Hello everyone.
So I guess that’s it. Hango is officially over in spite of my numerous copes and emails to Hara, it seems there will be no mountain fortress shenanigans / further action against Zhao for a while. The most controversial battle in Kingdom history ends to the sound of a whoopie cushion.
So give your honest opinions on this arc and what you thought of the battle. I will spoiler tag my thoughts below.
@Owl Ki @Blackbeard @God Buggy @TheKnightOfTheSea @FutureWarrior123 @RayanOO @Rumble @Greenbeard @Dark Admiral @Jailer @Peroroncino @Monet @Topi Jerami @Shanks @Cichy @Bullet @mmd @Yo Tan Wa @𝓓𝓡 . 𝕋𝒆ñ𝐦𝐚 @Darkrai1381 @tcb @Pirao @Luffy is the mc @Warchief Sanji D Goat @Bepo @Daniel @Pot Goblin @centurion @Ou Zen
So I guess that’s it. Hango is officially over in spite of my numerous copes and emails to Hara, it seems there will be no mountain fortress shenanigans / further action against Zhao for a while. The most controversial battle in Kingdom history ends to the sound of a whoopie cushion.
So give your honest opinions on this arc and what you thought of the battle. I will spoiler tag my thoughts below.
Overall I would say that Hango is the second worst Kingdom battle of all time. Yes, the second worst. I still maintain that KokuYou Hills was less readable than Hango and was the hardest arc for me to actually read.
But that said, there were some aspects of Hango I enjoyed and I won’t make this a pure rant post. So:
What I liked:
-Riboku. Riboku is one of those characters to me who has been interesting in 100% of the panels he’s been in and Hango certainly didn’t change that. The devil is always in the details with this character. Only Riboku can make running away like a chicken look completely overpowered. I mean that was his strategy, bait Shin and run away like a chicken. And thus, the most Qin casualties of all time (apparently???). Riboku for me has just never disappointed.
-Seika, kind of. I like that they basically built their own ideal state in the middle of Zhao. I liked Shibashou’s “I am neither a king nor a dictator line.” I like that line a lot. I like that their reasons for joining the battle was to show all of China what they’ve built in Seika. I like that they seem like “soft” good-hearted warriors rather than like bloodlusted Quanrong or savages or whatever. I’ll get into what I didn’t like about Seika later on.
-The tactics and strategy: I’ve detailed this in other threads so I won’t get into it, but I do think Hango was up to par in terms of the strategy and tactics we’ve seen of past arcs. This idea that Hango showed no tactics is very wrong, it’s just that much of the tactics are hidden in dialogue bubbles while Hara draws other things. Which is okay I guess but the actual tactics and strategy of Hango were quite good. Not amazing, this isn’t Western Zhao but they were good.
-I like that our protagonists suffered a horrific defeat. The day defeat becomes impossible or victory feels too easy is the day I lose interest in Kingdom. Hara still having the balls to have us lose major battles is just peak.
-I like that Kyoukai and Kyourei got like, no panel time
And that’s about it lol. Alright so, what I didn’t like:
-Hara utterly fucked Qin this arc. Not because they lost, but because they got absolutely no chance to show anything at all. Obviously I am a massive Zhao fan, but I think about what my opinion of Hango would be if I didn’t like Zhao and really only cared about Qin here, and then I understand why the reaction to Hango has been so extreme.
Yotanwa got completely sidelined, her battle was just lame and barely shown. How did Hara manage to make an army of screaming mad lads have a boring battle? Well, he barely showed any of it. Most of Yotanwa’s battle was either her boring commentary at her HQ, Kititty at Hango which who fucking cares, or just quick shallow scenes like Bananji vs Danto only lasting for a single panel.
Ouhon also got absolutely nothing. His battlefield vision was compared with Ousen’s, which was cool, but aside from that he got no focus and achieved nothing.
Shin got tricked into chasing chickenboku across the entire battlefield all day and also got no hype moments. Shin’s biggest moment this battle was ordering his 30k man army to begin the battle. Lmfao
And of course, the man who got gimped harder than the gimp in Pulp Fiction, Ousen himself. Dear Christ did Ousen utterly fail to live up to anything resembling his own hype this arc. He got folded like a lawn chair by sleepwalking Shibashou while having ludicrous moments such as “the victor is me” and the “lowly Akakin” moment. I didn’t think it was possible for a Qin 6 to lose this hard, but Ousen got completely demolished while putting up no resistance. Ousen’s defeat at Hango has me legit believing that Kanmei one shotting Oukotsu could have actually happened and that this wasn’t just an exaggerated rumor.
How Hara took Ousen from arguably the most interesting general in the entire manga during Western Zhao, to getting lawn chair diffed by an indifferent foe lmfao…I mean this shit was certainly unexpected.
-Alright next, the utter lack of any and all hype moments. Name a single hype moment in Hango. I can name you 5 or 6 of the most hype manga moments of all time in Shukai Plains. I can name 4 or 5 pretty hype moments from Juukou. I can name 2 or 3 big hype moments from Gian. I can’t name any real hype moments from Hango. The tone of this arc ranged from boring to depressing, but never hype in the slightest. Anything even resembling hype was immediately snuffed out. The hype of Shibashou about to crash into Ousen’s army for the first time? Psyche, nothing really happened. The hype of Shibashou one shotting Akou? Completely undermined by Akou being half dead anyway. The hype of Ousen’s “the victor is me?” Lol. Just, lol. There was no hype this arc, every hype moment was completely undermined or subverted.
-Seika’s utter lack of interest in this battle: I mean, how were we supposed to get hyped for Seika when their big boys don’t even really want to be fighting? My issue with Shibashou isn’t that he’s weak, it’s that he was utterly bored and we basically saw no passion from him the entire time. Which is great for the Three Great Heaven Agenda but not great for my interest in Hango.
I mean, how does Jiaga go from a screaming berserk mad lad at Roumou…to Kansaro having to verbally motivate him to take the battle of Hango seriously??? What??? Jiaga had his stomach sliced open and minutes later was like “idk, I guess I’ll take this battle seriously.” And then dies immediately. Just, ???????
It’s hard to get invested in an antagonist group when they themselves don’t really give a fuck. I mean how is Jiaga going to pause a battlefield to ask Kansaro if Shibashou can actually die. Like he’s not fucking Zeus bro, he’s just a really big dude, how did you come to this battlefield unaware that your master could die. On that note:
-Jiaga’s death was the most nonsensical death Hara has ever written. I’ve defended some questionable deaths in Kingdom. I defended Houken’s death, I defended Zenou’s death, I defended Jyoukaryuu’s death, and I’ll still defend those deaths.
Jiaga’s death was actually incoherent. On top of Jiaga’s personality being a contradictory mess…how did Shiryu even catch him??? She turned her horse in one direction, and then whipped her horse back around faster than Jiaga could react?? What??? Is her horse like the Steph Curry of horses??? How did Jiaga not have time to react to this shit??? And then Kansaro didn’t even kill Shiryu in spite of him stating her death would be an offering to his blood brother. Like, seriously, what did Jiaga do to Hara lmfao.
-I think Hara legit forgot that he established that all of these characters had scores to settle with one another. He spent a whole chapter stressing that this rematch was supposed to be really personal for a lot of these commanders, especially for the likes of Bananji and Shunsuiju…and then he just off paneled them. Instead, the emotional core of this arc was the fucking Shiryu Sou’Ou romance subplot??? I just can’t. I don’t mind these two but their lusty hookups should have never been the emotional core of Hango.
Alright, that’s enough for now. Overall I still love Kingdom and I’d rather read Hango than Egghead for example but this battle didn’t even come remotely fucking close to living up to the hype for me.
But that said, there were some aspects of Hango I enjoyed and I won’t make this a pure rant post. So:
What I liked:
-Riboku. Riboku is one of those characters to me who has been interesting in 100% of the panels he’s been in and Hango certainly didn’t change that. The devil is always in the details with this character. Only Riboku can make running away like a chicken look completely overpowered. I mean that was his strategy, bait Shin and run away like a chicken. And thus, the most Qin casualties of all time (apparently???). Riboku for me has just never disappointed.
-Seika, kind of. I like that they basically built their own ideal state in the middle of Zhao. I liked Shibashou’s “I am neither a king nor a dictator line.” I like that line a lot. I like that their reasons for joining the battle was to show all of China what they’ve built in Seika. I like that they seem like “soft” good-hearted warriors rather than like bloodlusted Quanrong or savages or whatever. I’ll get into what I didn’t like about Seika later on.
-The tactics and strategy: I’ve detailed this in other threads so I won’t get into it, but I do think Hango was up to par in terms of the strategy and tactics we’ve seen of past arcs. This idea that Hango showed no tactics is very wrong, it’s just that much of the tactics are hidden in dialogue bubbles while Hara draws other things. Which is okay I guess but the actual tactics and strategy of Hango were quite good. Not amazing, this isn’t Western Zhao but they were good.
-I like that our protagonists suffered a horrific defeat. The day defeat becomes impossible or victory feels too easy is the day I lose interest in Kingdom. Hara still having the balls to have us lose major battles is just peak.
-I like that Kyoukai and Kyourei got like, no panel time
And that’s about it lol. Alright so, what I didn’t like:
-Hara utterly fucked Qin this arc. Not because they lost, but because they got absolutely no chance to show anything at all. Obviously I am a massive Zhao fan, but I think about what my opinion of Hango would be if I didn’t like Zhao and really only cared about Qin here, and then I understand why the reaction to Hango has been so extreme.
Yotanwa got completely sidelined, her battle was just lame and barely shown. How did Hara manage to make an army of screaming mad lads have a boring battle? Well, he barely showed any of it. Most of Yotanwa’s battle was either her boring commentary at her HQ, Kititty at Hango which who fucking cares, or just quick shallow scenes like Bananji vs Danto only lasting for a single panel.
Ouhon also got absolutely nothing. His battlefield vision was compared with Ousen’s, which was cool, but aside from that he got no focus and achieved nothing.
Shin got tricked into chasing chickenboku across the entire battlefield all day and also got no hype moments. Shin’s biggest moment this battle was ordering his 30k man army to begin the battle. Lmfao
And of course, the man who got gimped harder than the gimp in Pulp Fiction, Ousen himself. Dear Christ did Ousen utterly fail to live up to anything resembling his own hype this arc. He got folded like a lawn chair by sleepwalking Shibashou while having ludicrous moments such as “the victor is me” and the “lowly Akakin” moment. I didn’t think it was possible for a Qin 6 to lose this hard, but Ousen got completely demolished while putting up no resistance. Ousen’s defeat at Hango has me legit believing that Kanmei one shotting Oukotsu could have actually happened and that this wasn’t just an exaggerated rumor.
How Hara took Ousen from arguably the most interesting general in the entire manga during Western Zhao, to getting lawn chair diffed by an indifferent foe lmfao…I mean this shit was certainly unexpected.
-Alright next, the utter lack of any and all hype moments. Name a single hype moment in Hango. I can name you 5 or 6 of the most hype manga moments of all time in Shukai Plains. I can name 4 or 5 pretty hype moments from Juukou. I can name 2 or 3 big hype moments from Gian. I can’t name any real hype moments from Hango. The tone of this arc ranged from boring to depressing, but never hype in the slightest. Anything even resembling hype was immediately snuffed out. The hype of Shibashou about to crash into Ousen’s army for the first time? Psyche, nothing really happened. The hype of Shibashou one shotting Akou? Completely undermined by Akou being half dead anyway. The hype of Ousen’s “the victor is me?” Lol. Just, lol. There was no hype this arc, every hype moment was completely undermined or subverted.
-Seika’s utter lack of interest in this battle: I mean, how were we supposed to get hyped for Seika when their big boys don’t even really want to be fighting? My issue with Shibashou isn’t that he’s weak, it’s that he was utterly bored and we basically saw no passion from him the entire time. Which is great for the Three Great Heaven Agenda but not great for my interest in Hango.
I mean, how does Jiaga go from a screaming berserk mad lad at Roumou…to Kansaro having to verbally motivate him to take the battle of Hango seriously??? What??? Jiaga had his stomach sliced open and minutes later was like “idk, I guess I’ll take this battle seriously.” And then dies immediately. Just, ???????
It’s hard to get invested in an antagonist group when they themselves don’t really give a fuck. I mean how is Jiaga going to pause a battlefield to ask Kansaro if Shibashou can actually die. Like he’s not fucking Zeus bro, he’s just a really big dude, how did you come to this battlefield unaware that your master could die. On that note:
-Jiaga’s death was the most nonsensical death Hara has ever written. I’ve defended some questionable deaths in Kingdom. I defended Houken’s death, I defended Zenou’s death, I defended Jyoukaryuu’s death, and I’ll still defend those deaths.
Jiaga’s death was actually incoherent. On top of Jiaga’s personality being a contradictory mess…how did Shiryu even catch him??? She turned her horse in one direction, and then whipped her horse back around faster than Jiaga could react?? What??? Is her horse like the Steph Curry of horses??? How did Jiaga not have time to react to this shit??? And then Kansaro didn’t even kill Shiryu in spite of him stating her death would be an offering to his blood brother. Like, seriously, what did Jiaga do to Hara lmfao.
-I think Hara legit forgot that he established that all of these characters had scores to settle with one another. He spent a whole chapter stressing that this rematch was supposed to be really personal for a lot of these commanders, especially for the likes of Bananji and Shunsuiju…and then he just off paneled them. Instead, the emotional core of this arc was the fucking Shiryu Sou’Ou romance subplot??? I just can’t. I don’t mind these two but their lusty hookups should have never been the emotional core of Hango.
Alright, that’s enough for now. Overall I still love Kingdom and I’d rather read Hango than Egghead for example but this battle didn’t even come remotely fucking close to living up to the hype for me.
@Owl Ki @Blackbeard @God Buggy @TheKnightOfTheSea @FutureWarrior123 @RayanOO @Rumble @Greenbeard @Dark Admiral @Jailer @Peroroncino @Monet @Topi Jerami @Shanks @Cichy @Bullet @mmd @Yo Tan Wa @𝓓𝓡 . 𝕋𝒆ñ𝐦𝐚 @Darkrai1381 @tcb @Pirao @Luffy is the mc @Warchief Sanji D Goat @Bepo @Daniel @Pot Goblin @centurion @Ou Zen
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