Funimation Streams Ranking of Kings Anime's English Dub

Funimation announced on Wednesday that it will begin streaming an English dub for the television anime of Sōsuke Tōka's Ranking of Kings (Ōsama Ranking) manga on Thursday.

The cast includes:

• Emily Fajardo as Bojji
• SungWon Cho as Kage
• Christopher Wehkamp as Bebin
• Cris George as Bosse
• Justin Briner as Daida
• A.J. Locascio as Domas
• Brent Mukai as Dorshe
• Luci Christian as Hiling
• Bryce Papenbrook as Hokuro
• Ben Phillips as Narrator
• Ben Bryant as Sandeo
• Laila Berzins as Shiina
• Kevin M. Connolly as Sorii

Caitlin Glass is directing the English dub. Emi Lo is the assistant ADR Director. James Baker is the lead ADR engineer, and Mark De La Fuente and Geoff Bisente are the assistant ADR engineers. Jarrod Greene is writing the English script, and Bonny Clinkenbeard is supervising. Brandon Peters is in charge of ADR prep.

The web manga centers around Bojji, a deaf, powerless prince who cannot even wield a children's sword. As the firstborn son, he strives hard and dreams of becoming the world's greatest king. However, people mutter about him behind his back as "a good-for-nothing prince" and "no way he can be king."

Bojji is able to make his first ever friend, "Kage" (shadow) — a literal shadow on the ground who somehow understands Bojji well. (Kage is a survivor of the Kage assassin clan that was all but wiped out. No longer a killer, Kage now makes ends meet by stealing.) The story follows Bojji's coming-of-age as he meets various people in his life, starting with his fateful encounter with Kage.

The series premiered on October 14 in Fuji TV's Noitamina timeslot. It is streaming in Japan on Amazon Prime Video, one hour after it airs on television, before streaming on other services. The anime will run for two continuous cours (quarters of the year). Funimation is streaming the anime as it airs in Japan.

Yousuke Hatta (One-Punch Man episode director, Boogiepop and Others assistant director) is directing the anime at Wit Studio, with Arifumi Imai as assistant director. Taku Kishimoto (91 Days, Fruits Basket 2019, Moriarty the Patriot) is in charge of the series scripts. Atsuko Nozaki (Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky) is designing the characters, while Masaki Kawake is the sub-character designer. Both are credited as chief animation directors. Makoto Fuchigami is the chief line director. Masaru Oshiro, Shin Ogasawara, and Nozomu Fujii are the main animators. MAYUKO is composing the music.

Yūji Kaneko is the art director, while Kazushi Fujii is handling the art setting. Ken Hashimoto is the color key artist. Kazuto Izumita and Noriyuki Ueda are both compositing directors of photography. Kiyoshi Hirose is editing. Yasunori Ebina is the audio director, while Yasunori Ogata is handling sound effects. Maiko Okada is credited as animation producer.

The band King Gnu (first Banana Fish ending) are performing the opening theme song "BOY." Yama performs the ending theme song "Oz."

Tōka has been serializing the manga on the user-submitted manga website Manga Hack and other venues since May 2017. Kadokawa published the 11th compiled book volume on August 12. The manga's circulation has reached over 1.3 million copies.

Source: Funimation (Nicholas Friedman)