Yes that’s right, Lee is here today with a classic Godboku appreciation post.
When I first picked up Kingdom 6 years ago, I never would have thought there could’ve been a manga antagonist who surpassed Griffith for me as a villain, but Riboku is just that guy. Riboku is the best antagonist in manga history for me, and without spoiling anything, this manga will not be the same if he were to someday exit the story.
So today we’re going to explain what makes Riboku the best “overpowered” manga character of all time.
Riboku is a subversion of what Hara’s view of a traditional General is. Generals like Ouki and Renpa view the battlefield in very romantic terms, and they find exhilaration when fighting on the battlefield itself. Riboku however:
This is arguably the strongest commander in the history of the manga, the guy who is credited with the deaths of legends like Ouki, Duke Hyou, and Kanki, and Riboku himself doesn’t even enjoy warfare. Riboku only fights for Zhao because he (correctly) believes that only he can truly defend Zhao from Qin. In reality, Riboku’s ambitions are much simpler:
This guy doesn’t want to unify China under Zhao, he doesn’t want to be the King of Zhao, he doesn’t even take pleasure in becoming Zhao’s Prime Minister or one of the Three Great Heavens, he literally just wants some quiet life on a farm until he dies of old age.
Again we see how different Riboku is from those more traditional generals like Ouki, Hakuki, or Rinshoujou. He doesn’t have some lofty ambition, he just wants to live a quiet, peaceful life.
But Riboku isn’t just opposite to people like Ouki for the sake of being their opposites, Riboku was once just like Ouki and Renpa:
The difference being that while for people like Ouki, diving headfirst into battles eventually resulted in becoming a Great General and one of the greatest heroes in China, Riboku lost everything and everyone he loved:
Riboku was not a born warrior like Ouki or Renpa, he wasn’t able to overcome brushes with death over and over again like they did, he threw himself headfirst into enemy lines and lost all of his loved ones and everything he had worked to obtain.
Meeting Houken was what changed Riboku’s outlook on life. Houken was everything Riboku could never become, an unstoppable warrior who could singlehandedly erase entire enemy units with ease, with no need for things like allies or friends or family, and it was upon meeting Houken and realizing that he could never become that, that Riboku changed his entire perception of warfare and dedicated himself to becoming a strategist. And this is when Riboku’s luck would change.
I think this is why Riboku initially trolls Shin when Shin was younger. Shin undoubtedly reminded Riboku of himself back when he considered himself a “fool”, and this is why he speaks to Shin with such condescension:
A few years later, he tells Shin this:
And every interaction Riboku has with Shin involves Riboku low-key mocking Shin to one extent or another. It’s as if Riboku is mocking the younger version of himself, the fool who charged into the enemy headfirst, and knew nothing about warfare or about life in general. It’s got to be cathartic for Riboku to mock Shin in this manner.
I think it’s no coincidence that Riboku will see Shin become a Great General through the very means by which Riboku himself failed to do so. Shin is still, in many ways, a fool who knows nothing about warfare other than to directly charge at the enemy right in front of him, but Riboku is slowly but surely watching Shin climb his way up through the ranks whereas he himself knew only failure when he viewed war as Shin does. This will be the final resolution to Riboku’s character, to see Shin succeed where he failed, and to see Shin become the type of Great General that Riboku himself could never become.
In fact, Riboku seems to look down on commanders like Ouki and Duke Hyou who Shin idolizes:
Riboku not only self-identifies as a “coward”, but also believes that it is only through his cowardice that he was able to surpass the likes of Ouki. And when you really go back and look at all of Riboku’s major victories, all of them have involved Riboku using deceptive or underhanded methods to win. But this is exactly why Riboku believes himself to be superior to guys like Ouki or Duke Hyou, those “honest fools” who were defeated and killed by Riboku’s deceptive methods of war.
For me this is why Riboku is such an amazingly written character despite being as stupidly overpowered as he actually is. Every single thing he does to win battles serves to set him apart from the generals who Hara himself idolizes and romanticizes. Riboku feels like a real person, he couldn’t surpass the likes of Ouki or Renpa through brute strength, so he surpassed them through lies and deception.
I think this is why there was a brief period where so many people thought Riboku was a fraud. Because he kind of is a fraud, he’s a coward who could never overcome the likes of Ouki through honest means. But it is through this cowardice that he reached a level that no other commander in Kingdom was ever able to approach.
But despite Riboku being as powerful as he is, despite him defeating and killing some of the most legendary commanders of all time, Hara makes sure to constantly show the toll that Riboku’s own life takes on him:
Here is a guy who dislikes warfare and shouldering the responsibilities of the state, and this man is singlehandedly carrying all of Zhao on his back. For top tier commanders like Kochou, Shunsuiju, and Bananji to believe Riboku is Zhao’s only hope of survival, and for those commanders to be correct, just tells you what kind of pressure this guy must be under. And Hara constantly highlights the toll this takes on Riboku physically and mentally.
After Riboku loses his Prime Minister rank, he is sent out to the front lines to do some good old fashioned hard-manual labor:
And this is like, the only panel in Kingdom of Riboku looking truly happy. And when messengers arrive to bring him back to the Zhao Capitol, he actually seems disappointed.
This is an “overpowered” character dripping with humanity, emotion, and depth.
This is also a good time to explain why I dislike other “overpowered” characters from other manga who are handled in a pathetic manner.
Shanks from One Piece is dogshit. He doesn’t subvert anything, he is literally a vanilla pirate in a manga filled with fantasy pirates with crazy abilities. I’ve seen people who say that Shanks being a generic pirate in a world of fantasy pirates makes him unique, but this is stupid. To me, all of those other pirates with fantastic powers and abilities are infinitely more memorable than someone like Shanks who is literally just a standard Pirate that you might expect to find in any Pirate series. Plus, Gold Roger and his crew already filled that “standard Pirate” roll anyway, so Shanks becomes even less unique. Shanks also has no character, his personality is just Oda’s self insert. Shanks doesn’t struggle, Shanks doesn’t have any shortcomings, Oda literally just wrote this character to be perfect so he could copy and paste his own personality into the world of his manga.
Now Oda might make Shanks evil in the end, which would be cool, but as of now the character is just worthless to me.
Garp is another example of a boring overpowered character. For similar reasons to Shanks, he’s just a generic punching man with a generic Marine personality in a series filled with far more memorable and complex Marines, but at least Oda is trying to subvert with Garp in some way, especially recently with him getting captured and all.
So not only are Garp and Shanks just generic and boring to read, they don’t have deeper characters or exist for any real reason within their own stories. Again Garp is looking a bit better recently but that doesn’t change the fact that the first twenty years of this character’s existence was pretty pointless.
With Riboku, not only are Riboku’s tactics and strategies some of the absolute most entertaining to read in Kingdom, but Riboku is not overpowered for no reason at all. Again, he is overpowered for the purposes of subverting what kind of general Shin wants to be, and subverting what a traditional general within Kingdom is.
Alright I’ve talked enough, what do you guys think?
@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
When I first picked up Kingdom 6 years ago, I never would have thought there could’ve been a manga antagonist who surpassed Griffith for me as a villain, but Riboku is just that guy. Riboku is the best antagonist in manga history for me, and without spoiling anything, this manga will not be the same if he were to someday exit the story.
So today we’re going to explain what makes Riboku the best “overpowered” manga character of all time.
Riboku is a subversion of what Hara’s view of a traditional General is. Generals like Ouki and Renpa view the battlefield in very romantic terms, and they find exhilaration when fighting on the battlefield itself. Riboku however:
This is arguably the strongest commander in the history of the manga, the guy who is credited with the deaths of legends like Ouki, Duke Hyou, and Kanki, and Riboku himself doesn’t even enjoy warfare. Riboku only fights for Zhao because he (correctly) believes that only he can truly defend Zhao from Qin. In reality, Riboku’s ambitions are much simpler:
This guy doesn’t want to unify China under Zhao, he doesn’t want to be the King of Zhao, he doesn’t even take pleasure in becoming Zhao’s Prime Minister or one of the Three Great Heavens, he literally just wants some quiet life on a farm until he dies of old age.
Again we see how different Riboku is from those more traditional generals like Ouki, Hakuki, or Rinshoujou. He doesn’t have some lofty ambition, he just wants to live a quiet, peaceful life.
But Riboku isn’t just opposite to people like Ouki for the sake of being their opposites, Riboku was once just like Ouki and Renpa:
The difference being that while for people like Ouki, diving headfirst into battles eventually resulted in becoming a Great General and one of the greatest heroes in China, Riboku lost everything and everyone he loved:
Riboku was not a born warrior like Ouki or Renpa, he wasn’t able to overcome brushes with death over and over again like they did, he threw himself headfirst into enemy lines and lost all of his loved ones and everything he had worked to obtain.
Meeting Houken was what changed Riboku’s outlook on life. Houken was everything Riboku could never become, an unstoppable warrior who could singlehandedly erase entire enemy units with ease, with no need for things like allies or friends or family, and it was upon meeting Houken and realizing that he could never become that, that Riboku changed his entire perception of warfare and dedicated himself to becoming a strategist. And this is when Riboku’s luck would change.
I think this is why Riboku initially trolls Shin when Shin was younger. Shin undoubtedly reminded Riboku of himself back when he considered himself a “fool”, and this is why he speaks to Shin with such condescension:
A few years later, he tells Shin this:
And every interaction Riboku has with Shin involves Riboku low-key mocking Shin to one extent or another. It’s as if Riboku is mocking the younger version of himself, the fool who charged into the enemy headfirst, and knew nothing about warfare or about life in general. It’s got to be cathartic for Riboku to mock Shin in this manner.
I think it’s no coincidence that Riboku will see Shin become a Great General through the very means by which Riboku himself failed to do so. Shin is still, in many ways, a fool who knows nothing about warfare other than to directly charge at the enemy right in front of him, but Riboku is slowly but surely watching Shin climb his way up through the ranks whereas he himself knew only failure when he viewed war as Shin does. This will be the final resolution to Riboku’s character, to see Shin succeed where he failed, and to see Shin become the type of Great General that Riboku himself could never become.
In fact, Riboku seems to look down on commanders like Ouki and Duke Hyou who Shin idolizes:
Riboku not only self-identifies as a “coward”, but also believes that it is only through his cowardice that he was able to surpass the likes of Ouki. And when you really go back and look at all of Riboku’s major victories, all of them have involved Riboku using deceptive or underhanded methods to win. But this is exactly why Riboku believes himself to be superior to guys like Ouki or Duke Hyou, those “honest fools” who were defeated and killed by Riboku’s deceptive methods of war.
For me this is why Riboku is such an amazingly written character despite being as stupidly overpowered as he actually is. Every single thing he does to win battles serves to set him apart from the generals who Hara himself idolizes and romanticizes. Riboku feels like a real person, he couldn’t surpass the likes of Ouki or Renpa through brute strength, so he surpassed them through lies and deception.
I think this is why there was a brief period where so many people thought Riboku was a fraud. Because he kind of is a fraud, he’s a coward who could never overcome the likes of Ouki through honest means. But it is through this cowardice that he reached a level that no other commander in Kingdom was ever able to approach.
But despite Riboku being as powerful as he is, despite him defeating and killing some of the most legendary commanders of all time, Hara makes sure to constantly show the toll that Riboku’s own life takes on him:
Here is a guy who dislikes warfare and shouldering the responsibilities of the state, and this man is singlehandedly carrying all of Zhao on his back. For top tier commanders like Kochou, Shunsuiju, and Bananji to believe Riboku is Zhao’s only hope of survival, and for those commanders to be correct, just tells you what kind of pressure this guy must be under. And Hara constantly highlights the toll this takes on Riboku physically and mentally.
After Riboku loses his Prime Minister rank, he is sent out to the front lines to do some good old fashioned hard-manual labor:
And this is like, the only panel in Kingdom of Riboku looking truly happy. And when messengers arrive to bring him back to the Zhao Capitol, he actually seems disappointed.
This is an “overpowered” character dripping with humanity, emotion, and depth.
This is also a good time to explain why I dislike other “overpowered” characters from other manga who are handled in a pathetic manner.
Shanks from One Piece is dogshit. He doesn’t subvert anything, he is literally a vanilla pirate in a manga filled with fantasy pirates with crazy abilities. I’ve seen people who say that Shanks being a generic pirate in a world of fantasy pirates makes him unique, but this is stupid. To me, all of those other pirates with fantastic powers and abilities are infinitely more memorable than someone like Shanks who is literally just a standard Pirate that you might expect to find in any Pirate series. Plus, Gold Roger and his crew already filled that “standard Pirate” roll anyway, so Shanks becomes even less unique. Shanks also has no character, his personality is just Oda’s self insert. Shanks doesn’t struggle, Shanks doesn’t have any shortcomings, Oda literally just wrote this character to be perfect so he could copy and paste his own personality into the world of his manga.
Now Oda might make Shanks evil in the end, which would be cool, but as of now the character is just worthless to me.
Garp is another example of a boring overpowered character. For similar reasons to Shanks, he’s just a generic punching man with a generic Marine personality in a series filled with far more memorable and complex Marines, but at least Oda is trying to subvert with Garp in some way, especially recently with him getting captured and all.
So not only are Garp and Shanks just generic and boring to read, they don’t have deeper characters or exist for any real reason within their own stories. Again Garp is looking a bit better recently but that doesn’t change the fact that the first twenty years of this character’s existence was pretty pointless.
With Riboku, not only are Riboku’s tactics and strategies some of the absolute most entertaining to read in Kingdom, but Riboku is not overpowered for no reason at all. Again, he is overpowered for the purposes of subverting what kind of general Shin wants to be, and subverting what a traditional general within Kingdom is.
Alright I’ve talked enough, what do you guys think?
@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
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