Art of Fighting

Now let me get this straight, the anime itself is not a tragedy... BUT IT'S A FUCKING TRAGEDY THAT I WATCHED IT. The fact that anime-planet doesn't even account for it is proof enough that this shit shouldn't even exist. Like with my Violence Jack review, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to retell the movie a bit. It’s retarded, yes, but I’m sure none of you will ever watch this crap.

First of, it has such a stupid beginning. The moment it starts it shows the title screen for 15 seconds. That’s bad. It’s like they were ashamed they made it, so they just kept the screen for as long as they could. Then you see a guy, who happens to be the main hero, Ryo, chasing a cat on the side of a building. It’s… pathetic. Then his friend comes in his Ferrari, which also happens to be the main hero, Garcia. What a lousy way to introduce the heroes… one is chasing cats and the other comes by in his car. And it’s right from the start, like there is no tension and no expectations. Garcia makes fun of him like the good friend he is, and Ryo says that he needs to keep the cat away from people like Garcia. Is he saying that Garcia may sexually harass the poor animal? Now I have to say… that’s a big insult. Then for no reason Garcia chases this cat as well, so now you see an even more depressing image of 2 pathetic people chasing one sad cat. She enters an apartment through an open window, they go after her, and Garcia acts like he owns the place. Pours himself a glass of scotch, puts a little ice, then ,,accidentally” drops (or throws) the glass out the window. He looks outside and he sees a woman. Now, instead of apologizing that he almost killed her, he asks ,,Do you want to go for a ride to the beach?”. And he makes this stupid face like he is expecting for her to say ,,Yes”. Of course she leaves, and you never see her again. Well what was the point of all this? Just to show you Garcia is a jackass? Now all of a sudden a guy enters the apartment (it is implied it is his apartment) and is being chased by some thugs. These 2 assholes watch as that guy is shot and killed by the thugs, but don’t help him. And all they do is just say ,,Hi”, smile, kick some ass, and run away. And of course they jump through the window of the 3rd floor and land exactly in the seat of the Ferrari. And they have the cat with them. So will they call the cops? Will they take any action? No, they just say ,,Oh, South Town is tough city”. It’s like they are trying to say ,,Oh, well… shit happens. People die every day, why should we care about what we just saw?” But apparently the thugs think that these guys took a diamond that they are looking for. The leader of the thugs goes back to HQ to report, where they find the exact id of the 2 heroes. How did they find them? It’s not like somebody took a picture of them, and I think the description ,,A guy with a ponytail and white costume” isn’t fitting enough to find such accurate data on our guys, so how did they find them? On facebook? Also there is a screen where they show Ryo’s data and… I’m really not making this up… the data says ,,Special ability: carate”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it Karate? You know… with K not C. Also karate isn’t a ,,special ability”. Reading peoples minds is an ability. Make friends with everyone is an ability. Pulling a skateboard out of your ass is an ability. Karate (or Carate) is not an ability. It’s a fighting style.
Now you see another useless scene of them giving the cat to the owner, but the owner points out that its not her cat, so go look some more you dumb spooky shits. So the thugs attack Ryo and Garcia while they are at Ryo’s house and… it’s stupid. At first they hide by clinging on the ceiling fan. Then they kick the shit out of the thugs. Well what was the point in hiding? None… just like the entire OVA. So Ryo takes on their leader – Bear Killer Jack. WOW… another fucking Jack. But this fat asshole doesn’t even compare. Violence Jack was retarded, but he was threatening and frightening. This is just a tub of lard (kind of like LARDUS from s-CRY-ed). So this teddy bear rapist starts punching Ryo, but Ryo looks so calm and happy, it’s like he doesn’t give a shit. But then Jack kicks him so hard he sends Ryo flying through the room and into the wall. And Ryo is like ,,Ohhhh… you trashed my apartment… now I’m pissed” Ok… so the fact he sent you flying through the room doesn’t count? And plus you trashed the apartment yourself you dumb asshole, when you hid on the fan. So now he discovers some hidden strength and punches Jack through the main door. In the meantime Ryo’s sister (yeah we have one of those) gets kidnapped. For fuck’s sake, isn’t she Ryo’s sister? Doesn’t she train with him in fighting arts? If you played King of Fighters (any one of them) then you know that his sister may well even kick Ryo’s ass, not to mention a thug. So why in the love o… oh never mind. So the thugs tell him to bring the diamond to the casino (like there is only one in the entire town) and they will get back the girl. So they go there without the diamond, and the only thing worth mentioning is that the police officer in charge of capturing the crooks, brings out a wrecking ball, starts pounding a perfect legitimate establishment, and arrests everyone for no reason. It’s supposed to be comical, but I’m guessing you know how I feel right now. So they fail, they go look for the diamond, they find it (don’t ask where) and they go again, this time to the bad guys mansion. After they give the diamond, the boss tells them to go fuck themselves, cause he’s not giving the girl. What an asshole. So he enters a chopper, the chopper takes altitude and now Ryo sees a pool trampoline. Don’t tell me… he’s gonna jump from a fucking pool trampoline on a flying chopper? For fucks sake, have a bit of realism. So he easily overpowers the thugs who held him at gun point, and… couldn’t he do that BEFORE the chopper took of? Instead, now he has to jump around like a fucking asshole. So, he jumps, saves his sister, kicks the shit out of the bad guy, the end. What’s worth mentioning is that Garcia fights a woman, and he says ,,Will you give me your phone number if I defeat you?’’. She’s trying to kill you, you dumb fuck, of course she won’t give you her number, she’s going to jail after this for Christ’s sake. Then the ending, as with any shitty anime, just sucks. It shows Ryo chasing another cat, which by the way, LOOKS IDENTICAL TO THE 1st ONE! But his sister is holding the 1st and she tells Garcia that she can’t go with him to the beach cause she has to wash the cat, Sirius. Sirius is the name of the diamond everybody was chasing. So naturally Garcia shit flipped his wig when he heard this. Then come the lousiest explanation to naming a cat, EVER. She explains that the Egyptians worshipped cats and liked to observe the stars. Sirius is the name of a star. So it is appropriate to name THIS cat Sirius. I don’t see the fucking connection here. Well how about I name my dog ,,Turd-ball” saying that Gauls worshipped wolves, and they also took a shit from time to time. So it is appropriate to name my dog ,,Turd-ball”. And in the end i'd like to ask... WHAT THE FUCK IS WORLD TRADE CENTRE DOING HERE? Wasn't it supposed to be in Manhattan? So what's it doing here, in South Town? I don't know, i just don't give a fuck.

Art of Fighting is a good example of a point I’d like to make clear if I haven’t already – video-game based anime… sucks. Oh God it suck. Take for example Devil May Cry (which I reviewed) or Tekken (which I will review), they have shit written and smudged all over them.

I hope you liked this review and expect some more on all the obscure shit your hearts can handle (it’s a surprise my heart can handle it)

Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto

So, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto… couldn’t they have picked a longer and harder to pronounce title. I mean it’s not the longest, I’ve seen longer (this ,,I’ve seen longer” talk sounds like I’m gay), but the ideal title is one that you can pronounce 5 times. Try saying Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto 5 times. Well anyway, this is one of the requests we got for the ,,Do you know crappy-shit-ass anime” post, but unfortunately I can’t classify this one as such. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s no masterpiece and it has some critical flaws, but it’s not retarded and I found myself enjoying it, although that started happening after the 6th episode, but we’ll get to that.
The story is about a guy named Youjiro Akidzuki and his destiny. He is an Eternal Assassin and an excellent samurai, and he must find and seal (or destroy) The Head of The Lord. No, not Jesus Christ. The Lord is some guy from China that was killed 2004 years ago and his head haunted and brought chaos, war and death to the land until he was sealed and brought to Japan. So of course now he was unsealed, and he starts spreading chaos. Akidzuki meets a traveling actor troupe that he kind of befriends. I’m not going to start naming them, it was hard enough to memorize them, but they play an important part in the story, especially the girl they call Chief. The story seems simplistic and boring at first, but that’s only for the first 6 or 7 episodes. These are the episodes that start the story. Here you have to struggle memorizing each character, understanding them and their purposes, and figuring out Akidzuki and the Lord’s Head, which is hard considering they don’t talk a lot about that. But if you get past these episodes the story starts accelerating and different twists and turns appear, which aren’t the most genius things, but are unexpected and work out well. Also, what I can promise you is action. The anime delivers good fight scenes, and there is one that I particularly like and that is Akidzuki’s fight with a guy wielding 2 pistols like a cowboy.
What I’d like to address is the ridiculous amount of characters. I mean the troupe alone makes up a quarter of the cast that is presented in the first 2 or 3 episodes, and that list grows every episode. Some of them die, but there is always someone to take his place. While I always welcome big and diverse character casts, here they went a bit overboard because it gets confusing and the fact that you have to memorize their names and background doesn’t help at all. Plus there are a lot of historical figures that play important parts in the story so it gets even more confusing. Reading about it you probably are thinking ,,Oh, he’s just exaggerating” but believe me, if you watch it, then you are gonna see a lot of screens that have names on it. Not like in the subs, but next to a characters face like saying ,,This is him”. And since I’m talking about history know that this is the second fuck up. As the name implies the action takes place in the Bakumatsu era. When is that? ,,Well go figure out yourselves” is what the anime implies. I mean it doesn’t give you a specific number. It’s confusing enough as it is, why not give me a historical time I don’t know about. And how could I? I never learned that at school and I’m sure neither have you. But you quickly see two guys with pistols fighting samurai so… I guess they present different visual clues and auditory facts that obviously hint you to the year 1856 or so. I’m guessing it’s the time that Japan got out of its political seclusion (yeah I know a little history). But… I welcome the fact that they try and mix history with entertainment, but… why in the love of fuck are they presenting me a FUCKING THESIS. I mean the narrator (yeah we have one of those) almost constantly presents you different historical facts that don’t influence the story and you don’t need. I mean it gets annoying, and it just takes up time. It’s confusing enough as it is, and plus if you’re gonna talk about some historical stuff, then present it to the end, don’t just go ,Because of this event, shit happened” cause I’ve no idea what the event consists of. Also there are a lot of historical characters, which is bad, but I think they did a good job with those. The fictional character are uninspired and it seems like the were copied from other anime and only had their shape and personal background changed, but they act and have the same personality as other characters from other anime. I mean this guy Akidzuki is a painfully obvious copy of Himura Kenshin from the OVA Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen also known as Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal. Watch Bakumatsu and Samurai X in parallel and you’ll be convinced. The only difference between them is their appearance and the fact that Akidzuki’s eyes glow a lot like he’s about to go Super Sayan. But the historical characters are better. It’s like… you know they are copies, but they are supposed to be copies, and excellent copies they are. I read about many of these characters on Wiki and was astound of how well they represented these characters. I saw some pictures and they even look the same (the real and the copy). It’s like they made ,,copy paste” from history directly into the anime. There are a lot of useless characters as well. But they try and make every one important. For example there was a messenger who averted a battle thanks to his speed and the message he delivered. But after a couple of episodes, when I forgot about him, they show a scene after a battle and some guy looks for his friend. Turns out his friend was the messenger, and he died in battle and the narrator suddenly comes in and starts talking about this guy saying ,,This guy, who did this, and thanks to that this did or didn’t happen, died like this on this day”. But even worse is when he (narrator) talks about certain characters that haven’t but WILL die. It’s like ,,This guy, know as this, who did this, and thanks to that this happened, will die like this after this much time”. It’s like they are spoiling. You don’t see that happen, but you know it, so it’s something like spoiling. And does this sound like fun, hearing the narrator talk a lot about shit you don’t care ?(unless you’re Japanese, which I apologize for saying such things) It’s like they wanted to include different stuff just to make the series longer.
The presentation is good. Although the characters have copied personalities, their models look good and rich in color and detail. Background is a bit fucked up, but only in night scenes, and those are few and usually have a lot of action going on, so you don’t pay much attention, but it’s like the background has one color scheme and that is a darkish blue. It’s monotonous, but I say again, you don’t pay much attention to it because of the action. The sound department didn’t slack of as well. They deliver believable voice acting, realistic sound effects and nice music, particularly the opening.
In conclusion this one has a lot of flaws but if you get past the first 6 episodes and accept the history lessons, you get a nice and fun experience that you might enjoy. Let’s put it this way… Although I don’t recommend it as a ,,must see", I’m not against you downloading it and giving it a try.

p.s. Although i found the full version of this song on YouTube, it contains a lot of spoilers for those that might be interested in checking this one out, so i put the short version, but know that the full versionn rocks.