Spring 2022 Anime: Ya Boy Kongming!

Synopsis

General of the Three Kingdoms, Kongming had struggled his whole life, facing countless battles that made him into the accomplished strategist he was. So on his deathbed, he wished only to be reborn into a peaceful world… and was sent straight to modern-day party-central, Tokyo! Can even a brilliant strategist like Kongming adapt to the wild beats and even wilder party people?! (Source: Bilibili)

Comments

Caesar E.S. (The Indonesian Anime Times)

There should be a genre term for these kinds of stories by now. The ones where the protagonist has a historical figure helping them out, like Hikaru no Go, Shiori Experience, or… um, Night at the Museum and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure? Anyway, these stories have the same thing going for them: They show the appeal of having historical figures in a fish-out-of-water context, and then we can see them apply their expertise to modern problems. Having a well-established, familiar character from history books in a story sets up a certain expectation, and seeing that expectation gets subverted is a goldmine for comedy.

But what makes Ya Boy Kongming! even more interesting is that it goes a step further and has legendary military strategist Zhuge Liang/Kongming play talent manager for amateur singer Eiko, navigating through modern Japan’s club scene. It’s a story that’s a far cry from the army battles of the Three Kingdoms, and “military strategist” isn’t the same kind of job as a talent manager. But what you end up with are amusing moments where he applies his stratagems in wildly different situations to great success. It’s like seeing one of those self-help books on how to apply Sun Tzu’s Art of War in a working context played out in real life.

Ya Boy Kongming! is a great example of how much fun anime can be when it plays around with different situations and settings, especially when accompanied by a catchy opening song that’s well on its way to become the dance number of the season. Whether it will be enough to spark another boom for European dance music like Initial D did for Eurobeat is anyone’s guess, but the various covers, remixes, and meme videos made to the tune of the song show that people are loving it. Ya Boy Kongming! is shaping up to be a fun party from start to finish.

Ya Boy Kongming! is currently streaming on Bstation and HIDIVE

Facts and Figures

Screenshots and Trailer

The Indonesian Anime Times