October 02, 2003
Ikki Tousen Episode 7
Wow, what an introduction. Make sure you cover up your kids' eyes and ears when showing them this anime. (By the way, you'd better not be showing this to your kids!)
On to the show! I love Kannwu and all, with her long, static hair, but when she breaks her own arm to get out of Mou's hold (and in subsequent shots we can see her broken bones protruding at all sorts of weird angles), I get the shivers. Kannwu is of course one of the wielders of the punch that rips female characters clothes off attack, which is one of my personal favorites, because of its inability to do any real harm other than add to the already staggering fanservice in this series.
I just noticed something, my two favorite characters so far, Kannwu and Ryofu, both wear loose socks.
Toutaku has been a pretty lame bad guy so far, pulling strings in the background while lying around picking flowers (in a somewhat diabolical manner, but come on... he's picking flowers). I admire his ability to surround himself with beautiful women, but what's the deal with the bandages? I'm sure it's all a setup for when he finally fights, and turns out to be some super powerful warrior, but he just seems so boring right now. His plan is to get his enemies to beat each other up, so that none of them will be strong enough to take him out. He obviously doesn't take into the account the power of narrative to heal main characters!
The action in this episode was pretty good, getting a cool string of fights against Kannwu (whom I hope we haven't seen the last of!). Add on a whole lot of fanservice and some plot development and you have a barely better than average show.
Rating: B-
Posted by Kei at October 2, 2003 11:56 PM