It felt good to read the first 2 volumes of Kingdom by Yasuhisa Hara after a lot of junk food books. It reminded me a lot of Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue, so I was not surprised to see Hara worked as Inoue’s assistant in the past.
In ancient China, two boys named Xin and Piao are best friends and slaves with ambitious goals to be great generals – the only path out of slavery* for them and their wives and children. Not that they have wives or children yet because they’re still children. They spend their free time sparring to get ready for their dream military careers.
One of the king’s people sees them sparring and is impressed with their skill. He’s even more impressed with the fact that Piao is the child king’s doppelganger. Piao is taken off to be a body double and gets killed during a coup and the king escapes.
Xin finds the semi-outed king, and reluctantly agrees to help him reclaim the throne. As a slave, he doesn’t care who the king is and he especially isn’t fond of the guy who got Piao killed. But it is the only way to become a general and Piao explicitly said he’d live vicariously and posthumously through Xin.
Also, this is all based on the real history and people of China’s Warring State period, circa 250 BC.
The series has dozens of volumes, but only the first three or four have been published in English. For now, I’ll stick to reading them as they get officially translated. I say that sincerely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve read the entire thing in scanlation and watched the anime twice by spring.
* Xin later learns this was not actually a viable plan out of slavery.
