Anime Review: Is Kingdom Anime Worth Watching?

Is Kingdom anime worth watching? With its third season currently airing, Kingdom began its anime debut on 2012 and has received a lot of positive reviews ever since. However for those who still doubt if the anime is worth it or not, I’ll lay out Kingdom anime’s pros and cons so that you can decide for yourself whether or not to watch it.

Is Kingdom anime any good?

In short yes. It is far amazing that any other war based anime that I’ve ever seen. It is totally worth watching.

But for the long answer, let me share my experience of this anime with you.

How I got to know about it

I received a message from my friend who’s also an ardent anime watcher. He said, “Watch Kingdom. It’s awesome!”

At that point I’ve heard about this anime but I never thought of watching it as I was more into comedy and shounen anime. Also, most of the times the anime centered in ancient time will have a totally different culture and setting which is kind of difficult to get into (for me at least).

A few months later, Kingdom season 3 started airing and I thought it was finally the time for me to give it a shot.

First Impression

The very first episode of Kingdom was a 50 min special and I was kind of excited about it, that is, until I discovered that it was one of those 3D CG anime.

As you might’ve already known these 3D anime have a really bad reputation. They suck when it comes to the expressions of the characters and their movements. It just looks too unnatural (there are a few good ones though, like Kengan Ashura.)

Regardless I completed the 1st episode and honestly, I was kind of disappointed. To top off the 3D animation issue it had this super cringy moment:

There is this scene where the mc and his friend are sparing in an open field. A nobleman passerby happens to see them and comes to interact with them. These two while talking to him suddenly starts to continue their sparring. I know it was supposed to give a dramatic effect, but that was just too childish.

We all know when talking with someone elder / a person at a higher position / just a stranger it’s natural to be humble. But these guys were anything but that, even though they were just servants. Which felt extremely weird. (I mean I can understand the mc not giving a damn about respect, but his friend was built up as a responsible person. It seemed out of nature for him to join the mc like that.)

Nonetheless, in the hindsight, they were just children. And we all know how children want to show off. So, I guess it’s acceptable. Maybe I am just being too damn hard on them.

Then, it became something legendary…

I didn’t see this coming. Judging from the first episode, I thought it was going to an “okay” anime, but boy it became something legendary!

It was so amazing that I finished all the 38 episodes in just 2 sitting. At the end of the season 1, I legit became a fan of the series.

After the first episode, the story starts to take off gradually and became more interesting with each new episode. Also they started altering between the 3D animation and 2D animation in between, which is something I appreciated very much.

Kingdom – Anime Review

What’s good about Kingdom?

The story was absolutely magnificent. It had great character development. The character’s ambition and personality is a treat to people like me who value those attributes.

It had a lot of emotional and nerve wracking moments (I was literally on the edge of my seat, praying a certain someone shouldn’t die.)

Not to mention, it has some of the saddest deaths of all time (which hit me hard.)

This anime clearly explained the nature of war and the ambition of a young boy who aims to become the greatest general under the heavens!

It was not shallow even for a moment (except for the moment I mentioned in the 1st ep)  and had deep, meaningful scenes and dialogues.

The sound effects were masterfully handled to bring various emotions in the watchers.

They explain and implement various war strategies and vividly express how exactly those who participate in war feel. The fights were pretty good too. It would’ve been better if it was in 2D but, oh well. There is a limit for how awesome an anime can be, I guess.

Long story short, Kingdom anime was beyond my expectations in all the aspects I rank a show for.

What’s bad about Kingdom?

Like I mentioned, the 3D CG animation is off putting.

There were scenes which were kind of unnatural for a show which is strictly walking the path of real world like physics. For example, there was a scene where the mc makes an inhumanly high jump to reach the top of a giant wall.

Finally, there was not enough blood. They clearly hack and slash each other but there’s not much blood gushing out of them like in some other anime. But I understand they just meant to keep the violence less (and I think that’s how it will be probably in real life. I mean, I’ve never seen people bleed in real life, so I wouldn’t know.)

Other than this I can’t think of anything disappointing about the anime.

Conclusion

Maybe you’re hesitating to watch it because it is a 3D CG anime or perhaps its number of episodes haunt you. Maybe you’re hesitant because of its genre. Whatever the case, I can assure that it’ll be worth a while experience.

So what’re you waiting for, get going and watch Kingdom right now!!