Kingdom

Kingdom, running since 2006 and past 70 volumes, is a war epic set in the Warring States period of China, leading toward the man who would become the first emperor. Xin is an orphan slave who dreams of being a great general; Ying Zheng is the young king trying to unify the country. Yasuhisa Hara dramatizes real history with enormous battle scenes, shifting alliances, and a cast in the hundreds. The early art is rough and the faces can be plain, but the staging of armies is its own argument: Hara makes troop movement and strategy legible across spreads where thousands of figures move at once. It is long, loud, and surprisingly thoughtful about leadership.