Kengan Ashura

Business deals are usually made through meetings and contracts; but in the world of Kengan Ashura, businesses resort to other means to make their decisions: by hiring gladiators. Yabako Sandrovich's Kengan Ashura depicts a world brimming with action, violence, and martial arts—one where powerful gladiators have fought in grand arenas since the Edo Period to settle the disputes of wealthy businesses and merchants.

Ouma Tokita, who is nicknamed "The Ashura," is a fighter trying to prove himself as the strongest. Hideki Nogi, a member of the Nogi Group, hires Ouma to fight for him and makes Kazuo Yamashita, an average middle-aged man, his manager. The duo is thrown into fights facilitated by the Kengan Association. Their journey will be full of ruthless battles with other fighters aiming for the same goal. Do they have what it takes to be the best?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tokita, Ouma Main

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa Japanese

Yamashita, Kazuo Main

Cho Japanese

Wongsawat, Gaolang Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Kure, Karla Supporting

Kurosawa, Tomoyo Japanese

Imai, Cosmo Supporting

Enoki, Junya Japanese

Sekibayashi, Jun Supporting

Inada, Tetsu Japanese

Kure, Raian Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Kanou, Agito Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Gensai, Kuroki Supporting

Genda, Tesshou Japanese

Hanafusa, Hajime Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Maeda, Toshihiro Producer

Kinoshita, Tetsuya Producer

Ishiguro, Tatsuya Producer

Sasaki, Reiko Producer

Reviews

Jul 31, 2019

Iyarashii

Recommended

This is my first review so I apologize in advance for poor formatting or it's not done well but I just thought I'd have a go at it.

First of all to all of those reading this please please please please try and look past the fact that it's 3D CGI as it's not as bad as you might think. It's not nearly as bad as Berserk was and in fact feels like it excels over traditional 2d when it comes to fighting scenes. The movement feels fluid as well as the choreography is very well done with no repeating actions and speaks well ... to the source material. The downside being that there is quite a few moments of exposition where a commentator or the peanut gallery may through in a few comments but overall wasn't too jarring.

The story felt true to the manga however it doesn't have as many interpersonal character development as the manga which is okay considering they have to fit the story down in to a 12 episode season. It certainly was able to transition well between the comedic moments as well as those that were more serious in nature and the impact of certain scenes were conveyed well.

I think the sound was one of the highlights of the show, every fighter has had theme song which really made their entrance into the fights feel more memorable and sometimes even gave more character to the fighters or fleshed them out a bit more. The sound effects in particular never felt like they were dull or out of place and felt natural as well.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the adaptation, it deserves a 2d animation medium for sure but don't let that distract you that the anime direction, sound, choreography and overall feel of the show felt like it was a memorable use of my time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 13, 2019

Zeroflamez

Mixed Feelings

I noticed some reviews of this show have been biased from manga readers. I have also read the manga too, but I wanted to try and give a review from the point of view of someone that hasn't read the source material.

Lets get started


- Brief synopsis
A middle aged salary man named Yamashita Kazuo on his way home runs into Fighter Tokita Ohma and see's him beat up a another huge fighter. The next day Kazuo is invited to talk to the owner of his company where he is dragged into the world of the Underground fighting circuit called "The Kengan fights".There he is re-acquianted ... with Tokita where their journey begins to compete and attempt to win the Kengan Tournament.

- Story
The plot is basic enough. Company CEO's have fighters represent them and fight for them in Kengan Matches. Fighters fight to see who's strongest, and other personal reasons. Their CEO handlers are in it for the prize(money, property, and whatever to further their companies.) Every so often there's a Kengan Tournament where only the best of these fighters come together to compete to be Champion and win their boss the position as the new Kengan Comittee Chairman. The whole story is basically one big Tournament arc. I know that will scare many away but it's really about all the subplots between characters that really makes it not just another "people fighting" anime.

- Characters
Characters are everything from cool looking to Drag Queens
To walking stereotypes that have their own fighting styles. That's about it. No developement of any sort in the 12 episodes. Though some of the cast do have their back stories touched upon.

-Pacing
Very fast. It can be jarring at times when it goes from fight to fight so fast with no grace period in between.

- Art and Animation
The anime consists of 3D CG models and 2D hand drawn art. CG is used for the fights and 2D is mainly used for static stills or scenes with not much movement. Sometimes however you have one character thats CG in a frame with another character drawn in 2D in the same frame. It looks odd but I didn't find it as jarring as other people have said.

They also use a really stylish way of presenting the visuals to the viewer during flash back scenes or when the narrator is explaining something. It's a combination of still images and audio showing you what's going. So the camera would show an image then pan over to another image that will either have the narrator speaking or a character(or character's).

Overall the 2D art looks fine. The CG is decent and surprisingly quite fluid(can be clunky at times). Is it as good as say the "Ultraman" 2019 CGI Anime? No, but is it as bad as the "Berserk" 2015 CGI Anime? No. In my opinion it's a decent middle ground.

I personally didn't mind all of the different art styles and techniques used though I do understand how some would dislike it. I'm unsure whether it was a design choice or budget issues. I jmagine both due to the fact both the video for the OP and ED are quite lackluster and you can tell they didn't have the funds to put effort into them they'd have liked to.

- Music

The opening theme (The King and Ashley by My First Story)
I really enjoyed the opening song and was anticipating it ever since I heard the snippet from the PV(Preview) for Kengan Ashura months ago. It's a Pretty good Jrock song that does the job to set the tone.

The ending theme (Born this way by Bad Hop)
I enjoyed the ending. It's Japanese Rap. It balances out the hard hitting opening by having a more mellow and melodic ending. Works especially well since every episode ends with a fight.

The rest of the music consists of heavy metal and other insert music that is quite forgettable.

- Sound
Sound effects are fine, the audio sounds great. When the announcer is introducing fighters and commentating, her voice is powerful and has a lot of energy and flare. You really feel like you're actually at the Kengan Tournament.

Voice acting (viewed in Japanese)
All the characters sound exactly as I'd imagine. They really put together a great cast. I'm especially impressed with the announcer Sayaka Katahara(voiced by Mana Hirata). She really did a fantastic job playing the role of "Master of Ceremonies" and doing super hype fighter introductions and commentary.

I can't speak on the dub but it does have veterans like Johnny Yong Bosch so it should be pretty good even if they used the same actors for multiple roles unlike the Japanese version which is understandable.

- Enjoyment
This is where I'm going to diverge from looking at the anime as is.
Honestly it was just ok. Even before the anime aired I knew it would be hard to adapt it properly and I was correct. A lot of character interaction was axed as well other events that took place before the tournament started that are referenced later in sub plots and in the plot itself. What makes Kengan Ashura is its characters more than the fights.

In the manga they're so individualized with their personalities. We don't get to see that in the anime due to them removing interactions. In turn it just makes the whole show feel like a bare bones adaption that's too fast paced. The anime rushes from fight to fight with just enough plot so you don't get completely lost. I can understand why they did this though. The way the Manga is presented makes it hard to adapt. Easier to adapt fights than a ton of character dialogue and interactions that only real work in comic format and don't translate well when animated

. Overall I'd say it's more of a Kengan Ashura lite. If you just wanna see cool characters fighting each other and don't care about much else than I recommend this. In my opinion they accomplished what they set out for. A show that can be enjoyed on its own as a stand alone and that can also make people want to seek out the manga for a more complete experience.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 31, 2019

Bored_Ronin

Not Recommended

The Kengan Ashura anime is the most disappointing thing I've seen all year. I love the manga, it's one of the best martial arts stories and I wrote an entire review on how cool it is. I've been wary of the anime adaptation ever since I saw the first trailer and realized it was going to be in CGI. Being a Kengan Ashura, I felt obligated to watch it but I set my expectations extremely low. apparently, those expectations weren't low enough because I am still baffled at how awful this show is.

The most glaring problem with the anime is the CGI animation. While not ... the worst CGI that I've seen, it's far from what I'd call good. Character models are clunky and stiff, the attacks lack impact. The CGI does a poor job of emulating the beautiful art of the manga. The fight choreography is terrible, the camera is all over the place, never knowing what to focus on. At best it's uninspired and at worst it's just disorientating. It doesn't feel like it's ever taking advantage of the fact that it's CGI. The anime tries its best to replicate the exaggerated and detailed facial expressions characters have and it often falls flat. Sometimes they look fine but other time it just doesn't look right on a 3d model. The presentation of some of the techniques used by the characters is just abysmal. Raian's Removal and Ohma's Advance look ridiculous in the anime. Something about the way they glow is just off. There some 2d scenes during flashbacks, which are mostly still images with very limited animation. They're not great but they look better than CGI. The switching between the 2d and CGI scenes can be quite jarring at times.

The CGI is bad, but the real problem with the Kengan Ashura anime is the story. I've already talked at length about how good the story is in my review for the manga. It's a simple story but well thought out and executed. The anime somehow completely butchers it. The anime adapts 73 chapters from the manga, not counting the extra chapters. Obviously, a plethora of stuff was cut to make it fit into twelve episodes. Entire subplots and characters are just gone, it's a mess. For example, the anime just skips the second major fight of the series and jumps right to the third fight. I'm astounded that they would skip a fight, in a series all about fighting. The character that Ohma fights against is also important to a later subplot, so of course, that entire subplot was axed. I think the baffling change is the absence of Yamashita's secretary Kushida Rin. She's an integral part of the story and she just doesn't show up at all. They even cut some vital character development for Yamashita. He's more a comedic relief character than anything else in the anime. It's upsetting because he's one of the most well-developed characters in the series. The side characters suffer the most from the cut content. There are a lot of good character interactions that give good characterization and flesh out character relationships between side characters and most of them were cut. Because of this you're never really given a good feel for or reason to care about characters other than Ohma and Yamashita. The most these characters get is a flashback during their fight. The manga excelled at fleshing out all the characters and the anime seems focused on getting to the next fight as quickly as possible. Another bizarre change is that in the manga there's a character named Adam Dudley, a fighter from Texas. He's a rude and vulgar man with "FUCK" engraved on his teeth. Oddly enough this was changed to "DAMN" in the anime. It's a minor change but it feels unnecessary. He's still just as foul-mouthed as he was before, so why change it at all?

If there's one positive thing I can say about the anime, it's that the music is pretty decent. The opening song is good, even if the visuals of the opening leave a lot to be desired. The ending song is terrible, the rap does not complement the series at all. The background music does its best at trying to get the audience hyped for the fights and would succeed if not for the fights themselves didn't look so bad. The voice actors are fantastic for the most part Daisuke Namikawa is absolutely perfect as Kiryu Setsuna, he gives the best performance in the show.

Quite simply Kegan Ashura is a bad adaptation of a brilliant manga. The visuals and all the cut scenes are just horrid. It's an insult to both Daromeon's art and Sandrovich's storytelling. The manga was full of passion for martial arts, and I didn't feel any passion for martial arts or even love for the source material in the anime. It's such a hollow and soulless adaptation, and it's unlikely there'll ever be a proper adaptation. I'd advise anyone who was put off by the anime's visuals or story to try and give the manga a shot, it's a far better experience.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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