Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Courage

Episodes 5-6

I'm back from my trip and ready for Ranking of Kings to play my heartstrings like a fiddle. It took this midquel a few weeks, but we've finally hit the emotional (and production) payoff with only one out-of-sync segment.

Episode five caps off the full-length narrative in "Immortality and the Three Brothers" as we follow Ouken's best friend (and monster) Fren as he disobeys Underworld law to hunt down the demon that might be able to cure the prince. We get a fun cameo from the orc trio that Bojji "fights" after training with his new sword and another example of how King Desha masquerades his kindness as indifference. The third installment reintroduces us to Hokuro and fleshes out his deep emotional connection to Bojji and how that was enough to overcome his otherwise lackluster combat capabilities.

The segment in the middle is...iffy. It straddles a line where the sheer absurdity of Whiteking does a lot to obfuscate what otherwise is a very stale fat joke. Much of the humor works because Whiteking is a very silly-looking horse making equally silly faces, but the rest of the bit is "fat horse hates exercise," "fat horse hates dieting," "fat horse gets skinny to impress hot horse," and "horse gains the weight back after failing to woo the hot horse." There's also a not-unsubstantial amount of side commentary about how Whiteking couldn't possibly attract the male horse because of her weight. This was like, Bugs Bunny-era cartoon jokes here that are not great messaging in retrospect and pretty stale. Fortunately, this is the only miss Treasure Chest of Courage has offered up so far, and a small one out of the five parts from episodes five and six.

The best segment came in episode six, when we got a more detailed look at Bojji's stint as king and Daida's newfound maturity. Bojji is in his underpants for half of the episode, helping random townsfolk while accompanied by Hokuro and Bebin. Here, Bebin reaffirms Bojji's altruism but also ensures that he keeps his health in mind and gives him a jacket to wear. We now have the cutest version of Bojji to grace the screen: slug Bojji.

Daida's segment is the closest we've gotten to actual sequel material (it's taking place concurrent to Bojji's new adventure with Kage) but is arguably hindered by Miranjo. Some time has passed since the first season, so maybe I should quit beefing with the magical war criminal, but Miranjo is little more than a villain with a tragic backstory who we're supposed to think is nice now because she cries a lot. I think, to her detriment, the most interesting thing about Miranjo was her scheming, and with that element removed, she's not very compelling.

Otherwise, this last segment reaffirms Daida's commitment to peace with the most apparent metaphor: he tears down a barracks to build a school. This series isn't exactly subtle in its messaging. Daida's decision to reject war in favor of education is the culmination of his maturity as we see him handle the varied tasks required of a good leader. Everyone around him comments on it, too.

The last two weeks focused on emotions first, followed closely by expressive character animation. I've finally settled in with the show's tone and look forward to tomorrow's excursion with the Big Four.

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Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Courage is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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