Another day, another postponement.  This time it’s Kingdom, and it’s another one I was more or less expecting but really hurts just the same.  As horrible as it sounds, a series like this is comfort food in a way not wholly unlike a sports anime such as Major 2nd.  At this point Nami yo Kiite Kure and Kami no Tou are the conspicuous holdouts on my increasingly threadbare schedule (I’ll be posting something about my plans for that soon) – neither one has been the subject of optimistic rumors like Yesterday o Utatte, so I’m basically waiting for the other pair of shoes to drop.

Once again, then, this is a rather bitter post to write.  Endings are one thing, but indefinite suspensions really suck.  There’s no batch of premieres to look forward to, and no attempt made to wrap up a story.  Everything just stops in the middle – in this case in the middle of a rather gripping and crucial battle.  As usual with Kingdom there’s so much going on and so many characters to remember that it can be a bit overwhelming, but the series does a good enough job communicating the human as well as epic side of the story that it never loses its ability to connect.

After a too-brief Qiang Le cameo in the cold open (basically to tell Xin that this time he was on his own), we jump straight back into the maelstrom.  As Biao’s army charges headlong into the ocean of Zhao troops confronting them, their general Li Bei sits idly and does nothing.  This puzzles Diao, as Li Bei is known as a brilliant strategist – but he’s under orders.  Li Mu’s master tactician Qing She knows Biao is an instinctive general, so his gambit is simply to give Biao nothing to react to.  Qing wants the battle to be as vanilla as possible, because Biao can’t read and react if there’s nothing to read.

It’s a deceptively clever strategy for its simplicity – and it works, as Biao is sucked into Qing She’s trap.  This causes his exhausted rearguard (on their retreat – they were the vanguard during his charge) to be torn apart as Qing She sends the right flank of the Zhao army behind him.  Things are looking pretty grim – that is, until Xin spots the danger and sends the Feixin Force to the rescue.  With Biao on the far side of the battlefield this leaves young Xin effectively in charge of 10,000 troops – and Biao’s men are exhausted and desperate enough not to give him any pushback.  If Xin were looking for a scenario to polish up his resume for promotion (assuming he survives by the grace of main character armor) he could hardly have devised a better one.

Meanwhile, it’s the army of Wei who’ve been tasked with the first assault on Hangu Pass itself.  Their siege ladders are woefully inadequate, and their tower – although undeniably huge – seems likewise doomed to fall short of the mark.  But We Feng Ming has a trick up his sleeve – a rather ingenious extension he’s built into the interior of the siege tower – which places the ball squarely in Qin’s court.  Can the old general Zhang Tang (who may have been specifically targeted by We as a potential weak point) turn back this new threat?

If that sounds like an awful place to end on, it’s only because it is.  I’m pretty confident Kingdom’s third season will be completed eventually (which is not something I’d say about every suspended series this season) – the manga remains a powerhouse and the anime is obviously made on a shoestring.  But I don’t see much point in trying to guess when that might happen, because there’s just too much we don’t know.  Sadly, I don’t think we’re going to be able to rely much on new anime to help us through this very difficult time.  That may not sound like a big deal, but it’s at times like these when the small things feel more important than ever.