The manga Kingdom is an exciting take on China’s warring states era, the manga is a thorough exploration of historical China that discusses the Unification of China as a single nation and recounts the events that led up to China’s eventual unification.

The Kingdom manga is a masterpiece. With it’s carefully crafted and developed characters, amazing battles and use of tactics and strategy it is easy for anyone to get enthralled reading it.

I for one did. I can still remember first encountering Xin (Shin) and his best friend Piao in the first chapter. The events leading to Piao’s unfortunate demise and Shin eventually meeting Sei, the future king of Qin destined to become emperor of all of China and as I’ve continued to read I’ve asked myself time and time again, what sets this this story apart from so many.

Why has Kingdom come to carve such a special place in my heart. What has kept me coming back for more after all this time?

Kingdom’s characters are some of the most exciting you will ever meet. For a historical thriller it walks a fine line but it walks it well, doing it’s best to pay homage to history as much as possible but also keeping us engaged through gripping and captivating story telling.

I don’t know too much, but I for one imagine the writer has taken a few liberties with history here and there, but the core of the story remains consistent, putting into context what would have been the struggles of the ancient monarch later emperor and what growing up would have been like for him.

Everyone in this story has had it rough in one way or another, making it easier to invest in them as characters and all the more worth it when we see them triumph in one form or another.

It was upon this realization that it finally hit me, the thing that kept me coming again and again. It has been amazing seeing Shin, Ei Sei and Kyou Kai grow. Not just them but those who have come along on their journey, and it has been amazing seeing them struggle and triumph at each and every turn.

Their successes feel earned, and not just that they are earned. The manner in which the Kingdom manga makes every victory hard and fought for and not merely in a muddied drawn out way but through genuine battles that take everything our heroes have to offer.

Each victory feels authentic and earned. You can resonate with it, you can feel the emotion. It’s not forced. It’s just there. The battles feel real, the victories feel real and you can tell, a lot of planning and effort goes into making that happen.

I love the Kingdom manga because like so many other stories like it, it’s about men with dreams, and a past that propels them forward every single day. This is nothing new, a lot of manga do it, but the Kingdom manga does it all so well.

Whether it’s Riboku doing his very best to protect the state Zhao, Shin fighting to become a great general and Sei doing all he can to see a united China, it cuts across. Each of these men have dreams and they fight and bleed every single day for the sake of those dreams.

They suffer, they grow and those dreams forge and continue to forge them into the kind of men they are, the kind of men they want to be and the kind of men they should be.

The manga is already a little over 700 chapters in and from the looks of things it has no intention of slowing down. It has been over 700 chapters of pure grind, pain, toil and suffering. 700 chapters of small successes and great victories.

Over 700 chapters of boys holding on and chasing their dreams all the while becoming men. It has been years of formidable men and formidable minds staking all they have at a chance of glory and forging the destiny of their fellow men, these are the things that make the Kingdom manga worth reading.

It’s a beautiful story about the history of a beautiful land and great men, now tell me, how could you not fall in love with such a tale?