English Dub Review: Ranking of Kings “Battle with the Gods”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

From his place in his prison, King Bosse relates the tale of how he met Miranjo to Bebin. It’s a dark story of betrayal and madness that portrays Miranjo in a much more positive light than we’re used to seeing her. Meanwhile, Hiling heals Apeas and feels sure Bojji will save them because he came back from certain death. The queen pardons Hokuro and Domas and sends them to help Bojji, who is still locked in deadly combat with Ouken. But before they can arrive, Despa shows up with the captain of the guard. However, they can’t seem to best the immortal prince either, and it looks like all is lost when Kage pulls a trick out of his, er, sleeve.

Our Take:

Ranking of Kings returns this week with a new dubbed episode full of fighting and flashbacks. We get tons of backstory on King Bosse and his relationship with Miranjo, tons of action sequences between Bojji and Ouken, and even a nice little scene with Hiling and her cohorts. It’s an episode that serves to fill us in on Miranjo’s possible motives while also keeping us entertained with Bojji’s battle antics, and in terms of quality, it’s fairly average.

The first half of the ep is taken up with Queen Hiling and King Bosse’s scenes. Hiling’s I enjoyed seeing; her healing powers are pretty cool and the moment when she decided to restore Apeas is one of the most powerful scenes in the episode for me. It’s always nice to see her red-haired retainer, too, and I kind of ship them?  On the other hand, this episode kind of killed any thoughts about a Miranjo/Bosse ship. I was expecting him to meet her and fall in love, but his story is much more convoluted than that. Basically, Miranjo comes from the kingdom of Houma, which waged war on the gods of the land. He came to see them and was struck by Miranjo’s mother’s kindness. That’s right, Miranjo is a literal baby when Bosse meets her. (He also says she’s like his daughter, mother, and mentor, which…okay?) He sticks around “to watch her grow up” and fights in battle with the Houma, along with another kingdom called Gyakuza.

I’ve seen a little bit of discourse about who the Gyakuza is meant to represent, but yeah, they are probably my least favorite inclusion in the story. The show just depicts them as being horrible people with no dimension to them at all. Like, why did Houma even recruit them when they all suck? They literally just learn magic from Houma, rob them, and then turn them over to the gods. It’s pretty meh, and King Bosse’s flashback fantasy was the worst part of the episode for sure.

Things pick up in the second half, however, when we return to Bojji’s battle with Ouken. It goes on for a long time (maybe a little too long?) and Bojji is being worn down when Despa arrives and, with Desha’s help back in the underworld, summons lightning to deal with Ouken. It doesn’t really work too well, though, and I’m wondering why they even bother fighting him when he’s immortal, but hey, Desha clearly has a special bond with his brother. The real surprise of the episode is saved for the end, when Bojji is about to be killed by Ouken before Kage summons his full shadow self and goes all evil on his ass. I’d been wondering when Kage would play a bigger part himself, and it looks like he’s choosing to unleash his true powers just in the nick of time.

Overall, Battle with the Gods is kind of a so-so episode for me. Nothing too exciting really happened beyond more of Bojji’s battling, and even that felt a little dragged out after a while. Being immortal makes Ouken a great villain, but also one that’s hard to keep coming back to since he always wins. The Miranjo backstory felt a little weird and kind of unnecessary, especially the parts with the Houma/Gyakuza stuff. But hey, at least we got to see Hiling go hog wild with some ultra powerful healing!