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Japanese manga series

, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yuichi Kumakura. The series was originally serialized in Kodansha's Comic Bom Bom magazine from 1995 to 1998; the publisher later collected the individual chapters into seven tankōbon volumes. The series continued in Kodansha's Magazine Z in 1999, under the title KING OF BANDIT JING, known as Jing: King of Bandits: Twilight Tales outside of Japan and ran until finishing in 2005. The story revolves around a teenage boy named Jing who despite his young age is known as the "King of Bandits". Along with his partner Kir, a talking albatross, he travels the world in search of new adventures and legendary treasure. Throughout the series the duo manage to pull off impossible heists and outwit countless enemies that stand in their way. Jing: King of Bandits features a motif in the form of references to alcohol. Volumes of the manga are "bottles", episodes and chapters are "shots", Jing and Kir's special attack is a "Kir Royal", and almost every character and location is named after an alcoholic beverage or cocktail. In 2002, five of the original seven manga volumes were adapted into an anime television series that totaled 13 episodes. Produced by Aniplex and animated by Studio Deen, the TV series aired on NHK from May 15, 2002 to August 14, 2002. The two studios went on to produce a three part original video animation that adapted the fourth volume of the original manga in 2004 under the title Jing: King of Bandits in Seventh Heaven (王ドロボウ JING in Seventh Heaven). Tokyopop licensed both the original manga and Twilight Tales for English language releases in North America, while ADV Films handled the licensing of the anime series and the Seventh Heaven original video animation.

King of Bandits Jing is a series of short, usually disconnected stories starring the young boy who calls himself Jing, the Bandit King. Although Jing's reputation seems to extend throughout the universe of the series, many enemies underestimate him, not expecting the "great" King of Bandits to be a "little kid". The stories vary a great deal, especially between the initial manga series and the sequel series, Jing: King of Bandits: Twilight Tales. In the initial series, stories often border on comical and cartoonish. Each arc includes a new treasure or object that Jing is seeking, a woman or girl who accompanies him somewhere along the way on his quest for this item, and an enemy that either wants to protect what it is he intends to steal, or get to it before he does. Settings also vary; Jing travels to a clockwork city, a desert with living lava, and even deliberately gets himself arrested to steal something from inside a maximum security prison, among other fantastic locales. He always escapes in the end of each arc, and always manages to steal his target, although not always in the way that the characters or the reader expects. Each arc also features the upset of some restrictive societal norm thanks to Jing's intervention; rulers are dethroned, prison riots are caused, an entire corrupt religion is reduced to shambles. Twilight Tales also ran seven volumes. Jing no longer manages to steal every treasure he sets out after in the arcs. In Twilight Tales, more often than not, Jing actually winds up fighting the sought object, or having to destroy it in some way. There is also a short arc featuring Jing's past. In both these childhood arcs, Jing is already calling himself the King of Bandits. There is no fixed ending for either series.

The manga and anime got mixed reviews from English speaking critics. Animefringe called the manga imaginative and humorous. Allen Divers felt the series played its one trick pony to the hilt and had generic artwork. Jeffrey Harris of IGN praised the story of Jing's past. A review in The Escapist complained about static characters, flimsy plot, and poorly directed action sequences. Theron Martin praised the OVA series for its creative visual design and energetic musical score. Jonathan Clements noted that Jing was a series "which nobody really watched".