天下制覇

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.