even just want to enjoy very well drawn battles with the story of how Xin becomes a general, I can definitely recommend Kingdom. Don't expect deep political battles, in that case it is recommendable to read The Ravages of Time.
Thank you for reading.
