Souten no Ken: Regenesis

I rarely ever write reviews, but after finishing this dreadful thing that calls itself an anime, I felt like I just had to put my opinion out there.

A wise man once said, "Never go full retard". That's something Souten no Ken Re: Genesis seems to completely ignore.

Firstly, I would like to start with the most prominent thing that I have on my mind right now: The bad guys that have their own designs and don't look like random background or cannon fodder characters OR as I like to call them, the medium tier enemies.

All of them look like pigs OR some variation of pigs. Both ... in appearance and in intelligence. Even the sounds they make are like those of pigs. I assume this was intentional, I don't understand however the 'why'. Was it for comedic purposes? I don't think so, I never once found myself smiling because of their looks. Was I supposed to go "Oooh! He looks like a pig lmao!"? Was this the reaction they were hoping to get? I am as confused as you are about this decision. Making them look like everybody else would've been far better than what we got.

There is this one dude towards the end. He's a bad guy who infiltrated the German army and acted as a "spy" for Kenshiro's enemy. That same guy can barely hold a normal conversation and is as dumb as a brick wall. I am very curious how in the hell he ever managed to trick ANYONE and didn't blew his cover on the first day. Or maybe I was supposed to take it at face value and not give a fuck about anything? That is a high possibility.

That's another thing btw, the soldiers in this anime are as dumb as they come. They all have guns, but rarely will you see any of them actually using their weapons effectively. They prefer to get reeeeeeaaaally close to Kenshiro and the rest, you know, the guys who know deadly martial arts and can kill people with one hit? Yeah...

Admittedly, however, I did come to enjoy a few episodes here and there. I don't know if it was me or the show itself, but it suddenly went into "it's so bad that it's good" territory, and I had quite a few laughs. That, however, didn't last as for some reason they introduced two idiots that served no purpose whatsoever to the story and are only there to make you laugh. Or in my case, make you regret ever watching this anime. They're PigManWithAMask-kun, and OldManWithAMetalWig-kun (I have no idea what their actual names are). Would you look at that, another character who looks like a pig! At this point, I just think the author has a weird pig fetish.

Most of the dialogue is pretty cringy. In some other anime it might've worked, but SnK Re: Genesis jumps between comedy and seriousness far too often to warrant itself great and convincing speeches and/or dialogue. It just falls flat like so many other things in this anime.

Let's talk about something nice for a change. The main cast is pretty decent. I have no major qualms with them. Sometimes they can be cheesy, but I can take that, no problem. The little blonde girl is the one who steals most scenes. She sometimes acts too mature for her age, but I still ended up liking her.

Yin-Ling? I think that's her name? She's also some really nice eye-candy if you know what I mean ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Let's address the elephant in the room now. The CGI "animation". I don't know if this is how Polygon Pictures has done all of their other anime, I haven't seen any of their other projects yet, but boy this show has some terrible frame rate. A small DISCLAIMER here: The "animation" might hurt your eyes or even make you feel dizzy, for me it was the latter until I got used to it 2-3 episodes later. So, just be careful when watching this show.

The characters are disproportionate. Their hands are gigantic, their heads are small. It's especially obvious whenever Kenshiro smokes, the cigarettes look like toothpicks in his hands. And he smokes a lot, like, all the time 24/7. So, you can't really ignore it even if you wanted to. Their wounds magically disappear. I don't know if super fast healing is a thing in this universe. If it is, then just ignore this part. If it isn't, then...Well, I'm not sure what to say.

I'd like to take the time and praise the Opening. Both the music and the intro animation and editing are really well done (it was the main reason I started this anime, to begin with). It works well with hyping you up about the episode.

I think this is all I wanted to say. Thank you for reading. I'm leaving a TL;DR below since this ended up being much longer than I expected.

TL;DR - The anime has some of the worst writing I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing, not to mention that utterly horrendous CGI "animation". The anime cannot decide what it wants to be, it tries to walk the thin line between seriousness and comedy but falls flat on its face every single time. It is not worth it, if you want to watch something truly great that doesn't insult your intelligence at every turn, go watch Megalo Box.

I have e to agree this SNK Regenesis is a terrible anime, lol And I for one don't like CGI in any anime. I don't even care if its got the most brilliant plot imaginable; its always cringy. But it kinda made me want to play the game; lmao.

It felt like they were stuck with the formula that they worked with in the past and couldn't really add more to the OVA's and movies. So their only option was to make a CGI anime; which is agreeably a profoundly retarded decision. I can honestly say I would rather watch the ... 1986 version over anything like this again.

I believe there was like, this one director guy, think his name was Martin Socrates. There's this quote going around from him saying like, ''This is cinema.'', and I've seen it be used around friend groups mainly as a meme.

Why do I bring this entirely unrelated factoid into this? Because I'd like to make a point. Prior to this, I decided to go read Fist Of The Blue Sky for funsies on top of Fist Of The North Star, and it was a geniuenely lovely compliment to a already amazing manga...though I heard it in the same digital breath as this. I had never known ... anything about Regenesis beyond that it was a strange CGI anime and not much else, so while I brushed it off: it subconsciously piqued my interest. Later, I brought up the anime to a guy I know about how it was weird, and he gave me a taste of what was even in this. It sounded wild to me, and instead of heeding his warning...curiousity got the best of me and decided that the only way that I will ever truly grasp just how strange of a adaption this is, is to experience it.

And I did.

I don't know if it was my fault for not listening to him, but I did.

I fully understand that this anime was *made to promote the sequel manga to Blue Sky (that I wasn't even aware of until the second I entered 'regenesis' into the search bar after making a account)*, and I read said sequel manga too. I understand and recognize that this is nothing more than a quick loose advertizement for a manga, which is why it's surreal even in it's differences to what the Regenesis manga actually contained, as small as they are, but I'm here to provide my take on this. It's the entire reason why I made this account, besides the fact that Letterboxd is focused on movies and TV shows so it did not have much of the other kinds of media that I consume: which is well, Japanese animation and comics.

This review will serve as a view of this anime through the lens of it being a anime adaption, and *soley* a anime adaption.

This is not cinema. This is the adaption equivilant of A Serbian Film. For the perspective of a newcomer, this is *stupidly* confusing. How will a viewer who has never read Blue Sky even *know* these characters well and stick with them when the pacing is, pardon my French, too fucking fast? Where even *is* the Hong Hua Hui? Why did they reduce them to, and I recognize this is evident in canon, comic relief? Where even *is* the slow introduction of the main protagonist, Kenshiro Kasumi? Where are those little details that are entirely left out from the manga? Oh, I know, it's soley because they were slapped *right* at your face in the beginning. The first half of this is treated like a lightning round so we can get to know Erika, Fei-Yan, Yasaka, and Colonel Guise For Some Reason so we can get to the Regenesis part of it all. And when we do get to the Regenesis part...it is a jumpscare compared to the manga. The new characters introduced are all depicted and executed as such *pushovers*. The only character that even comes *close* to being capable of being respected amongst those excuses for villains is the twist one. Erika in this is just horribly disrespected right from the get go the moment we transition to the Regenesis half, because she immediately turns into a plot device. The other canon characters are treated as throwaways. The only canon one that's even *safe* from this treatment is Kenshiro, but even *he* gets a uncalled for end but the geniuenely sorrowful sendoff to him is what prevents me from listing this as Appalling.

Overall, a big Y. And to those who are seeking to see this for yourself...don't, unless you're a masochist. Go read the Blue Sky manga. It'll save your life. Read the Regenesis manga too, that one's better as a sequel. If you want a real anime adaption of Blue Sky, the 2006 anime's yours. Your choice.