Now, it seems the Kingdom Hearts franchise is once again branching out to another platform: television. Several rumors have come out stating that a Kingdom Hearts show is being produced for the Disney Plus streaming platform. None of these reports and rumors have been confirmed by sources, but several similar rumors are now corroborating with one another. The ending to Kingdom Hearts’ Xehanort Saga was a long time coming, but assuming this purported TV series intends to continue the story after Kingdom Hearts 3, it wouldn’t be necessary even if the show is either a retelling or a canon sequel to the franchise.
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The Xehanort Saga is Over
Mainly, under the presumption that a Kingdom Hearts show on Disney Plus truly is a sequel, then it absolutely wouldn’t make sense for the franchise’s continuation to occur through a TV show. If a Disney Plus show is being written as a proper sequel or even an unrelated continuation, having the next narrative leap in the Kingdom Hearts franchise have its first outing on a Disney Plus show wouldn’t make sense. Kingdom Hearts has told every major story beat or continuation, save for one exception, through a game. The only animated adaptation was Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover, and even that was a summation of all the important events from the Kingdom Hearts Union Cross mobile game.
Kingdom Hearts 3 also marked the end of the Xehanort/Dark Seeker Saga, which up until now was the main story of the entire Kingdom Hearts franchises thus far. Fans didn’t even know or expect that Sora, Donald, and Goofy would be mounting up for more adventures in the near future until every Kingdom Hearts game was unveiled as part of this first “Dark Seeker Saga” way back in 2013. Assuming this Disney Plus show was indeed a continuation of the story so far, that would mean it’d be a show produced specifically for the hardcore fans. Crafting an entire show just for hardcore fans would be ill-advised at best, and would almost certainly not makes sense business-wise and in the context of Kingdom Hearts altogether.
Further Confusion From a Sequel
There’s also the issue of presentation and intent, again assuming this show is a sequel. Anyone who’s not a hardcore fan of Kingdom Hearts may decide to view this Disney Plus show on a whim without any expectations. For the franchise’s first TV show to be a sequel would spawn plenty of confusion for the average viewer. The overarching plot of Kingdom Hearts is convoluted and multi-faceted, meaning anyone to stumble upon the Disney Plus show would be immediately confused and discouraged from watching further.
The Kingdom Hearts series is already bad enough at telling a cohesive story, considering practically every spin-off game on various different gaming ecosystems like Nintendo 3DS or PlayStation Portable, has in someway been integral to the main story. Part of why the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 collections were released was to centralize all of the many spin-off games together into one single experience. Even then there are many pivotal character developments and plot points relegated to the spin-off games that following the main story is a disjointed effort reserved strictly for hardcore fans. Adding a television show into that mix is only going to make Kingdom Hearts even harder to follow.
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Even an Adaptation is Concerning
That being said, even if this Disney Plus Kingdom Hearts show is just a retelling of the game’s story, there’s still some drawbacks there as well. Any attempt at making the Kingdom Hearts adventure more accessible to Disney or Final Fantasy fans is great in concept, but crafting an entire show to do this will require a lot of nuance and plenty of explaining. While the first Kingdom Hearts is relatively simple to understand, the battle of light vs. darkness, everything beyond the core conflict exacerbates the plot’s complexity tenfold.
Veterans of the Kingdom Hearts games have come to understand the different intricacies and subsidiaries of the series’ plot over 18 years, spanning 10 games across the franchise (not including several remakes/remasters). Condensing that story, optimistically, into a five-to-seven season run of a TV show is going to be incredibly difficult to say the least. TV shows like anime and other adaptations tend to cut corners on plot specifics that don’t need to be glossed over in games, due to the higher time commitment and engagement. Glossing over plot details in Kingdom Hearts is a recipe for disaster considering how nearly every detail is inter-connected. Whether it’s the Heartless, Nobodies, darkness itself, Xehanort’s identity, Organization XIII, or anything else, there’s just too much going on for a proper TV show to encapsulate all the little details in Kingdom Hearts.
Watching how this reported Disney Plus show plays out should be interesting, depending on what part it will play within the world of Kingdom Hearts. A retelling/adaptation of the games makes the most sense, but despite how simplistic the main conflict of the series may be in the first game, things become a lot more convoluted and strange as the series progresses. Keeping up with the show’s story is going to be a difficult task, both on the part of the show itself and any viewers watching it who may not be fans of Kingdom Hearts.
A Kingdom Hearts Disney Plus show is reportedly in development.
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