Cute girls doing cute things? NAH NAH! This is BIG MEN DOING MAN SHIT! Come on over and put some hair on your chest. If you thirst for a return for the bygone era of manly battle anime, this is one series for you. Punchfighting, martial arts and ridiculous techniques galore, Kengan Ashura is a must see. (P.S. This review is for the whole season, not just this half. I refuse to conform to Netflix' stupid release schedule) Right, have you seen or read Baki? Well, if you have, this is basically the guy that copied his homework from there. The overlap is significant and if youenjoyed one, there's no reason not to experience the other too. Thankfully though, Kengan Ashura is more than different enough to stand on its own muscular legs. Because you never skip legday, ya pansies! Here, the ridiculousness is much more subdued and it's more focused on straightforward martial arts. It's also centered around a singular lengthy tournament arc that takes up pretty much the whole season here. Also, unlike Baki, the female characters aren't just walking "woman moments" and are actually interesting and engaging. They're also really sexy and what is a good action series without some eyecandy, amirite? The setup and worldbuilding is alright, nothing to write home about, but then again this isn't trying to be anything deep. The main goal is to have amazing action every episode and that much is done wonderfully. Set a clear goal and motivation, establish some awesome fighters, give them a ring to fight in and let them have it. Pure awesomeness distilled to the core.
A good reason for the quality of action and one of the most recognizable things about this anime is the use of CGI. Normally anime fans recoil at the mention of this, but here I think it works great. Almost the entire anime is CGI, so it feels more like a stylistic choice than a budget cut. It makes sense, since Kengan is 90% action and by using these graphics, it allows the fights to be much more fluid and dynamic without burning money. Every hit is fast, fluid and impactful and it's very refreshing to see an anime where the attacks per minute is higher than the words per minute. Just straightforward brawls that are always a joy to behold. During flashbacks and other such moments, the artstyle also loves to shift into various artistic modes and this is really cool too, gives each flashback its own feel and adds great visual variety. Overall, I think only some snob would have an issue with how the CGI is used here. We've come a long long way from the Berserk abomination. Oh, and the music is really solid too, especially the wrestling style entrance themes for each character. The voice acting is super over the top and energetic too, makes every character stand out and become memorable.
Granted, the anime is not perfect. Firstly, it is just a straightforward tournament, so if you wanted something deeper go watch some artsy fartsy shit like Death Note or something, idk. This is a fighting story first and foremost. The other thing is the use of some characters. Tokita Ohma is a great protagonist imo and I find him very interesting, but because of the format of the series he gets sidelined for a vast majority of the season and that kinda sucks. He feels like a side character in his own show. The other thing is because these first brackets need to be gone through to get to the bigger meatier fights, some showdowns end way too quickly. It happened a couple of times where a character with a very interesting design, backstory and fighting style would show up, I'd get excited to see what he does and then he'd get demolished with just one or two attacks and are never seen or heard from again. Just feels disappointing. I get that the creators wanted to put some special sauce into every character, but please don't go through so much effort to make me care about somebody just to one shot them and dump them forever afterwards.
Overall, Kengan Ashura can best be described as a ton of fun! It's some oldschool action that doesn't pretend to be more than it is. The main goal is to get big muscular men to beat the crap out of each other for grand entertainment and boy does it work. A worthy entry into the BIG MEN DOING MAN SHIT genre and a must watch for any fan of good fighting. It really Kengans my Ashura.
Recommended
Kengan Ashura I liked everything about this season. The fights, the ost, the dynamic between the characters, the animation and hell, even the CG. It has good fights and some interesting characters and character designs. The fight that i liked the most was Ohma vs Raian because both went insane when they fought each other. Kengan Ashura is similar to Baki and thats why i like it, but also it has things on its own that make it good. I cannot wait for the 3rd and maybe last season. In terms of scores: Story- 7 Art- 8 Sound- 10Characters- 10
Enjoyment- 10
Overall- 9
I recommend it to those that want to watch good fights, with great soundtrack and cool techniques.
Not Recommended
Poor animation, poor use of CGi, overlong exposition, slideshow to describe past events, impossible twists for the sake of twisting, what else do you need? The CGi is actually the best part of the show for me. There are sequences where the characters were hand drawn and the animation was very poor. Now the combat itself was interesting, but some unworldly twists that were just impossible even in anime universe made me jump out of it. For example, a small character whose ribs have been broken, pounded, stabbed by the opponent's fingers, his head crushed against the wall 5 times till the wall cracked. Ok, thissmall guy suddenly reversed the situation by choking his opponent who's 100lbs heavier than him... Yeah no.
Or that Super Saiyan fight towards the end of the season, where both fighters "transform" and the combat itself is barely watchable because of all the power punches animation smoking the screen.
If I wanted to watch Dragon Ball I would watch DB. The story barely moves forward and it's very predictable.
