天下制覇

Will then get on with it already?

Impressions:

This was really not that great an episode. Aside from another two and a half minutes of flashback at the start, there was about a minute of Kenichi and Odin actually fighting in the first half thanks to spending most of the episodes with the Masters, and at least half of that was the magical animation technique of having people stand there and showing blurry punches all around them to symbolize attacks being made. You’d think one of those would hit since neither person moves but apparently the goal is to swing everywhere but the other person’s body. There was more in the second half, but there were still at least three times as many scenes of random grunts being beaten up as there were of Kenichi and Odin going at it. At the end of the episode, the only thing that really happened is Odin took his glasses off and is now fighting ‘for real.’ Compared to last episode where we went through every stage of Berserker all at once… well… apparently this fight is going to take a very long while.

Okay, I suppose that if you’re good with voices, you can also count learning the identity of Kensai (Kensei, whatever, let’s limit it to only one Kensei for simplicity’s sake and Ma has seniority), but really, almost nothing happened and it did it very very slowly. Kenichi almost throws Odin and later trips him, and then Odin punched Kenichi a few times using his magical “bad eyesight” power. There. I summarized the main fight for the episode. Meh. MEH!

What is with these recent episodes and recap? At least it wasn’t the four minutes of recap that episode 37 had. This time, it was only two and a half minutes… not that that’s any better.

Hermit tags in Kenichi while Niijima does his alien dance about Hermit joining Shinpaku. Berserker suddenly gets up, ready to fight again, and then nearly falls down. Kenichi holds him up, but Berserker knocks his hand off and then punches him, but Kenichi doesn’t move and Berserker stops short.

Kenichi tells him that it’s okay, he well understands the feeling of losing. It’s not the end of the world, etc etc etc.

Berserker gives his own speech on his past and joining Ragnarok, saying that he’s never fought Odin because he was so scared by his aura. He’s about to say something about Odin’s abilities, but Odin jumps in and gives him a palm to the back of the head and knocks him out.

Kenichi grits his teeth and calls out Odin for being an ass to his companions and the two get ready to fight.

Kenichi punches, but Odin blocks and slips past with his own punch. Kenichi barely dodges and leaps away. Then takes his own seikuken stance. Odin thinks that there’s no way that he could have mastered it in such a short time.

The two edge closer to eachother, and their magical barriers zap against eachother as they overlap.

Miu can’t see a thing so she starts fighting with Sieg for the telescope.

Odin and Kenichi start attacking eachother again, but both block all the other’s moves.

The master comment, but they know that Odin is holding back so far. Suddenly they sense something. Up on a crane is the Kensai, who recognizes that Ryouzanpaku found him. He wonders to himself which group will win this fight, his or their’s. Miu has gained control of the telescope and is watching the fight.

Ma wonders where Sieg went… and he’s swimming across the river to try to get there… until he sinks beneath an the elder runs out to grab him.

Kenichi and Odin continue their fight. They finally actually do some moves instead of just blur punching at eachother. Kenichi imagines what the elder taught him and visualizes Odin’s punch as a club, then grabs him and throws him to the ground. As the smoke clears, it’s just Odin’s jacket, and Odin almost lands on Kenichi with a punch from above before Kenichi can jump out of the way.

Odin is kind of impressed with Kenichi, but Ken is more concerned with “what happened to that fun loving kid I used to know.” Odin blames it all on the promise they made to become more powerful. Kenichi argues with him a little bit about what martial arts are for, but then Niijima steps in and gives his $.02.

Odin wonders if learning martial arts has really allowed him to protect those important things. He orders the rest of the Ragnarok goons to attack, telling them that Hermit is weak from his fight with Berserker. Taking advantage of the distraction, he throws Kenichi to no real damage and tells him that he can’t protect anything with his skills. Things aren’t going well for his allies either. Thor and Hermit are way too weak from their fights to put up a struggle and a goon with a sledgehammer moves in for the kill.

Sieg appears and blocks the attack.

Back at the master’s camp, the elder comes back, saying that he helped the kid on to his goal, despite the intelligent/medical people protesting.

Sieg tells Hermit that he’ll give his life to protect his allies. The Ragnarok goons charge again, but this time, all of Kisara’s old minions, including Uchita and Takeda appear. They tell Kenichi to focus on Odin while they mop up the small fry. Kenichi powers up and Kensai/the Elder say that now he’s really ready to fight. Kenichi declares that he’ll defeat Odin. All of Kenichi’s minions continue beating up random goons while giving their own peptalks.

Kenichi and Odin are now both glowing with their auras. Odin charges, but Kenichi uses his sidestep from way way waaaaaaay back when and then kicks Odin’s stance wider. He follows it by finishing the sweep that Miu used on him literally 47 or so episodes ago. Finally learned it, eh?

Then, in case you’ve forgotten it, we get a flashback to Miu teaching it to him.

Kenichi tells him to take off his glasses or he’s going to break them. Kensai thinks that Kenichi has gotten better, but it’s too bad…

Odin gets up and says that he’s happy that Kenichi has gotten good enough to make him take off his glasses. As the glasses come off, Odin’s eyesight blurs. Kenichi tries to punch, but Odin nails him out of nowhere. Kenichi tries to counterattack with a flurry of punches, but Odin effortlessly blocks all of them and they slams Kenichi with another palm to the face.

Niijima is looking up information on the real Odin. My Norse mythology knowledge cried out in pain at this scene.

The masters give the low down on what happened when Odin took his glasses off. My generic martial arts technobabble isn’t great, but Odin seems to be fighting be sensing Kenichi’s fighting spirit now and using his other senses instead of his eyesight. Ma takes advantage of the opening to slap Miu’s ass.

Kenichi can’t land a hit at all as Odin keep taunting while effortlessly dodging. He then punches again with an image of Gungnir (Odin’s spear) as his fist and again smashes Kenichi’s face three times… following up with another flurry of punches as Kenichi starts to fall.

Odin asks how Gungnir felt as Kenichi gets up. He thinks back to the two of them playfighting in this area. Odin declares that he’s become a demon.