I’m back from my trip and I’m ready to Ranking of Kings play my heartstrings like a violin. This half of the sequel took a few weeks, but we finally achieved the emotional (and production) payoff with just one segment out of sync.
Episode five culminates the entire narrative in “Immortality and the Three Brothers” as we follow Ouken’s best friend (and monster) Fren as he disobeys the law of the underworld to hunt down the demon that could cure the prince. We get a funny cameo of the trio of orcs Bojji “fights” after training with his new sword and another example of King Desha disguising his kindness as indifference. The third installment reintroduces Hokuro and develops his deep emotional connection to Bojji and how that was enough to overcome his lackluster combat capabilities.
The segment in the middle is…doubtful. It straddles a line in that Whiteking’s sheer absurdity does much to obfuscate what is otherwise a very stale fat joke. Much of the humor works because Whiteking is a very goofy looking horse who makes equally goofy faces, but the rest is “fat horse hates exercise”, “fat horse hates diets”, “fat horse gets skinny to impress the hot horse”. and “the horse regains weight after failing to woo the hot horse.” There is also a fair amount of side commentary about how Whiteking couldn’t attract the male horse because of his weight. This was like, cartoon jokes from the it was from Bugs Bunny here which aren’t much of a message in hindsight and pretty stale Thankfully this is the one miss. Treasure Chest of Valor has offered so far, and a small of the five parts of episodes five and six.
The best segment came in episode six, when we got a more detailed look at Bojji’s time as king and Daida’s new maturity. Bojji is in his underpants for half of the episode, helping random townspeople while he is accompanied by Hokuro and Bebin. Here, Bebin reaffirms Bojji’s altruism but also ensures that he takes his health into account and gives him a jacket to wear. Now we have the cutest version of Bojji to grace the screen: slug Bojji.
Daida’s segment is the closest we’ve gotten to the actual sequel material (it takes place simultaneously with Bojji’s new adventure with Kage), but it’s arguably stymied by Miranjo. He’s been a while since the first season, so maybe he should stop fighting the magical war criminal, but Miranjo is little more than a villain with a tragic backstory that we’re supposed to think he is. nice now because he cries a lot. I think, to her detriment, the most interesting thing about Miranjo was her scheming, and with that element removed, it’s not very convincing.
For the rest, this last segment reaffirms Daida’s commitment to peace with the most apparent metaphor: he demolishes a barracks to build a school. This series isn’t exactly subtle in its message. Daida’s decision to reject war in favor of education is the culmination of his maturity, as we see him handle the many tasks that a good leader requires. Everyone around him also comments on it.
The last two weeks focused on emotions first, closely followed by expressive character animation. I’ve finally settled into the tone of the show and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s outing with the Big Four.
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Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Valor is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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