Review of Ya Boy Kongming!

On his deathbed, legendary Three Kingdoms-era strategist Zhuge Liang (aka. Kongming) wishes to be reborn in a more peaceful era, and promptly finds himself in modern day Japan. A chance encounter with a captivating but unknown singer called Eiko leads him to formulate his ultimate strategy: to bring about world peace by becoming her manager. Yes, it's Bill and Ted: The Anime (with less time travel). It's a weird concept, but it works, mainly because Kongming is such an irresistable presence every time he appears. The strategies he employs to raise Eiko to stardom all echo famous ones from the Three Kingdoms tales, often remixed insurprising and hilarious ways. There's an engaging amount of pathos at play too, as he seeks to rid the world of conflict without resorting to violent means, and reflects on his inability to do so in his own time.

Where the show falters a little is any time Kongming isn't around. Eiko is a likeable protagonist, but Kongming is this show's sole unique selling point, and the parts without him settle into overly familiar territory we've seen many times in anime about struggling singers. It still works well for the most part, except the episodes focused on rapper Kabe, since his rap battles are pure cringe.

The show does have a nice self-contained arc that builds to a somewhat satisfying conclusion. This is clearly just the tip of the iceberg in Kongming's plans for Eiko, though. We get no indication of his longer-term plans for world peace here; at this stage he's still trying to drag Eiko out of obscurity. Ultimately it can't help but feel like a 12-episode advert for the manga.

If it seems that I'm focusing a lot on negatives here, the high mark I'm giving it just reinforces Kongming's massive impact on the quality of the show.