u/JacoB5657

As of may 2026, the series has 875 chapters currently which is still ongoing with no ending in sight anytime soon therefore I wanted to create my predictions of how long every arc will be and how much years it will span before it conclude.

*Warning* May include too much informal feedback loop set forth by the back-office given the non transfareable non commercial, personal license. Proceed at your own cost.

Ehm... Anyway, let's see the current chapter avg release cycle which is 32 to 36 chapters a year and as the kingdom series is currently in the most important arc within the story "The great war between qin and zhao" focusing on all out war capturing entire zhao after capturing recently han therefore getting geographical advantage, as this arc is currently around 30 chapters earlier showcasing confessions/mariages such as kyorei confesing to kou, zheng given birth to newest child, bihei as well to then riboku marrying kaine to then showcasing how slowly zhao goverment slowly destabilizes while within 30 chapters only one of elite newly introduced zhao generals been defeated seikuan by jin in archery duel, there are still plenty of original zhao generals remaining to be defeated such as kisui, sun sui, kaine, riboku himself similar to then newly introduced ones such as enkan, duke reijou similar whom Hara sensei will without a doubt spent a lot of time building up their motivations, past, their relationship with riboku to then present time duels with qin characters, later once zhao will be captured Hara sensei very most likely will show just like with conquest of han arc climax society destabilization, goverment, and perhaps king sen redemption considering how he behaved this arc differently willing to listen to what riboku had to say, while stabilizing it with tou intervention or tou's philosophy of society stabilization passing on to shin plus qin army so to reduce anxiety plus showing shin becoming greatest generals under the heaven which will happen without a doubt once shin will defeat riboku therefore this arc will be easily 170 chapters longest in the series surpassing longest currently 150 chapters western zhao invasion which will mark it as act 2 finale just like how 36 chapters state of ai arc was act 1's finale.

To then act 3 will cover final unification of china years such as capturing state of wei, chuu similar which each arc afterwards will be definitely 30+ chapters therefore the series will easily continue for another 15+ years.

So, what do you think about this?

Wow, as of 8th may 2026 after starting it around april-june 2024 (minus half a year break in 2025) finally caught up with the series I am so glad considering how very beatiful very profound the series is.

Here are my thoughts regarding kingdom among many other things;

Story:

The story is set loosely based on Chineese warring states period which span for over 500 years before the nation has been unified during 221BCE by zheng, the series explores the true reality of battlefied, the harshness how it affect people long term, the consenquences of war while also the beuaty of the war how the series showcasing generals maintaining their army morals through speeches which boosts massively the army's brute force, keeping them united so to leave the battlefield without any scratches, creating tactics so to excecute their armies brute force and taking terrain/geographical advantages to brink an edge to opposition.

My favorite segment is however how, the series explores the nation side of politics how for example goverment manages it's people and economy how even one small thing may affect the states and entire china, maintaining the party stability while trying to scout new people to it's party members, and my favorite is ideology clashes between the political members how this can change entire perspective on people alongside person ideology in question among many other things.

Also, even though many of the events were written by Hara sensei so to reach the shiki's documented historical events, which I still believe have happened because how very believable these are.

Characters:

This is another incredible part of kingdom, how Hara sensei made these characters does not feel like characters but feels very human (As after all these people existed irl within the history of china and planet earth) never dehumanizing nor celebrating nor supporting character's actions, able to showcase others perspectives outside qin in neutral manner which was one of my fav kingdom things, how they were also dealing with state issues/economies/goverment while having unexpected alliances, even when they had rivalry with some states does not meant they had grudge against each other, and for example how zheng the reason he wanted to migrate states to qin by conquering them was to end the wars for good so the future generations could live peacefully without any trauma plus living in safety, just like sai taku diplomatic philosophy perfectly captured during the zheng and ouken ideological clash in beurocats job arc how with pure negotiations and ideological clash the conflict may be resolved without any blood shed droped. Thus Hara sensei, perfectly captured how humantity is imperfect but kindhearted by their nature.

Just like kanki is perfect example of it, how despite commiting undeniable atrocieties he was still possesing light inside his darkness just like what he saw in shin during kokouyo campaign arc how shin almost became kanki 2.0 if kyokai did not restrained him emotionally by holding her blade to kanki's throat kanki therefore promised himself to protect shin considering how "naive" he was for this era, then for example in battle of eikyu arc climax when kanki beheaded 100k captive zhao soldiers, he sent shin far away from the place kanki was knowing very well how shin would react while also avenging his men whom fell in to eikyuu army hands, or then again in zhao retaliation arc kanki in order to escape zhao he himself sacrificed while "fighting" against riboku plus kanki himself sending shin again far away so he could escape in time with others.

My favorite arcs:

State of AI

This perfectly captured the core and spirits of the series, zheng becoming qin's king, shoheikun betraying ryofui to join zheng opposition party while ryofui literally was planned far ahead assasination attempt against future qin's king was seriously incredible, to then my favorite segment was ideological clash between zheng and ryofui how despite both of them cared for qin, their ideologies heavily differed as ryofui wanted to create utopia out of qin by creating wealthiest chineese state so to pressure other states to surrender however ryofui have not thought about other places which might start rebelion against him, while zheng ideology was despite conquering chinese states by force, zheng believes in others them will accept the reality and understand zheng intentions as zheng fully believes which comes to my favorite kingdom's quote "People, will find a light within a darkness because they are possed of light" which even made ryofui emotional despite ryofui tried to hide his emotiones and how their conflict was resolved in later arcs via zhao crisis arc by ryofui as an gift to zheng he hugged him to then to end the planned by his opposition rebelion, ryofui made misinformatin of him "poisoned" so to destroy his people morals while deciding to live in rural areas of qin.

Escape from zhao/nature of humanity arcs (Tie)

These arcs truly set foundation of what would become state of ai arc, how not only shika changed zheng forever which zheng later set it as foundation for the future, but then nature of humanity arc delved it even deeper how kan pishi was ryofui but not at the same time, as he externally believed "humans won't changed" yet his laws inside han said otherwise showcasing internally how kan pishi deeply cared about his fellow han citizens, and shin mindset of fire of will passed on to future generations living inside people which comes then later fire of life also was incredible.

Conquest of han arc

This is my third favorite arc, how it now literally shown the harshness of war, the cycle of violence, the destabilization of goverments plus society as them have not realized true nature of qin army as they were based on "rumors" so especially goverment was trying it's best to keep han alive despite doing immoral things such as scouting children to be part of military watched under military police to then how much princess nei and her father whom was han's king must have been hard to gather courage to give up the state to the opposition just to save it's own people from more tradegies occuring was truly emotional.

Paneling:

This is also incredible part of kingdom, how Hara sensei uses mix of medium to small sized panels per page so to pack so much content when it comes to material per 18-21 pages chapters thus able to swiftly progress kingdom, double page spreads to showcase the scale of the battlefield, and the symbolic red lighting coming from the afternoon sun signaling the new era also is breathtaking.

Verdict:

In my opinion, kingdom is fifth favorite IPs while being my second favorite manga how incredibly the series is written I recommend it a lot.