Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Courage

This Is Not Season 2

The most important thing to know about Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Courage is that it’s not Season 2. Officially, it’s a side story. But, in reality, it covers content from the manga that Season 1 of the anime skipped.

In that sense, it’s a lot like the upcoming Horimiya: The Missing Pieces anime. That too covers manga content that the first season of the anime skipped. So, does that mean you should skip watching The Treasure Chest of Courage?

In my opinion, no. If you’re a fan of Ranking of Kings, you should watch The Treasure Chest of Courage. And I’m not saying that because I believe fans of a series need to watch everything that comes from the series. It’s actually because The Treasure Chest of Courage has some important content.

I haven’t read the manga, so I can’t claim anything about it with certainty. However, there’s content in this season that feels like it’s important for the main story. And I’m not sure if an eventual Season 2 is going to go back and cover that content again.

But, why did we get The Treasure Chest of Courage instead of a second season? The simple answer is that there’s not enough content for a second season yet. When there is, it’s possible that we’ll get Ranking of Kings Season 2. But, that’s also not guaranteed.

So, one important thing The Treasure Chest of Courage does is get viewers prepared to read the manga. If you picked up the manga right after Season 1, you’d be missing some content. But if you pick up the manga after this season, you’ll be ready to dive right into whatever comes next.

Extra Filler Content

Before I get to the good content from this season, I want to cover the not-as-good content. A fair amount of the content from The Treasure Chest of Courage is basically filler. This is the case for almost every episode or story about Bojji and Kage.

There are a few episodes that follow these two during their adventure. But, none of those episodes actually add anything important. For example, there’s one story about Kage harvesting a special mushroom. And there’s another about Bojji and Kage earning money in the Underworld.

However, that doesn’t mean all the extra, or filler, content is bad. In one episode, they stop at a desert oasis on their way back from the Underworld. In this oasis, there are creatures similar to the giant, god-like creature we saw in an episode of the main series.

That episode didn’t add anything to the story. But, it did serve as some additional world-building.

Then, there were the episodes that gave us a bit more backstory for some side characters. They’re still not integral to the main plot. But, again, they add to the world-building. And there were three characters, in particular, who got episodes like this.

Daida, Hiling, and Bebin all got some pretty nice backstory episodes. These are important characters who we didn’t actually learn too much about in Season 1.

Daida’s backstory is about his relationship with Bojji when they were growing up. Hiling’s is about her life as a traveling monastic before becoming Bosse’s second wife. And Bebin’s is about his appointment to the Big Four.

But, there were also other character backstories that weren’t as good. Do you remember Prince Despa’s horse, Whiteking? Well, she got her own backstory and I can’t even pretend that it was interesting.

Major Backstories & New Content

You should watch The Treasure Chest of Courage for the major backstories and new content. The major backstories are those featuring Miranjo, the Demon, Desha, Despa, and Ouken. There’s actually a lot of content about Desha, Despa, and Ouken in this season.

So, why are these backstories more important than the others? Simply because they add context that’s important for the main series. Miranjo’s backstory is a bit less important. But, hers and the Demon’s backstories are tied together. And the Demon is kind of a big deal in Ranking of Kings.

The Demon is the reason Bojji is how he is. Bosse traded Bojji’s strength to the Demon for strength of his own. And King Desha wants to capture the Demon so he can use it to cure Ouken’s immortality curse. The Demon and its abilities are a key part of the series.

Some of the best episodes of the entire series come from The Treasure Chest of Courage. I loved the backstory episodes about Ouken and Desha, in particular. Despa, I don’t care too much about. But, those other two are very interesting characters.

And, these three brothers are important to the story. When we follow Bojji, we’re seeing the world from a very particular perspective. We’re seeing the world as Bojji sees it, which is good and full of wonder. When we follow Desha and his brothers, we see a very different view of the world.

Bojji’s just a kid playing adventurer. Desha is the most powerful king in the world. And it’s through him that we actually get to learn more about the secrets of the world. The final episode of the season highlights this. It features new content that appears to set up the events of Season 2.

Conclusion

In the end, I gave Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Courage a 7/10. As I said, this season had some of the best Ranking of Kings content so far. However, it was outweighed by the filler content that didn’t really add much. Still, if you’re a fan of Ranking of Kings and want to prepare for Season 2, you should watch this season.

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