English Dub Review: Ranking of Kings “The Last Bastion”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

As King Bosse finishes telling Bebin the story of how he came to find the disfigured Miranjo, Bojji, Kage, and Despa enter the  world between the living and the dead by following after Miranjo. Kage is about to cross over for good when she helps bring him back to his senses and return to the world of the living to protect Bojji. Meanwhile, Ouken battles the Big Four of the kingdom—Domas, Bebin, Apeas, and Dorshe.

Our Take:

Ranking of Kings has shown us a lot of different worlds in its run so far—distant lands, spiritual plains, and now the literal bridge into the afterlife. The Last Bastion serves as a sort of recovery episode for Bojji and Kage after spending the last couple episodes in furious battle with the never-tiring Ouken. It’s a neat episode that has some cool stuff in it… along with other less cool stuff.

The main ‘less cool’ thing is more of King Bosse’s flashback story. The Gyakuza are despots of evil, the Gods are terrible, the Houma kingdom is great, we get it. It feels like it’s trying to give me too much backstory! Would my opinion change of Miranjo based on what we know? I’m not sure, but I think I’d rather let her current actions, like helping Kage, affect my opinion of her rather than just ‘evil people cut off her hands so you should feel sorry for her’. And if they absolutely had to show us Miranjo’s meeting with Bosse, at least keep it to a clean single episode instead of spilling over into two parts.

Being in the world between the living and the dead was my favorite part of the ep for sure. It gave me some serious His Dark Materials vibes, especially when you think of Kage as being like Bojji’s daemon in a way. Bojji and Kage add the appropriate amount of gravitas to the scene, while Despa contributes a little comedy relief that works better than many of his attempts have worked in the past. And of course, grounding it all is an appearance from Miranjo, who seems to sense a kind of solidarity with Kage and brings him back from the brink.

Finally, we get to go back to where Prince Ouken is once again reigning terror upon a new group of combatants. But this time it’s not just a boy and his shadow he’s going up against. The Big Four of the kingdom have vowed to try and take him on. Ouken might be immortal, but when Domas, Dorshe, Bebbin, and Apeas are in the picture, that’s got to be a challenge for anyone. It’s fun to see them all working together again for once, even if I’m starting to grow a little tired of seeing Ouken using his same old tricks.

We did get to see a new trick for him this time, though—poor Matsumoto! Sucking blood from a snake is pretty badass. This episode had a good mixture of more exciting scenes like that, and more introspective and emotional beats like Kage deciding not to return to his parents for now. All in all, even though The Last Bastion doesn’t necessarily push the story forward with much momentum, it does enough entertainment to keep viewers watching for another week and wondering what’s going to happen next time.