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?
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...

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:

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:

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:

Posted by: Wonderduck at 04:28 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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