✦Elzary
Cinema·5 min read·👀 Watched 2022.11.12

Ya Boy Kongming!

Kongming reborn in modern Japan, using his Three Kingdoms schemes to help an aspiring singer make it. Pure fun — and you can't help admiring his genius all over again.

2022 · Comedy / Music · Ryo Ogawa & Yuto Yotsuba · Netflix

"I once made a wish: that in my next life, I'd be reborn into a peaceful world where there's no need to fight to the death."

Setting the scene

Big Liu-Mang fan that I am, one recommendation from him and I sped right over. It's an anime where Kongming uses his various brilliant Three Kingdoms schemes to help an aspiring singer with real talent make it big — super fun plot!! A light little piece; watch it for a laugh when you're bored, and of course you can't help but admire Zhuge Kongming's genius~

A few (few, few) thoughts

For plot's sake, Kongming is reincarnated into an open-minded modern world — and right next to China, in Japan (during Halloween cosplay, no less). Anyone who's studied history surely knows this figure (besides, he really is the genuine article).

Praise be to my great Zhuge Kongming. Setting aside these convenient premises, this show really does render Kongming's genius in a very modern way. His methods don't always show results at first, and he's often doubted along the way, but in the end they speak for themselves through sheer merit — leaving you in awe of his cunning, his uncanny foresight, his impossibly thorough thinking. It made me think of that classic line: "Let the bullets fly a while." Admiration, admiration, and more admiration.

If Kongming could be my own strategist, the peace of mind would be like — even if the apocalypse were minutes away, he'd surely think up some satisfying way out. Seeing someone this capable also makes me wonder: do I want someone like Kongming beside me, or to become that reassuring presence in others' eyes? A question still worth pondering 💭

About the animation. A slight pity: in the singers' performance scenes, the animation and voicework feel a touch out of sync (though I don't know animation production, so I really can't tell where the problem lies 🤔). And Japanese songs with no subtitles left me clueless about what they were singing, so helpless 😵‍💫

I'm still more used to calling him Zhuge Liang or Zhuge Kongming — suddenly going "Kongming, Kongming" feels a million kinds of unfamiliar 🤣. Aside: as a kid one PS4 game I played was Dynasty Warriors, pretty fun! I remember I used Lü Bu most; if it were now, I might use Zhuge Kongming instead (?).

The last few episodes reminded me of the singer Kimberley Chen — packaged at first by her company as a sugary sweetheart ("Love You," I adore it), but that wasn't really her; after joining a new label her style did a 180. I'm so happy to see her start being herself; some interviews are so blunt they won me over, hahaha 😆. In the end, I truly hope every singer who loves to sing gets to spend their whole life singing only the songs they love.

Bits I jotted down

  • Modern times' great tolerance for the unusual is a blessing — Kongming dressed as Kongming is taken for a coser; his archaic speech, having substance, doesn't get him branded a weirdo, and he even gets work and walks the streets freely. Decades ago he'd probably have been bullied to death.
  • "The Stone Sentinel Maze" — knowing this formation needs just the right weather and terrain; once a strong wind blows into the stone array it creates ghost-wail sounds. I think Kongming seized on human fear — once fear arises, the chaos of the mind interrupts the brain's workings.
  • Making something from nothing.
  • Kongming's adaptability is so strong I first thought he'd thrive in any era — but then, dropped into a more conservative, closed place, like early Europe, he might've been hunted as a witch (they wouldn't have known who he was).

Some lines I loved:

"Talent isn't inborn — it's mastered through learning."

"I've seen too many lives lost on the battlefield before they could even say what they wanted to. Direct opinions, honest thoughts — you have to say them while you still can."

"Do well the things you're capable of."

"From now on I'll continue, as your strategist, to build the dream alongside you." / "Yes — let's walk on together, all the way to the end of the road to our dream."

#anime#comedy#music#netflix
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