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scepterno · 7 days

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autistic rant about the Ranking of Kings anime adaptation incoming

WIT has a bad habit of making dramatic story/pacing changes to the manga they adapt into anime *looks directly at Attack on Titan* and this applies to Ranking of Kings too. for better or worse is honestly subjective!! im not saying its objectively bad. theres definitely improvements. but theres also downsides.

i think a huge downside of how WIT adapted Ranking of Kings is the way certain characters have their personalities changed in significant ways (at least to me, the sort of person who notices these things)

in anime, Bebin is introduced as a shady strict guy who broods in the dark with his snakes (thus pushing the assumption that he is a stereotypical evil guy) and is eventually revealed to be The Most Caring Guy in the big four. its great subversion!!!!

and it works really well in the anime BECAUSE of the changes they made from the original manga.

in the manga, Bebin is introduced as Domas's superior rival, and he's cocky! he's smug, and smirks at Domas's embarrassment! he is in a completely different time and place than the anime. its nothing at all like WIT Bebin!!!

and this impacts our perception of him soooo much, doesn't it?? there are different contexts to the actions he takes in the manga vs the anime, so people who ONLY watch the anime are ultimately going to think of Bebin with a different characterization than those who also read the manga. which is so interesting (and frustrating to me, the sort of autistic person that is very very detail oriented and fascinated by this)

i very much prefer manga Bebin's characterization. so it pains me a little that if i make content of him with this personality, it may be seen as "out of character" by those who only watch the anime.

ALSO. with the changes to plot they make, and the stories they remove (like Domas's backstory, or some of the stuff between Miranjo and Bosse during their adventures)

let's not fail to mention the Domas backstory they cut AND CHANGED (in a way that completely messes up the timeline) Domas is a very very young man in the manga when he is first introduced. he is first met by BEBIN!!! who is the recently newest third member of Bosse's elite guard. and Bebin APPROACHES DOMAS!!! WHILE SMIRKING!!!!!!!!! and they have a moment. then we timeskip slightly to Domas being assigned Bojji as his student, which the anime changed TONS. Domas and Bojji are both different ages in the anime than they are in the manga. like. VISIBLY. and it throws so many timeline questions for a loop! a tiny tiny change with HUGE impact!

we get this establishment that Domas sees Bebin as his rival. his superior. he feels inferior to Bebin as a guard, as A TEACHER ESPECIALLY. this adds so much depth to their parallel arcs in the story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but its COMPLETELY MISSING from the anime!!!! isnt that crazy???

but NOOOOOO we cant add Domas's 5 page backstory into the OVA season, despite TEASING IT IN THE OPENING, because we need to do 4 minutes of anime original slapstick with Despa's fat fuck horse (sorry Whiteking im making a point). WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT??? do you see! WIT studio's methods really have their pros and cons.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE TRUE MEAT AND REASON OF THIS POST

THE JUDGE

I FEAR FOR HIS FATE IN THE ANIME.

ITS ALREADY LOOKING TO BE ANOTHER CASE OF BEBIN!!!!

the Judge is not a character showcased more than Thrice before part 2, and his interactions/moments are very brief. HOWEVER. we do get enough in these to make a comparison between manga and anime, WHICH TELL ME ALL I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW WIT IS GOING TO HANDLE THE JUDGE'S CHARACTERIZATION

im onto you WIT Studios, i know your fucking game

let's begin with his very first appearance in the anime:

nothing special. he's a still frame that invokes the idea he is walking around the kindgom writing stuff down. but in the manga, we get this:

WE GET THIS!!!!!!!!!! HE IS CHEWING HIS PEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Uh, what's the big deal, man? There's no way that's significant"

YES IT IS! TRUST ME!!!! I am a smart motherfucker when it comes to literature. i fucked heavily with creative writing AND research papers in college. SO IM NOT CRAZY FOR THIS, LET ME COOK.

This missing bit of ~Humanization~ for the Judge may be so much more important than we even know yet. In the manga, the Judge is ominous and otherworldly just like the anime, yes, but in the manga he is also EXPRESSIVE. SILLY. AWKWARD. AND HUMAN.

in the anime they are really building him up to be this dangerous, evil guy (just like Bebin, see the pattern?) in the expectation that this will either be subverted or expanded upon (we don't know yet, the manga is NOT that far)

and they may just be shooting themselves in the foot!!

this becomes more apparent when we reach the first ever episode in the anime to cover Part 2 of the manga, which is also (currently) the last episode aired. this episode has the Judge playing a bigger part than he did in all of Part 1 combined.

they cut. SO. GODDAMN. MUCH. out of this episode. but mostly for Ouken. let's just focus on the changes they made to the judge.

firstly being his BODY LANGUAGE

THIS CLOWN KNOWS HOW TO CLOWN AROUND. take a look at the way the Judge uses his whole body to open and close these huge doors for Desha. THIS HUMANIZES HIM. he is small and has to put his entire weight into this action!!!!! and the way he chooses to go about it is so telling!!! he doesn't use magic, and he isn't so prideful to try and be all cool and suave about it. NO!!!!! this guy isn't afraid to show their differences in power, or expose his physical weakness, which eventually plays into the reveal that he's also sort of a jokester! (more on that later)

meanwhile, in the anime, he barely EVER emerges from his cape. he has very stoic body language, and is not NEARLY as expressive. look at this!

meanwhile in the anime, he doesn't budge an INCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when this dialogue happens.

(they do, thankfully, adapt the panels of him sitting and hugging his knees, which is by far the most humanization they give him in the anime AND is very cute in both mediums.)

there are also many instances in the manga of the judge's eyes being EXPOSED during this arc. meanwhile, in this episode, we don't see them once. CERTAINLY that changes the tone of certain lines, especially the ones where we see hints of the Judge's beliefs and personality popping out!!!!! again, i KNOW it's minor and doesn't mean anything in the grand scale, but the money's in the details, baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!

speaking of details, they gave the six-fingered race FIVE fingers in the anime, when it is VERY SIGNIFICANT TO THE PLOT IN THE MANGA???

WIT STUDIO WHAT WAS THE REASON??????????

THIS EPISODE had a lot cut, which im not angry about! BUT!!!! it does make me wonder how they're going to handle the future points of the manga we haven't seen yet, namely the Judge's personality and OYABU as a whole. i have wondered ENDLESSLY about how WIT's quirks are going to affect the nuances of these two VERY IMPORTANT characters.

reaching part 2 spoilers beyond episode 10 of TCOC, we get to learn some very important things about the Judge's personality, WHICH WILL NOT MATCH HIS PERSONALITY IN THE ANIME DUE TO ALL OF THE CHANGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It'll be something you brush aside like "oh sure i guess" BUT IN THE MANGA IT REALLY ADDS UP!!!!!!! but but but— this also may just be genius of WIT from a storytelling perspective, since audiences may enjoy seeing the Judge in a new light through OUR MAIN CHARACTERS' EYES when they first meet him! It's like we're experiencing a new side of this character with Bojji, thus strengthening the relationships audiences have with Bojji and his enemies/allies respectively.

having only been SUPER SUSPICIOUS and UNKILLABLE BY THE DEATH BEAM GOD until this point when BojjiKage first meet him, we now get to see him being... sort of awkward?? sort of rude?? but also trying his best to play along with what he thinks is just a very compassion little kid??? this is the sense of humor i was talking about!

we see him sharing a meal and play-fighting with our protagonists, which is SUCH A LEAP from the anime version viewers were left with in episode 10 of TCOC (meanwhile manga readers knew how goofy he was the whole time!!!!!!!)

sort of unrelated to the rant but we also see the Judge reflexively stop his friend from what he assumes is going to be an attack against Bojji, who he has just endeared himself to, which I just think is super sweet and really adds to the sense that the judge isn't just some unfeeling servant of the Ranking Committee

ANYWAYS.

WIT is really pushing the angle of having the audience experience things through Bojji's eyes, and that works narratively but not for someone like me! i can see objectively how well done this is, but again, my subjective opinion is that the manga storytelling is simply superior because of how much more fleshed out the characters are. and i know you cant adapt EVERYTHING but you can certainly pick and choose BETTER *cough* cutting domas backstory for whiteking gags *cough*

the cut bits of dialogue and personality from the judge (and formerly bebin) make me excited AND scared to see how they'll handle Oyabu in the movie (and eventually the Judge if we ever get a second season.) Will they cut Oyabu's backstory like they cut Domas's? will they cut little bits of dialogue or acting that seem inconsequential but may hold tons of weight?

little lines like these feel like they're promising SO MUCH MORE to a character's depth, but since the manga isn't that far we just don't know yet. will the WIT staff know? there is SO MUCH we can find out simply by paying attention to what they change, remove, or even add to the original story.

ALL I KNOW IS THAT I'M GOING TO LOVE IT NO MATTER WHAT WIT STUDIO DOES. I HAVE FANTASIZED THIS MOVIE IN MY HEAD HUNDREDS OF TIMES BY NOW AND I GET MORE AND MORE EXCITED FOR IT EVERY PASSING DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

disclaimer: i wrote this while stoned

#ousama ranking #ranking of kings #behold a MERE FRACTION of my passion for this manga #i had to actively stop myself from talking about chapters 200 and onward #unfortunately robbing myself of the chance to talk about the judge and oyabu's onscreen bdsm session

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