In the 2022 spring anime season, the musical comedy anime Ya Boy Kongming! went viral for its absolute bop of an opening theme song. We loved the series when it originally aired, putting it on our list of the best anime of 2022. But because it was previously exclusive to the anime streaming service HIDIVE, the show’s audience reach was limited.
That changed this month, however, when Ya Boy Kongming! joined Hulu’s library of anime titles. Aside from its theme song, Ya Boy Kongming! is worth watching on the strength of its unique premise alone: What if a legendary Chinese war strategist was reborn in modern-day Japan and became the manager for a pop idol?
Based on the 2019 manga by writer Yuto Yotsuba and artist Ryō Ogawa, Ya Boy Kongming! centers on Zhuge Kongming, a statesman who rose to prominence during the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. On his deathbed, he wishes to be reborn in a more peaceful era. He gets his wish, though not in the way he probably expected. Waking up in a dark alleyway in Shibuya, Kongming is seemingly reborn in a younger body on Halloween night. After crossing paths with Eiko, a part-time bartender who confides to him that she dreams of becoming a pop singer, Kongming takes an oath to act as her advisor (that is, manager) and help her achieve her goal.
Every episode takes advantage of the inherent silliness of a third-century Chinese war strategist being transplanted into contemporary Japan. Kongming takes to his new surroundings like a duck takes to water, marshaling all his military prowess and the wisdom accumulated over a lifetime of battles and negotiations to go head to head against shady rivals and shifty venue owners. Whether it’s strategizing how to get Eiko 100,000 likes on her social media page in order to qualify for a festival performance, or winning a rap battle in order to recruit his opponent to Eiko’s background band, Kongming always finds a way to come through in the end.
Image: P.A. Works/Sentai Filmworks
Kongming is such a charismatic character: He’s unwavering in his confidence and devotion to his new cause, and he treats a young woman’s dream of stardom with the kind of seriousness and single-minded concentration one would expect of a general weighing the choice between who lives and who dies while trying to secure the future of his homeland. He genuinely believes in Eiko’s dream, and the lengths he’s willing to go to in order to help achieve that dream has a lot of appeal.
If you’re one of the many anime fans who haven’t been able to see Ya Boy Kongming! yet, now is the perfect time to do so. And while you’re there, check out another great former HIDIVE exclusive now on Hulu: Oshi no Ko, a fantasy pop-idol murder mystery with a second season currently streaming weekly this summer.
Ya Boy Kongming! is available to stream on Hulu and HIDIVE.