Ousama Ranking is The Best Thing Ever

Last Night, the final episode of the anime I crowned The Best Anime of Fall 2021, and one of the overall Best Animes of the year, Ranking of Kings dropped, and it's all I can think about.

Through the course of it's first cour in the Fall Season last year, and the second cour this winter, the story of Ousama Ranking has stolen my heart completely and made the show one of my beloved animes EVER.

The tears literally couldn't stop flowing through my eyes during it's final episode, seeing such a compact story reach such a beautiful conclusion, and I'm sure everyone who took my recommendation in Fall and watched it probably felt the same way.

Today I'm here to pour my heart out in telling you all just how much this show means to me in a more detailed fashion than my Fall review.

In my previous brief review of this show, given the few episodes I'd seen I could only praise it based on how emotionally triggering it is, and the amount of potential such this extremely well crafted underdog story had after setting it's premise, but in the latter episodes particularly in the second cour, this anime evolved into so much more than just an emotional story of a disabled boy finding strength.

With Bojji's journey and development as the centerpiece, this show explored several other narrative paths deeply, introduced a number of well-written new characters and reinvigorated the already existing ones into more pivotal entities in the grand plot that kept building up to an astounding crescendo.

The 2nd Cour was nothing short of the testimony of a legendary story reaching it's climax.

The character writing in this anime is one of the most remarkable I've seen in modern anime.

Aside from the main character who definitely stole our hearts with his backstory and personality, every single side character in this show is given proper depth and top quality writing as their roles in the story are actualized. 

No Character in Ranking of Kings is just plainly good or bad. The show establishes a sort of duality in the behavioural patterns of each personality and masterfully foreshadows the moral tendencies of each character through its thematically heavy backstories and reflective moments.

The different characters whilst having their different traits and roles, all have their own goals and moral perceptions, and the show reveals their tragic and conflicting starting points, making us understand and experience the influential events that caused their decisions in the present.

Ranking of Kings is an absolute masterclass in storytelling. It highlights the different dimensions and character perspectives of it's story masterfully, treating each character as a case study and through its foreshadowing, harmonizing the stories of the past with it's present developments.

It does all this while further developing it's already magnificent world building that established and showcased the different areas of the world and all its systems, and brought all these different elements together into one beautiful narrative.

The story is so authentic, all the different elements and characters impact the story in genuinely unpredictable ways, making it literally impossible to see straight through it.

Ranking of Kings is the absolute definition of Fantasy at it's Peak. It takes the unconventional route of having a weak disabled (deaf and mute) main character in a genre filled with so many perfect and powerful fantasy main characters and uses this to rise to the highest level of storytelling.

The story is one that's highly corrosive on one's emotions. As you bond with the main character on a deep level, you'll feel a plethora of emotions while watching this; joy, sorrow, anger, shock, confusion, enthusiasm, love and hatred; all based on how perfectly the anime captures these emotional virtues in it's story paths.

Aside from it's perfect writing, there were so many great decisions and productive efforts put into this work that made it truly shine. From the Art Style and Character Design to the Animation to the Music, it was clear that this outstanding work was brought to fruition in the most beautiful possible form.

The idea of making the art style in a visual representation of a Fairytale from child's storybook is pure genius, given the fact that the story being told here is truly a Fantasy Legend.

This design makes it that much more impactful when it takes typical Fairytale narrative elements such as 'The Evil Stepmother' and 'The Wicked Witch' and subverts them using its own quality character writing.

The Music Choices were also of Top Quality.

The Opening songs; Boy by King Gnu and The Naked Hero by Vaundy , The Ending Songs; Oz by Yama and Flare by Milet are all perfect tracks, and contribute to making the episodic experience of this anime truly sensational.

The Insert Songs and OSTs were also pivotal in perfectly portraying the intended tone of every scene, whether sad, climactic or just wholesome.

The Animation and Cinematography in it's scenery were also fantastic. Unlike most of it's fantasy peers, it's more centered on the character driven narratives than the action , but the fight scenes we did get were beautifully animated and impactful.

This anime is truly a masterpiece. It felt like something made just for me.

I'm grateful to it's esteemed creator Sosuke Toka for delivering such a life-changing cinematic experience in anime form.

WiT Studio has certainly proven themselves to be one of the greatest Anime Studios ever, and my personal best of all time, given the fact that for three consecutive years they've delivered masterpieces that I crowned by Best Animes of the Year.

In 2019 there was Vinland Saga, in 2020 there was Great Pretender and in 2021, Ranking of Kings stole the spot of not only my Best Anime of The Year, but also one of my Best Animes of All Time.

It's been an extremely long and heartfelt review.

Thank you all so much for reading till the end.

Be Sure to watch this perfect anime if you haven't, leave a comment of your thoughts and share this link to your friends.

I'll See You All Next Time