Hey, you there, yeah you, do you like lots of fighting? Of course, you do, what about crazy anime reactions? Hell yeah, what about all the anima cliches you can think of – like every character with a tragic or weird backstory, everyone having like 7 hidden power levels, and maybe some gay tensions? Well, let me introduce you to a little anime named Kengan Ashura.
Kengan Ashura takes the basic building block of any fighting anime – you have a huge tournament where only the mightiest clash, our main hero likes food a lot, and all that stuff you expect to find in this type of story. That’s not all, it throws in corporations, business assassinations, and economical terms to create this interesting idea between strength and money. But there’s something more that ties everything together, I can only describe it in one word – Extra.
The show at times feels very self-aware of what they’re doing and what cheap trick to use best. Remember that gay tension I mentioned before, well I lied, there’s a lot of Tension in this show….A LOT…The creativity of all the side characters reminded me of a bit of One-Punch Man, which also had a cast of interesting and likable characters. It’s at the same time a crazy animation and a slow philosophical conversation – and both of them are on steroids.
Now, the animation is a mixture of 2D and 3D art, which is….am, look, the fights are very nicely animated, the flow, movements, and weight of the impact fells just like they should, and at times the 2D animation is amazing…but…that 3D can be super noticeable…it’s not Berserk 2016 levels of “Oh god how is this even considered animation”, but it can annoy some people. Personally, I think it’s one of the few shows that manage to work with this style.
Half of the show is taken by you constantly asking yourself – “What the **** is that?”, “Why is that? What even? Jezus Christ…” but the funny thing is that the show kind of knows that so you always get an explanation of what and how it worked like that. I was surprised just how much of this show was based on real martial arts, hell, even science in some places. It made the story feel bigger and more expansive than it is.
Egidijus watching the 1 episode – Man, I dunno, it’s a weird story with people just punching each other, I don’t think I will watch it anymore.
Egidijus watching the 23 episode – Fuc*…….
Side-note: The trailer is actually kinda bad….real bad, the sound mixing, and editing is much better in the show. The soundtrack is actually really good.
IMDB and some more rants/reviews
