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Funimation to Stream WIT Studio's Ranking of Kings Fantasy Anime
posted on by Alex Mateo
Funimation announced on Tuesday that it will exclusively stream the television anime of Sōsuke Tōka's Ranking of Kings (Ōsama Ranking) manga for the fall 2021 anime season. Funimation will begin streaming the anime from Aniplex on October 15 in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru, and in all of Wakanim's territories throughout Europe. The anime will premiere in Japanese with English subtitles, and it will also get an English dub. The company streamed an English-subtitled trailer:
The series will premiere in October 2021 in Fuji TV's Noitamina timeslot.
The web manga centers around Bojji, a deaf, powerless prince who cannot even wield a children's sword. As the firstborn son, he strives hard and dreams of becoming the world's greatest king. However, people mutter about him behind his back as "a good-for-nothing prince" and "no way he can be king."
Bojji is able to make his first ever friend, "Kage" (shadow) — a literal shadow on the ground who somehow understands Bojji well. (Kage is a survivor of the Kage assassin clan that was all but wiped out. No longer a killer, Kage now makes ends meet by stealing.) The story follows Bojji's coming-of-age as he meets various people in his life, starting with his fateful encounter with Kage.
Minami Hinata will play the protagonist Bojji. Ayumu Murase will play Kage, a shadow that becomes Bojji's friend.
Yousuke Hatta (One-Punch Man episode director, Boogiepop and Others assistant director) is directing the anime at Wit Studio, with Arifumi Imai as assistant director. Taku Kishimoto (91 Days, Fruits Basket 2019, Moriarty the Patriot) is in charge of the series scripts. Atsuko Nozaki (Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky) is designing the characters, while Masaki Kawake is the sub-character designer. Both are credited as chief animation directors. Makoto Fuchigami is the chief line director. Masaru Oshiro, Shin Ogasawara, and Nozomu Fujii are the main animators. MAYUKO is composing the music.
Yūji Kaneko is the art director, while Kazushi Fujii is handling the art setting. Ken Hashimoto is the color key artist. Kazuto Izumita and Noriyuki Ueda are both compositing directors of photography. Kiyoshi Hirose is editing. Yasunori Ebina is the audio director, while Yasunori Ogata is handling sound effects. Maiko Okada is credited as animation producer.
The band King Gnu (first Banana Fish ending) are performing the opening theme song "BOY."
Tōka has been serializing the manga on the user-submitted manga website Manga Hack and other venues since May 2017. Kadokawa published the 11th compiled book volume on August 12.
Source: Press release
