An anime that went under the radar: “Ya Boy Kongming”

Music anime is underappreciated as there is an abundance of idol music but less representation of other genres, but “Ya Boy Kongming” challenges the norm and does its own thing and does it great.

It is now seven weeks into the spring season of anime and every show that was expected to be good turned out great. As people tend to be drawn towards the big names of this season such as “Spy x Family” and “Kaguya-sama: Love Is War,” it was easy to miss out on some shows that don’t get as much attention. “Ya Boy Kongming” was one of those shows that was not talked about much at the start of the season and it is still not talked about enough now. 

There are two major reasons why it has fallen under the radar for many anime watchers: the genre and its streaming platform. The genre of the anime “Ya Boy Kongming” includes music and reincarnation. Both genres perform well when done on their own, however there have almost been no preceding anime that combines the two genres as “Ya Boy Kongming” treads uncharted waters. The other big thing is where the anime is being streamed, which is the platform called HIDIVE. It has a much smaller library of shows when compared to its competitors, Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Netflix. With the smaller library, it makes sense that the anime has not reached the eyes of as many people as the more mainstream anime.

For those who don’t know what “Ya Boy Kongming” has to offer, it is about the reincarnation of Zhuge Liang, otherwise known as Kongming, who was a military strategist during the Three Kingdoms period. During his previous life, he had a plethora of strategies to attain victory, and in his new life, Kongming has decided to use these strategies to aid a young and upcoming singer named Eiko Tsukimi. Kongming decided to help her as when we awoke to the current era of Tokyo, 1800 years after his original life’s death, he believed that he woke up in hell. The one thing he found salvation in during the night he woke up was the singing of Eiko; however, when he learns that Eiko is discouraged as she does not have many fans, Kongming appears and tells her that she is standing in front of one. With this newfound motivation, Eiko decides to not give up on her dreams and is now doing all that she can with the help of Kongming to get there.

Although this may sound like a huge chunk of spoilers, all this happens and more in just the first episode. With six more episodes after this, and five more to be released, there are many more topics to be touched on such as rap and rivalries. With this interesting premise, it should without a doubt be in the watchlist of many people across the globe, but with factors such as the genre and streaming platform, that idea may never come to fruition.

[“Ya Boy Kongming” is available to stream on HIDIVE]