12:28 AM (of Sunday, February 25th 2024)
Today is Saturday, February 24th 2024. I'm watching this anime called Kingdom about ancient China during the warring states period, which was from around 500 BC to 200 BC. During that era, China was split up into hundreds of different territories, all fighting each other, until there were 7. It's a historical-fiction anime, where most of the named characters are based off of real people, and the different battles and events are based off of real battles and events that occurred, but everything has been embellished.
For example, the named generals who did exist in history, are individuals so powerful and skilled in the anime, that they can take down hundreds of people by themselves, which is not realistic at all. I think most of the time in real life, the generals didn't fight on the ground level, but in the anime, they often charge in first into battle, taking down ten people at the same time with a single weapon swing. Sometimes they literally take charge through and down hundreds of people by themselves, which is not at all realistic.
I'm sure all the clothing, weapons, buildings, skills and abilities they all use, are all embellished too. Some of the character's clothes are so fancy that they'd be amazing to see in real life today, but no one wears anything close. There is this wall called the Hangu Pass in China, and a major battle takes place there in the anime. In the anime, it depicts the wall as basically being probably something like half the height of the Hoover Dam, which is pretty massive for a wall made in 300 BC. In real life, it's nowhere near as big, maybe like 1/10th of the Hoover Dam height. So yeah, there is a lot of embellishment.
The story is great, historically we all know that Qin ultimately wins in the end, they are the nation that unified China in real life, but in the anime, they are in the process of unifying the nation, so there's lots of battles and events that they take part in. In the anime, they make it so that Qin seems like they have only a 1% chance of winning any battle. It is very suspenseful, they really go against some extremely tough opponents. It's that good with the drama. They really make it seem like Qin has no chance, but they also make it so that the victories were well deserved because the main characters used a lot of strategy and courage to win.
The dialog and duels can be unrealistic though. There could be two characters battling, and if a main character becomes gravely injured, they could be bleeding out for the next 10 minutes, unable to do anything else because of their injuries, and they could be sharing their life story and why they deserve to win, and so on, for 10 minutes while the opponent just stands there. Then after their speech and flashbacks, the main character gets a second wind, becomes stronger than ever, and triumphs over his opponent. This happens often, but you don't notice it, because you get sucked into the story. I think it's funny when they show the opponent just standing there though, listening to the story, instead of finishing them off.
Anyway I am so sleepy now. I basically just did my dailies again today, and that was it. I didn't do anything else productive.
You must be signed in to post a comment!