Kengan Omega

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Like Kengan Ashura? You'll love Omega!

Easy review aside, KO is the sequel to the hit martial arts manga and takes place 2 years after the Kengan Annihilation tournament and follows two new protagonists, Kogu Naroshima and Ryuki Gaoh, a hot headed street fighter, and a mysterious, calm, yet secluded from reality warrior from the "Inside", the same as our previous protagonist, Tokita Ohma, and their journey into the Kengan matches and a mysterious organization destroying it from the inside called, "The Worm."

Kengan's fights and art are as good as ever, impactful action, detailed artwork and martial arts explanations, and the fighting banter is as ... good as ever. Omega is as strong as it's predecessor and may easily well go beyond it as well.

This review contains very slight spoilers. Shoutouts to lewando321 for proof reading.
EDIT2. Lowered score to 3 due reasons I will mention down below.

I stumbled upon Kengan Ashura on Netflix back in 2020, I binged it, then I binged the manga. I absolutely loved every page of it, every single panel, once I've heard there was a sequel I knew that once again I would be hooked. Did it met my expectations? It exceeded the expectations with flying colors, the characters had great chemistry going between them, the art was amazing as always and overall the manga was promising.

So why would I give it a ... 5? What happened?

Well... Imagine creating a likeable protagonist with a very good character development, who wishes to catch up to the rest of the cast, giving him a training arc to show his improvement and development as a member of the crew. What would you do with him as a writer? Continue his adventure? Expand on his character and his past or whatever? Well.. In what would appear to be absolute genius of Sandrovich, he decided to bench him and show him from time to time for two or three panels. I wouldn't have much problem with it if it wasn't an ongoing issue for more than half of the manga's run.

The fights are incredibly predictable and there's little space given for character development outside of few flashbacks and backstories for every character introduced. With KA you had room to breath in between the fights, to see how the characters develop and what's going on behind the scenes.

But those two things aren't the worst offenses, the worst offense is how author had this beautiful conclusion to the story in KA but decided to completely crossed it out with two chapters in KO. I won't be going into details because I don't want to spoil it but it's just terrible. Not AOT kind of terrible, just terrible on it's own right.

As of now I see the light of hope for the series because recent chapters were good, surprisingly really good compared to what I would call a "festival of "mediocreness"".

Know that I absolutely adored KA (and still do) as if it was the best thing in the world. It kickstarted my interest in reading mangas and in martial arts. I am saying this so that you know that everything I wrote in here came from a very emotional place and that Kengan has influenced my life.

Don't let my review stop you from reading KA or KO, both of them are absolutely worth reading even if KO is of questionable quality as of now (Though as I said, it seems we are finally heading back into the right direction with recent chapters).

I kept some issues and explanations of them out of this review because I would need to spoil huge parts of KA and KO.

I might change the review as the series goes on or delete it altogether if the series actually steers into the right direction and my points won't be valid anymore.

EDIT. Hey, the points here are still valid, the recent arc has been completed and it's been... underwhelming. Between few good chapters here and there, nothing changed in my opinion on Omega. While the art is still incredible, the story is still lacking with nowhere near as much impact as Ashura did.

EDIT2 cont. Sandrovich plays far too safe in many situations resulting in the fights either being predictable or absurd. I reckon he is being regulated by the editors or the publisher because he didn't do something like this in Ashura.

Kengan Omega's most redeeming quality is its cast of incredibly memorable characters from Kengan Ashura.

The first manga was complete in and of itself. The few loose ends at the end of the manga weren't interesting enough to warrant a sequel. And yet, 106 chapters in, and those few loose ends have only made occasional appearances, and still do not pique my interest at all. During their best, they feel unnecessary, and during their worst, they degrade the quality of BOTH Ashura and Omega. What Chapter 50 alone introduces heavily degrades what Ashura had done, all for a plotline that I really could not care less ... about.

The manga starts off promising enough, I actually quite enjoy the training arc (would be nice if it actually built up to something). Characters from the first manga being reintroduced is cool in the moment, but often feels like a cameo appearance of something, like however they ended up in Ashura is how they are forever. A couple characters have positive changes in this manga, but they are, unfortunately, a minority positive.

The "A Plot" of the manga (assuming those loose ends from Ashura are the "B Plot") isn't engaging either. In Ashura, its A Plot was a fantastic setting for almost all elements of the manga to flourish. I would go as far as to say that Kengan Ashura has the greatest tournament of any manga, ever. The amount of moving parts throughout the manga, and how each one is actually interesting, makes it one of my favorite manga ever. Kengan Omega's, on the other hand, just feels watered down in comparison. One half of the characters we know everything about, the other half we know literally nothing about. The stakes, while high, aren't interesting. In Kengan Ashura, I found myself interested in almost every character; in Kengan Omega, I found myself interested in none of the characters. My only interest was just residue from Kengan Ashura. The fights in Kengan Ashura felt iconic, while the ones in Kengan Omega are forgettable.

This manga does not need to exist. If it didn't, it would actually make Kengan Ashura better.

I really wish I could cite specific examples in this review, but no spoilers allowed. :(