Ikkitousen Vol-2: Historic Battles (2003)
Animation Production: Ikki Tousen Partners
Released by: Geneon Entertainment
Running Time: 75 Minutes
Official Website: Ikkitousen
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

With the first volume of the series Ikkitousen looked rock-solid and impressed the JH anime labs with its mix of raw humanity in the forms of martial arts fighting and sexual innuendo. The story was at points hard to follow due to all the historical references and the sometimes hard to understand names and battlefields being described, but it did manage to grab our attention and establish an interesting premise for many of the different featured fighters.

With volume two I was expecting more in the same vein, but with a heavier advancement of the plot and further evolution of the characters. Let’s see what’s happening in this scholastic battleground!

Story

"After her defeat by the honorable Taishigi, Hakufu takes it upon herself to fight even harder to reach the top. Even as the tournament's battles rage on, the head of each school plots to defeat the others by manipulating their pawns into battling each other. Will Hakufu become an unwitting tool, or will she be able to control the warrior spirit growing inside her? " DVD Box

Review

The second volume in Geneon’s release of Ikkitousen features episodes five through seven in the series, which include:

Episode 5
“The Big Fighters Tournament will be held”, read several mobile phones across Japan. The time for the tournament that is held every three years has finally arrived! But first Hakufu must get revenge for what happened to Taishiji, by taking out everyone at Youshu Private School! The battle is just beginning!

Episode 6
The Big Fighters Tournament has begun! With two different matches underway the battle for ruling rights is now in the hands of each school’s top fighters! Will Hakufu and company be able to stand up to their opponents? Who is the mysterious new fighter that enters the freight and fights alone against five other opponents without even breaking a sweat?

Episode 7
Hakufu and Ryomou come face to face against Kanu, an opponent the likes of which they haven’t faced off against before. Will they be able to pull through and get a victory for their school or will this mark Hakufu’s first real major defeat!?

The first four episodes of Ikkitousen were fun to watch and set up the basic premise of the show quite nicely while at the same time establishing the raw feel of the fighting and sexuality elements that abound in each story. I have to admit I was surprised by the many things that they showed and insinuated in those first four episodes, but at least it did so more intelligently than most of these types of programs tend to. Instead of simply hinting at something without really embracing it, Ikkitousen revels in the vast amounts of violence and sexuality that it depicts.

In fact with these episodes the magnitude and explicitness of these two elements is taken up a notch as the stakes are raised for all the different character in each of the battles they face individually and as a group. At points the sexual innuendo did get to be almost too much for me personally, but thankfully it didn’t step over the line. This time out the violence was more visibly depicted as we witness multitudes of people being beaten to a pulp and even see Kanu’s arm being broken and hang lifelessly as she fights Hakufu.

Speaking of Kanu her introduction is possibly the most interesting plot/development injection at this point in the show. There are some other curiosity-inducing additions such as the enigmatic girl that has been watching Hakufu from a distance and knows a lot about her and the twists and turns that are taking place behind the scenes of the Big Fighters Tournament this year. This political maneuvering in particular was a fun, but seldom seem element of the story this time out. It would seem that unlike previous years in this latest tournament the players might be being manipulated by the previous tournament’s winner for his own secret agenda and to help him avoid what seems to be a pre-ordained destiny of loss at the hands of Hakufu.

The plot development definitely picks up the pace here especially once we get into episode six and go into tournament mode with all the schools beginning the process of pitting their best fighters against each other to determine who is the strongest. Needless to say this makes for some fun duels and action sequences where the characters put forth their best efforts against a variety of contenders that range from street punks to highly trained martial arts experts.

Unfortunately the biggest weakness in the program so far, our lead Hakufu’s lack of any real intellectual power continues to make itself painfully present. She may be the strongest of the fighters, but her strangely ignorant or maybe more accurately described “flighty” way of looking at the world and processing information make her a harder character to follow than is necessary. Thankfully the supporting cast around her help propel the character forward and minimize her lack of mental power.

On the production end the show continues to impress with some amazing and sometimes very realistic animation. With the tournament in play it also allowed the writers to place our characters in a multitude of locations that liven up the procedings and make for a more varied visual experience as we are taken from an express train's moving innards to the top of a residential building and the depths of an underground garage among other places.

The color palette used is extremely colorful and occasionally dips into a darker range of tones for a more atmospheric effect. The drawings are particularly sharp and realistic with a very respectable frame rate that makes all movement flow smoothly in particular around the many battles scenes that are sprinkled throughout. Visual effects are used as well, but are mostly limited to atmospheric effects and combine easily with the more traditional hand drawn animation for a seamless combo

The DVD package for this one is similar in nature to Geneon’s previous release and is definitely well put together. For starters we get a reversible cover on the outside of the DVD box while on the inside there’s a pencil board and mini-poster to be found. Extras on the DVD include a clean copy of the ending theme, an art gallery, an interview segment with the director (easily the best of the bonuses), hidden features (outtakes) and previews for other upcoming releases from the company.

The video transfer here is clean, extremely sharp & colorful with no real problems that I could detect. The audio which is encoded on Dolby Digital 2.0 audio was an aural delight for the ears and suffered from no problems whatsoever. Subtitles were easy to read and flowed nicely.

Final Thoughts

If you’re into martial arts anime and enjoy a more violent flavor with a shot of sexual innuendo this one is definitely a must-see. The story is getting more interesting and as more powerful characters appear to challenge Hakufu the stakes are definitely being raised.

Keep in mind that there is some adult content here and that the recommended age of viewing is 16 and above.

Jeffrey Couto