WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Ranking of Kings Episode 9, "The Queen and the Shield," now streaming on Funimation.
The more time Ranking of Kings spends away from Prince Bojji, the darker the anime feels. It's not as if Bojji's adventures haven't taken some upsetting turns, but we can generally trust that our sweet and determined hero will make it through somehow. The other royals' fates, however, are a lot less certain, and with Bosse possessing Daida and plotting to kill Hiling, the castle is in chaos. Episode 9 is the first episode to avoid Bojji's perspective entirely, only showing him in flashbacks, and the result is Ranking of Kings at its most twisted so far.
Hiling now knows that her husband is possessing her son's body. Bosse proves it by recreating his initial proposal to her: crushing an entire tree into a diamond with his bare hands. One can imagine how romantic such an act must have felt the first time around, and the flashback scenes showing Hiling's early days with Bosse and Bojji are rare moments of relief in a bleak episode. In the present, naturally, Bosse's relationship with Hiling is a lot more uncomfortable. This isn't the only relationship drama to be explored in the episode -- it seems Bosse might have had another lover all along.
At the very least, Bosse has someone else who loves him: Miranjo. Whether he loves her back or is just flattering her to use her for power like he does everyone else is less certain, but seeing the mirror lady possess a robot-like doll to dance with Bosse-possessed Daida makes for a deeply eerie romantic scene. The relationship between an adult in a child's body and a person in a mechanical body recalls the Monster Girl/Robot pairing in Invincible, except with villains rather than heroes.
Bosse and Miranjo's latest scheme to assassinate Hiling involves controlling a pack of horned, dog-like beasts. Hiling's "shield" Dorshe goes all out to defend his queen, his muscles literally bursting out of his armor, but the fight is too evenly matched: he takes down the beasts but loses so much blood that he nearly dies in the process. This attempt might be thwarted, that doesn't mean Hiling is safe -- she's still got plenty of torture to endure.
Worst of all these tortures is knowing that Daida's consciousness is still there somewhere inside his body but being unable to save him. Ranking of Kings Episode 8 already showed that Daida was somewhere resembling The Sunken Place from Get Out, but Episode 9 spends more time there, with vividly distorted animation emphasizing the horror of witnessing someone else control your body. Daida and Hiling realize they're able to sense each other's presence, but this is not enough to save either of them. By the end of the episode, Daida is still trapped, and Bosse has sent Dorshe and Hiling out of the country -- claiming this is for their protection, but who knows what his true motive is?
New episodes of Ranking of Kings premiere Thursdays on Funimation.
