Ousama Ranking

The people of the kingdom look down on the young Prince Bojji, who can neither hear nor speak. They call him "The Useless Prince" while jeering at his supposed foolishness.

However, while Bojji may not be physically strong, he is certainly not weak of heart. When a chance encounter with a shadow creature should have left him traumatized, it instead makes him believe that he has found a friend amidst those who only choose to notice his shortcomings. He starts meeting with Kage, the shadow, regularly, to the point where even the otherwise abrasive creature begins to warm up to him.

Kage and Bojji's unlikely friendship lays the budding foundations of the prince's journey, one where he intends to conquer his fears and insecurities. Despite the constant ridicule he faces, Bojji resolves to fulfill his desire of becoming the best king he can be.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Bojji Main

Hinata, Minami Japanese

Kage Main

Murase, Ayumu Japanese

Hiling Supporting

Satou, Rina Japanese

Despa Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Desha Supporting

Shimoyama, Yoshimitsu Japanese

Ouken Supporting

Yusa, Kouji Japanese

Bebin Supporting

Ueda, Youji Japanese

Dorshe Supporting

Tadokoro, Hinata Japanese

Daida Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Miranjo Supporting

Sakamoto, Maaya Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Okada, Maiko Producer, Production Manager

Inoue, Megumi Producer

Ooshima, Kazuki Producer

Reviews

Dec 2, 2025

AshesOnFire19

Recommended

one thing I have to say straight away is that this show really stands out visually. when it comes to animation quality, the show is honestly in a class of its own. the art style may look simple at first glance, but the way the characters move, the way emotion is drawn into each scene and the clarity of the action is superb. it’s easily one of the show’s biggest strengths. i also want to mention the voice acting. yuki kaji is great as aaida, his switch from a composed king to a terrified young prince in epi 9 genuinely impressed me. and i have ... to say, i really liked the 2nd opening as well.

the world itself also feels fresh. it starts off looking like a classic fairy tale, but the characters quickly show more depth than their storybook appearances suggest. like my favorite character of the whole anime has to be hiling. shes been on bojji's side since day 1 but what I liked most about her is that we didn’t know that at the start of the series. she initially looks like the typical strict stepmother but as the story goes on, you realise she’s actually anxious, protective and deeply caring. once bojji proves he’s stronger than she thought, she becomes one of his strongest supporters. the show has several moments like this where a character you thought you understood ends up something more or diff than expected.

but this brings me to one of my main issue. the show leans too heavily on the idea that one sudden contradiction or betrayal automatically makes a character “deep.” almost every major character starts out looking one way and then gets flipped for shock value. a twist is strong when it's earned, but here it happens so often that it loses its effect bcuz nearly everyone, hiling, domas, bebin, apeas, aaida, desha get this treatment. after a while, it felt less like thoughtful character writing and more like a repeated trick.

another issue is that they made the story feel more complicated than it needs to be bcuz the show hides major character motivations for most of the season and then dumps all the information near the end. for eg, miranjo, her motives and backstory aren’t properly explained until around epi18, so for a long time her actions feel random or unnecessarily cruel. same thing happens with bosse, his intentions and his connection to miranjo stay vague until that same late arc and by the time we finally understand them, a lot of the emotional weight has already passed. these reveals could have worked beautifully if the show had planted them earlier, letting us think about them and understand these characters slowly. instead, they arrive all at once near the end, which makes some of the emotional moments feel less earned.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Nov 16, 2025

Glassz

Mixed Feelings

Very promising at first, but as the show goes on you begin to question why all of the bad things had to happen. You grow exhausted with anticipation for characters explanations and reasoning's for why they allowed all of this suffering. I was met with a conflicting ending. Even with it's minor problems I do not regret watching this show.

Art was fun.
Music was good.
Atmosphere was great.
Characters were good and I liked many of them. The Queens relationship with Bojji was wonderful and I loved seeing the other characters help him. Watching Bojji forgive others was hard, but worth it (we all struggle to forgive those ... we love).
Writing was promising and felt off in places and the ending felt somewhat dissatisfying for me.

Should you watch this show? I would say yes. It's different from other anime in it's own special way and has many good qualities like forgiveness, love from family and friends, pushing through adversity, overcoming fear and learning how to overcome your limits.
I recommend giving 'Ranking of Kings' a go.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 5, 2023

douve_atomique

Not Recommended

What happened to Ousama Ranking's story? Did someone kidnap the author halfway in and force him to write a mediocre battle shounen with terrible pacing? This show is incredibly confusing.

In short, Ousama Ranking felt like watching two different shows. Its first half or so was actually very enjoyable, making use of complex and interesting characters in a context à la Game of Thrones topped with gorgeous art and symbolic writing - albeit as subtle as a brick through a window -, but then the fire nation attacked the mangaka or something must have happened because everything turned to trash. After the first half I just ... kept wondering what happened, what caused such a shift in quality, I was so focused on this that I could barely comprehend what I was watching anymore but maybe that's a good thing, in a way I got spared.

I don't want this to be a full review of the show, so I'll just briefly talk about the most important aspect of any show for me: its characters. Ousama Ranking's characters are surprinsingly good, or that's how they seem to be at the start of the show. They all have their backstory, allegiance and motivations and even those that appear shallow at first end up being interesting. Two characters have to be talked about: the two princes, Bojji and Daida. Daida is the second prince, he is gifted, strong-minded, ambitious and uncompromising. Even though he seems to be a complete asshole at first, it turns out that he has standards, morals that he's not willing to abandon. Bojji is the first prince, he is exactly the opposite of his brother. He is weak, cursed, and not fit to be a king. He is also deaf and mute.

This next paragraph contains spoilers
These two princes are interesting because of how drastically different they are and because they are basically competing for the crown after the death of their father. Even though Daida is most fit to become king, he's the second prince so Bojji should take the crown instead. This premise is very solid. It made me wonder how Bojji was going to deal with conflicts. Being deaf, he cannot hear what people are saying to him. Being mute, he cannot speak to them. Being extremely weak physically, he cannot resort to force to solve problems. How is he going to deal with his brother and everything else? What an interesting conundrum! Well, guess what... Everything that was established through the first half of the anime is simply thrown out the window. Daida is manipulated by a mirror and removed from the story because his father is reincarnated in his body and Bojji undergoes training which makes him the strongest character in the show (this is not a conjecture, it is stated in the anime). Daida's complex struggle to emulate his father's strength is gone. Bojji's physical handicap is gone; him being mute and deaf doesn't matter because he can read lips and people somehow understand him when he's 'speaking'. Thus, the anime turns into a battle shonen where there is absolutely no tension, people are gravely wounded but then healed, wounded again but healed again, and wounded one more time and left for dead just to be healed again because why not. Nothing seems to happen for the remainder of the show. We learn about the main antagonist's backstory which apparently is some sort of Japanese nationalistic memorandum. I was at first very confused by this backstory but it now unfortunately makes a lot of sense.

One last thing to mention is the series' main antagonists and one word to describe them is boring. The series goes into such great lengths to make them complex and misundertsood that it forgets to actually make them interesting.

If you really want to watch this series, just pretend it's 10 episodes long and has an ambiguous ending and call it quits, or turn your brain off and watch the whole thing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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