What is Kingdom?

Kingdom is a Japanese manga written and drawn by Yasuhisa Hara, serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump since January 2006. It retells the end of China's Warring States period, when seven states fought for supremacy, through the eyes of Xin, published in Japanese as Shin, a war orphan from the state of Qin who vows to become the greatest general under the heavens.

Beside Shin stands Ei Sei, the young king of Qin, based on Ying Zheng, the ruler who would become Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China. The manga pairs Shin's rise through the ranks with Ei Sei's political struggle to hold his throne, so the story alternates between battlefield tactics and court intrigue.

Hara grounds the fiction in the Shiji, Sima Qian's ancient history of China. Many generals, battles and campaigns in Kingdom are recorded events, expanded and dramatized, which gives the series a documentary spine unusual for an action manga. Readers follow a unification war whose real outcome is known, and the drama comes from how it was won.

The series became one of the best selling manga in Japan, passing 100 million copies in circulation, a milestone it reached in 2023 as the first Weekly Young Jump title to do so. It has been adapted into a multi season anime by Studio Pierrot and a hit series of live action films starring Kento Yamazaki.

For collectors, Kingdom is a long haul shelf: dozens of Japanese tankobon volumes with painted style covers, an art book line, and film tie in editions, while a complete official English edition arrived only recently, which makes early Japanese volumes the traditional focus of overseas shelves.