Over seven goddamn minutes of it!

Impressions:

Well, that sucked. Counting everything that we’ve seen before (including the OP), this episode clocked in at around 7 minutes, 25 seconds of recap/reused footage for the finale. Seven and a half. That’s nearly a third of the bloody episode. Simply amazing. It’d be forgiveable if they had used the budget to actually animate Odin versus Kenichi, but no. I have absolutely no clue what happened with these last few episodes, but aside from Doppleganger Kenichi, they were an utter disgrace. You want to end a show with a bang, not reused footage, and as many pithy speeches that you can cram into every single crevasse.

Hooray, recap! We get to see Kenichi fight as all the masters again… this time with a different insert song. Not exactly a promising way to begin the finale.

Ryuuto powers up again, the elder is shocked, yada yada yada.

Odin kicks at Kenichi, but he thinks he dodges and backflips away. As he lands, his shirt explodes. The distraction makes him lose track of Ryuuto, who attacks him from behind. Kenichi senses it, but Odin manages to use his seikuken to counter.

The elder confirms to Miu that it really was the seikuken even in his . Akisame is also pretty worried about the fight and thinks that somebody may be seriously hurt in it.

Kenichi has switched back to Apachai mode. Odin catches one of his kicks and then flexes lifts him by the leg (why Kenichi doesn’t just unflex his leg is beyond me) and then slams him into the roof.

The Shinpaku troops on the ground think that Odin is using a Berserker Mode, but Niijima says that it’s something worse. The masters see what’s going on and some want to interfere. What Odin is doing is similar to a Berserker attack, but it burns out the body and energy in doing it and is dangerous to all involved.

Kensai thinks that it’s wonderful what his disciple has learned.

Kenichi keeps trying to attack Odin, but can’t get through. Odin grabs both his hands and we see another flashback of young Miu getting attacked and fighting the thugs. Apparently Miu talked to them, making Ryuuto feel all warm inside and then Kenichi and him got into a little fight over who really owned the yin-yang badge, which Odin lost.

Back in the real fight, Odin continues beating on Kenichi. They came to blows in the past as well too over the badge with Odin tackling Kenichi.

Odin lands a deep punch on Kenichi and walks forward to finish the job.

He stomps on Kenichi’s face.

Kensai is moving in with his own designs on Kenichi, but a shockwave stops him. He falls back and all the masters appear around him, saying that it’s a master’s duty to not interfere in the disciple’s fight. The elder also reveals to the audience that Kensai is ‘Oga-chan.’ Yeah, the guy from the mountains who fights bears. That’s the big baddie hiding in the shadows.

Miu, on the other hand, hadn’t even noticed when they left.

Back with Odin and Kenichi, someone keeps getting their face stomped on, and it’s not Odin. He tells Kenichi about all the capsules he bought looking for the yin-yang badge, that’s how important it was to him.

Odin then starts into the more nonsensical (like it wasn’t before) “meaning of a fight” blathering. He got picked up by Kensai, etc etc. He goes for the finishing stomp, and Kenichi dies!

Nah, just kidding, eyecatch.

Kenichi of course gets up and punches Odin before the stomp can land. Kenichi appears behind Odin with his own pithy speech about fighting and whatnot. Odin keeps trying to attack while he’s talking, but Kenichi is able to block all the attacks and then punches him in the face while yelling what a real fight is.

Odin’s eyes lose the white glare as he gets hit, but he rushes back into the fight. Miu is amazed at the power of both of them, and Odin finally reveals that Kenichi was the one who turned the squabble into a real fight and ’getting serious’ about it is why he won their fight as children.

Kenichi attacks and Odin can’t form his seikuken at all. His body is giving out from the overdrive he used and he can barely move. This doesn’t stop Kenichi from wailing on him and he punches him hard and knocks him away as Odin finally collapses.

Kenichi thinks the fight is over, but there’s a sudden explosion around Odin from within the warehouse. All the oil drums were ignited at some point. Shinpaku tries to rescue the random people and the masters also rush in.

Odin is hanging by his arm on a ladder. Kenichi calls out to him, but Odin keeps going with his own pithy speech wanting to know why Kenichi keeps trying to help him. Kenichi says that it’s because Odin was his friend. He holds out his hand to Odin and we see a flashback of young victorious Kenichi doing the same.

Instead, Odin tosses him the badge and says his goodbyes, letting go and falling into the fire. A blur flashes through and catches him. Kenichi’s platform also collapses and the Elder catches him.

Kensai, with Odin over his shoulder, has a parting jab for the Elder about a weak bonsai at Ryuuzanpaku, but the Elder says that bonsai is now the strongest there. Wonderful.

Kensai repeats the threat that Ryuuzanpaku always clings to weak ideals and then shoots a chi blast at the oil drums, igniting them. The other masters all rush in and deflect the explosion upwards. Now revealed to Shinpaku, Takeda and crew all gush over them.

Kenichi passed out for a moment, but wakes up as the Elder flies towards the ground. Kenichi has some sad thoughts about how he thinks that he wronged his friend, but the Elder just laughs at him and tells him to look down and see all his other friends who trusted and believed in him.

The rest of the episode is the full version first OP played as the ED with a generic montage from the rest of the series showcasing all the characters. Yes, 4 minutes of more recap. THANKS.

The montage ends with showing Miu recognizing the badge again from the first episode.

Kenichi and the Elder land, and he holds up the badge proudly. 

Final Thoughts:

Kenichi was a guilty pleasure for me mostly. Neither the comedy nor the action was well enough done to keep me anticipating it week after week, but I didn’t really have anything else to do on Saturdays, so it wasn’t much of a hassle to pick up. It also helped that I started covering it right at the height of the series with the Kenichi vs Hermit stuff. Unfrotunately, that was the height of the series and while they clearly had a massive influx of money around that time, it was rather sad to see the budget totally tail off for the big climax. The fight at the pool was better animated than most of this final Odin arc… and that was against two generic grunts. It’s never a good thing when grunts are more interesting to watch than your last boss.

Even as a guilty pleasure, Kenichi was still a pleasure, and it was often fun to watch so long as it remembered to try to remain light hearted and funny. Those episodes… like this one… where it tried to be serious bored me to tears and this final arc was full of entirely too many of them. That, plus the excessive recap, leaves me with a pretty bad taste in my mouth as we end Kenichi, and I guess that’s my overall opinion of the show. It’s mostly a lot of dumb fun, and there are some moments when it really did threaten greatness, but for every nearly great moment, there were at least three generic speeches about fighting or what a martial artist is or Hermit’s never ending flashbacks about his sister. Still, I’d take another Hermit flashback to seeing Miu beat up thugs in stills for the seventh time in half as many episodes.

Kenichi gets by with a little help from his friends.

Impressions:

This was a very awkward episode. The art was pretty awful throughout… distorted Kenichi faces, and it really seemed like the animators couldn’t settle on how to draw Odin without his glasses. There wasn’t nearly as much flashback as there had been for the past couple episodes, though there was still enough for me to think snide thoughts about it. Most of the fight up until Kenichi tried his old doom punch on Odin was the same old same old boring “Odin knocks Kenichi down, gives a speech, Kenichi gets up and says Odin’s wrong, then gets knocked down again.” Once Sieg gave his little peptalk, things got drastically better, and while Kenichi imitating all his masters still didn’t boast anywhere near the animation or choreography of the Hermit fight way WAY back when, the humor of it… especially the Shigure impression… was enough to entertain me. I bet Kenichi’s VA had a blast with that scene and imitating most of the other VAs during it.  It’s uploading right now and should be up in 20 minutes or so.

Oh crap! The first episode in almost a month that doesn’t start with 3 minutes of recap. I should probably pay attention.

Kenichi is having issues dodging Odin’s Gungnir. No matter how he tries to dodge it, it hits anymore. Wait a minute… I remember this scene… this is the exact same scene as before… with different art and animation. Oi.

After Odin says that he’ll be the devil this time, he has a flash back to opening tons of the capsule machine things until he got his own Yin-Yang button. Yada yada, he thought young Miu was graceful and beautiful… and then attacks again, slamming Kenichi down once more.

He asks if that’s all Kenichi has? All the power that he’s gained. The flag boy yells at Kenichi and tries to attack Odin from behind, but Odin just backflips over him. The guy loses sight of Odin… but catches something that falls from above… the Yin-Yang badge. Odin loses it and smashes into the guy and then gives him a palm to the face, knocking him down the mountain of junk.

Kenichi thinks back to when Odin took the badge. Ah, here’s the straight up flashback and recap. I knew we weren’t out of the woods.

Odin gives another boring speech about it being Kenichi’s fault things turned out like this, including insulting his trainers.

Miu was the only one who couldn’t hear it and is distressed. Kensai laughs and thinks that only <em>his</em> apprentice would insult the Ryouzanpaku.

Kenichi gets up and says that insulting his masters is unforgiveable. Babyface Odin says that Kensai taught him true power. He used to just be an uncontrollable fighter in the ring, but then saw Kensai being picked on by a pair of martial artists. Kensai dispatched both easily, despite their weapons and so impressed Odin that he followed him and asked him what kind of match it was… and then learned from him true martial artists.

Kenichi says that kind of martial arts is wrong and tries to jumpkick Odin. Odin easilly just uses his Gungnir to repulse Kenichi. The two end up on a pipe. He tells Kenichi to come on, but Kenichi can’t think of how to get around Odin’s attacks or defenses.

Sieg has some thoughts and while fighting off generic goons tells Kenichi to hear the rhythm of Odin’s Gungnir and turn it into his own melody. It’s kind of hard to decypher what Sieg is saying between all the musical nonsense honestly. Kenichi thinks back to the punch he improvised against Sieg and thinks to himself that he can do it again using all his training to make something Odin won’t be expecting.

Odin rushes forward and starts attacking again. Kenichi keeps blocking, but starts edging forward. He’s still taking blows though and is knocked backwards… but manages to pull himself up and lays his head on Odin’s chest. Odin is impressed, but then realizes that Kenichi’s doing something. He thinks it useless, but Kenichi suddenly punches forward in a huge blast, catching Odin totally off guard.

Sieg recognizes the punch as the exact same that Kenichi used against him.

Odin has been blasted backwards… but he then starts laughing. He says that “this was supposed to be dangerous?” He caught Kenichi’s punch in his hands. Sieg can’t believe that anybody could have read that. The distraction almost lets a punk hit him, but Thor comes to his rescue.

Kenichi tries again for the punch, but Odin steps forward, pushing Kenichi’s hands up and away and then combos Kenichi’s face. He says it’s over and punches him backwards. Kenichi flies away and then rolls off the pipe. Niijima uses his alien power to save him… and his belt buckle snags on the pipe, delaying him long enough for him to grab the edge.

Kenichi holds on for dear life. Odin wanders over to taunt him. Kenichi manages to pull himself up, but he’s pretty beat up at this point and thinking that he isn’t strong enough to beat Odin. In his annoyance, he slams his head on the pipe… stunning everybody. Odin thinks it’s funny, but Kenichi smiles to himself and reintroduces himself as the kickboxing champion.

Odin is a bit confused… but Kenichi takes a perfect muay thai stance… starts saying “apa” and imitating Apachai so flawlessly that Odin sees Apachai’s fighting spirit in Kenichi. Odin doesn’t really understand what this means, but he’s not really scared either. Kenichi rushes forward and attacks Odin… all the while yelling “apa.” He actually manages to land a couple hits to Odin’s surprise. Apachai celebrates as Kenichi calls himself Apachai Hoppachai.

Kenichi continues the muay thai fighting, putting Odin on the defensive. Odin falls back and relies on his seikuken… but Kenichi shifts form again to pure karate and powers through the seikuken. Kensai thinks that he’s gone nuts… which is probably true. Akisame thinks that they’ve hammered so much of themselves into Kenichi that he’s able to totally ‘shift change’ from one to another and mimic them as much as possible and it’ll be a great technique.

Kenichi keeps fighting Odin, now able to shift between them all at will and use both speed and power to keep Odin totally off balance. He even imitates Shigure with an effeminate voice and using his fist as a sword. Odin goes for a gungnir, but Akisame-Kenichi turns it into an arm bar and then throws Odin through the nearby roof.

Odin lands on a spike and is bleeding from his arm. Kenichi runs over to help him, but Odin kicks him in the gut. He starts laughing crazily asking Kenichi how he suddenly got so good. He gets up and says that he doesn’t understand at all. Odin finally gets serious and… powers up. His shirt explodes and all his muscles bulge as he gives way to his anger and primal fighting spirit. Even the masters are shocked by the change in Odin, being able to use both the ‘calm’ techniques and the dark/primal ones.

Kenichi’s Hidden Power

Will then get on with it already?

Impressions:

This was really not that great an episode. Aside from another two and a half minutes of flashback at the start, there was about a minute of Kenichi and Odin actually fighting in the first half thanks to spending most of the episodes with the Masters, and at least half of that was the magical animation technique of having people stand there and showing blurry punches all around them to symbolize attacks being made. You’d think one of those would hit since neither person moves but apparently the goal is to swing everywhere but the other person’s body. There was more in the second half, but there were still at least three times as many scenes of random grunts being beaten up as there were of Kenichi and Odin going at it. At the end of the episode, the only thing that really happened is Odin took his glasses off and is now fighting ‘for real.’ Compared to last episode where we went through every stage of Berserker all at once… well… apparently this fight is going to take a very long while.

Okay, I suppose that if you’re good with voices, you can also count learning the identity of Kensai (Kensei, whatever, let’s limit it to only one Kensei for simplicity’s sake and Ma has seniority), but really, almost nothing happened and it did it very very slowly. Kenichi almost throws Odin and later trips him, and then Odin punched Kenichi a few times using his magical “bad eyesight” power. There. I summarized the main fight for the episode. Meh. MEH!

What is with these recent episodes and recap? At least it wasn’t the four minutes of recap that episode 37 had. This time, it was only two and a half minutes… not that that’s any better.

Hermit tags in Kenichi while Niijima does his alien dance about Hermit joining Shinpaku. Berserker suddenly gets up, ready to fight again, and then nearly falls down. Kenichi holds him up, but Berserker knocks his hand off and then punches him, but Kenichi doesn’t move and Berserker stops short.

Kenichi tells him that it’s okay, he well understands the feeling of losing. It’s not the end of the world, etc etc etc.

Berserker gives his own speech on his past and joining Ragnarok, saying that he’s never fought Odin because he was so scared by his aura. He’s about to say something about Odin’s abilities, but Odin jumps in and gives him a palm to the back of the head and knocks him out.

Kenichi grits his teeth and calls out Odin for being an ass to his companions and the two get ready to fight.

Kenichi punches, but Odin blocks and slips past with his own punch. Kenichi barely dodges and leaps away. Then takes his own seikuken stance. Odin thinks that there’s no way that he could have mastered it in such a short time.

The two edge closer to eachother, and their magical barriers zap against eachother as they overlap.

Miu can’t see a thing so she starts fighting with Sieg for the telescope.

Odin and Kenichi start attacking eachother again, but both block all the other’s moves.

The master comment, but they know that Odin is holding back so far. Suddenly they sense something. Up on a crane is the Kensai, who recognizes that Ryouzanpaku found him. He wonders to himself which group will win this fight, his or their’s. Miu has gained control of the telescope and is watching the fight.

Ma wonders where Sieg went… and he’s swimming across the river to try to get there… until he sinks beneath an the elder runs out to grab him.

Kenichi and Odin continue their fight. They finally actually do some moves instead of just blur punching at eachother. Kenichi imagines what the elder taught him and visualizes Odin’s punch as a club, then grabs him and throws him to the ground. As the smoke clears, it’s just Odin’s jacket, and Odin almost lands on Kenichi with a punch from above before Kenichi can jump out of the way.

Odin is kind of impressed with Kenichi, but Ken is more concerned with “what happened to that fun loving kid I used to know.” Odin blames it all on the promise they made to become more powerful. Kenichi argues with him a little bit about what martial arts are for, but then Niijima steps in and gives his $.02.

Odin wonders if learning martial arts has really allowed him to protect those important things. He orders the rest of the Ragnarok goons to attack, telling them that Hermit is weak from his fight with Berserker. Taking advantage of the distraction, he throws Kenichi to no real damage and tells him that he can’t protect anything with his skills. Things aren’t going well for his allies either. Thor and Hermit are way too weak from their fights to put up a struggle and a goon with a sledgehammer moves in for the kill.

Sieg appears and blocks the attack.

Back at the master’s camp, the elder comes back, saying that he helped the kid on to his goal, despite the intelligent/medical people protesting.

Sieg tells Hermit that he’ll give his life to protect his allies. The Ragnarok goons charge again, but this time, all of Kisara’s old minions, including Uchita and Takeda appear. They tell Kenichi to focus on Odin while they mop up the small fry. Kenichi powers up and Kensai/the Elder say that now he’s really ready to fight. Kenichi declares that he’ll defeat Odin. All of Kenichi’s minions continue beating up random goons while giving their own peptalks.

Kenichi and Odin are now both glowing with their auras. Odin charges, but Kenichi uses his sidestep from way way waaaaaaay back when and then kicks Odin’s stance wider. He follows it by finishing the sweep that Miu used on him literally 47 or so episodes ago. Finally learned it, eh?

Then, in case you’ve forgotten it, we get a flashback to Miu teaching it to him.

Kenichi tells him to take off his glasses or he’s going to break them. Kensai thinks that Kenichi has gotten better, but it’s too bad…

Odin gets up and says that he’s happy that Kenichi has gotten good enough to make him take off his glasses. As the glasses come off, Odin’s eyesight blurs. Kenichi tries to punch, but Odin nails him out of nowhere. Kenichi tries to counterattack with a flurry of punches, but Odin effortlessly blocks all of them and they slams Kenichi with another palm to the face.

Niijima is looking up information on the real Odin. My Norse mythology knowledge cried out in pain at this scene.

The masters give the low down on what happened when Odin took his glasses off. My generic martial arts technobabble isn’t great, but Odin seems to be fighting be sensing Kenichi’s fighting spirit now and using his other senses instead of his eyesight. Ma takes advantage of the opening to slap Miu’s ass.

Kenichi can’t land a hit at all as Odin keep taunting while effortlessly dodging. He then punches again with an image of Gungnir (Odin’s spear) as his fist and again smashes Kenichi’s face three times… following up with another flurry of punches as Kenichi starts to fall.

Odin asks how Gungnir felt as Kenichi gets up. He thinks back to the two of them playfighting in this area. Odin declares that he’s become a demon.

Today will be a bit late, so here’s some stuff to tide you over.

First off, ONE, my favorite of the Key/Tactics games has a translation patch out now. I will admit that the writing and art is a bit subpar compared to the later stuff, but I vastly prefer the flow of the story and that the supernatural elements are a lot more centralized and limited instead of whatever random shit Key decided to pull in from all over the place. I mean, seriously… Russian satellites in one? It’s hard to say too much more without getting spoilery, but it’s well worth checking out if you’re into the VNovel scene. Instead of the more ephemeral “what is the price of a miracle,” from Kanon, ONE explores what it means to exist, with all the girls experiencing the world and interacting with Kouhei uniquely… one’s a blind, a mute, purely acts on instinct, etc, etc. Nobody turns into a fox or is suffering from magical terminal wing-having.
http://akane.is.moelicious.be/index.htm 

Moving on to Kenichi, which I imagine more of you care about… in 15 minutes or so, I’m driving an hour to go hang out with a ton of friends for a huge birthday party and wiffle ball and bocce and cake. Let me warn you, I am a beast at bocce. This means that I’m probably not going to be home until pretty late and Kenichi 48 will not be up until pretty late tonight or possibly tomorrow depending on my motivation and my (admittedly weak) efforts at rousing one of my minions to cover it for me hasn’t worked so far. I think I need to find a sharper stick.

To ease the pain, have a Kenichi image dump, shamelessly stolen from iwubanime on Animesuki. Yes yes, I know you’d rather see two sweaty male teenagers go at it, but this’ll have to do for now. If you’ll excuse me, there be players hatin’ the bocce throwin’ man.

BERSERKER!

Did he just say making fuck?

Anyway, I’m not certain I’ll stay with this posting style, but I’ll try it for a day or two and see how it feels. If you especially like it or hate it, just leave a comment here or back on where I was ruminating on updating the layout. 

Impressions:

If this episode had a budget, it would have been amazing. Without a budget though, we get recap for the first quarter of the episode, 3 frame punches repeated ad nauseum, stills with pan outs, and a shaking camera to show punch impact. It was still pretty decent, but I just remember back to the Kenichi vs Hermit fight and think of what it could have been. *sigh* There was pretty much nothing surprising here though. Hermit sees through Berserker’s berserker mode, breaks his arm, everybody goes home happy. Or gets ready to face Odin next episode, either/or. Maybe they were saving the budget for next episode. At least, I hope so.

I’m actually not certain when since I just noticed it now, but the OP changed a bit again. The fists of Ragnarok are even more animated than the first change.

There’s four minutes of recap and recycled crap from the last episode before this one even starts. Not a good sign.

Anyway, Kenichi has just made it there. All the masters are there to watch from a distance, along with Siegfried in his sickbed. They don’t want to interfere though, so Ma pulls out his super voyeur telescope. Sieg takes a peak into it and sees a figure running over the water straight at him. It’s Jesus, or the Elder, and he blasts by everybody, grabbing some of the picnic food on the way.

He tells them all how Kenichi did with the training, joking around a little bit with them, but telling him that the enemy this time is no joke. He’s unfazed though and pours himself some tea. Miu and her unevenly tilted breasts are a bit more worried.

Back at the throwdown area, Kenichi wants to know why Shinpaku and Ragnarok are fighting. He blames Niijima and his especially poorly drawn ears. After a status report of their… valiant yet unsuccessful battles, Kenichi turns to Odin/Ryuuto. Odin says to not blame him and Berserker speaks up as the one who executed Shinpaku.

Kenichi doesn’t even wait for him to finish talking and attacks with a flying kick. Berserker blocks it, throwing Kenichi away. He lands with his backs to some goons who try to attack him, but Kenichi uses the same barrier technique that Odin uses to easily beat them.

Berserker and Kenichi rush to attack eachother, but Hermit steps in between them and breaks it up. He points his fist at both of them, but turns to Kenichi first, chewing him out for abandoning his friends, which Kenichi just innocently tosses back at him. The rest of Shinpaku is in Hermit’s corner though, saying that he came through when Shinpaku was in a pinch.

Hermit says it was nothing like that. He just remembers his sister through Kenichi’s and wants to protect that.

Odin steps in, and out of nowhere finds a chair. He sits down and wonders if they can really deal with what they’ve gotten themselves into. Right on cue, Berserker attacks and kicks both in the face at once. Kenichi falls back, but Hermit caught the kick and uppercuts Berserker in return. Hermit declares that he’ll be the one to take down Berserker, but the big guy just laughs and suddenly appears right in front of Hermit with a finger on his forehead. Hermit falls back, but Berserker’s finger has left an indent.

Berserker attacks again, raining punches on Hermit while Niijima gives the play by play of Berserker’s genius streetfighting abilities. Berserker finally finds an opening and throws Hermit. Everybody is impressed, but Hermit lands easily and declares that his training under Sougetsu won’t allow him to lose.

Hermit attacks again, this time using the same feints that he used against Kenichi and manages to land blows and knock Berserker down. He gives a little speech about how his fighting style is better, but Kenichi doesn’t think that this battle is over.

From the ground, Berserker starts laughing and then suddenly vaults straight into a handstand on Hermit’s shoulders.

Hermit tries to knock him off, but Berserker turns it into a flip and attacks, and then keeps attacking, knocking Hermit to the ground and forcing him to roll to dodge.

Hermit scrambles to his feet and tries to attack, but finds only air as Berserker vaults onto his shoulders again. Berserker tells Hermit that their fight was interesting and a little fun, but now it’s over. He springs into a flip with a kick that takes Hermit full in the chops.

Hermit is down and not moving at all. Berserker turns to Kenichi and tells him that he’ll lose as well. Niijima is worried, but Kenichi says that there’s no way Tanimoto would lose so easily. Hermit suddenly grabs Berserker with his legs and uses an ankle takedown followed by a chop to Berserker’s neck. Hermit follows up with a knee to the gut and a punch combo, ending with an elbow to Berserker’s face. Hermit gives yet another speech about his training with Sougetsu, but suddenly stops and blood begins pouring from the indent in his forehead.

From the ground, Berserker starts laughing again and pulls himself up, looking like a demon. Everybody’s really worried for Hermit now. Even the masters think that the berserker mode could be trouble.

Berserker is going a bit more nuts and charges Hermit again. Tanimoto is able to block, but Berserker is moving quite a bit faster now, and when Hermit tries to counterattack, Berserker easily dodges and lands a hard blow.

Berserker turns his back to Hermit, and Hermit thinks that he sees an opening, but Berserker somersaults backwards and kicks him on the top of his head. Laughing, Berserker starts beating the living hell out of Hermit. Odin thinks that it’s all over now that Berserker is in berserker mode and Hermit can’t even block anymore.

Sieg thinks that Tanimoto is in a huge pinch, and Ma kind of agrees, that the berserker mode will overwhelm your opponent and force them on the defensive with little regard for your own body. If you wait it out though, since the attacks are generally poorly done, there will be an opening. He also uses the opening to try to feel up Miu, but she slaps his hand away.

Berserker goes for the killing blow, but Hermit suddenly snaps to, manages to dodge it and spins into a punch that slams Berserker down.

All the masters are impressed by Ma’s brother’s student… but is the battle really over?

Berserker pulls himself to his feet again, glowing with the evil energy. This time though, Hermit is able to dodge all his attacks and gets inside his guard punching his legs and catching him in an arm lock.

Berserker refuses to give up though, and Hermit breaks his arm. Berserker refuses to give up though and keeps attacking, even slamming Hermit with his broken arm. The two come together in a final clash, ending with Berserker flying through the air and Hermit in his fighting stance.

Berserker can’t get up from this one, though he struggles. Hermit puts his hood back on and prepares to leave. Odin is very pissed though, and radiating his displeasure.

The masters are pleased with how one of Kenichi’s friends did, and Sieg is singing a victory song for Hermit. Tanimoto walks over Kenichi and tags him in to take over the battle.

Ending with the Return of the Jedi?

New ED this week. It’s really lame, just a bunch of manga arc and a slow song. I’ve attached it after the caps.

Impressions:

I really don’t like how I feel cheated out of never really getting a Loki fight, and now he’s seemingly out of the picture now that he’s betrayed Ragnarok and been beaten to a bloody pulp for it. Other than that though, a rather good episode as we head into the final goings of the long Ragnarok arc, if not the entire show. The fights weren’t exactly impressive, but between the bait and switch of creating the uber evil group and Kenichi’s dramatic return, there was certainly enough to keep it entertaining.

4th Ending

Summary:

In the mountains, Kenichi is up a tree and totally KOed, while the elder is still swinging around giant wooden clubs. He kicks the tree to knock Kenichi out and declares a temporary break. Kenichi crawls to his bag and pulls out his cell phone and is amazed that it gets a bar. It then starts ringing with a mail from Niijima. It’s a rather ‘uplifting’ and ‘positive’ message from Niijima about how great he is and how much of a bug that Kenichi is, but how they’re still companions in his great venture anyway. There’s lots and lots of “a man is xyz.” The last part is narrated by the elder reading over his shoulder. Both of them think that it’s a really strange mail to get from Niijima, almost like an obituary.

Outside Niijima’s warehouse, the combined grunts of Ragnarok are getting ready to break in. Matsui thinks that Kenichi will surely be there, but Niijima’s not so sure. Ragnarok then throws a bunch of firebombs into the warehouse. Niijima decides on a glorious final charge to strike fear into their enemies, but when they run out, the exit is surrounded by Loki clones, who all attack.

Back in the wilderness, Kenichi thinks that his friends are in big trouble, so wants to head home to help them as soon as possible. The elder agrees to it, but tells him that his own life could be in danger if he leaves now. Kenichi pauses, but then says that that’s okay with him.

At the warehouse, Niijima and Matsui are somehow holding back the grunts and clones. #20 starts firing her pellet gun into the crowd and creates an opening for a clone to attack, but he’s suddenly slammed backwards. Thor is here to help out Shinpaku. Not only him, but Hermit as well.

Kenichi is being rushed back to the city on the back of the elder at breakneck speeds. He can’t hold on and falls off into the wilderness.

Loki’s grunts are having a rough time dealing with Thor, though Hermit is just hanging back for the moment. Loki threatens Hermit with Kensai’s wrath, but Hermit just says that this is something Loki wants, not Kensai. The tables turned, Niijima starts taunting the Ragnarok troops. Loki sends in the taser troops, but Hermit easily destroys them, and the weapons users that follow. He rushes at Loki, but he and #20 retreat. Hermit continues chasing him, but he just throws more grunts in the way to slow them down. Ragnarok’s morale is starting to break, and the grunts try to run away, but Odin and Berserker appear in front of them.

Everybody thinks that they’re totally screwed, but Odin chews out Loki for his inability to deal with the simplest of things. Loki turns it back against Odin though and says that it’s his fault they’re even in this mess in the first place.

At Akisame’s clinic, Sieg is trying to escape to help his friends. Akisame calls in Ma, who uses his acupuncture to knock him out. Ma then tries to go and ‘check up’ on the girl in the next bed… Kisara, who is being bandaged by Miu. Sieg tries to get up again, but is held down by Akisame while Ma prepares to acupuncture him.

Kisara stumbles out to put her own two cents in about going to help their friends. Akisame says that it’s all well in hand, but Sieg keep struggling. Kisara asks again, and Akisame relents. Ma asks Sieg what he’s going to do in his condition, and he starts chanting “Shinpaku.” Apachai appears beneath his bed and lifts it, ready to carry him to the fight, and Sakaki appears in the doorway. They all decide to go together.

Back at the warehouse, Loki is still yelling at Odin for letting Ragnarok fall to pieces. He says that Ragnarok is dead. He then whistles and calls his own personal troops in, a group of weird looking punks which he calls the True 8 fists. He finally takes off his goggles, declares himself the true leader and Berserker his #2. The True Holy Ragnarok is born and Odin is deposed.

Everybody is a bit confused, and Loki convinces the grunts that Freya was defeated by Shinpaku and Odin is sympathizing with their leader, so all the grunts gather to beat up Odin. Niijima uses his “Niijima Eye” and alien power to check the power levels of Loki, Berserker and Odin, but is confused by what he sees from Berserker.

Loki thanks Berserker for joining him and puts a hand on his shoulder. Berserker responds by backhanding him in the face and then absolutely decimating the True 8 Fists without even breaking a sweat. He walks back to Odin and stands next to him. Loki tries to attack Berserker, but is easily blocked. Loki asks why Berserker refused his offer of power, and Berserker basically tells him he’s trash before uppercutting him.

Odin tells the grunts to finish off Shinpaku -now-. Driven by newfound morale and fear, they surround Matsui, Niijima and Thor. Odin leaves Berserker to deal with Hermit. Odin moves to punish Niijima, but Thor stands in his way. Thor tries to grab Odin, but Odin misses and uses a Chi blast to attack Thor’s internal organs at his chest to knock him down. Thor’s not finished yet and grabs Odin by the shoulders. Thor gets ready to finish off Odin at the cost of his life, but Odin lays a hand on his chest and tells him to die.

Suddenly, a flash of movement appears above them. Odin leaps backwards just before Kenichi comes crashing downward. As the dust clears, Kenichi says that that really hurt, and takes his fighting stance.

Holy fluctuating animation, Batman!

Impressions:

A rather good episode, even if all the fighting was decent at best. I swear that there must have been at least 15 stills of Miu hitting a sailor scout. There were some moments of relative quality, but they were all immediately followed up by some truly cringeworthy stuff. Just look at Miu’s face around the 16:45 mark. That’s up there with some of the terrible terrible Nanoha budget saving techniques from season 1. Ew. Just… ew. Still, the rest of it was pretty fun. It was just a practice in rapidly flipping between having a budget and not for the entire episode.

Summary:

Freya is facing off with sports bra Miu, but Kisara leaps in. We also get to see Niijima drop Berserker in a pit again, but this time, one of his cronies dumps glue down the pit. Berserker immediately just jumps off a wall and out, onto the fence above Niijima. He realizes that Niijima is really weak and pathetic and moves to finish him. Before his punch can hit, Siegfried grabs his fist and stops him, letting Niijima escape. Berserker and Seig start their battle.

Miu is dealing with the sailor scouts while Freya and Kisara taunt eachother. Kisara is the first to attack, but Freya easily blocks her and knocks her over. One of the sailor scouts tries to attack the downed Kisara, but Miu kicks her out of the way. Kisara repeats her personal way of the ninja and attacks again.

Back with Sieg and Berserker, Berserker is annoyed by the Shinpaku and tries to leave Sieg to attack Niijima, but Sieg won’t let him. Berserker starts beating on Sieg, who takes the hits and tries to use the momentum to make his own attacks, but Berserker blocks them all. The masters are walking by and see Berserker beating on Siegfried. Finally, Sieg tries to flip over the fence to attack, but Berserker tags him in the gut with a clean hit.

He thinks that this is bad, but gets up, singing with his eyes glowing. He moves toward Berserker, and takes an elbow to the face, but grabs him from behind. Berserker asks why he’s using this, and Sieg tells him that the Shinpaku is a team unlike Ragnarok. He then uses his final technique, the Requiem Buster and leaps backwards into the water. He doesn’t let go, even when they’re under. Berserker suddenly flexes and starts powering up. There’s a small burst, and then Siegfried’s hat floats to the surface.

Niijima is still running through town mostly naked, looking for Siegfried.

Berserker pops up, but Siegfried doesn’t, so Sakaki and Akisame jump to save him… both are aiming for the same sign. They manage to both land on it and they fish Siegfried out. Shigure is still going on about how Siegfried is a kappa, while Apachai is jauntily wearing Sieg’s hat. Sieg mutters out to save “the alien.”

Freya and Kisara’s fight is not going particularly well for Kisara. She’s no match for Freya’s rippling sixpack. Kisara remembers back to when she used to streetfight against some huge beast of a guy. Despite her better technique and reach, he was just too strong. She was about to be defeated, but then Freya appeared and knocked him out with one punch.

Kisara then started looking up to Freya and helping her with her training. Kisara asks her how she made a punch so strong, and Freya punches at some walls. It leaves perfect circles, and Freya shows that she’s actually palming little sticks which she combines to make a staff. She tells Kisara that there are no rules in fighting and anything to shorten the gap between men and women is ‘fair’ game.

Kisara, back in the present, doesn’t buy her line anymore and tells Freya how Kenichi taught her that there’s a different kind of strength. The resolve to be stupid, but protect what’s important to you, and that’s a better strength than simple physical power. Yada yada. Kisara giving the speech instead of Kenichi is no less lame.

Kisara attacks again, and this time manages to avoid Freya’s attack and kicks her in the back. Miu smiles to herself about how much Kenichi is changing people. The sailor scouts try to attack her sports bra from behind again, but Miu barely even pays attention to them as she thinks about what Kenichi is doing. In fact, the elder is standing over a KOed Kenichi with a giant pair of clubs. They get ready to go another round, but Kenichi runs off in fear.

Back to the fight, Freya is wailing on Kisara pretty badly now. She splits her sticks to alter her style of attack for close in and manages to knock Kisara down. Miu keeps beating the hell out of the sailor scouts in the battle of bad stills. She finishes off all of them and tells the downed Kisara to do her best.

I’d like to make a special note here that Miu’s face as Kisara got up was nothing short of fucking horrifying.

Kisara gets up and trots to attack again, this time thinking about how Miu moves and trying to mimick her light movements instead of Freya’s raw power. She dodges easily. Miu immediately recognizes it and starts giving her hints, telling her to see the center of the attack and whatnot.

Kisara looks down on Freya and sees it. She zooms in and uses her double kick to slam down on Freya’s stick, shattering it and slamming Freya to the ground. She neglects to actually land though, so ends up pretty scrapped up too. Freya gets up to attack, with her broken pointy sticks. She then drops them and says that she’s happy with how much Kisara has grown. Freya says that if she fights using those, it’d actually be dangerous.

Miu picks one up and says that she recognized Freya’s style and that she’s a real martial artist, and wouldn’t use something like knives to actually try to kill somebody. Freya parts with them, saying that Kisara has become truly powerful. Kisara falls to the ground, crying.

At school, the Shinpaku’s defeat is the talk of the class, even though Kenichi is still absent. Warlock wonders what’s really going on and heads to the Shinpaku meeting room. The flag lackey is there to fill him in and tells him to pass along a message to Kenichi.

At an abandoned warehouse, flagboy and Kisara’s kicking lackey are meeting with Niijima. Niijima suddenly thinks that the colar the kicker dude gave him was trapped, so forces him to drink it. It really did have a laxative in it. A bunch of punks surround the warehouse, lead by Loki and are here to finish off Niijima once and for all.

The last of Ragnarok take it to the Shinpaku Alliance.

I think I may just move to the (long) bullet point summary instead of dropping Kenichi completely, especially if/while the Tokyo Majin and Dokuro raws continue to be flighty at best.

Impressions:

I really lament the lack of an animation budget that Kenichi has. That Ukita vs Berserker fight was pretty painful to watch. Next episode looks to have a bit better of a budget when Kisara takes on Freya at least. I can’t help but think that the whole Berserker setup is really a pretty hackneyed shounen fighting cliche that I’ve seen hundreds of times before though. Hero goes off to train, new guy shows up and clears house, hero comes back and mops floor with him to show his new and improved power before fighting the real villain. All we’re really missing is Loki or #20 screaming about Kenichi’s power level. Meh. Maybe Kenichi’ll surprise me.

Summary:

• Long flashback about the last episode.
• Kenichi’s training continues with tickle attacks by the elder.
• Niijima’s trying to get Hermit to come to a Shinpaku party. Ukita and Takeda try to cozy up to Hermit as well.
• At the party Kisara is feeling out of place.
• Kisara’s underlings and the Shinpaku lackies are also having a mixer… while Berserker lurks outside.
• Annoyed that he’s being ignored, Niijima heads to the underling party to find everybody beaten up.
• The commander party broken up, Kisara is cheerful and flirting with Ukita.
• As Ukita and Takeda walk home, Berserker attacks them.
• The masters are doing their shopping since Kenichi isn’t there to do it for them, though Miu is distracted by kittens in a pet store and runs into Kisara, distracted by the same.
• The two bond over the kittens until Kisara asks where “that boy she likes” is… and as she stutters, they’re attacked by Freya and her sailor scouts.
• Kisara’s cell is going off, but she doesn’t notice… Niijima is trying to call her to warn her.
• His grunt gets through to Ukita’s phone, but it’s Berserker on the line who tells him that Ukita’s… indisposed.
• Takeda tries to attack Berserker, but he effortlessly dodges and knocks Takeda down.
• Ukita grabs Berserker’s leg from the ground, and Takeda tries to attack again, and manages to scratch Berserker’s face, but is then knocked out.
• Berserker is about to leave, but then Niijima shows up and uses his final technique… various forms of retreating and running away.
• Kenichi continues training… balanced on rocks on a cliff while being attacked by bees.
• Kisara and Miu are effortlessly beating down the sailor scouts, and using tagteam moves even.
• Miu figures out how Freya is attacking at range… with a stick… and tries to tie it up in her jacket, but Freya just pulls it away.
• Kisara jumps in between Freya and Miu to take her on.
• Niijima’s escape techniques continue… as he loses his pants to Berserker.
• Berserker finally ‘corners’ him in an alley, where Niijima had a pitfall trap… that fails to go off.
• It was just another trick though and Niijima pulls a lever and traps Berserker in another pit.

Just FYI, I’m going to be on a plane in about… 5 hours to head down to Florida for a funeral and then back on Sunday morning, so I’m skipping Kenichi. Regular updates will resume next week. I’ll probably have a random Seinarukana post to keep you occupied depending on how long I play it tonight instead of sleeping. Sleep is what 6 hour plane flights are for.

Cats, survival, and Siegfried… oh my.

Impressions:

Amazingly, actually a rather quality episode for absolutely nothing really happening but more generic training that will end with some Kenichi epiphany. Unlike most, it actually seemed to have a budget… although I could really have done without the 45 second 3 frame Sieg singing sequence. Aside from that, the Kisara moments were pretty funny/cute and the Elder makes a rather good antagonist for poor Kenichi.

Summary:

Kenichi is training especially hard lately, going through training dummies like nobody’s business and even trying to attack Sakaki out of nowhere. Kouets chastises him, but he says that he can’t lose anymore. He senses that Ma’s guard is down and attacks him, but gets kicked in the gut for it.

He sulks in the corner, saying that there’s no way that he can beat the first fist. The elder then comes in and offers to take him on survival training. Kenichi is a bit doubtful that it’ll help, but the elder cows him into submission.

The Shinpaku alliance is parading around again, and at some point Niijima has acquired a shoulder loli thing. Their destination… to recruit Kisara and her gang. His strategy this time is to blackmail her with pictures of her cuddling with cats. He says that he has a hard disc full of the pictures… which Sieg then holds up. Both try to grab for it, but he breaks it and then sings at Niijima in a rather painful 40 second long speedline filled song.

It finally ends with Sieg saying that Shinpaku’s melody is ‘grandioso’ and much better than the melody of Ragnarok. He tries to convey this to Kisara, but then whips out a kitten, and she tries to grab at it while he waves it around and keeps it from her. She eventually grabs it, and he keeps pulling more kittens out of his jacket.

Niijima eventually asks her for information on the 2nd Fist. She doesn’t have much for him other than that he’s strong. She does shake hands with Nijiima in at least a temporary truce for the time being.

At Ryouzanpaku, the Elder and Kenichi are leaving for their training. The other masters are still pretty worried and tell Kenichi to be prepared and do his best.

At Ragnarok HQ, Berserker and Loki are playing cards while talking about Odin’s run-in with Kenichi. Loki jokes around and tries to get a reaction out of Berserker while also cheating at the game. Berserker throws his cards down and storms away, mentioning an order from Odin as he goes. Loki turns over Berserker’s cards from curiosity and sees that even after cheating, his hand would have lost and is newly impressed with the skills of Berserker.

The Elder is storming through the forest with Kenichi on his back. He eventually comes to a clearing and throws Kenichi off. After a brief peptalk, the training starts… or doesn’t start as the case may be. The elder gives him a peptalk about giving 100% and there is no secret anything out here.

Kenichi heads off to gather water and starts pumping it when he feels a sudden movement behind him. A little later, he’s chopping wood and feels the same movement. The survival training continues with Kenichi trying to catch fish and failing. The Elder tells him that he can’t eat unless he catches it. He keeps trying long into the night, but can’t get anything. The Elder sends him over to a nut tree of some kind though. Like a squirrel, he starts gathering and then hiding them when he feels the motion again, this time with a female voice. Unfortunately, he’s not strong enough to crack the nuts open though.

As he keeps training at night, a pair of eyes are watching him. At Ryouzanpaku, everybody is doing their usual things they do when they’re worried or expect bad luck. His tea cup cracks, Apachai is nailing voodoo dolls, etc.

Back at the training grounds, Kenichi gives it another go at the fishing, but can’t catch anything. This continues for a few days and he starts living just live the rodents. The Elder walks off into the bushes and immediately comes back with an armful of fruit. Kenichi is lamenting his lack of food when he feels the movement again. He turns and sees a fish free. He leaps at it, but the elder is faster and pulls it out of the way. Kenichi then goes after the fruit, but the Elder is still too fast and runs off with it.

Kenichi is famished and wandering around looking for food. Eventually night falls and he starts hallucinating that random fauna is food. He stuffs it into his mouth and then spits it back up… and then the ellipses rabbit walks by and he chases it too before collapsing out of hunger.

The bad luck omens continue at Ryouzanpaku. Sakaki sets Miu off by saying that Akisame lied to Kenichi, but Ma steps in and makes peace by saying that it’s something between men and Akisame knew what he was doing. They start dancing around in general confusion and misunderstanding, but Akisame explains the meaning of Kenichi’s training and that there’s more to it, though it could be the end of Kenichi.