I like this Kingdom thing of announcing new seasons right when the old ones end.  It would be great if all good series did that.  It is the 20th-greatest selling manga of all-time, so it’s not at all surprising, but it’s nice not to have to worry about it.  The only weird thing is that there was such a long gap (7 years) between the second and third seasons, while all the other announcements have been more or less immediate.  True, we will have to wait until January 2024 – but 2024 will need good anime, too.

There was one notable name not mentioned in this episode – Lu Buwei – amidst a ton of others, some new.  I don’t know how closely Kingdom is going to stick to history here, but whatever the case I’m assuming Lu is too important a character to have his fate play out offscreen and unremarked upon.  But that among other things will have to wait for Season 5.  The focus here is partly on the notion of the next “six great generals”, but a lot of it actually place in another nation – the sleeping giant of Chu, southeast of Qin.

It’s on Qin’s other border that the action begins, though.  There’s fighting taking place in Caozhou, part of the nation of Zhou,, and all three young lions are present for it.  But Changping’s real aim is in Wei, the massive fortification of Yanshi.  Clearly the intent is to take it in a sneak attack while all eyes are focused on Caozhou – but who will be doing the taking?  Not Wang Ben’s father Wang Jian, of whom there’s no sign.  Diao is convinced there’s no army around that can conquer Yanshi, but there is one as it turns out.

I’d been waiting for the mountain tribes to play a role in this ongoing drama, so when Meng Tian spilled the beans about Yanshi I kind of figured that’s who it was.  Their general, Yang Duanhe, has already scored major brownie points with Zheng for her critical role in the siege of Zui, but her capture of the impenetrable Yanshi surely places her near the head of the list of six great generals candidates.  And that’s highly relevant, given what Zheng told Xin on the ramparts of Xianyang at the close of last week’s penultimate episode.

However, events have a way of moving faster than even the most ambitious rulers, and so it is that the great nation of Chu descends into chaos just as all this is playing out on Qin’s opposite border.  The king, Kaolie, has died unexpectedly.  And his ultra-powerful chancellor, Chunshen (one of the prime movers of the era) is assassinated soon after.  A hidden drama has been playing out in Chu, as Chunshen’s two year-old son is theoretically about to take power, as he’s been presented to the public as the childless king’s son.  The older brother of the boy’s mother, Li Yuan (the buttery-voiced Sakuya Shunsuke) is behind the assassination – in his words, because Chunshen got cold feet about abandoning the royal bloodline and instead wanted to anoint the king’s addle-headed brother.

Chu was the largest of the warring states, with the largest army, but rarely seemed to impose its will successfully on its rivals as Qin has.  Li Yuan intends to rule as chancellor with his toddler nephew on the throne, and the great general Lian Po arranges a meeting between he and Wa Lin so he can plead with her to be co-chancellor with him.  Li Yuan to his credit clearly senses that this is a moment of great danger and great potential, but he has his hands full with the politics-detesting Wa Lin.  If Chu is weakened by internal strife it’s the biggest plum out there to be picked, but if – as Li Yuan suggests – it can morph into something more powerful than before, it has the resources to be the bully on the block.

Finally, we return to Xin, Wang Ben, and Meng Tian, discussing the future.  Xin tells his rivals what Zheng told him, and by Meng’s reckoning three generals are shoo-ins to make the grade – his father Meng Wu, Teng, and Yang Duanhe.  Two more have an inside track – Wang Jian (Ben’s father, also a Wang) and Huan Yi.  That would leave just one spot for the three upstarts present – and at that, there are numerous other generals within the Qin ranks who currently outrank them.  If this is a race to the top, it’s more an obstacle course than anything else.

That’s all on tap for next season, of course, along with Lu Buewei’s fate – and there’s plenty more material left after that, too (we’re basically halfway through the manga at this point, and it’s still ongoing).  There have been some hiccups along the way – the horrible animation at the start of S1, that seven-year gap, a pandemic delay of an entire year.  But for the most part Kingdom has been an incredibly reliable and superb anime, too easy to take for granted if anything.  Studio Pierrot once again shows us that when it comes to doing right by a great manga in narrative terms, no studio does it better.