First of all, congrats to Kingdom on achieving a pretty impressive milestone this week – 90 million manga volumes sold.  Hara Yasuhisa’s epic continues to climb higher up the all-time Top 20 in sales, and with no end in sight and the anime continuing apace it may wind up quite a bit higher.  It’s rare to walk into a large bookstore in Japan that doesn’t have most or all of a bay set aside for Kingdom in the manga section.  It may be little-known in the West compared to the shounen giants on the list, but in Japan this series is truly a cultural icon.

While this episode is yet another generally excellent outing, it’s notably unusual in several ways.  I don’t think we’ve ever seen quite this much exploration of the Xin-Diao relationship before, first of all.  Xin’s instinctive reaction is to launch a night raid to save Diao – a hopeless mission – but Wo Lu (Hamazoe Shinya) vociferously objects.  I’d forgotten about him but he was one of the survivors of Biao’s army who joined up with the Fei Xin Force.  And he has a point.  At the very least he and the others have a right to know what Xin’s motives are where Diao is concerned.

I noted my puzzlement last week that there was no followup to Qian Lei having captured Xun Zao.  We have our explanation but to be honest, it still strikes me as odd – why would Qian Lei not mention such a seemingly crucial thing immediately?  Especially as it was on Diao’s shouted instructions that she targeted Xun Zao.  In any event things do proceed along the lines I speculated – a hostage exchange makes sense for both parties.  That’s assuming the Wei army values Xun Zao as highly as Xin does Diao, but it seems as if they do.

With the Marlon Brando of seiyuu voicing him it was always pretty likely Kai Meng was going to be awesome every day and twice on Sunday (and Kingdom has always been among the best when it comes to magnificent bastards).  Fortunately for Diao he’s not a sociopath, for all his love of battle, nor is he the idiot he plays at being.  Diao intrigues him, and the insight she can offer into her own motivation, not to mention Xin (who also fascinates him) is far more valuable than what his foot soldiers want from her.  I also think it’s worth noting that if the situation were reversed, Qin’s foot soldiers would very likely behave the same way.  An enemy strategist is responsible for the deaths of their comrades, and in large numbers.  Qin assumes the protagonist role in Kingdom, but it’s not a story with true good guys and bad guys.

It’s also notable – obviously – that Xin and Diao give very different answers to the questions Wo Lu and Kai Meng pose to them.  Diao, Xin says (as Qian Lei looks on with very keen interest), is family – “my one and only little sister”.  Does he love her?  Obviously.  But pressed (under penalty of beheading) by Kai Meng to share her desires, Diao most go beyond simply seeing Xin’s dreams come true.  She wants to “find happiness with him” – and it’s hard to interpret that as ambiguous.  I think both their answers are consistent with their character arcs over the seasons, but it’s rather sad for Diao when looked at that way.

Xun Zao is right of course that Xin is taking a huge risk in offering this exchange in rather feckless fashion.  And when Kai Meng rides out to meet him with 20,000 troops that risk seems great indeed.  But he’s lucky – Kai Meng is honorable, for starters (not only does he return Diao, but he’s protected her from his army).  And Kai Meng values Xun Zao highly enough to make the trade worthwhile.  For Diao this is all rather humiliating – by getting captured she’s cost her forces valuable time they don’t have to spare.  But all things considered this could have been a whole hell of a lot worse.

Meanwhile Wang Ben is having an interesting tussle in his own right.  He’s broken through the front lines but Wu Fengming is unconcerned – he was expecting that.  First a chariot battalion (a rarity in this series) arrives, but they’re a decoy – the Yu Feng Force is soon surrounded by cavalry under the command of another Fire Dragon, Zi Bai (the spearmaster).  But there’s a secret weapon in the Yu Feng too – Han Chang, a battalion commander sent by Ben’s father Wang Jian.  What role he has to play is still unclear, but even his own comrades find him sinister.