Ranking of Kings Review

Ranking of Kings looks like a children's book and plays like an epic. Wit animates Bojji and his world in a soft, rounded storybook style and then spends that softness on a story of court betrayal, monstrous inheritances and genuine violence, and the contrast is the point: the world is cruel and the boy at its centre refuses to be. Bojji is one of the great protagonists, communicating in sign and gesture, drawn with an expressiveness that makes his courage legible without a word, and his friendship with the thief Kage is the emotional centre.

The animation is Wit at its best, fluid and characterful, with fight scenes that use Bojji's smallness as choreography. The plot's revelations about the king, the queen and Bojji's brother are handled with unusual generosity toward its villains. The final arc becomes crowded and the last few episodes lose the earlier focus. It is one of the most humane fantasies ever animated.