Ranking of Kings

Episode 11

We get a one-week break from Ranking of Kings as the story heads into its second half. Wit Studio released a two-minute long trailer that gave me goosebumps. I continue to hang on every last second of this series. Even when I was confident at the start of the Fall 2021 season that this was going to be the show to watch, I didn't know how right I was. Yes, let me gloat a little here.

"Older and Younger Brothers" serves two primary purposes: setting the stage for a multi-pronged confrontation between four different factions and further expanding the emotional complexity of Daida and Miranjo. It would be out of character for Ranking of Kings to have a true antagonist, and there have been plenty of hints that there's something more to Miranjo than simply serving as a love-struck magic entity. We know that she facilitated Bosse's agreement with the demon, that she has a "dream" that Bosse has told her he wants to make a reality, and that she made the king promise to assassinate Hilling. Miranjo once had a true physical form around the time she helped train Apeas, but at some point between then and now she came to live in the mirror and now has a doll form that she can possess for short periods.

We also know that Bosse is the one that gave Daida the mirror in the first place, further proving his active participation in whatever the hell this plot is. Now that Daida is trapped in the recesses of his own consciousness, he comes to meet another, more innocent Miranjo and this lady's backstory has some LAYERS to peel back. The specifics aren't made terribly clear, but it appears that she is a part of a tribe of some sort (possibly of magic users) and was scapegoated by the townspeople for calamities that fell on them. Her story serves as another, more violent representation of Bojji's own experiences and those of marginalized people. We discover that this young girl had her hands chopped off and her face flayed as penance for something she likely had no real part in. Her situation itself reminded me of one of the darker Grimm Tales I came across as a preteen, "The Girl without Hands," and I'm curious if more details about Miranjo will resemble this story.

Daida, while initially hesitant of the masked girl, ends up sympathizing with her. We can conclude this is a direct result of both his mother's and Bebin's influence. Hilling first teaches Daida that he must protect Bojji due to his disability. We know that her approach to Bojji has (despite meaning well) been to ignore his agency and coddle him and she passes this on to Daida. As his younger brother and one who isn't naturally empathetic, Daida veers dangerously close to "compassionate eugenics" and sees people like Bojji as pitiable and their struggles cruel. Thank god for Bebin. Sensing that Daida is developing this sort of sentiment, he takes him into town to show him how regular folks live, which includes a blind and deaf man who is getting by just fine on his own accord. Bebin shows Daida that disabled people can live fulfilling lives and adjust their day-to-day routines to manage regardless of being unable to hear or see.

This moment plays into Daida's decision to take up Miranjo's defense, but it doesn't mean he's completely absolved of his biases. This happened before sending his brother off to be assassinated and whatever did happen to Miranjo didn't inform her opinion of Bojji either. It's possible that past Miranjo and current Miranjo are completely split from one another and in most series I'd expect to see some kind of reconciliation of the two. That may come to a head with the imminent showdown between Bosse and Miranjo, the escaped criminals, Desha and his knights, Bojji, Despa, and Kage, and Queen Hiling and Dorshe. This is actually the part I'm most excited about and we can expect a lot of tenuous allegiances getting upended. Bosse and Miranjo have aligned with the criminals but I'm doubtful it will hold up. Meanwhile, Desha plans to get the criminals back in his jail and overtaking Bosse's kingdom...if his lead knight doesn't betray him out of sympathy for Bojji.

Man, this show is so good!

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Ranking of Kings is currently streaming on Funimation.