I must admit, going into this season I did not remember what had happened in the slightest from the first season and needed to watch a recap. I say this because this likely influences my opinion of the overall plot so take it with a relative grain of salt. That being said, Kengen Ashura is definitely a show that benefits from the binge watching model of Netflix. The large number or characters from fighters to CEOs each with their own goals makes for an overcomplicated plot. When it comes to a tournament arc there are already problems with having to introduce so many characters over a short span of time while trying to flesh out everybody's motivations for fighting. When the entire show has been released its storytelling would be able to shine, but as is I have no idea why I should care about the thirty fighters outside of their fights. The CEOs have even less attention given to them despite being the main antagonistic forces within the plot. Kengen Ashura is bloating itself with continuing to follow many of these fighters despite already being out of the tournament. This distracts from Ohma and Yamashita's conflicts and only leaves a couple episodes to actually explore what's going on. Theoretically this is great, plenty of characters to watch even after they're out of the tournament, but in reality they don't do anything. They're just present to commentate on matches as they're happening. Even the climax of this episode batch was lame outside of learning more about Ohma's Niko Style. The best part of the show is the fights and some of the character's backstories. I particularly enjoyed the blind monk vs professional wrestler match. Otherwise, the story is a good enough excuse to write a tournament arc. Nothing more.
With there being so many characters, at least some of them have to be good. Unfortunately there's only a few of note from this batch. The professional wrestler was the best written side character by a mile and the climax of his fight was perfect for his story. The only other fight of any particular note was Kaolan vs the Fang of Metsudo. Two of the best fighters in the series clashing was bound to have good results and the outcome of the fight led to some nice character depth for the Fang. Ohma and Yamashita do not matter whatsoever in these twelve episodes. They do basically nothing except sit in the hospital after the first season's finale and make a choice whether or not Ohma will continue to fight. We do learn more about what Ohma went through during his Niko Style training but it doesn't add much to the character himself. Niko is a relatively shallow good guy right now but we may get some more depth to him by the end of the season so my opinion on him will remain neutral. Some of the characters I thought would be important to the narrative lost in the second round. I'm not sure of what their importance will be but it certainly seemed like they'd be shoe ins for the third round. The characters were ok and I doubt I'll remember any of them by the next episode drop.
The animation is the worst part of the show bar none. Netflix continues to 3D animate the shows they license and it still looks cheap. Most backstories are 2D animated and look way better than the 3D but were likely more expensive to produce. In fights, animations are reused to add length to the episodes which are already 25 minutes long. The best looking thing is the opening because it's been stylized well to fit with the song and vibe of the show. All of the characters are just an eyesore to look at when they're fighting but it almost adds to the roughness of the story. I just can't get over how ugly the 3D looks.
The music was great the entire time. The opening and closing were spectacular and perfect for setting the tone going into the episode. The music during action scenes was great for building up hype, especially during the introductions. Moving onto voice acting, the announcer girl was the best and it's not even close. Her hype building skills is comparable to Record of Ragnarok's. The other person of note is the gay guy who sees Ohma as his god. His performance is unhinged and makes his character low key terrifying. Everybody else is pretty average.
I enjoyed Kengen Ashura despite all that I said about its overcomplicated plot. It's still serviceable as a tournament arc and I'm a slut for a good tournament arc. The fights continue to be pretty good despite how unrealistic they are and really carry the entertainment value of the show. If you love Baki or Record of Ragnarok you'll certainly enjoy Kengen Ashura.
Plot: 6/10
Characters: 6.5/10
Animation: 4/10
Sound: 8.5/10
Enjoyment: 7/10
Overall: 6.4/10
