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http://www.mangapanda.com/1730/kingdom.html
More or less Dynasty Warriors the manga - but gritty.
And it's pretty damn good.
Set in China, but the era seems to be a bit different (starts in 245 BC - first chapter lists AD in the translation, but later ones are BC) so no Lu Bu or Guan Yu and the like from the Three Kingdoms period, but there's plenty of larger than life badass characters that mow through peons like butter just like in a DW game and can only really hope to be stopped by an enemy officer that's just as ridiculous. And yes, some of those badass officers die (this is not a manga where every single character magically survives even nuclear blast level attacks or where every second enemy becomes best pals forever after being defeated). Don't be surprised if you tear up a bit or feel a bit of loss when one does die - you wouldn't be the first.
The overarching story is about the unification of ancient China. The manga mainly follows a character named Shin from slave beginnings on his journey through the ranks to more or less become the ultimate badass general. Uniting an entire country is more than just combat though, so secondary coverage of the political intrigue in the royal court is also there in decent detail practically from the start.
And I do mean gritty. There is some gore (because an ultimate badass that can slaughter peons is gonna cleave more than a few bitches in half), but it hasn't felt pointlessly excessive to me like it does in some mangas. Instead there's much more of a feeling of tenacity and willpower needed to keep fighting when soldiers are sweaty, exhausted, low on morale, and have their back against the wall against superior opponents or unknown tactics. Speaking of tactics, if you've ever played a DW game and had an enemy spawn on the map in the middle of your forces and feel it's bullshit that a force that large wasn't noticed - there's a few points in this manga that just might make you think it was feasible after all. I'll just say that Kanki has balls of steel and let you see the rest when you get that far.
A lot of stories mention the weight of someone's attacks, but Kingdom really does an exceptional job of portraying just how much weight a warrior's past victories, sacrifices, and losses really lend to their blows when everything is on the line.
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I've read all the manga for this so far and it is amazing, very underrated. If you love action manga with military strategy, this is a great read.
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Hell it's about time one of the best manga gets a thread of its own!
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
I've only seen the anime, which has exceptionally cruddy animation, but it was still amazing regardless. Loved it, can't wait for more.
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The anime is trash, the manga is god-tier, and the translation this week is taking too damn long.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES48860 Posts
On June 05 2015 11:50 Kyir wrote: The anime is trash, the manga is god-tier, and the translation this week is taking too damn long.
I know right?
I'm really looking forward to this chapter.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
The anime is great so long as you can get past the terrible animation.
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On June 05 2015 12:24 Souma wrote: The anime is great so long as you can get past the terrible animation.
Animation is the selling point of anime as a genre though. I didn't find the voice acting or music direction pretty stellar either tbh so I'd really have to go with the manga over it.
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Kingdom 433
And now the current is slowly coming to a close.
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I watched two of the anime episodes a bit back (tailend of Ouki vs Riboku) and have to agree that there was just something off about the animation that ended up in the anime just not having quite the same epic level feeling as the manga gives me. I'd link it to the anime seemingly just copying the manga's artwork for animations (especially attacks) rather than trying to adapt them a bit more to the anime medium. It certainly wasn't a bad anime. It's just that the overall product didn't match the bar set by the manga, from my perspective. Not uncommon for people to have a preference of one medium/presentation over another for any given story, so whatever.
As for more current stuff, I'm kinda hoping that we'll get to see what Kanki does to the fleeing rebel army. Because Kanki. I imagine we might also start to see some more inter-nation politics relatively soonish. State of Ai and Ryofui taking precedence, of course.
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I was going to start one last week but forgot. One of my top favorites at the moment!
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Seems like there are probably just a few chapters left before some sort of mini-timeskip. The mangaka seems to prefer those to montages for showing the passage of time.
Just out of curiosity, who are everyone's favorite characters so far?
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I like moubu, he is such a bad ass bulldozer
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Despite the fact that he only showed up for the single arc I'm a really big fan of Rinko. I think he was the best direct antagonist that Shin has had to fight yet.
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Ok I went throught all of it in 3 days. Became one of my favourites now Glad I happen to finish when the arc is at its epilogue too.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES48860 Posts
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I was expecting Sei to not kill anyone, not even Ryofui, I guess I was wrong (not) ?
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Almost a year old bump. I know it's an old thread, but I just finished reading up on this manga.
I love it! I think I might have found my 2nd favorite manga after One Piece.
Anyone else (still?) reading?
Someone else on /r/onepiece mentioned that Kingdom totally deserved to be 2nd best selling manga, so I checked it out. It's really good.
The plot is good, the characters are well fleshed out and lovable. I like it when the baddies are just "of a different faction".
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There are a few readers here but the problem with it is a lack of a new season of anime to get more fans watching. The main English translators group also didn't really pick it up. I think we are getting jap to kor/chi to english translations for now.
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