Anime Talk: Ya Boy Kongming!

I wrote a short story a while back called "The Final Gift of Zhuge Liang" for the Swords v Cthulhu anthology, which takes place during the Three Kingdoms period of imperial China. Specifically, it follows the death of Zhuge Liang after the Battle of the Wuzhong Plains. He didn't die from battle, but passed away from illness, after which the army of Shu Han retreated, unable to defeat Cao Wei has they had hoped.

My short story follows Jiang Wei, who was left as Zhuge Liang's successor and in charge of the retreat, and because I hadn't written anything in this time period before, I gave myself a crash course in Three Kingdoms history while outlining it. It's fairly popular in Asian media, from comics to video games, but growing up in the US it's hard to absorb the details by osmosis.

But what I do know, has given me an appreciation for one of the anime airing this spring season called Ya Boy Kongming!. Kongming is Zhuge Liang's courtesy name (basically what his friends called him), and from the irreverent "Ya Boy" you would be right in thinking this is not the usual Three Kingdoms story.

Ya Boy Kongming! follows the death of Zhuge Liang on the Wuzhong Plains to finding himself inexplicably reborn as a younger man in modern day Tokyo. Since it's Halloween, no one initially thinks anything of his weird clothes and he amusingly thinks that he's arrived in hell for judgment. The series doesn't really dwell on why he's been transported into the future or why/how he's now able to speak fluent Japanese (which is fully acknowledged by the show) and quickly gets to the central premise of the story:

What if Zhuge Liang decided to apply his tactical mind to building the career of an aspiring pop star?

It's so weird and yet, it works! I really don't know who the fanbase for this series for this series is intended to be, as it blends tidbits about how music works in clubs (like arranging the songs played by bpms to provide the appropriate cues to the audience) to Three Kingdoms stragems that Zhuge Liang is famous for. I can't help but imagine that the number of people whose interests fully intersect both topics is rare, but even as someone who's only coming in from the Three Kingdoms side, I'm finding it quite enthralling. Eiko is a sympathetic singer, and unlike a lot of anime, her singing voice is performed by a separate singer rather than an actor pulling double duty. Not a knock on other voice actors who also sing, but 96Neko's performance just sounds more polished, especially when it comes to belting out the English lyrics of Eiko's "Be Crazy For Me."

Zhuge Liang knows that he's lost in this new world, but is quick to catch up on the 1800 years he's missed. He's thrilled to discover he has his own wiki entry, but saddened to learn that Shu ultimately lost the war. During all this, he is taken by Eiko's underappreciated singing (she sings at the bar she works at when there's a free spot) and thus she comes to occupies the position of "liege" in his mind, where if she gives the order, then he will carry it out to be the best of his ability.

Eiko is reluctant to believe that he can really do anything at first, though she is grateful to have her first real fan. She certainly doesn't believe he is the real Zhuge Liang and not some dedicated cosplayer, but naturally she begins to have more trust in him as she goes from singing at her boss's bar to performing at her first festival.

At the point the anime is in now (five episodes in) we're in the first story arc rather than stand alone episodes, so I'm not sure where it's going, but I really enjoyed the first three episodes so I'm willing to stick it out for the ride.