Manga: Oukoku Game ๐
*This review contains minimal spoilers*
Ever think about world domination? How about a kingdom, and
people to rule over? The thirst for control lurks in the darkest corner of your
mind, will you give in?
Those are the questions posed to the readers of Oukoku game
(Kingdom Game). It is a story about seven high school students who are suddenly
thrown into a game of life and death centered around protecting your ‘kingdom’
while conquering other kingdoms, after visiting an old shrine on a school field trip.
Said game obviously has some mysterious back-story about burning saints way back
in the Meiji period that hasn’t really been properly explained in the mere
sixteen chapters translated so far. The ‘game’ is governed by several rules,
which stack up as the story moves along in which the characters start finding loop
holes and exploiting them for their own gains.
The one rule that stands out and makes this manga an
interesting read is of course the power that the King in each kingdom has. In a
‘kingdom’, there are roles, such as the King, the Nobles/Aristocrats and
finally the Commoners/Plebeians. The hierarchy is built in such a way that those in the
lower ranks will always have to obey the orders of those higher ranked then
them(you can already sense all the problems and perversions that are going to
come out of this), but the caveat is that the order has to be a verbal direct
order to the person. Also as a form of safe guard, Commoners can come together
to form a group of three or more to stage a revolt and ‘dethrone’ the King.
Which would result in the King's immediate disposal. One more thing is that the
roles will rotate among the people in the kingdom, every night at midnight. As
for the rest of the rules. I’ll leave that for you to find out.
Just the from the above, you could probably guess that this
isn’t your typical Shounen fare, it may come off as comedy in the start but it
slides quickly down into a rather grand example of the degradation of humanity,
lust, desires, and ethics in general, as we see how power corrupts oh so
slowly. (If I seem a little gleeful throughout this article it’s because I
personally have vested interests in these areas of the human psyche.) If you’d
like to get an idea on how dark it gets, I’d say just think Mirai Nikki and
then some. (I enjoyed that manga as well.)
 |
| Ah...the yanderes...~ |
Talking about Mirai Nikki, yes, there is a yandere in the
story. With respect to other characters… well there’s the tough guy, the
soft-spoken moe girl, the righteous main character, and the not too good looking
guy. I’d say overall, the characters are your typical fare of high school stereotypes.
Nothing too fantastic about how they start off, since in my opinion, I’m more
interested in how they change, which only time will tell.
In terms of art, I actually quite enjoy this art style, not
so refined like shoujo mangas, but the rough edges keeps with the creeping
darkness of the story and the girls are actually drawn well, with yes…fan
service, nicely done fan service though. Of course, there's a bit of gore, nothing too heavy~
If you’re a fan of the psychological genre then this is
definitely something up your alley, with just 16 translated chapters though, it
does do a good job with drawing readers in and keeping you wondering just what
will happen next. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre, it is worth giving it
a try, and if you’re reading it already and are waiting for the next few
chapters, trust me, it just only gets better so far.(I’ve read up to chapter 18
in raws~^^)
Till next time~
Written by Neko
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