Ranking of Kings (Ousama Ranking)

After the disappointing awkwardness of the last few combat scenes, it's nice that the Ouken vs Bojji fight gets back into the groove. Apparently Ouken has been paralyzing people with precisely pelted pebbles? And his black blood gluing his shattered sword back together was creepy-cool. Also loving everyone crapping their pants when faced against Bojji. The giant Bojji looming over Apeas was rad.

Turns out Desha, Despa and Ouken are actually demigods. And of course their father's name was Satun, whose name is a play on Saturn.

Daida is somehow melting Miranjo's which is why she's showing those hints of kindness.

Also: I must share the episode 17 illustration, which captures the horrifying being that is Ouken

| their father's name was Satun, whose name is a play on Saturn.

Also a play on Satan

Edited by ScrewySqrl on Feb 11th 2022 at 9:37:06 AM

Episode 18:
It had me all WTF all the way to the end. Damn, the feels are too much...
Major Reveals:
(1) Miranjo's cruel past. She hails from Houma, a name which can be arranged like "mahou" which means magic, which gives a sense of what her place is like. She hails from a place of mages and sorcerers that defied the gods. Bosse was there because he killed her father, but her mom saved him. Turns out they were all nice folk inside. Alas, that nicety came to bite them as they allied with the neighboring Gyakuza, the complete opposite of Houma (as if the name didn't clue you). They're both the opposite of Houma (gyaku) and made up of outlaws that know no kindness (yakuza? who knows). They were the ones who took advantage of Miranjo's mother's kindness and killed her and tore Miranjo apart. Worse, when things went rough for them, they turncoated and sided with the gods. It was tragedy, nothing more. Oh the allegories to our current world!
(2) Despa and the Captain arrive at the battle between Bojji and Ouken. The captain ends up stabbed and so does Despa. Bojji's at his breaking point, and Kage had to step up. Now what the fuck is up with his growing into some giant shadow monster?

Edited by thuse on Feb 18th 2022 at 3:04:31 AM

Yeah you would expect someone as twisted as Miranjo to have a tragic backstory, and oh boy is it goddamn tragic. Her mother was killed by the people they were helping, and then she herself was mutilated. That’s going to screw anyone up. Also interesting to learn about the gods, who seem to have lost their dominance in the current age. Where are they now? Did the rise of powerful mortal kings stop their conquest? Or is the ranking system a relic of the age of gods? So many questions!

I love that Hiling is tired of trying to figure out the craziness going on. She’s just going to help anyone she can, then they can do whatever the hell they want. Because Bojji will save them all anyway.

Oof Ouken getting stab-happy is brutal to watch. Despa was more amazing in this episode than usual, predicting Ouken’s moves and holding him down so Desha could strike him with lightning, knowing full well he’d be fried too. Despite how weak he is, he was going to save Bojji, Kage, the captain and his loony brother. Too bad it doesn’t work.

Then Bojji gets stabbed in the leg, which made me actually physically recoil. There I was fervently praying for the Big Four to make their Big Damn Heroes entrance… and instead get Kage going full blown shadow monster. WTF?!?! Hell yes. I wanna ride the rollercoaster.

Episode 19:
NOOOOOOOOOOO- Kage got killed and Bojji got stabbed. Then, a sequence with Kage about to head to the afterlife with his mom when MIRANJO of all people stops him. Then, an emotional moment (with Bojji levels of sympathy) when Kage decides to stay alive for Bojji. This shakes up Miranjo a bit that her doll self with Daida was freed. The rest of the episode is The Big Four VS Ouken!! Alright, the last bastion. Will they be able to hold Ouken for long enough...?

Oof Ouken went wild. My face scrunched up every time he stabbed someone.

I saw a post that points out how Houma's benevolent colonization of Gyakuza, only to be betrayed by them, uses imagery based on the Japanese occupation and cultural genocide of Korea... which, yeah, it's really hard to argue. That whole plot point already left a really sour taste in my mouth, but this is something even worse.

I didn't even know this had such a connection.
The author leaving no comment on this would suggest that either the author meant no ill will on that (edit: i hope this is more likely) or the author does not wish to admit it. Either way, this will not end well reputation-wise.

Edited by thuse on Feb 26th 2022 at 12:03:15 AM

Hmmm...

Aren't the Gyakuza much more one note evil compared to most other backstory baddies in the series too?

I'm going to be frank: Anime News Network already had a long story on overblowing controversies just for the sake of publicity; we don't know the context of the real-life photographs used in the article, when and which time period those photos were taken, among other things, and according with the posts on ANN's forum, the controversy is neither as severe compared with similar cases, and it's mostly limited with many American and some western viewers.

In other words, we shouldn't import drama from other forums, since we don't know what the intentions of that article were in the first place.

Edited by luisedgarf on Feb 26th 2022 at 2:24:51 PM

Looking at the ANN article, I’m not convinced that those mud huts specifically point to old Korean houses when a cursory google search turns up similar house designs from various other places like Africa. The modern houses on the other hand seem more of a rustic European design to me.

So I’ll agree with that this feels overblown. The “article” itself can hardly be called a detailed analysis.

@Luised: Putting the other points aside, do you think there might be a reason why Japanese viewers don't care as much about a potential reference to Japanese wartime crimes?

An Images search suggests that the picture is Korea circa 1880; most of the links appear to be to right-wing war crime denialists' pages.

Edited by RedSavant on Feb 26th 2022 at 8:02:30 AM

I meant the mud huts portrayed in the anime, which I don't think resemble the provided Korean picture more than various other mud huts.

Yeah even if there wasn't any dogwhistling at all, it would still be a bad plot point that feels out of place with the rest of the show.

That was my big problem with it anyway. Hell, even the chuckling immortal slaughter monster gets a Tragic Monster backstory, while this entire country of people is just painted with "they're poor and evil and it's their own fault, and the whole reason the main antagonist is doing what she's doing is because they decided to murder an innocent doctor and torture her kid for literally no reason".

It feels suspect, and even if it's not, it's just bad writing anyway.

Yeah like at the end of the day Miranjo is even acting like them with how she butchers a mother in front of her child with plans of killing him next. I’m not sure what point that’s being made when it’s clear she’s become exactly like them.

Definitely agree that the Gyakuza are terrible writing regardless of the potential denialist implications.

That’s the problem with trying to make villains like Miranjo who’ve done some heinous deeds sympathetic. Often writers resort to introducing almost comically more evil monsters so those villains come out smelling nicer.

From what i heard Ranking of Kings tries to make all of it's villains and antagonists sympathetic and "grey" and the problem with that is many writers, who attempt that, tend to run out of good and well-written reasons for villains (if there are many of them in the story) to do evil things (especially if its super heinous) and they resort to something cheap and super cliche, like making someone or some group into literally "plot devices", who tend to not have much backstory or dialogue, and exists solely to be the reason on why the villain is so evil.

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Feb 27th 2022 at 5:39:26 PM

Episode 20:
First, a confrontation between Miranjo and the dead Queen Shiina, Bojji's mother, and Miranjo's mother. The mothers warn of unhappiness coming to Miranjo for her actions, but Miranjo, who turned out to have betrayed the Devil twice already, could not back down. By the end of this scene, Despa telepathed Miranjo's backstory to Bojji.
Then, the main event: as the Big Four are down for the count, as Hokuro tries to hit Ouken with arrows but is stabbed in return, as Miranjo being the mirror was at last revealed to Daida, BOSSE (yes, still in Daida's body) comes to the fray. After knocking everyone around, he ... ends up healing everyone? (Oh right, Daida's also Hiling's child... Um...) Then, it's Bosse vs Ouken, which, surely enough, ends wih Bosse winning by stuffing a beaten Ouken inside a boulder. Now, Bojji is eager to fight his father...

Edited by thuse on Mar 3rd 2022 at 6:16:26 PM

I should have expected that Daida would also have healing powers.

Bosse shows us why he deserves his name. There's something darkly comical about how he sealed Ouken.

Episode 21:
Basically Bojji vs Bosse in a most sakuga-filled fight! The result is that Bosse was defeated, and Bojji broke the mirror, sending Bosse to a heaven forever separated from Miranjo, and Miranjo to eternal damnation for messing with the devil.

You know WIT is pulling out all the stops when even the simple act of Daida!Bosse walking away from Miranjo is pure cinematic sakuga. I love how the fight was depicted, with Bosse in his original gargantuan form laying waste to the entire castle, and Bojji flitting and flipping around as he slowly destroyed Bosse’s club. All that experience with Attack on Titan was put to good use!

We also get a better introduction to the demon who will likely be the antagonist for the next part. The way it eats souls, gleefully tearing them up with their teeth, then vomiting them back out so they can writhe back into whole souls, just so it can repeat the process is horrifying. Hell in this show ain’t screwing around.

We also get a brief exchange between Desha and the ranking officials, and I think it’s even clearer that the guys behind the ranking system have a greater goal in mind. Given that they want to put someone at the top, and everyone that’s gotten there has gone insane, perhaps the goal of the system is to bring back the age of the gods by creating a new deity.. And it just so happens that everyone who’s tried to hold divine power were driven mad by it.

Also the way the child demon appears definitely gives vibes that the Demon tends to do this to people who betray him. Even Bojji being King by his and Bosse Will was undermined by Miranjo trying to have him killed and not given the Throne.

Yeah the goal definitely gives me vibes that the goal is to have someone have literal Divine Right over the world.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Mar 10th 2022 at 6:26:56 AM

Episode 22:
One word: Redemption. Yes, Miranjo, by Daida's wish to the Devil, was redeemed by resurrection and became (technically, will become) Daida's betrothed. Meanwhile, Desha accepts the first rank of the Ranking of Kings. I wonder what will happen to him...
The next episode marks the end of the season. It's been a wild ride! I just hope the rest of the manga chapters get translated soon!