English Dub Review: Ranking of Kings “The King of the Underworld”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Prince Bojji and Kage attempt to get Desha, the king of the underworld, to train him into becoming a stronger fighter. Desha tests Bojji’s skills against those of one of his top combatants, but the boy prince doesn’t have what it takes to satisfy the king of the underworld, even if he’s really good at dodging blows. The captain of the guard takes pity on the prince and lets him know that Desha wasn’t the guy to go to anyway—his younger brother is who they’re really after.

Meanwhile, King Daida is stacked by Apeas. The man is stopped only by the magic mirror, who he remembers as Lady Miranjo. The two of them have a private chat. Daida is close to executing Apeas for his treachery, but the mirror convinces him to have pity… only to take him out unawares and force him to drink the magical potion.

Our Take:

Funimation is back this week with another dubbed episode of WIT Studio’s Ranking of Kings. The King of the Underworld follows Prince Bojji and his shadow friend Kage as they continue their journey in the underworld and try to improve Bojji’s fighting skills to the point where he’s able to grow stronger. It also picks up on Daida’s tense battle with the magic mirror, who we know is named Miranjo. The two boys might be very different, but both of them are in potentially deadly struggles for their kingdom.

I don’t know what I expected when Prince Bojji fell into hell, but it definitely wasn’t the weird aloofness of King Desha. He doesn’t act much like I would expect  a ruler of the underworld to act, more like a bored middle aged man than a demonic overlord—but that doesn’t mean this hell is a nice place. Bojji and Kage still don’t have much luck. The little conflict between them and the king is pretty boring in that it’s almost exactly what we’ve seen Bojji do before. He sucks at fighting, but is pretty good at dodging blows. That isn’t enough to Desha to agree to train him, partly because the kid doesn’t have the skills and partly because apparently Desha isn’t even the one who the letter of recommendation Kage produced was for? That makes the whole thing kind of a waste of time, and it wasn’t even very exciting in the first place.

I think for me, the big setback is still that I don’t know enough about Bojji and his personal desires to make him a relatable character. What does Bojji even want? You can’t tell me he wants to be king, because I don’t think we’ve seen anything that would indicate he would make a good king or that he is remotely interested in that. Even if his current quest to grow stronger succeeds, that wouldn’t make him a good king, because you need a lot more than physical strength to be a ruler. I feel like at this point, Bojji and Kage would be perfectly content just getting out of the pressure of being a prince. They’re presumed dead, so why not just go start over somewhere?

Daida’s plot is still the most intriguing part of the show, but this episode didn’t really get to spend a whole lot of time on that. Daida’s decision to spare Apeas really came back to bite him, though. The biggest surprise might be the mirror’s evilness, although that wasn’t really very shocking if you know about magic mirrors in fairy tales. I’m still curious about what Miranjo’s endgame is here—maybe the potion is something that lets her control Daida? Whatever the case, I’m afraid Daida’s troubles are only just beginning.

We’re about halfway through Ranking of Kings now, but has it gotten any better after six whole episodes? In the humble opinion of this reviewer, not really. It has some interesting characters and impressive animation at times, but I’m still waiting for the story to kick into high gear. So far we’ve only got fractured fairy tales and sad Bojji backstories. And maybe that’s enough—I’m a sucker for a good fairy tale—but six episodes in, I can’t help feeling like there’s a lot of missing opportunities to turn a good fairy tale into a great series.