Kingdoms of Ruin is a manga created by yoruhashi and published by Comic Garden in 2019.
Long ago in ancient history, Witches were the guides for humanity, blessed with great power to ensure those without magic could go down the right path. However, that changed as technology advanced, and the Gear Expansion made it so that their magic was considered obsolete.
In the modern-day, the Redia Empire, a nation no different from a developed state on modern Earth, has decided to launch a purge of all witches. Thus, the witch hunts began where all magic users, their apprentices, and all their loved ones and supporters are killed ruthlessly.
Adonis was an apprentice to a Witch named Chloe, who believed the world would change their ways and can still be guided back into the light. This ended tragically as his mentor was humiliated, tortured, and eventually killed in public. With his magic of writing reality as he sees fit, he seeks to bring down the Empire and kill everyone who dares to lay a finger on Witches and their loved ones so that such witch hunts will never happen again.
An anime adaptation by Yokohama Animation Lab started airing in October 2023.
Kingdoms of Ruin provides examples of:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Once it's clear her magic has been negated and that her pupil was about to be killed, Chloe gets into a Pose of Supplication to beg The Emperor to spare Adonis' life in exchange for her's.
- Alas, Poor Villain:
- Adonis gives a moment of solace after killing Yuki despite her affiliation with Redia, knowing that her hunting Adonis and Doroka was out of Big Brother Worship rather than xenophobic fanaticism.
- Anachronism Stew: Skyscrapers and digital technology, including smartphones, not to mention futuristic technology such as airships and Anti-Magic devices, coexist with medieval architectures (such as castles and colosseums) and medieval-esque empire.
- Anti-Magic: Also known as Magic Suppression devices, which humans use to mitigate and even destroy powerful magic used by Witches. Has a side effect, however, the world itself is nearly destroyed as it emits nuclear radiation do so.
- Asshole Victim: When the Empire hunts down the escapees from the prison, one of the people they kill is the corrupt and perverted official who had kept witches as sex slaves, and thus allowed the entire disaster to happen.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: We have the Knight Templar fantastically racist Redia Empire and the horrifying four countries that aided them in their war against the Witches, the witches themselves who clearly look down on humans, and the highly misanthropic main protagonist who nonetheless still has some morals. The only person who is in the white territory is Doroka, a genuine Rose-Haired Sweetie, who just wanted the killings to stop.
- Blood from the Mouth: After the 10-year Time Skip, the emperor is dying of a disease and coughs up blood.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: As part of her plea to the emperor to spare Adonis, Chloe calls him a miserable human and claims she used him as a slave.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Yeah, Adonis is pretty brooding after everything he's been through, while Doroka tries to remain gentle despise seeing the worst humanity and witch-kind has to offer.
- Burn the Witch!: The result of the Gear Expansion and Redia deciding to eliminate all Witches from the world. Massively deconstructed on this idea as the witch hunts resulted in mass casualties on the humans’ own side, and they are now stuck with a problem of the Earth being close to environmental destruction, of which only the very Witches they hunted can solve.
- Cycle of Revenge: Humans decided to commit genocide on the witches, so Adonis wants to return the favor for what they did to his teacher (despite being human himself), and Doroka wants to stop all the killing, or at least simply prevent Adonis' quest for revenge to fully consume him.
- Dead Guy on Display: Executed witches are hanged from the bottom of an overpass, with their dead bodies left hanging there.
- Death by Irony: Joker the White Rabbit was an assassin sent to kill the Third Witch in the Kingdom of Caliburn manga for her Love Magic, who happens to that protagonist’s mentor. In this series, he is a brainwashed servant of Dorothea, who is related to the Third Witch, and is killed by a similar apprentice while saving his Witch friend.
- The Dog Bites Back:
- Adonis’s quest for revenge is simply this after watching his mentor get brutally murdered then undergoing Cold-Blooded Torture in prison before finally escaping.
- The manmade Eldritch Ambominarion composed of the fused corpses of countless Witches breaks free to devour the flagship of the Redian naval fleet sent to kill Adonis and Doroka in Chapter 44.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Chloe tells Adonis that she loves him just as she's about to be executed.
- Eye Scream: Doroka gets her eyes ripped out by Joker, and Adonis in turn gives one of his own so she can see again.
- Fan Disservice: In the end of the first chapter, Chloe ends up topless, leaving her large breasts mostly exposed. Any possible titillation is cut short due to it being a result of a humiliating Shameful Strip in public before she's brutally killed.
- Going Commando: Chloe is revealed to not wear a bra underneath her shirt when The Emperor rips it apart in public, leaving her with just her hair and hands to protect her modesty.
- Hard Truth Aesop: The Witches learn the hard way that absolutely refusing to kill humans despite having all the power to and outright blind faith in humanity does not work, especially when they are many, not one or few, who have absolutely no intention to let them live. As a result, only Doroka is left among them, and Adonis is left to enact revenge.
- History Repeats: Many years ago, a Witch with the cursed “Love Magic” and a human apprentice with a Reality Warper pen with a quest revenge against those who killed his mentor get together. Both of which eventually leads, or would lead, to revenge against the Witch responsible for everything.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Several witches might have looked down upon humanity, but as said so by witch Ophelia "Magic shows the true face of mankind", and what they did to Witches in the name of progress was a good representation of how shitty humanity can be.
- An Ice Person: Chloe specializes in ice magic.
- It's Personal: Adonis decides to hunt down humanity after the Empire kills Chloe in front of him.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: In Episode 1 of the anime, Chloe gets shot in the head by the emperor before she could even finish saying "I love you" to Adonis, [which subsequently turns into a gunfire squad execution and a beheading.
- Mage Species: Witches apparently cannot reproduce with humans and instead are born from Mito Trees.
- Magic Versus Science: How the witch hunts have become with Witches on the losing end, thanks to the Redia Empire’s technology to modern standards that includes Anti-Magic. Both thankfully and unfortunately, humanity was left with weaknesses they were not prepared for after ten years, giving the survivors an advantage.
- Meaningful Name: The title Kingdoms of Ruin refers to the Redia Empire and the four kingdoms who allied with them in their genocidal war, and it's very apparent they have fucked up the planet almost to the point of no return.
- Mercy Kill: Adonis puts down all the Sex Bots who had been left abandoned and without a purpose in an oddly respectful way.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Chloe dies at the end of the first chapter while trying to rescue Adonis.
- Multiple Gunshot Death: The Emperor shoots Chloe in the head, followed by his guards unloading their assault rifles into her.
- New Technology Is Evil: The Gear Expansion proves to have done far more harm than good. Anti-Magic devices have rendered most of the Earth uninhabitable due to constant release of nuclear radiation that kills most as many humans as it does Witches. Sex Bot dolls have turned cities into ruins. Even the miracles of the medical industry are the result of a former apprentice crushing thousands of Witches into a giant blob that he gleefully exploits for his achievements.
- Off with His Head!: Chloe is decapitated after her execution.
- Oh, Crap!: Chloe is left absolutely shocked when her attempt to rescue Adonis is thwarted when The Empire's Anti-Magic technology completely nullifies her strongest spell.
- The Pen Is Mightier: Adonis’s main tool is his feather pen, which gives him Reality Warper powers.
- Reality Warper: Adonis’s pen could used to create objects in his space and use them how he wishes.
- Shameful Strip: The Emperor proceeds to rip Chloe's shirt off after negating her magic, leaving her topless in front of the massive audience who then proceed to take pictures and heckle her when she desperately tries to preserve her modesty.
- Stealth Sequel: The main antagonist, Dorothea, is the former main heroine of the author's previous work, The Kingdom of Caliburn, turning this manga into a sequel of that one. Contributing to this is Punch, a talking chicken in Kingdom of Caliburn, who is now human, and a same pen of the same powers.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Adonis considers Chloe to be this after seeing just how fucked up the world has become ever since the Lydia Empire began the Witch Hunts.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Several minor characters are introduced and then killed, usually within the same chapter.
- Wretched Hive: Subverted with one settlement led by the gang leader Punch. Despite its makeshift conditions, the people are pretty nice, and Punch himself knows well how much trouble the Redia Empire and its exploits have really caused for the planet.
- With Due Respect: One of the Emperor's subordinates uses this phrase when explaining that a single unit of border guards could not catch Chloe. He ends up getting beaten up for talking back to the Emperor.
- Who Needs Enemies?: Lady Ophellia, leader of the surviving witches, seems like someone who genuinely wants to help Adonis bring Chloe, his former master, back to life so that she can return at long last so that both Adonis and Chloe can live happily together again. What she doesn't tell Adonis, however, is that they only want to bring Chloe back to life as she's the only one who knows the creation method of the magical pens that Adonis, her last apprentice, uses so that they cruelly exploit that from her and don't reveal this to him. It's only thanks to Doroka warning Adonis about this before she dies that he's able to avert this from happening and decides to bring Doroka back to life instead, as he doesn't want to bring his master back to the currently-horrid world that'd just repeat the same tragedy done to her before later on.
- World Tree: Mito Trees, which are the origin of all Witches. The last one gets destroyed on the Moon.
