March 08, 2007

Anime First Episode: Ikkitousen - Dragon Destiny

I didn't want to have to do this. While I freely admit my somewhat twisted enjoyment of the original Ikkitousen series, I really hoped that someone down the line would have realized that... well, it just wasn't good, and that a sequel would be a very, very wrong thing to do.

But the lure of money brought in by the first show (just take a look at all the figures from it that are out there... heck, I even have one) was too strong. And thus, Ikkitousen - Dragon Destiny has been whelped and let loose upon an unsuspecting public.

Maybe they moved away from their tried-and-true style? Could they have possibly turned this into a GOOD series without us being aware of it? Oy.  Well, it could be worse... it could be a guy.
Ah. No, no they didn't. I suppose I should applaud them for their restraint; they waited a whole 51 seconds before they hit us with pantsu. (UPDATE: for the record, the first series had the first pantsu sighting 23 seconds into the OP! Not even the show itself, but the OP!!!)

It seems the producers realized what side their bread is buttered on. Hakufu, that airheaded ditz of a lead in the first series only appears in this episode as a still on a computer screen. Instead, the entire first chunk of the show is devoted to Ryumou Shimei, the semisadistic, eyepatched, meido-becostumed fighter that was a major secondary character the first time around. She's attempting to recover something from a shrine... something familiar...
Hey, look!  It's a DragonBall!  *thwap* OW!!!

Of course, this wouldn't be Ikkitousen without fighting, so some scantily clad fighter shows up to take the DragonBall away from Mou-chan, giving us a fairly nice chase/fight scene:
...seconds later, Mou-chan appears to be sucked into a 747's engine.  No, I'm not kidding.

We then cut to a different school, just filled with even more fighters, and, oh look! THEIR leader happens to be a wimpy, "I-don't-want-to-fight" type who, like Hakufu, has the soul of a Great Leader in her. Oy. Fortunately for her (and for those of us who are trying to get through this show), she's protected by an able Lieutenant, Kan-u Unchou:
She's wondering how she got stuck in this show.

The show goes on to introduce us to the various other main characters, none of whom are on screen more than a minute. Guess you have to expect that in a first episode of this quality level, but c'mon! There are five or six new faces, as well as one retread from the first show, that whip across the screen... get out the paper, you're gonna have to take notes with this one.

So far, I-DD (I see what you did there, person-who-named-the-series) seems to be a disappointment, but it IS still early: it could easily get worse. From what I've read, this series is going to follow the manga somewhat more closely than the original did (though, not having read it, I have no way of knowing if that's correct). In any case, I'm sure not recommending this to anybody... call it my own secret shame.

But I'm not entirely happy with it:
Welcome to my Hell, lady...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 04:28 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 500 words, total size 4 kb.

1 The first series gave me the heeby-jeebies as soon as I found out that the seiyuu that did Hakufu also did Saga Bergman in "Sugar". EEEEeeeew!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 08, 2007 05:08 PM (+rSRq)

2 I'm going to have to watch it to see if they do pick up the actual plot from the manga. The title suggests they might, because the plot revolves around destiny and dragons... And if they follow the plot, Hakufu will continue to play a major role.

And, hey, pantsu! How can I lose?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 09, 2007 10:30 AM (uj4NK)

3 Pixy, you can lose lots and lots of brain cells. Though I must confess that Kan-u Unchou does look very fine. (Especially from that camera angle.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 09, 2007 03:11 PM (+rSRq)

4 Steven, it's not just that camera angle. There's not one scene that she's in that she isn't uniformly gorgeous (for an animated character).

Now if only they'd put that much effort into, oh, the plot...

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 09, 2007 06:27 PM (GQv1b)

5 The plot of the manga is that the kids from the various schools, who wear those magatama, are reincarnations of various warriors from the Three Kingdoms period, and the magatama both give them fighting power and bind them to the same fates as the original warriors.

The original Hakufu, for example, was very powerful, but died very young. She doesn't know anything about what's going on at the start of the story because her mother was trying to protect her from that early death.

So they're all acting their parts in this play; some of them are trying to break free of their fates, others are actively trying to bring another cycle of the war to completion.

Oh, and four of the characters are dragons. You've met three of them, but it takes a while before they are all revealed. The fourth hasn't shown up as of volume 10 of the manga.

Also, pantsu.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 09, 2007 07:38 PM (uj4NK)

6 Well, that certainly describes (in broad terms) at least the first series. I-DD hasn't really said much about plot yet.

"Plot? We don't need no steenking plot!"

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 10, 2007 01:50 AM (86QII)

7 Yeah, now that I think of it, the original did start out on the plot, but they smushed all the details together. The politics between the schools reflect the politics of the Three Kingdom period, only they didn't have time to put all that in, so we were left with something that made no sense.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 10, 2007 11:54 AM (uj4NK)

8 ...but also pantsu.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 10, 2007 06:41 PM (+rSRq)

9 Indeed.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 12, 2007 11:33 PM (uj4NK)

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