I'm watching Kingdom right now and I really like the setting, but the MC is really the most annoying character ever. Does he ever shut up with all his shouting? Who ever thought that it would be a good idea to have the MC swear and shout angrily and arrogantly 97% of his dialogues? I also hope that he stops being a teenager at some point, because this shit looks ridiculous. I was hoping that they'd do a timeskip by now (episode 17), but it doesn't seem that way. Also, I hope he shuts up about his childhood friend Piao at some point. This is Kircheis², except I don't give a fuck at all about him, since he gets killed off in the second episode of 40+ (?).
The art actually looks alright when they aren't using 3DCGI, but the 3DCGI looks horrendous. I'd prefer PS2 3D over this, and this anime is from 2013. The character models also remind me a bit of the Aijin MC.
Brayden Morris
Personality wise he never changes. He does get older but its over a period of time, if there is a timeskip in the manga it wasn't a big one
Ian Lewis
Their infiltation of the capital with the mountain folk was also extremely dumb. Hurrdurr, we're on a secret mission to infiltrate the royal court to kill the king, and we have our pretender with us. Let's take off our disguise and talk loudly about our secret plan to murder the king!
Carter Ramirez
Now, for some positive things: Diao is pretty cute. I like the strawbird disguise.
Mason Harris
The designs of the cannon fodder soldiers is pretty nice. (The ones with what looks like lamellar, but is not.)
Nathan Baker
The look and arrogance of the little brother of the king was also done well. I didn't find that obnoxious at all, contrary to the MC.
Christopher Collins
It also seems to have some cute girls. Hoping for more, there's only been two or three females in the 18 episodes so far.
Carter Wood
(2 or 3 because I don't know about this person yet.)
The font used in the [Tsukuyomi] release also sucks hard and I wonder why they have two seperate subtitle tracks, on of which only has a single line for the name of the episode.
Evan Garcia
Bi is also a cool dude.
8/10, would serve under.
Wyatt Sanders
Wait wtf there's a anime for this shit? I've been reading the entire time and im having fun
Nolan Myers
>The art actually looks alright when they aren't using 3DCGI, but the 3DCGI looks horrendous. I'd prefer PS2 3D over this, and this anime is from 2013. exact reason why I was told to stay away from the anime and that they censor a lot. Shin is honestly just a shounen mc in a senien there is a slight time skip but he doesn't really change much personality wise. to anybody who read and watched kingdom should I watch this? I heard the second seaeon looks a lot better and it ends with the Renpa campaign.
Thomas Murphy
>I've been reading the entire time might as well keep reading; the anime isn't good
Brandon Gonzalez
I love her.
Jacob Hernandez
>and that they censor a lot. This is true. When they're presenting a cut off head, the head's almost only a black shade. Slashes half of time time don't even show blood and body parts are never cut off visibly.
I'm at episode 20 and like the scale of battles now, though. Battles between armies are much more interesting than duels.
Asher Thomas
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Jace Hernandez
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Christopher Martinez
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Jonathan Wood
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Carson Martinez
>not serving under the best lieutenant good luck on your mediocre career
yes I finally get to post pic related
Angel Thomas
why is she so great?
Adrian Lee
Oh, wow. He's a girl, too.
That makes three crossdressers so far.
Nathaniel Scott
one of kingdoms big appeals is its gore there are a lot of panels of people getting cut in half or beheaded and lots of blood especially involving the mountain people. It missing that is a big deal for me I guess the anime never got blurays or anything, I highly recommend checking out the earlier arcs in the manga when you're done.
Joshua Lopez
sorry meant to post a page got caught up thinking about Yotanwa
Easton Lewis
>Serving under worst general Only got to where he is cause his family is connected
Nathan Williams
She, Shin and the strategist are a love trio basically confirmed in the manga.
Levi Brown
a timeskip is coming after ep 25 i think. He gets older still loud as shit but its inspiring and he stops talking about Piao all the time. Where are you at so far? Is it the first war with Zhao?
Evan Perry
Tfw reread kingdom 4 times and its always a thrill to catch back up. For a shounen its pretty fucking good.
Aiden Thomas
Thank you. The Kingdom manga has always been in my periphery, but I have never picked it up.
I actually only picked up this anime because I confused it with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms TV anime, too.
Noah Wilson
Episode 21, a battle with Wei in the first war.
Nathan Jones
>shounen user...
Jackson Hughes
The actual history behind it is interesting. Literally changed over to an Asian history Major because of it. Then to find out that they had an eventual link to the terracotta soldiers was also fun
Jonathan Walker
Its a battle shounen only thing is its actually well done.
Jackson Allen
in all seriousness though kingdom was great read the scale of things just keep getting larger. I honestly wanna reread shins first campaign something about was just perfect.
Lincoln Price
Its a seinen on military warfare and Chinese history.
Benjamin Rivera
In the last couple chapters they reflected on everyones first battle and how bad they all sucked. Rookies were like "so even the captain sucked". I forgot that he became a 100 man commander after that first campaign.
Aaron Thomas
my bad my bro it was my misunderstanding keep mixing my terms.
Nolan Anderson
Is that Yotanwa? She looks so weird You'd better read the manga imo
Tyler Green
Just read the manga man
Ian Butler
What a based man he was. Shame he's been forgotten
Jack Gonzalez
Loves me some Yotanwa
Jose Morales
Why is Renpa such a best?
Christian Nelson
do you remember the name the guy that was apart of Ouki's army and liked to shit talk I miss that guy. why barely any fanart of her user?
Austin Reed
tfw Duke Hyou will never be your dad.
Adrian Sullivan
I think you are talking of Rokuomi
Thomas Allen
Dunno like Kingdom Fans are so passive. Kingdom has a great fanbase that doesn't obsess over these things
Austin White
Favorite part of the Manga was the siege at Sei
Logan Phillips
couldn't find the image but it was Rinbou he talked shit about Rin bu kun's hair
Jayden Hall
Is there a chapter this week?
Henry Nelson
The battle between shin and Hou ken was mine
Ryder Jenkins
yes on Sunday. You should probably sub to sense scans.
Tyler Jackson
I always get them on Turnip Farmers
Jackson Jones
It's the mountain king as a loli in a flashback.
Isaiah Rivera
Thats cool too.
Zachary Sanders
>her
Levi Morris
It's hard to read when you know what's going to happen in the end
Nolan Morris
>Turnip Farmers That's a cute scanlator group name.
Maybe I just have a thing for vegetables, though, because one of my favourite group names is [Nepperoni].
Jaxon Watson
All the battles or the one at Sei?
Sebastian Gomez
Ousen and Ouki are the best characters.
Lucas Morales
The best shit talker is Ouhon when he insults Shin Love that guy
Michael Morgan
I'm curious to see how the author will handle MC fucking up his campaign.
Hunter Lee
Bihei will be with him till the end. Everyone else......but yeah I am eagerly awaiting that as well. But Hara has been really creative so far.
William Allen
well the mc has barily shown any prowess in leading his troops, so him fucking shit up will not be surprising.
but I think the author will replace mc with another historical figure who will conveniently die off.
Jordan Collins
>not li mu and shouheikun
Tyler Ortiz
In one of Hara's one shots you can see a glimpse of that campaign Meng Wu and Chu-zi, it's a brief story on Moubu and Shohei-kun
Jack Howard
It's not even going to be his fault though
Liam Cooper
tell me about Ousen.. why does he wear the mask?
Ryder Garcia
Who else is excited for the Ousen vs Riboku chess match that's coming?
Adrian Morris
Speaking of Ousen what is his master plan? Make the refugees riot? Starvation?
Oliver Gray
It technically is in the sense that he had no back up plans for shit hitting the fan. When you go on such a large campaign you are expected as the commander in chief to deal with all issues yourself once you've been deployed.
When you try to show off and it bites you in the ass you can't complain about unexpected variables.
James Evans
Probably starvation
Leo Murphy
Starvation and or hide soldiers in refugees
Brody Martinez
It's many things, including those you stated. If he has spies clever enough then he can also plant insiders within the refugees to incite the riots even harder, but I doubt that will happen as getting caught with food would instantly fuck the plan over, meaning it's a high risk thing and Ousen doesn't seem to ever take risks.
Also you forgot that with a massive increase in population density, the outbreak of illness and diseases would skyrocket weakening the enemy army by magnitudes. Of course given how the manga has never ever touched upon plagues and shit besides flash backs, it might not be touched upon but you never know.
Cameron Evans
I think this is Hara's biggest Fuck up when introducing Ten. Shin barely leads anymore he just fights boss battles while Ten dictates troop movements.
Sebastian Garcia
Was Qin Shi Huang autistic? Because Legalism may possibly be the absolute worst philosophy to have ever been created by human beings.
Christopher Peterson
Like I still cant get a grasp of Ousen's fighting style. Does he only attack when hes sure hes gonna win or what. I remember in the one arc with Renpa he was on the Hill the entire Arc. Like the way they hyped up him and Kanki I was expecting him to be as overwhelming as Kanki is.
Isaiah Flores
Well seeing as he was overdosing himself on mercury for years I would think he was partially. But as explained by a couple documentaries and the Shiji It was Li Si's fault. Legalism sounds well and good when you're in a position of power. Otherwise its shit
Kayden Miller
Considering it was adopted by the succeeding Han dynasty which ruled for over 400 years before collapsing, I'd say it was quite adequate at the time.
Other than the Roman Empire, how many other reigns have been as successful? Like less than 10?
Daniel Wilson
How is legalism bad? It makes perfect sense if you want to increase a state's strength, undermine the power of entrenched nobles, and compete in a super cut-throat world.
Legalist reforms are pretty much the entire reason why Qin was able to transform from a backwards frontier state that the others considered "half-barbarians" into the pre-eminent state that conquered everyone else.
Austin Barnes
No, legalism sounds good when you're not in a secure position of power and are getting pushed around by foreign states and nobles in your own country. Once you have power, it's better to seek alternate ways of inspiring people because they'll only listen to brute force for so long.
Jace Gonzalez
>Chinese Legalism is as Western as Thomas Hobbes, as modern as Hu Jintao. It speaks the universal and timeless language of law and order. The past does not matter, state power is to be maximized, politics has nothing to do with morality, intellectual endeavour is suspect, violence is indispensable, and little is to be expected rom the rank and file except and appreciation of force.
In the end the First Emperor's near autistic obsession with the "severe punishments" part of legalism on the other hand practically ensured that the state of Qin would not survive his death.
>if they don't want to fight we kill them >if they don't want to work we kill them >if they show up late to work we kill them >if they don't like the law we kill them
An amoral system of laws alone cannot ensure a stable society, and after the emperor died the unpopular state fell as his son could not hold it together.
This is why the Han and everyone after them had to bury their legalist foundations under a mountain of Confucian window dressing.
Wyatt Hall
Like I said in the above post, it perfectly suits a specific time and place the Qin found itself in. Just because it wasn't suited for long-term governance post-unification doesn't mean it should be discounted as a valid system pre-unification.
Gabriel Thomas
If it does, why does legalism even work in the first place?
If the reason that it fails in the long term is that you're incentivizing people to rebel by giving them the choice, when they fail, between either certain death when accepting the rule and possible death but also possible life when rebelling, then doesn't exactly this same problem exist even when your rule is not secure?
The only difference would be that someone in the process of founding a dynasty also tends to have a lot of military power to enforce this killing through his own power, whereas someone further down the dynasty already has devoluted a lot of the power the founder had.
Adrian Thomas
>under a mountain of Confucian window dressing.
But it's still technically legalism no? Just with religion to justify it. It's like saying gacha games and micro transactions are garbage and will always fail. Certainly it's garbage, but as you can see in reality, it clearly works when you dress it up right.
Isaiah Taylor
My favorite part about legalism is how it reads like a 14 year old's conception of what a standard "Evil Empire" is like, everything about it from how it firmly believea all humans to be inherently evil, how it places the State above all with no care for the individual, the position of the supreme ruler as the sole arbiter of law, and the severe punishments.
Kayden Martin
In the conquest/expansion phase, legalism's strict adherence to iron-discipline and reward/punishment system means that an ordinary person stands to benefit as long as he abides by the system and earns merit.
In the post-conquest phase, there isn't any more new land to be conquered. The incentives for following the harsh laws becomes less and less. What you need in a post-conquest phase is loyalty from the local elites who are invested in seeing your regime continue. This is a very common historical pattern worldwide.
Caleb Morgan
It's legalism in the same sense that social democracy is socialism. The Chinese political spectrum has traditionally run between legalism and Confucianism, not left and right like the West.
Kevin Mitchell
He shells himself in his fortifications and tries to create a chance to strike, once he finds that occasion he strikes, otherwise he patiently waits in his comfy forts
Henry Bell
While the idea of humans as inherently evil seems super-edgy, I think it's more understandable when you place yourself in the pre-modern world where inter-state and intra-state violence was rampant. This is a time when there's really no such thing as a civilian police force and people were generally more approving of violence than today. You could get killed by any one of the numerous bandits infesting the roads so it's not exactly hard to see why some people would be willing to give up their liberties to an all-powerful state as long as it can curb excessive violence. As they themselves have yet to realize the violence the state in turn could wield upon them, it's hard to label them as near-sighted.
Jack Campbell
Hox lad, is there any translated version of Suikoden I can find online?
Oliver King
The book or the manga? If the latter, I don't think there are any online.
Owen Price
The manga.. Do you plan of translating it someday?
John Mitchell
Certainly not anytime soon. I don't really want to do it because it's a very truncated form of the original novel and as Yokoyama's first attempt at doing Chinese history, it's a little awkward. I may do it if nobody ever does it, but I prefer to prioritize Yokoyama's later historical works.
Lincoln Richardson
I see, thanks for the info
Evan King
It's okay, if he was my father I'd be a constant disappointment, no matter who raised me.
Liam Myers
Looks like the antagonist from Kaiji.
William Edwards
Yeah but then your dad would be beating up everyone's dad.
Ryder Nelson
Why Japanese names instead of Mandarin?
Elijah Price
Will MC practice polygamy (it was normal in China ) and marry both Kyoukai and Ten?