Lest we sometimes forget – and it’s easy to do – Kingdom can be exceptionally great.  There’s a reason this manga has been massively popular for 15 years and earned the Tezuka Cultural Prize – it’s a masterpiece.  All the anime has to be is good enough – acceptable visually in the main, and it has been for this entire season – and it can reach those same heights.  It doesn’t happen every week, because in the manner of a series that’s on 63 volumes and almost 700 chapters there are going to be peaks and valleys.  But we’re currently on one of those peaks and God damn, it’s glorious.

When Kingdom is really humming this like, the episodes seem to fly by in seconds.  And the endings come way too soon – it’s almost like a great sports anime in that sense.  I think this series works better when it’s relatively spartan in its storytelling – the sweeping chaos episodes are exhilarating but tend not to have the same emotional resonance.  And of course it sometimes suffers from having to share the focus between too many characters.  Well, well it comes to the core group, Kingdom doesn’t get any more core than what we saw this week.

Things are (as Li Mu knew they would) degenerating quickly in Xianyang.  Words has reached the city that the invading army is close – Li Mu made sure of that, and it was Pang Nuan’s name he wanted on everyone’s lips, not his own.  Riots are spreading, and the residents are trying to flee en masse.  It’s a desperate situation, and what’s worth, the never trustworthy Lu Buwei has apparently already started to manoeuver for the post-Zheng era.  Assassins of the “Vermillion Slayers” have slipped into town. and the ever-loyal Changwen is warned that Lu Buwei is planning to broker peace by offering the king’s head and a bloodless surrender.

Caught between these two poles is Changping.  He’s the commander of all Qin military forces, but also a subordinate of Lu Buwei.  There’s some indication that he’s prepared to support Buwei’s plans, but Zheng proactively gets to him first.  He offers a desperate plan – a last stand at Zui, the castle where the southern approach narrows and forces any invader to go through it.  The problem – almost all of Zui’s soldiers are at Hangu Pass, and the defense will depend on civilians.  It would require a great general of extraordinary magnetism and genius to make an army of them – and no such commander is available.

This is a desperation move by Zheng in every sense – to leave the capital (putting his half-brother Chengjiao on the throne to keep Lu Buwei off it) and head for Zui.  It’s the only possible way to defend the capitol, however unlikely it is to succeed.  And Zheng clearly knows the jaws are closing on him – if he stays and does nothing, he’ll be dead before Li Mu ever reaches Xianyang.  For a king to take to the battlefield himself was almost unheard of in those days, but Zheng has no other options.  And he’s praying that Xin will arrive soon with the remnants of Biao’s army – an act of faith to be sure, as Xin would most likely have died in battle.  But it’s a touching reminder of Xin’s importance to Zheng, though only a shadow of what’s to come.

It’s been so long that it hardly seems like the same show, but the very first relationship that mattered in Kingdom is Xin and Zheng.  They’re brothers from different mothers, and Diao and Changwen were there with them almost at the start.  The emotions when Xin arrives in Zui and sees Zheng’s face are so real and personal in a way Kingdom rarely is.  To see Xin break down this way is a testament to the depth of his feeling for Zheng.  His own men can’t believe the guy with the their commander is the king, because the familiarity between them belies all rank.  But Diao and Changwen understand as no one else would.

The situation is almost hopeless – an army of a few thousand real soldiers trying to stand up to Li Mu’s tanned, rested, and ready 30,000.  Li Mu has Pang Nuan at his side – the defenders have no generals at all, much less men of their standing.  And it all relies on Zheng being able to energize and motivate a bunch of women and children who were ready to surrender.  But in spite of all that, it still feels wonderful – and heartrending – to see the big three together again at last, here at the end of all things.  Zheng rallying the people, Xin in command on the battlefield, Diao at the tactical reins.  To see the fate of Qin come down to these three youngsters may not be totally realistic, but it makes for incredibly great drama.