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Absolute phenomenal manga that is continuously getting better and better as it progresses. It is over 800 chapters but there are many arcs and it is worth it. I feel two arcs slow down the pace a bit later in the series but the most recent arc has changed that around and made it worth it. It is historically based so some things are unavoidable and makes it understandable why the author chooses to keep some things in because its a story. The fights are made to be really cool even with it being armies in the thousands, the soldiers have their roles and significance ... in what they do and doesnt feel like theres just extra people there with no personality. There are enough characters in the armies that are all unique that differentiate each other enough from other armies that make each fight interesting because of the way they fight. Even though the series is long, it is amazing and a third of the arcs are done perfectly while the others are still good and is very consistent in the fights. My hype in the future is to see the four pillars, if we reach that point, this series will be cemented as one of the best if it has not already. The anime has only covered like half of the chapters so I recommend to read it because those arcs will take a long time to be animated.

A manga that aspires to be a Chinese seinen masterpiece but ends up as a shōnen version of Dynasty Warriors — and not even a great one at that. I’ve managed to read all 818 chapters of Kingdom, along with its short chapters outside the main series. Before delving deeper into this review, let me clarify: if you’re one of those who truly love Kingdom, that’s perfectly fine. But this review may not resonate with you. That said, I hope you’ll hear me out before dismissing my perspective.

Initial Expectations

When I first heard of Kingdom, it was through the relentless praise it received in videos and ... top manga lists. Many called it one of the best seinen manga of all time, lauding its "intelligence" and "thought-provoking" qualities. Unfortunately, after reading the series, I found that it falls short of those claims. Yasuhisa Hara, the mangaka, was once an assistant to Takehiko Inoue, the genius behind Slam Dunk, Vagabond, and REAL. Yet Hara seems to have learned little from Inoue’s mastery of storytelling, producing a work that barely deserves the seinen tag.

The Premise and Simplification of History

The story is a fictional adaptation of China’s Warring States period, culminating in the unification of China under Ying Zheng, the King of Qin. The tale begins with Xin, a war orphan who dreams of becoming a "Great General of the Heavens," and follows his rise as he aids Ying Zheng in reclaiming his throne and conquering rival states.
On paper, this premise has enormous potential. Ancient China’s rich history is a treasure trove of intrigue, betrayal, and philosophical depth. A seinen manga could have explored the intricate politics, societal structures, and existential dilemmas of this era. Instead, Kingdom simplifies everything, turning complex historical events into a repetitive, formulaic shōnen power fantasy. It’s like taking the nuanced philosophy of The Art of War (學者不識其範、完範者可以命世)—and reducing it to "swing your sword harder."

Art: Spectacular but Occasionally Silly

I’ll give credit where it’s due: Yasuhisa Hara’s art shines in depicting large-scale battles. s showcasing thousands of soldiers, intricate costumes, and dramatic battle sequences are breathtaking. Few mangaka can rival Hara’s ability to illustrate the sheer scale of war.

However, the art often undermines the intended seriousness. Some character designs border on parody, resembling Dynasty Warriors caricatures more than historical figures. I couldn’t help but hear the Dynasty Warriors OST in my head while reading—and it fit a bit too well.
In trying to emulate traditional Chinese art styles, the manga occasionally devolves into visual absurdity. It’s like an awkward middle ground between The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義) and a flashy JRPG.

Pacing and Repetition

One of the manga’s biggest flaws is its pacing. The story falls into a repetitive cycle:

War arcs that drag on for over 100 chapters.
Pseudo-political discussions that lack depth.
Over-the-top action sequences that feel more like Dragon Ball Z than a historical epic.

This rinse-and-repeat formula dominates all 818 chapters. The "Coalition Arc," often touted as the series’ best, epitomizes these issues. On paper, it’s an ambitious narrative with multiple factions and grand stakes. In execution, it’s just another oversized war arc with little strategic substance. The battles rely on brute force and plot armor, with characters surviving due to their flashy designs rather than any tactical brilliance.
As Confucius once said: _“有幾念學也，不早不慢；有幾念武也，無語無道。” (“There is thought in learning, there is timing in warfare; yet without balance, there is neither wisdom nor success.”) Kingdom misses that balance entirely.

Character Development: A Shōnen Protagonist in Seinen Clothing

Xin, the protagonist, is the quintessential shōnen hero: brash, simplistic, and driven by dreams of becoming "the strongest." Over 818 chapters, he undergoes almost no meaningful growth. He solves problems with brute force, rarely reflecting on his actions or evolving as a person.
Side characters fare little better. Most exist to serve Xin’s journey, their personalities reduced to single traits or gimmicks. The only standout is Qi Wang, whose charisma and complexity make him a rare bright spot. Unfortunately, his early death robs the series of one of its few genuinely compelling characters.
By contrast, Vagabond excels at character development. Takehiko Inoue’s portrayal of Musashi Miyamoto humanizes the legendary swordsman, exploring his inner struggles and growth. Musashi’s journey is deeply philosophical, reflecting on themes of identity, purpose, and mortality. As Musashi himself says, “我要越過江海，則需踏实地上。” (“To cross the great seas, one must first walk firmly upon the earth.”)
Kingdom offers no such introspection. It’s all flash and no substance, with characters spouting clichéd lines about "greatness" while showing little depth.

Themes and Philosophy: Shallow Waters

Seinen manga like Berserk and Vagabond excel because they tackle profound themes with maturity. Berserk’s Golden Age arc uses war to explore trauma, ambition, and human fragility. Guts fighting 100 soldiers is harrowing, highlighting the brutality of war. In contrast, Kingdom glamorizes its battles, treating war as a stage for flashy moves and heroic posturing.
Even Chinese philosophy, which could have enriched the narrative, is sorely underused. The Warring States period is a goldmine for exploring Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism. Instead, Kingdom opts for simplistic morality and superficial politics. It’s as if Hara read The Analects (訓“不知生，許語死”) and thought, "Too complicated. Let’s just have Xin punch someone."

Conclusion

Kingdom aspires to be an epic retelling of China’s Warring States period but ends up as a generic shōnen story wrapped in a seinen disguise. While Hara’s art captures the grandeur of war, the repetitive storytelling, shallow characters, and lack of thematic depth hold the series back.
For those seeking a truly profound exploration of history, philosophy, and human nature, I’d recommend Vagabond or Berserk. Kingdom is best enjoyed with low expectations, perhaps with the Dynasty Warriors OST playing in the background. As a wise man once said: “奇能者，過者究乎空。” (“What strives for greatness but stumbles, ultimately falls into the void.”)

Let's be patient and think about this question: why do Shin fight? He wanted to become the best general because... he wants to be not poor? He desires to be cool? He wants to stand on top of the world? What motivates him to kill, again and again, respectable people? Well, as the first act went on, it shifted to Shin following Sei's dream of uniting China and ends the chaos. That sounds good, right?


Let me first tell you about the background to the story. I think many who read Kingdom is aware of the history behind it, but not to the extend that ... they think. Sei, or Zheng actually, is the first emperor of China. His rise to power, as in Kingdom, is full of intrigued. His father, the unexpected king of Qin, ed, and he's on the throne now. Yet the real power behind him, Lu Buwei, a famous historical figure, is rumoured to be Zheng real father, for he gave his concubine to Zheng's father. Lu Buwei's power helped Zheng secured his throne, and later Zheng executed his own brother and his family. I shall call Zheng, Qin Shi Huang or QSH, from now on. QSH, then, using an incident involving his mother, turned against Lu Buwei and removed their faction from his court, through blood. After uniting China, he executed his brutal repression of any other philosophy other than Legalism. He's famous for burning of Confucianist materials, as well as executing their scholars. He ruled China with an iron fist.
That's not all the details about his life, of course. I didn't mention much of the warfare materials that created Kingdom. Kingdom followed QSH's life pretty well, by most standards, included many important events in QSH's life as well as Qin's rise to power. This is why I feel Kingdom was a very bad take on such an important part of history. QSH can be considered the turning point in Chinese history in many ways. The modern C's take on how to rule China, is influenced a lot by what happened 2200 years ago. Yet, Kingdom is the Akame ga Kill of Chinese history.
Akame ga Kill is not the first, nor last, nor perhaps even the most famous example of adding violence and death to a shounen to make it more interesting. In the course of doing that, they do a inadvertently reduce the stake of the death occurred. If everyone can die, and it's all very tragic, why were they slashing through tons of people? Aren't those people too? Why is it that during those "chosen" characters death, the series turns into a sombre mood. Yet, outside of that, the death of thousands, hundreds of people are a mere background? Are we suppose to take this seriously or is this a light hearted get stronger fight next opponent kind of story? Kingdom did the exact same thing, only, it added the very important piece of history attached to it.

I want to love Kingdom, I really do. I love historical comics, I love 3 Kingdoms, I love the Warring State, I love the Iliad. To boys, there were something just melancholically exciting about stories of men dying on the battlefield. Kingdom fails completely on that front, and if it was simply trying to bring that genre into a younger audience hands, I think it is completely unnecessary to dumb down the most important period of East Asia into, shounen battle comic.
The battles, the fighting, seems well done. It depicts fighting between thousands of men, duals between generals, strategy, manoeuvres, trickeries are all here and it seems great. However, those are only skin deep. It is not the first nor last to discuss and depict warfare in detail, but it is perhaps the most famous right now. I think a comparison with something like Hawkwood is in order. Hawkwood depicts warfare but in much smaller scale. It is also depicting it more realistically. The soldiers are more important than burly generals riding out to fight on epic 1 on 1. However, because warfare is on a much smaller, realistic scales, effects are much easier to depict. A cavalry charge, flanking, archer, positioning, movement, formation, ambush, weapons, logistics, are all well drawn. This is all in Kingdoms, but it is often mentioned in ing, or sometime ignore completely. That's fine, because if Kingdom is that sort of work, akin to Iliad, then it invites something even worse.

Iliad don't depict warfare realistically. In oral's tradition of the time, Iliad is mostly dramatized, event driven tale of the Trojan War. It seems to be similar to how Kingdom is, half the time. The generals, duking it out, man to man fighting on the front, to decide who's more favoured by the gods. This seems to be shounen-esque, yet, Iliad is taken seriously by everyone. The reason for that is very simple, Iliad is truly an epic with a message, a theme, the encom the zeitgeist of ancient Greece. Glory, fury, pride, legacy and ultimately, fate are concepts in the Iliad that resonates throughout their world. Iliad depicted glorious generals, going into battle to leave a legacy, yet all fall victim to fate. All of those famous heroes, with ages about their deeds and fame before stepping it, fought valiantly against each other, only for one to kill another. All of that, all of the heroic deeds, all of the training, the fighting, the glory, the blood, the pride of warrior, all of that, so one men can slay another. Iliad, in the end is about the meaninglessness of warfare. The king of Troy, begging an enraged Achilles, to return his son corpse. Even as enemies, they can still respect each other as men in a world rules by fate. It tells the people of the time that, glory in battle might make your mark in history, but true fulfilment lies in forgiveness and peace, not killing on another, even in a world where fate, or the gods, dictate that great men must kill one another, to be great. Kingdom has none of these nuance. The battles between generals are, just that. It doesn't have a theme to encom the entire warfare of ancient China. It fails to honour the generals that was slain on Shin's path to be the best, because it was written as a shounen, sprinkled with seinen. A math test with some realistic physics scenario added, all skin deep to avoid any realistic complicated consideration of the scenario. For maths, that's fine, because it is meaningless. For historical figures, this is a disrespect to the story and the people that died, leaving the legacy of today's world.

If you are about to tell me that, there's the unexplored middle ground, and that Kingdom fulfils that, I say, go read 3 kingdoms. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, RoTK for short, is the dramatization of the Three Kingdoms period, which takes place at the end of the Han Dynasty. If you are familiar with RoTK, you can immediately spot the similarity between Kingdom and it. RoTK has it all, an epic retelling of events, great generals battling each other on the battlefield, political intrigues, warfare intrigues and manoeuvres, reality of the feudal system, suffering of common people, Confucianism against legalism, and best of all a theme to encom the spirit of not just the period, but of modern Chinese thoughts in this case. If you are not familiar, well, 3 kingdoms essentially have a few storylines, but it focuses, of course, on fate of the three kingdoms, Wei, Shu, Wu, and their struggle to survive and dominates China. Most of the famous and familiar events took place in the early period, before the formation of the rivalry between the 3 kingdoms. The novel often mentions epic duel between famous warriors like Lubu, but also talking about the personality, the nobleness or wickedness in episodes to portray the characters. It also tells a lot of what happens during campaigns, manoeuvres, tricks or legends of these events. You can almost call it shounen-esque, but again, unlike Kingdom, it has a many message to tell, but the most encoming one is the cyclical nature of rise and fall. Heroes rise, fall, rise again, just like their kingdoms. No matter how great you are, how much intrigues you performed, how extensive your list of deeds are, you are merely part of the wheel of history. The sacrifice, death, are celebrated, as well as evil deeds condemned. It is a little of a downer, perhaps. But the novel always mention glorifies actions of which are glorious, morally just rather than falling into the cynicism due to the chaos of the time. That's the nature of historical epic. You must never forget to be historical, because these are real lives, lives of those who lived it to the fullest. Reducing it to a shounen struggle to become famous, or to become just, is insulting to historical epics.

So, a supposed historical epic, completely disrespect historical epic, where else are the values of it, other than in simple minded entertainment with history sprinkled on? Could it be, the art? Kingdom art is nice, it's fine. It doesn't look great, it does look stylistic and different, but not in a way that fascinates me. I don't care for its preservation, should aliens come to earth, conquer it and then ordain the burning of comics. That's the best I can say about it.


It's really not a bad comic, after all of this. I can't fault it having bad story, bad characters, bad pacing, bad art. However, all everything it does is average. There's nothing particularly memorable or interesting about it for me, as a comic. For flavours, it added a lot of characters relationships, some personal struggles for the characters to overcome through the power of will, or friendship or just muscle. It positioned itself as a historical epic is the misstep, in my opinion. I would rather the author depicts some kind of fictional land, like Youjo Senki or Arslan, than a very interesting and rich historical period to embarrass itself. If you have no idea about the history of the period, it might captivate you. Just that none of the political intrigues and discussion about philosophy matters later on.

Would I recommend Kingdom? I would simply say, no. There are better works out there deserving of attention and money. Vinland Saga, does epic historical journey to be something, far far better than Kingdom. Vagabond explores philosophy of life and the sword, far far better than Kingdom. The manga, Shiji, retells the story of this period and the lesson much better. Buddha, is not comparable because it was written by a true master, the pioneer of the medium. I even prefer things like Hawkwood, Woflmund, Koukoku no Shugosha, Gunka no Baltzar depiction of battles much more than Kingdom. If some simplistic warfare is your cup of tea, why not Youjo Senki? Epic journey to be conqueror, why not Arslan Senki, Historie? For a complete replacement, why not just The Ravages of Time? That one in my opinion suffers from the same disease as this. However, that one is actually cool, with fantastic art, completely epic. Ad Astra, also terrible, but has better art. Even Drifters have better fantasy element. It performs very well, far better than many of these actual good works. I think Kingdom is just in the middle of all of them, not too technical about combat, not too serious about the period, not too much details. It appeals to the mass just like how Naruto or AgK used to be.