Kengan Ashura

Yes, yet another Netflix anime. At this point, you’d think I have a subscription but I do not. I can however, leech off of my sibling.

An anime by Netflix based on the manga of the same name made with an animation style similar to that of Ultraman. This time, it’s a no holds barred fighting anime revolving around an old man at the pinnacle of a subservient lifestyle and a young man hell bent on fighting the strongest people in the world. I know it sounds weird but I promise that it actually makes just enough sense to be believable.

I'm going to set the premise aside for now because in all honesty, it means so little. You don't even need to know the names of the main characters. Just know that the old man doesn't fight and he's more like a viewpoint character and the main fighter is the dude in the splash image up above.

So when I say fighting anime, I do mean it. The show heavily focuses on martial arts and just about every detail of the fisticuffs that are happening in every fight. Each fighter uses a specific type of martial arts and while some are fictional, most are actually rooted in reality. You have boxing, wrestling, karate, grappling and so on. In fact, they’re so diverse considering the number of fighters that I’m fairly impressed with the author for actually doing the necessary research on all of these styles including the terminology used.

The fights are stunningly animated (except for the very first one), techniques are shown and explained in detail and every fight just takes its time. They show you the complicated grappling holds and transitions, the thought process of each fighter and the definitive weight of every punch and kick thrown. It feels satisfying to say the least. Sometimes though, the fights may escalate to anime-levels of destruction and believability but honestly, it doesn’t detract quite as much as I imagined.

Aside from the fights however, the series falls quite short. Now, I went ahead past the anime to read the manga (which has ended) so I feel like my opinion carries weight when I say that everything outside the action is not very good.

The characters are very much undeveloped save for a few and even then, calling them interesting characters is a bit of a stretch. You have a backstory every now and again but most of the character building actually comes straight from the narrator! He just tells you about their history or a random flashback will be shown with absolutely zero context. This is not effective and it certainly does not help in any aspect of the storytelling.

In terms of the story, there is none. There are major hints of a big overarching story that stems far beyond the titular Kengan tournament but that was about it. It's safe to say that there is practically no story in Kengan Ashura. Anything that can be considered a story is short-lived and serve absolutely zero purpose in the end.

Until you reach the sequel manga at least. Kengan Omega is the sequel manga to Ashura and is literally where the story starts. The entirety of Kengan Ashura is simply treated as some elaborate prologue. I don’t even know whether to like or hate this but in all honesty, I don’t think it matters too much. You watch/read this to see muscle-bound men duke it out. You don’t watch it for any sort of story or theme or character growth.

So if you're thinking of watching it, go right ahead. Expect some fun fights and light humor. But if you think there's going to be any sort of story (especially because it's constantly alluded to), you can forget it. Don't get disappointed.

P.S. I've seen people comparing this to Baki and saying how it's waaaay better in terms of story and characters. I shudder to think what Baki is like.