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

Sasaki, Reiko Producer

Ishiguro, Tatsuya Producer

Reviews

Aug 31, 2024

JJMFREAP

Recommended

Cute girls doing cute things? NAH NAH! This is BIG MEN DOING MAN SHIT! Come on over and put some hair on your chest. If you thirst for a return for the bygone era of manly battle anime, this is one series for you. Punchfighting, martial arts and ridiculous techniques galore, Kengan Ashura is a must see.

(P.S. This review is for the whole season, not just this half. I refuse to conform to Netflix' stupid release schedule)

Right, have you seen or read Baki? Well, if you have, this is basically the guy that copied his homework from there. The overlap is significant and if you ... enjoyed one, there's no reason not to experience the other too. Thankfully though, Kengan Ashura is more than different enough to stand on its own muscular legs. Because you never skip legday, ya pansies! Here, the ridiculousness is much more subdued and it's more focused on straightforward martial arts. It's also centered around a singular lengthy tournament arc that takes up pretty much the whole season here. Also, unlike Baki, the female characters aren't just walking "woman moments" and are actually interesting and engaging. They're also really sexy and what is a good action series without some eyecandy, amirite? The setup and worldbuilding is alright, nothing to write home about, but then again this isn't trying to be anything deep. The main goal is to have amazing action every episode and that much is done wonderfully. Set a clear goal and motivation, establish some awesome fighters, give them a ring to fight in and let them have it. Pure awesomeness distilled to the core.

A good reason for the quality of action and one of the most recognizable things about this anime is the use of CGI. Normally anime fans recoil at the mention of this, but here I think it works great. Almost the entire anime is CGI, so it feels more like a stylistic choice than a budget cut. It makes sense, since Kengan is 90% action and by using these graphics, it allows the fights to be much more fluid and dynamic without burning money. Every hit is fast, fluid and impactful and it's very refreshing to see an anime where the attacks per minute is higher than the words per minute. Just straightforward brawls that are always a joy to behold. During flashbacks and other such moments, the artstyle also loves to shift into various artistic modes and this is really cool too, gives each flashback its own feel and adds great visual variety. Overall, I think only some snob would have an issue with how the CGI is used here. We've come a long long way from the Berserk abomination. Oh, and the music is really solid too, especially the wrestling style entrance themes for each character. The voice acting is super over the top and energetic too, makes every character stand out and become memorable.

Granted, the anime is not perfect. Firstly, it is just a straightforward tournament, so if you wanted something deeper go watch some artsy fartsy shit like Death Note or something, idk. This is a fighting story first and foremost. The other thing is the use of some characters. Tokita Ohma is a great protagonist imo and I find him very interesting, but because of the format of the series he gets sidelined for a vast majority of the season and that kinda sucks. He feels like a side character in his own show. The other thing is because these first brackets need to be gone through to get to the bigger meatier fights, some showdowns end way too quickly. It happened a couple of times where a character with a very interesting design, backstory and fighting style would show up, I'd get excited to see what he does and then he'd get demolished with just one or two attacks and are never seen or heard from again. Just feels disappointing. I get that the creators wanted to put some special sauce into every character, but please don't go through so much effort to make me care about somebody just to one shot them and dump them forever afterwards.

Overall, Kengan Ashura can best be described as a ton of fun! It's some oldschool action that doesn't pretend to be more than it is. The main goal is to get big muscular men to beat the crap out of each other for grand entertainment and boy does it work. A worthy entry into the BIG MEN DOING MAN SHIT genre and a must watch for any fan of good fighting. It really Kengans my Ashura.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Dec 21, 2024

Ramun_Flame

Mixed Feelings

You come into this kinda show expecting pretty crazy matches and fighters. It delivers on that front for sure, but it falters on other fronts. While I found the matches entertaining for the most part, it's pretty bogged down with fighting tropes and fight filler/flashbacks. I'm reviewing both parts in one review BTW.

Starting with the characters, I enjoyed them for the most part. You've got a lot of tropes. Stoic protagonist with a troubled past, obsessed rival, mad doctor, and cop obsessed with "justice". There's some interesting stand outs as well though. I'd say for the most part, the characters are interesting enough, and meet ... the quota for this type of show.

Plot wise it's a ridiculous tournament to facilitate the fighting. They have some side plots going on, but I would say the overall story is secondary to the fights.

So what of the fights? For the most part, they are good. They for sure follow the trope of one character getting beaten to brink of death, only to finially figure out how to win and turn it around. Not all the fights, but a lot of them do follow this formula. It can sometimes be unpredictable who will win though. I would rate them a lot more highly, but in the second half of the show they spend a lot of time on flashbacks during the fights. They are more like moving slideshows actually, since they are animated so little. It could be seen as a stylistic choice, but it's for sure not something I want to see interrupting the fight. Honestly, without those I may have even upped the score a number and be able to fully recommend it.

As it stand though, I enjoyed the show enough and will move on the season 2. If you are wanting more than just ridiculous fights, then you won't get much more here. Also, the flashbacks are quite annoying, so that could ruin it for some.

I give Part 1 a 7, and Part 2 a 6.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 15, 2023

SuroAsura

Not Recommended

Have you read the manga? read it before reading this review. Have you read Berserk? do you know about Berserk (2016)? Search about it before reading this review.
I have created an account here on MyAnimeList just because of this abomination that is sorely called an "anime", imagine reading the most epic history in the world with artistic choices worthy of an award, getting hooked on it and then discovering there is an anime for you to watch, all those scenes come back to you as you imagine the thrill of seeing everything unfold with top-notch animation making justice to the beautifully drawn pages of the ... manga, then you see it is only available on Netflix, it is the most gut wrenching feeling you have ever had, you let that aside because you really like the manga, it couldn't possibly be done wrong... IT'S. 3D.
Well you only had one other passion as of manga, called Berserk, you recall how they destroyed it, it hurts. But with Berserk they chose an horrible studio who only had 3D experience with small bits in anime, only animated comedy shows and such, and you think: "well, Netflix wouldn't make this mistake." they did. Studio Larx was a bad choice, they have ONE complete show under their belt and it is awful, the 3D is so bad it makes your head hurt, i do not recommend that you watch this BEFORE reading the manga, have your first experience as God intended. READ. THE. MANGA.
Maybe by some sort of divine intervention someone will make a good adaptation of this amazing manga, but not yet.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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	Poll: Kengan Ashura Episode 10 Discussion Vipek - Aug 3, 2019	14 replies	by Slmanxxx »» Nov 16, 2024 8:29 AM
	Why this is ONA? kiritofo - Sep 17, 2024	3 replies	by wizdom224 »» Sep 17, 2024 4:54 PM
	Poll: Kengan Ashura Episode 9 Discussion photophobic - Aug 2, 2019	17 replies	by PettankoLover »» Aug 19, 2024 4:37 PM
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