Over the past 2 months, I have successfully cultivated a ferocious appetite of anything Kengan Ashura related due to finally giving the series a chance. Having breezed through the two seasons on Netflix, I am really eager to see season 3. Before watching the show, I originally had a negative impression based on the manga. About a couple years back when Kengan Ashura was first picked up by the scanlating group, Hokuto no Gun, I had read through the first chapter. I was not impressed and was very turned off. If I had to guess why, I wasn't in particular a fan of the art style and I don't remember reading manga with much intent. At the time, it didn't click with me so I had put it down and forgotten about it altogether. Fast forward to 2020, I'm approaching the series with an entirely different attitude.
It's 2020. The world is affected with the pandemic. Everyone's staying at home. Work has not been fulfilling for me and is now two times more stressful. I'm at home feeling depressed and angry most of the time. Since the quarantine began for New York, I had stopped reading manga, watching anime or dramas altogether. It was a solid half year or so of little to no entertainment. Looking back these few months, I don't know how I got through not watching a single thing that wasn't dedicated to leisure. So when does Kengan Ashura come into my life?
The last thing I had finished was the Netflix production of Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no Juunin -Immortal) and I was really pleased. Another life changing series for me that I want to write about sometime. I'm sifting through my mind on what I want to start and then I remembered Netflix made an adaptation of Kengan Ashura in conjunction with Larx Entertainment. Even though I still hadn't forgotten about my initial dislike, I decided to give it a try. Part of the reason was that they selected BAD HOP to perform the ending theme to the show. I'm a fan of BAD HOP and their song Born This Way before I even knew it was selected as an outro. Not to mention that the opening theme King & Ashley is fire as hell. When you look closely at the lyrics of Born This Way, it's pretty much talking about Ohma.
先を照らすネオン
This line can loosely refer to Ohma's past from the Inside or the first scene where we are introduced to him in Kabukicho.
Interests that can be paid by leasing past borrowings
As I go through episode 1, I was very surprised. I knew what was going to happen based on chapter 1 of the manga and that was as far as I read, but all of a sudden everything came alive. For once I was impressed with the 3DCGI used. It wasn't choppy or floaty like in the 2016 production of Berserk or the 2012 production of Kingdom. The only series I know that used better frame rates for animation was the 2018 production of Souten no Ken: Re:genesis (Fist of the Blue Sky Re:genesis). And as the series progressed, I saw that a lot of the scenes used 3DCGI instead of 2D drawings. They managed to blend the two techniques quite well and the models of each character were well made.
Now for the criticism on 3DCGI, I do think it's near impossible to
seamlessly blend 2D drawing with models. You can still obviously tell
between the 2 and sometimes the 2D drawings aren't as consistent as I
wanted them to be. Some of the 2D drawings were sloppily drawn. Considering how expensive and time consuming it would
have been to animate all kengan matches in 2D, it's a very daunting
task. The decision by the studio to go the 3DCGI may have been a better
choice at the time. Some people are very quick to jump on 3D animation as something they would never accept in anime. All I can say is that rendering takes hell of a long time and anime being a quickly consumed product, you need to have a huge budget and not a lot of studios have that kind of money lying around. Which is why we see a lot of studios outsource their work to other countries.
What I do like about the series is the studio's animation approach to the combination of 2D drawing and 3D. Certain flashbacks are colored in that yellowish tone with higher contrast to evoke a distant memory while certain scenes (typically backstories) are drawn in a pencil style with little motion. I find it refreshing and still capturing the spirit of the story. I am a big fan of that pencil-like style. It's kind of close to Daromeon's drawing style in Kengan Omega with more curves. You see this style emulated in the opening animation.
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| Opening animation example. |
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| Detailed pencil drawing overlayed by simple contrasting tones. |
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| Flashbacks are played with still images and voiceovers. Tend to have that yellowish tone. |
Art styles are hard to replicate in animated form and this is a challenge to all animation studios when they choose to adapt manga to motion. I see this in Golden Kamuy as Noda has a really unique way of drawing. It's hard to choose what to retain and what to discard when drawing for animation. Sometimes Noda's characters lose a bit of weight (not in a literal sense) because there is a lack of organic lines. The same goes for Kengan Ashura. Since they went for 3D models, they obviously have to design the model so that it still carries each fighter's body type and look good at all angles. I personally liked what they did for each character. This is my opinion, I feel that they made Ohma more appealing with nicer eyes. Manga Ohma's eyes can be threatening at times since it's not shaded in most of the time. To be fair, the manga's drawing wasn't always consistent so each volume is a little different. The more I look at Ohma in both mediums, manga Ohma is a lot more muscular than anime Ohma, who is still muscular no doubt but seems to adopt the more lean body type. The 3D model at certain angles has a more bishounen face type with a more pointed face.
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| Eyes that pierce into my non-fighter soul |
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| Here it's somewhat closer to the early manga style. |
What really breathed life into characters was the sound design and voices. We have a pretty star studded cast of seiyuu. Suzuki Tatsuhisa (Tokita Ohma), Ono Daisuke (Mikazuchi Rei), Koyama Rikiya (Akoya Seishu), and Tsuda Kenjiro (Gaolang Wongsawat) just to name a few. This was my first time hearing Suzuki Tatsuhisa use his deep voice for characters. For the Free! fans, you'll recognize him as the ever so nice senpai Tachibana Makoto and for the newer adaptation of Blade of the Immortal, Suzuki plays Magatsu Taito. Man, I have to say I enjoyed all the different sounds they employed on the show. Every sound of crushing bones and blood splattering gave each punch more weight and hence more believable. This added to the tension of each fight depending on the characters.
Speaking of sound, I need to give a round of applause for the music and soundtrack. As a proud owner of both the Kengan Ashura Soundtrack and The Anthems, I like to play it as background music while I work. Yasuharu Takanashi is among my favorite composers. You may recognize his work in Fairy Tail, Naruto, Mononoke, Shiki, Jigoku Shojo and more. The choice to use as much metal as possible and different genres of metal is a damn good one. You can hear echoes of Yasuharu Takanashi's past works in some of the tracks where he incorporates Japanese instruments. I think most people immediately think Naruto once they hear shamisen paired with rock now that it's been iconic with the series. Each fighter's entrance theme is recorded in The Anthems album. Some songs sound different on the album than on the show. For instance Meguro's entrance theme was comprised only of the acapella in a higher pitch and a slightly faster tempo while The Anthems version has it slightly slowed down and sung a bit lower. There are minor changes in Saw Paing's and Gaolang's entrance themes, one being cut short and the latter with a re-recording/remastering of vocals (I'm not an expert on sound). I thoroughly enjoy both albums with great intensity.
Now that I'm done watching season 1 and 2, I'm slowly reading the manga and comparing the two mediums. Needless to say, the Netflix anime is an adaption and shouldn't be held in contempt when scenes are cut out. It is an adaption, not a re-telling to a tee. Though the more I read the manga, the more material I wish they had retained in the story. Manga Ohma comes off as an asshole at first and even a little vulgar considering where he grew up. Some lines were rewritten for the adaptation and makes anime Ohma a little less rude, but still retains his cocky attitude. In a sense, I find anime Ohma easier to like than manga Ohma. Don't get me wrong, I love Ohma to bits. He's an S-tier fighter and bae material. There's something for everyone to like about. I wished they kept the scene where he bitch slapped Yasuo and gave him a smile of approval when Yasuo agreed to change for the better. It's a minor scene, but it introduces more nuances to Ohma's character.
As you read/watch more, you realize that the story is surprisingly
wholesome. A good majority of the characters appear as brutal fighters
on stage, but on the down low they're super nice and get along with each
other. With the exception of Raian, members of the Kure actually seem
like nice people. There's a good balance of humor and running gags as
well that unfortunately were cut out in the anime. I'm hoping they
include some of those extra 4-komas featuring the 4 Idiots/Clowns in
season 3. Speaking of cutting, as I re-watch Kengan Ashura the second time with knowledge of the manga, a lot of stuff has been cut out. A lot of those extra scenes for character building were removed which I assume is to fit in that 12 episode structure. I had wished that they were able to retain more material only because some scenes in the anime transition a little too quickly. Like how was Okubo all buddy-buddy with Rihito, Himuro and Kaneda so quickly if you didn't read the manga like I did at first? You would have to imply there was off screen interaction. What I'm hoping for now are some OVA releases if the studio decides to make some.
Onward to the subject of characters, there are no weak characters, just stronger characters. What I liked a lot about Kengan Ashura is that each character has their flaws. Some characters may serve as fodder, but it doesn't fall into the trap of making main characters too OP. Different personality quirks also make the cast more lively. For instance Hatsumi Sen can very easily be one of the strongest fighters, but he's lackadaisical at times. His kengan losses were a result of oversleeping and not showing up. There's such a colorful cast included in the story and it's hard for me to pick out a favorite character when I like so many of them.
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| Yamashita Kazuo the King of Debt |
Kaneda is a character I sympathize with the most having seen many people with poor health wanting to achieve big dreams to become strong. I was particularly moved when they showed Kaneda's backstory as a sickly child, but out of all characters, I identify the most with Yamashita Kazuo. Kazuo embodied most of what I felt in the year 2020, helpless and unappreciated as an unknown cog in a large machine. He's a salaryman with an estranged family that is constantly picked on by his superiors. For those that know, this sounds like a typical person stuck working in Japanese corporate. Kazuo eventually changed from his timid personality to a more brave and hopeful individual after his fateful encounter with Ohma. Much like my whimsical choice to suddenly give Kengan Ashura a chance, I have to say it has fired me up a lot from my depressive slump. Reading the manga now has giving me a little more more hope for the future. Fiction can provide inspiration to its consumers.
Having watched and gotten tired of watching shonen fights, there's a
reason why a lot of us eventually graduate to seinen fights. We don't want
any more bratty teenagers with skinny arms wielding too much power.
While there is an element of fantasy with fictional fighting styles and
techniques, there is a certain degree of realism to raise the stakes of
each fight. Each bout between fighters is staged so that you as a reader
think they begin on equal footing. Most sites I've seen list Kengan Ashura as shonen though I personally feel it can be considered seinen in some aspects. I guess if we consider the shonen genre, Kengan Ashura has got the main points down: themes of friendship, rivals, action and long tournaments. The reason I do feel that it leaned towards seinen was because of some of the deaths, the ultra-violence that was portrayed, some of the characterization and the eventual ending to Kengan Ashura.
Now as I slowly read the manga and re-watch the available seasons, I'm also playing the mobile game Kengan Ultimate Battle. It's essentially a gacha game where you form your teams to battle other characters and level them up. There's limited events to participate to get rewards like special skill cards or 4/5 star character cards, as well as daily missions to earn stamina, coins, and jewels. As of now the game is Japanese only and with my self-taught elementary language skills, I've managed to get by. The game is actually quite fun. It's region locked on Google Play, but not to worry. Download the QooApp and install the game from there. That's how I managed to get into Ryu ga Gotoku Online that I wanted to for so long.
There's a bunch of other Japanese-based games on the QooApp as well. I think the only thing I don't like about Kengan Ultimate Battle is that nearly every time I log on, I have to download some sort of update. Otherwise it's fine. For those that have not read the manga or watched the anime, I don't recommend this game because it's less immersive. If you have read or watched the series, this game is like an add-on to your interests. In the end, it's just another gacha game with a story attached to it. I'm guessing once season 3 is released on next year, they may bring major updates to characters, skills and items.
I may write more in depth reviews like this in the future. I do plan on giving Baki a try when I have the time for a taste of more martial arts based series. In conclusion, Kengan Ashura is a fun series packed with action, humor, and colorful cast of characters. It's not recommended for everyone, but anyone who is looking for a good fighting manga/show, give this one a try.
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