Portrayals of disabilities in anime have improved in recent years but still, have a history of ableism and stigma. However, Ranking of Kings and the character Bojii give hope for positive representation, portraying cruelty towards the disabled in an otherwise fairytale kingdom but with the hope of change and triumph regardless.
Ranking of Kings is the story of Bojii, the crown prince of his kingdom, who is considered a laughing stock due to his supposed idiocy, which stems from him being deaf and his difficulty speaking because of this. The prince is mocked mercilessly by his own people and by the people of the court, who watch him return day after day without clothes on and decide he must have been attacked by highwaymen.
However, Bojii is hardly what they assume. Though deaf, he has picked up sign language and can read lips as well, meaning that he knows every single cruel thing that people say to his face and can assume what others say behind his back. He is extremely aware that he is being bullied and, once he has a moment of free time, runs to his room to cry for a moment before composing himself to see his father. He keeps a brave face on while being told repeatedly that he is a disappointment, especially compared to his younger brother. However, Bojii has also picked up one of the most useful survival skills for someone with a mental or physical disability--manipulating expectations.
Manipulation has a negative connotation for a skill that is primarily to help to aid in survival. Hiding or exaggerating the extent of a disability is oftentimes one of the few ways to exercise control over it. In a real-life application, this can mean omitting a mental illness when applying for a job so to avoid stigma or it can mean purposefully doing poorly in a class because then the expectations won't be high for other classes that don't make sense. It can also mean denying physical pain to avoid alarming others.
Bojii, though young, is already a master at tricking those around him into thinking what he wants them to think, but it is sometimes to his detriment. In addition to reading lips and sign language, Bojii is also physically agile, yet pretends to be unskilled with a weapon assumedly because this plays into his chosen persona. He manages to do many things by playing the fool, such as deliver clothes to his friend Kage, but Bojii has decided that his greatest advantage is to avoid giving away his strengths, of hiding his intellect and the extent of his abilities, in favor of keeping those abilities hidden until the opportune moment.
In Episode 1, the opportune moment presents itself for Bojii to show his athleticism in a spar. A watching guard remembers seeing Bojii pull a trick with attacking snakes once, which Bojii had not meant for anyone to witness, and wonders if it had been a fluke. But when paired off against his brother Daida, Bojii evades every attack and taps Daida on the forehead, ending the sparring match with a decisive winner. Bojii decided it was time to reveal a little more of his true self, and the fallout from his actions remains to be seen.
Bojii's relationship with a shadow-creature named Kage has also already played a role in how Bojii presents himself, and the way their relationship progresses will be interesting to see. Bojii takes to Kage because he can read what Kage is saying and because Kage understands his speech in return, which is a much more casual exchange than the sign language Bojii uses at court. Kage orders Bojii to give him his fine clothes, and then to bring more clothes back the next day and the next.
This leads to Bojii being humiliated by walking through town without any clothes on his way back, but since we know Bojii does this with meaning. He must have decided that Kage's company was worth the humiliation. Being royalty, of course, the clothes meant nothing to him, but Kage's ability to understand what Bojii is saying is something no other character has shown an affinity or real interest in. Through spying, Kage has now seen how Bojii suffers without letting anyone know and, through just a few meetings, has a better understanding of the prince than most of the courtiers.
So far, Ranking of Kings has handled disabilities in a realistic--and heartbreaking--way. The mockery that Bojii endures both to his face and behind his back is unrelenting, and though his decision to downplay his strengths is a strategic move, it lends itself to loneliness. How Bojii moves forward not despite his illness but because of everything else that he is will be a journey that seems worth watching.
