RANT!

WARNING! ANIME/MANGA SPOILERS AHEAD!

Hi everybody!

Sorry for not updating this story and - no, I haven't completely abandoned it. Before continuing the story, I need to say something about this series. Normally I wouldn't have written anything like this rant but the story wouldn't really make any sense out of context that I feel I need to provide since King of Bandit Jing isn't exactly a popular anime, especially nowadays. I realize that in 2019 the King Jing fandom is probably pretty much dead but I don't really care since this is more of a passion project if anything. Just saying, I'm no professional author or something, just a big fan of King of Bandit Jing.

As some of you may have known, "King of Bandit Jing" is an anime (released in 2002) based on a Japanese manga that ran in a Kodansha manga magazine from 1995 to 2005 (including the sequel - King Jing Twilight Tales).

If someone isn't familiar with the story, it basically boils down to this - Jing and his albatross sidekick Kir arrive to a new location in search of treasure, then they meet a girl who helps them with finding the treasure, defeat the villain of the day, get the treasure, leave all their newly made friends behind and disappear as they go to a new location to find new treasure, rinse and repeat.

As you can see, the plot is VERY formulaic especially since there's almost no overarching storyline - the manga hints at Jing's past a couple of time and we even get to see his childhood in a few chapters, but it's never really explored or explained properly. However, the manga more than makes up for it with the stellar artwork, creative artstyle and touching moral messages.

...Even so, the episodic story style is what is probably kept the King Jing manga/anime from getting really big. The lack of a "bigger" story (like in Naruto or One Piece) really hurts the narration in the long run because you can't really get attached to any of the new characters since they'll be gone in the next story arc (each 2-3 episodes/chapters).

Also, since Jing and Kir are rather static protagonists, they don't really change either. Like, aside from one flashback story arc, we never get to know anything about who Jing is. We never learn who his mother is, or what does the crystal from the first chapter mean to Jing, even though these secrets are highlighted a couple of times.

Now this is where Rose (the girl from chapter/episode 2) comes in (and the main problem with my story that I want to write). Since there's no real story, there's also no real worldbuilding - essentially each story arc could be considered as a separate "world" because nothing ties the events and locations together except for the fact that Jing and Kir have travelled there.

I'll be talking about the anime because I watched it first. The manga...it's not bad, but it's one of those times where the anime is actually better than the manga, although the manga REALLY improves all of this later on. The artstyle in the manga is all over the place, the panels are overcrowded with excessive information, and the narration is bad. I mean, the stories themselves are really cool, but the layout of the plot is messy, the fight scenes are barely comprehensible, but of course the main problem of the story is the lack of an overall cohesive narration. The anime (despite obviously having a low budget) vastly improves on all of these points except for the lack of a proper storyline.

The anime uses the improved artstyle from the manga sequel - King Jing Twilight Tales, some of the stories are edited to make more sense in anime form since in the manga a lot of important information stuff is just thrown together onto one single page, the fight choreography is solid and clear. Even the overall story makes much more sense because it just flows better in anime form, creating an illusion of continuity, whereas in the manga it's just random story after random story.

The anime and 3 OVA episodes cover about 1/3rd of the content of the manga, I suppose, but it doesn't really matter because the narration of the rest of the manga is pretty much the same random stories and the last chapter of the manga doesn't give a satisfying conclusion, Jing just finally picks another new girl to accompany him on his journey, and the story just...stops after giving the readers a cliche message of "as long as the world has precious stuff Bandit King Jing will continue to steal".

That doesn't mean you shouldn't check out the manga though - the art gets really good later on and it's quite enjoyable if you keep in mind that the story is told in random episodes with little connection to each other. I recommend watching the anime first and then reading the manga because they're different enough in feel to be consumed as different versions of the story. It's really worth it. (Well, the anime is - it's only 13 episodes + 3 ovas = 16 episodes). If you want to get in really deep, then check out the manga.

Also, the English dub is way better than the Japanese one, in the English version the voices actually fit the characters(especially Jing who got a deeper voice which suits him perfectly in the anime iteration), in the Japanese one they went with the stereotypical squeaky shonen voice for Jing which imho really messes with the suspension of belief. Also it sounds OOC for Jing to talk like that. In the English version Rose sounds like an actual teenage girl, in the Japanese version her voice is way too high pitched. And I am by no means an avid fan of English dubs, it's just that in this anime it really was better. I find the anime in particular to be a splendid piece of art.

The first episode is an introduction to Jing and Kir, basically sort of a filler (arguably everything in this show could be called filler since there's almost no real plot) where they explain that Jing is the Bandit King, he steals the most valuable treasure everywhere he goes (fancy artefacts like jewels and rare fruits, etc.) Then they show a WANTED poster for Jing as he escapes to a new location. Episode 1 ends.

NOW...Phew. Finally I got to episode 2, where my problem begins. The problem is that by episode 2 it's not really obvious yet that the anime is episodic instead of having an overarching plot so when I saw Rose (the pink haired police girl), I legit thought that she would become Jing's travelling companion. But she turned out to be a character of the day despite her really nice interactions with Jing, like she was seriously protagonist material - the only other person who also had the potential and qualities to be another protagonist was the girl Stir from episodes 11-13, but since the story isn't structured like a proper shonen story with reoccurring characters, protagonist team building, proper worldbuilding, none of these characters really...leave an impact. They all just come and go and that's frustrating!

That's what I'm aiming to fix in this story. I want Rose and Stir to be important to the plot as much as Jing - because they're good characters that deserve to be a part of the story as much as Jing. The thing is, it would require pretty much rewriting the whole anime and a lot of interactions, thinking of how to make a cohesive overarching plot - since even the manga doesn't have one, etc., but this was just something that was bugging me all night.

In my opinion, the setting, the MC, etc., the premise (King of Bandits) - the manga had potential to become a grand manga story rivalling the likes of Bleach, but since the manga doesn't follow the typical shonen "story-construction" writing standard, instead going for the "episodic" story approach, the manga writer (Yuichi Kumakura) really wasted a potential story that could have become a worldwide shonen hit.

That really makes me frustrated but at least I have fanfiction where I can express what I think could greatly improve this awesome anime into something way better.