Ranking of Kings

Episode 17

This week's Ranking of Kings hones in on the fathers of this story and narrative's relationship with immortality. This is exemplified through three characters: Satun (father of Desha, Despa, and Ouken), Bojji and Daida's father Bosse, and Ouken himself. As far as RoK is concerned, defying death is to deny one's own humanity, and no one who has pursued or achieved it thus far has come out the other end unscathed.

Satun is literally a dying god and while we don't know how a god could go "extinct" in this world, we can presume that he was not always an unfeeling, blood-thirsty tyrant. The character is not subtly influenced by the Roman god Saturn, associated with the harvest, abundance, and was the father of all the gods. Despite all these positive associations, Saturn's story also borrows from the Greek equivalent of Cronus. As depicted in Goya's famous painting, this is the same god that devoured his offspring to maintain his own status as ruler. Satun finds himself in a very similar situation as his mythological counterpart, especially if you consider Desha's lightning magic as a representation of Zeus.

Then there's Ouken's immortality, which is obtained not through a magical object or ritual but at the onset of adulthood. You can see that he, after fighting against and defeating his own father for this very reason, is devastated at the development. Ouken knows that the power is a curse and that he will lose his humanity as a result. The anime deftly hammers this point home when we witness him, crouched in the corner of a dungeon cell, eating a live rat. I can't help but wonder if Ouken was actually begging to be incarcerated while he was still cognizant of himself, but his brother simply couldn't bring himself to do it? In the end, so many lives were lost.

There's a parallel in the narrator's intro to Satun and what we know about Bosse. Satun's pursuit of immortality led to the untold slaughter of his own people and his sons taking up arms against him. Bosse may find himself confronting a very similar fate as his own single-mindedness has continued to come at the price of his own children. The reasoning behind his actions continues to elude me. Various characters have hinted that he and Miranjo go way back, and it seems like at this point that he may actually love her. I thought he might be playing along out of some kind of duress, but this is the second episode or so that has framed their relationship as truly romantic. I'd argue that he knows her methods are twisted, and if she truly wishes to bring down his family and the whole kingdom, then Miranjo's dream is most likely to live for eternity with Bosse. Apeas talks about them going on a journey again together, and it seems likely that the sequence in the opening that shows places all over the world are likely views from Miranjo's perspective as Bosse held her in his giant hands.

Miranjo's – and Bosse's – actions are selfish, but the story also does a great job of showing us small actions that add to Miranjo's own humanity. Ranking of Kings' character writing has been one of its biggest boons, so while she may be the evil lady in the mirror, we have also seen her small gestures of kindness. The opening sequence shows how she bonded with Daida over the years, even reading to him at bed time. We saw her give respite to Dorshe and Hiling out of consideration for Apeas. We also get to finally understand the extent of Apeas' admiration of her this week, as he sees her as the only person who believed and supported him when he was weak. Apeas is honestly such a gentle soul; the guy deserves to have a farm and live in a cottage somewhere instead of getting wrapped up in all of this. The feeling there, while Apeas may not know it, is mutual. It doesn't matter how much Miranjo hates Hiling, she purposefully leads her to Apeas' dying body in the hopes that she can heal him. When it comes to Bojji's fight with Ouken, she becomes deeply concerned about Bojji's potential death. I'm not fully convinced she even wants her own plan to fully succeed – or at least, she didn't consider how hard it would be to watch.

Outside of some very good faces this week, especially from that wily bastard Zokku, the main animation highlight is Bojji's battle with Ouken. The Wit Studio team once again shows that it's not just the character movement, but also the (simulated) camera movement that can bring a scene to life. The sequence has a bouncing ball quality to it as it follows Bojji jumping and dodging Ouken's precise slashes. The kid is parkouring all over the place and even on a second watch I could feel myself tensing up.

There are a lot of small movements throughout the episode that we still don't have answers for. What is Ouken's relationship to Miranjo outside of her getting him out of jail? Desha blames her for Ouken's current state, so maybe she offered to cure him of his immortality? Why did Bosse send Domas and Hokuro to destroy the portal? That seems like a move against Miranjo, after all. Was Miranjo involved at all in the slaughter of Kage's people? The portal itself was made from one of their corpses.

I may not be able to talk authoritatively about this, but the sound design in Ranking of Kings continues to be stellar. Just the other week I was fully convinced that Domas was dead due to the convincing THUNK of his head hitting stone, and this week we have Ouken breaking all the bones in his body to slither out of his restraints. It sounds so gross and I love it. His raspy laugh, where it sounds like someone severed his vocal chords, is peak villain acting. He's so terrifying.

Ranking of Kings is currently streaming on Funimation and Crunchyroll.