Kentoushi

I went into “Kentoushi” expecting a mediocre to dull boxing anime, but came out having found an OVA of such hilariously poor quality that it rivals “Twinkle Nora Rock Me.” About half (not an exaggeration) of the choppy animation is recycled, there are long shots of actual pictures of cityscapes used as scene transitions, the “Rocky”-esque plot and characters are cheesy as all get-out, and the fight scenes will have you rolling over with laughter. The theme song, which is in English and featured prominently throughout all three episodes, is a sentimental ballad about a reluctant hero who is training to take down a murderer ... — which is not even what the plot is about!

“Kentoushi” (literally meaning “The Boxer”) is about a Japanese guy named Kenji Ryu, who dreams of someday becoming the world heavyweight boxing champion. The problem, though, is that he can’t find any gym in Japan willing to train someone in the heavyweight class, so through a series of convoluted events, he gets on a boat to America with a man named Eddie, a boxing coach who has mentored other Japanese champions in the past, and has agreed to be his coach. They arrive in New York City and face a lot of hardships at first, and Kenji struggles to be accepted by the American boxers. He meets a girl named Megumi (Meg), also from Japan, whose dream is to be a Broadway star, and they quickly form a relationship. He also meets Sam, another Japanese guy who has been struggling to make it in the US, who becomes Kenji’s manager. Kenji faces rivals both in and out of the ring, and when Eddie suddenly falls ill, Kenji even goes into “underground boxing” to earn money for Eddie’s operation. Will Eddie survive, and will Kenji get back into regular boxing and become the first Japanese heavyweight boxing champion?

This OVA could be considered a 3-part movie, as it tells one story. The story is easy to understand, and has a clear beginning, middle and end, even with epilogue scenes (one of the corniest epilogues you’ll ever see). As for the quality of the story? Well, let’s just say it’s entertaining. The dialogue is hilariously cliched, especially in the parts that are supposed to be romantic. The second episode even ends with text on the screen that says something like “Cheer Kenji on in the boxing ring of life,” referring to his relationship with Meg. Kenji’s rivals often hurl anti-Asian and anti-Japanese slurs at him, and say stuff like “I’m going to kill you” even though they’re just supposed to be boxing, and not in a deathmatch or anything. There are copious references to the “American Dream” as well.

The characters are all basically archetypes who are playing out their roles. The way Meg’s character is written, in particular, is disappointing. They make a big deal about her having a similar dream to Kenji’s about making it big in the US, but her dream only gets lip service here and there, and then eventually falls to the wayside. Not only do we never see her working towards her dream, we don’t even know if she actually achieved her dream by the end of the story. She also has “friends” who show up briefly, but only one has any lines, and he disappears from the story almost as soon as he appears. The people that helped Kenji out in Japan are barely even referred to after the events in the first episode. Most of the antagonists seem really angry at Kenji for no reason, and the ones he meets outside of the ring are dressed almost like characters out of “Mad Max” or “Escape from New York.” Sam is okay, I guess, although underdeveloped, and Eddie is your typical old, hard-boiled and strict coach. Kenji himself seems pretty flat in the first episode, but he develops a slight personality and emotions later on.

One of the first things you’ll notice about “Kentoushi” is the animation — or lack thereof, I should say. As mentioned earlier, it would not be an exaggeration to say that half of the scenes shown in this OVA are recycled. There are also lots of still shots (like slideshows during fights), and looped animations (like during the disco scene). And there are actual aerial pictures of cities used frequently throughout the show as scene transitions. Text gets shown on screen quite a bit as well, with computer graphic animation effects such as revolving text that were probably state of the art when this came out in 1990.

The art isn’t that great, either. The characters look kind of ugly, and Kenji in particular looks like he has a rectangular face. The African-American characters all look so similar to each other that it’s hard to tell them apart. Meg’s friend, who came to the US to be a “hair designer,” has the worst hairstyle in the show (and that’s saying a lot).

The music is one of the highlights of this anime. The theme song, “He’ The Fighter” (not a typo), is incredibly memorable, and it’s bizarre. The song is first introduced with text on the screen in each episode showing its title, composer and lyricist (but not the singer), almost like the beginning of a music video. This is then followed by text saying that “the song used was provided by the Asahi Film Office.” I couldn’t find any “Asahi Film Office” online, so it may not exist anymore. Also, the way this is written makes it sound like they just used an already existing song for this anime, which makes sense, considering the lyrics don’t match the plot at all. The lyrics themselves are okay, but there’s something strangely off about them. The lyricist is currently the honorary president of an English conversation school, by the way. The melody was composed by someone who’s done other anime songs in the past, and it’s quite catchy. The singer remains a mystery. As far as I can tell, no soundtrack was released for this anime, and this song itself was never released, either, which is a shame. As for the background music, it’s generic (also probably picked up from an existing music library), but it fits the scenes that it’s used in well.

The voice acting is not that great, but it does succeed in being funny. Kikuko Inoue gives a good performance as Meg, but she seems miscast. Most of the other characters are voiced by other professional voice actors, but they sound like they’re phoning it in at some points (probably due to the silly dialogue). There are a few minor characters who don’t sound like they’re voiced by professionals.

Regarding objectionable content, there isn’t much, certainly not enough to get it the R-17+ rating it currently has here. There’s some blood (mostly in still shots, and very exaggerated), and some racial slurs. And most of the fighting is just boxing, so it’s not particularly violent (and certainly not graphic, due to the lack of animation). Also, it’s important to note that there’s a scene at a disco in the second episode that uses strobe effects, so if you’re photosensitive it’s a good idea to skip that scene.

This is one of those shows that will leave people divided with regard to its rating. If you like “so-bad-it’s-good”-type shows, you’ll find this highly entertaining and a must-see. If you don’t, then you won’t enjoy this anime. I recommend watching the first five minutes of the first episode — if you like what you see, then this anime is for you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the whole thing is subbed as of this writing, so if you don’t understand Japanese you may miss out on some of the more hilarious parts, but it’s still worth watching.