The Weird Fantasy of Sōsuke Tōka
No one could have imagined that Sōsuke Tōka’s Ranking of Kings would become more than a critical examination tale that critics excelled at. Instead, it takes audiences to new heights and foundations that truly stand out among the best. In the only way, the author relativizes the characteristics of unfamiliarity by exploring cases of sacrifice, friendship, and dilemma. The audience is simply underestimating how great the natural narrative works at every step of the way. Simply put, it is simply amazing.
The thing that makes the show also work more like a childish but silly thing is that it radiates nothing but quantity and quality as the series progresses. It goes from mysterious to pure weird fantasy, as one can get. However, people have more expectations of watching and sealing an agreement with protagonist Bojji and his Kage friend about their life journey. It is a series that is truly a future story set in the Middle Ages about a boy who becomes king, and his shadow friend escapes betrayal. Regardless of which, what Tōka does in bringing up a simple story is a complete understatement of how it is a classic case of subverting the tropes. While acting as simply saying that the audience is not always ready for what is to come, naturally, it unifies the narrative in bringing the plot to life.
The Core Themes
An incredibly manipulative theme knocks audience seats down. By being a tactic that Tōka builds on tactics, only guarantees the audience to pay close attention every second, minute, or hour. With just one blink, the audience will miss a beat. However, it is not like the minority or majority characters choose to remain biased and uncaring. In the mainstream media, people do not always expect that the general clash of good versus evil will have as many metaphors. It builds, without a doubt, on the inside as a new expert in knowing what makes core themes work.
Without missing the tropes, the audience will continue to rub off on their general tastes like all the series. Such fantasy adventure is slick, tight, and full of emotions and feelings. The emotions will destroy any audience. Above the whole thing, it shines on its own that there is nothing out there that can match the series’ likes. The series seeks to stick a sharp object that stabs deep into the heartstrings. It is about how someone can write characters so deep and rich in philosophical humanity that there is always an answer for every discourse. Tōka can do such things. For all basic tastes, the audience feels nothing but any human emotion.
The Phase of Wit Studio
The fear factor constantly vibrates as the series progresses. Each character does not only act as a piece of paper. Each character has a goal to take the character’s ambitions and dreams to the extreme of immoral wailing. To the point of chasing the showdown as things work out, audiences do not want to get too deep into each character from a specific sequence. Therefore, making a long lament is unreasonable and can match other critics. Make no mistake that from the simplest of characters to the most complex, there is nothing more than subtlety that the narrative refines.
While humans can naturally be imperfect versions of themselves, the way, they see other people adds to the mystery of each character’s backstory, which the narrative fills with an incredible weight to touch and relate to. It is where the series becomes an emotionally destructive series for all the right reasons. It is multi-layered from what defines a perfect yet imperfect human with absurd drama. Wit Studio guides through the series even though the manga’s art style isn’t the best. It picked up a manga that no one knew and had gone without translation until the series came out. The animation is clear that Wit Studio has been going through a very distant transition phase since the Vinland Saga.
An Emotional Impact
At first, Ranking of Kings seemed pleasant in a critical examination of the series. The bright lighting, subtle character designs, and colorful background art quickly turn its atmosphere into a dramatic one. Every minute, a character cries, usually the protagonist. The first and second episodes are very emotional because Kage’s background is sad. That also applies to the scene where another character beats up Bojji for the first time. After numbing, whenever the characters the narration mentions are in danger, the audience knows they will meet a deus-ex machina at the last minute after the enemy beats them half to death.
There is only so much surprising melodramatic and rescue speech that audiences can pick up on before mentioning emotional manipulation. Bojji is not the protagonist that the other characters are good at. However, he only relates himself to plot armor. Tears were not just enough to distract from such a glaring problem. A bloodthirsty enemy could throw a dozen stones at him and miss. He makes up for what he lacks in physical strength with agility, allowing him to dodge damage. When he is bruised, the audience can count on someone to heal him. An artist can arm the emotional impact and the tension that the script builds. It uses too much sentimentality, reducing the effect from scene to scene because it lacks a long-term setting.
The Critics of Narrative
While the emotional impact is a trope that most artists often use, To Your Eternity is another example of the realm of anime. One of the terrifying uses of emotional manipulation is showing last-minute flashbacks to make up for arc redemption. Once a character betrays a hero, rescuing them becomes a complicated task. It also applies to the old tropes, especially the shōnen demographic. Most artists also always take shortcuts to redemption by incorporating sentimental flashbacks. It makes the audience feel sorry for the characters that the narrative tells in each scene. In other cases, Demon Slayer is another fantastic animation.
The series tries to make up for each antagonist in the moments before their death against a clichéd backdrop. They do not do the work to atone for their mistakes. The sudden twists and turns make for a lazy-looking story that the artist wrote with minimal initial thought. The main themes of the series are self-confidence and forgiveness. Despite the gruesome executions, everyone, however gruesome, always pardoned the audience except for one ethnic group. By giving the series such a generous label, the spectacular heights of the transition from the artists will hit the audience right away. As the quality of the narrative declines rapidly, the visuals become more impressive as if to compensate for its shortcomings.
Experimenting Distinctive Face
What comes out of Ranking of Kings is the all-new Wit Studio, once again ready for critical examination on a series like Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song. Everything remains the same quality that the studio has garnered fame over the years. However, the studio’s production will never fail in terms of stunning animation and stunning visuals. The series is no different in that respect, being a childish fantasy that weaves close to the Studio Ghibli narrative. In one instance, Mushoku Tensei can set the bar too high for the sake of such insanity. Wit Studio, like Studio Bind, always delivers hard with passion.
They also dedicate their projects to crafts that are next to perfect. Therefore, what is a studio without the hard work and dedication of the team of staff behind the series, especially debutant director Yousuke Hatta? Working as an episode director provides more than enough experience for the novice director to execute his skill set on the series. It shows a vibrant, unique aesthetic with a distinctive art style and a simplified face. The animation of appropriate expressions is almost like contributing to the lineage of the respective directors who lead, one example being Sonny Boy. The staff team, under Hatta, also had to provide people with props in going beyond and adapting the manga.
The Series Perfection
People cannot say it is enough, being a team effort that was a match made in heaven. The most important is also a medium without music at all. In other words, silence plays. While in most cases, music is always the savior of anime when all else fails. In the critical examination of Ranking of Kings, it defies logic to present two sets of original soundtracks. Both more than fit the mood and theme of the series. In the first cour, the aesthetic of going with the flow serves the protagonist audience’s journey well, which is one of the bops.
It becomes a reference from classic stories in the past to signify the symbolism of a fairy tale journey that does not always run smoothly. When the second cour came, at that time, the atmosphere was excited with a slow but steady song bringing something impressive. It works as a narrative that manipulates people. Audiences can feel every inch of such an influence, an excellent song for purposely bringing it all together. To say that the series is the perfection of all, it is more than the audience’s subjectivity than a classic story. It tells what it means to be a society that underestimates people to succeed. The series has laid down the hidden meaning of a chain that is only as little as an eye to be the weakest.
Bibliography
- Basile, M. (2022). How Far Does Forgiveness Go? Ranking of Kings Ending Explained. Anime News Network.
- Campbell, K. (2022). Ranking of Kings earned its crown after only one season. Polygon.