Holiday Review #23: KINGDOM by The Manga Test Drive / Anime Blog Tracker

Holiday Review #23: KINGDOM

They say Christmas is a time of miracles, and there certainly were a lot of manga license miracles happening this year, including this long-requested shonen title.KINGDOM (Kingudamu), by Yasuhisa Hara. First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2025.PLOT:Over 2000 years ago, the land that would become eastern China is divided between many different warring kingdoms. Far away from all that is Xin and Piao, two young orphans in the countryside forced to slave away for the town leader. They sneak away to practice fighting whenever possible in the hopes of become great generals. Their sparring attracts the attention of a passing lord, who buys Piao's freedom and offers to train him at the royal court. Not long thereafter, there is a revolt at court by the emperor's younger brother and Piao is slain in the process. With his dying words, he sets Xin on a mission of vengeance and a fateful meeting with the young king of Qin himself.STORY:For years, shonen manga fans in the US have hyped up Kingdom. It didn't matter that its anime adaptation bombed hard over here, as soon as Viz licensed it we would all finally experience its glory!Having read this first volume, all I can say is: REALLY? This is the series you championed for so long? This basic-ass, grating, ugly thing?!You'd think that I would be all for this, considering it's also a historical manga. It's set not in Japan's Warring States period but China's own Warring States period. Apparently many of the characters here are based on real figures from this time period, although I'd be shocked if any them are recognizable in this form. While some of those cultural and historical trappings are still present here, so much of the cast and the story has been crammed as hard as possible into fit into the standard shonen storytelling mold. You've got two childhood friends - one smart and comparatively handsome, one hot-headed and dumb, both of whom are strong and want to be The Best That Ever Was. One of them ends up dead, so the survivor must go on an epic adventure to achieve their dream while gathering various sidekicks along the way. Along the way, they must fight increasingly powerful and gimmicky goons, all of them under the influence of the true villain, who hates goodness and virtue and likes powers and class snobbery.I know that description sounds like I'm taking the piss out of it, and...yeah, maybe a little, but it's also an accurate summary of this entire volume and I saw every bit of it coming from miles away.Then there's Xin, who might be the shoutiest shonen protagonist this side of Asta. Virtually every word out of his mouth in this volume is delivered in a shout and it got old very fast. The crazy thing is that he is perfectly right to be angry. Being an orphan and a slave sucks! Having your best friend literally die in your arms sucks! Having to team up with the guy he died for, the guy whose face is a constant reminder of that same dead friend, also sucks! It's just that Xin seldom takes a break from all that anger, even in his own mind. It renders him a very flat and annoying character, and that's a big problem when that character is the lead.ART:I also found Kingdom visually off-putting. That shouldn't be possible with a mangaka who previously worked under a legend like Takahito Inoue! There are times where you can see that influence shine through: the beautifully rendered backgrounds, the dynamic low angles used in many of Xin's sword fights, the naturalistic body language, the subtle use of hatching to give everything a sense of tangible dimensionality. His paneling gives a lot of those And yet it all fell flat for me because I cannot stand the way Hara draws faces. It's bad enough that all the villains and goons have these giant, misshapen, lumpy potato heads with small, narrow, sneering faces. Clearly it's meant to make them look evil and scary, even if I just found them entirely unpleasant. It's that even the heroes look weird in this series! Xin and his cohorts somehow have heads that are weirdly rounded and features that feel just a touch too big for those basketball heads. It gives them all an uncanny look, and when combined with all the grimacing that Xin and the others do it became downright repellant. I can't recall the last time I've had such a negatively visceral reaction to a manga's artstyle.RATING:Yeah, I'm not sold on the supposed greatness of Kingdom. Maybe it gets better later on, but I'll never know because I cannot imagine enduring all of the multiple volumes of shouting and ugly faces it would take to get to that point. All I have to say is that I hope that all those Kingdom fans are happy and that they put their money where their mouths are.This manga is published by Viz. This series is ongoing in Japan with 77 volumes available. 2 volumes have been released and are currently in print.Only two days remain in our Holiday Review Giveaway! To find out more and potentially win a $25 Bookshop.org gift certificate, click the link above. The contest ends on Christmas Day!

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