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While Fist Of The North Star has gained itself the fanciful award of 'Won My Heart The Second I Read It', this comes as a 'That One's Great Too'.

What can I say? It's fun! The setting's great, I love the more grounded takes on Kenshiro and Yu-Ling to go with said setting of it being urban Shanghai instead of the deserted wasteland, and the villains are a fresher take on the usual irredeemable asshole...as much as they're still assholes. All of it just feels like I can breath the air of it, which is a given for anything that's more grounded in reality. There's still ... the nutso martial arts though, but that too is a given.

I 'specially adore Ken. He's like Joseph Joestar but Japanese and also A Bit Of A Bitch instead of being a Looney Tunes character, and every single time his antics occur it is a whole sight to see. Out of the two Kens though? Both are great, infact I literally could not decide which is my favorite, but if I had to be held at gunpoint: I'd say the North Star one is more of my lane. No offense to this one!

In terms of insanity magnitude, though...it nearly outclasses North Star right at the end, but in general it's moderate-to-high. It matters more since it's in a real setting...which is surreal for me to think about because this counts as historical fiction. Perhaps this is the bit that they don't teach folks about in history class...


Overall, 10/10, would like to motorboat Kenshiro Kasumi's chest.

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.