天下制覇

 

Over seven goddamn minutes of it!

Impressions:

Well, that sucked. Counting everything that we’ve seen before (including the OP), this episode clocked in at around 7 minutes, 25 seconds of recap/reused footage for the finale. Seven and a half. That’s nearly a third of the bloody episode. Simply amazing. It’d be forgiveable if they had used the budget to actually animate Odin versus Kenichi, but no. I have absolutely no clue what happened with these last few episodes, but aside from Doppleganger Kenichi, they were an utter disgrace. You want to end a show with a bang, not reused footage, and as many pithy speeches that you can cram into every single crevasse.

Hooray, recap! We get to see Kenichi fight as all the masters again… this time with a different insert song. Not exactly a promising way to begin the finale.

Ryuuto powers up again, the elder is shocked, yada yada yada.

Odin kicks at Kenichi, but he thinks he dodges and backflips away. As he lands, his shirt explodes. The distraction makes him lose track of Ryuuto, who attacks him from behind. Kenichi senses it, but Odin manages to use his seikuken to counter.

The elder confirms to Miu that it really was the seikuken even in his . Akisame is also pretty worried about the fight and thinks that somebody may be seriously hurt in it.

Kenichi has switched back to Apachai mode. Odin catches one of his kicks and then flexes lifts him by the leg (why Kenichi doesn’t just unflex his leg is beyond me) and then slams him into the roof.

The Shinpaku troops on the ground think that Odin is using a Berserker Mode, but Niijima says that it’s something worse. The masters see what’s going on and some want to interfere. What Odin is doing is similar to a Berserker attack, but it burns out the body and energy in doing it and is dangerous to all involved.

Kensai thinks that it’s wonderful what his disciple has learned.

Kenichi keeps trying to attack Odin, but can’t get through. Odin grabs both his hands and we see another flashback of young Miu getting attacked and fighting the thugs. Apparently Miu talked to them, making Ryuuto feel all warm inside and then Kenichi and him got into a little fight over who really owned the yin-yang badge, which Odin lost.

Back in the real fight, Odin continues beating on Kenichi. They came to blows in the past as well too over the badge with Odin tackling Kenichi.

Odin lands a deep punch on Kenichi and walks forward to finish the job.

He stomps on Kenichi’s face.

Kensai is moving in with his own designs on Kenichi, but a shockwave stops him. He falls back and all the masters appear around him, saying that it’s a master’s duty to not interfere in the disciple’s fight. The elder also reveals to the audience that Kensai is ‘Oga-chan.’ Yeah, the guy from the mountains who fights bears. That’s the big baddie hiding in the shadows.

Miu, on the other hand, hadn’t even noticed when they left.

Back with Odin and Kenichi, someone keeps getting their face stomped on, and it’s not Odin. He tells Kenichi about all the capsules he bought looking for the yin-yang badge, that’s how important it was to him.

Odin then starts into the more nonsensical (like it wasn’t before) “meaning of a fight” blathering. He got picked up by Kensai, etc etc. He goes for the finishing stomp, and Kenichi dies!

Nah, just kidding, eyecatch.

Kenichi of course gets up and punches Odin before the stomp can land. Kenichi appears behind Odin with his own pithy speech about fighting and whatnot. Odin keeps trying to attack while he’s talking, but Kenichi is able to block all the attacks and then punches him in the face while yelling what a real fight is.

Odin’s eyes lose the white glare as he gets hit, but he rushes back into the fight. Miu is amazed at the power of both of them, and Odin finally reveals that Kenichi was the one who turned the squabble into a real fight and ‘getting serious’ about it is why he won their fight as children.

Kenichi attacks and Odin can’t form his seikuken at all. His body is giving out from the overdrive he used and he can barely move. This doesn’t stop Kenichi from wailing on him and he punches him hard and knocks him away as Odin finally collapses.

Kenichi thinks the fight is over, but there’s a sudden explosion around Odin from within the warehouse. All the oil drums were ignited at some point. Shinpaku tries to rescue the random people and the masters also rush in.

Odin is hanging by his arm on a ladder. Kenichi calls out to him, but Odin keeps going with his own pithy speech wanting to know why Kenichi keeps trying to help him. Kenichi says that it’s because Odin was his friend. He holds out his hand to Odin and we see a flashback of young victorious Kenichi doing the same.

Instead, Odin tosses him the badge and says his goodbyes, letting go and falling into the fire. A blur flashes through and catches him. Kenichi’s platform also collapses and the Elder catches him.

Kensai, with Odin over his shoulder, has a parting jab for the Elder about a weak bonsai at Ryuuzanpaku, but the Elder says that bonsai is now the strongest there. Wonderful.

Kensai repeats the threat that Ryuuzanpaku always clings to weak ideals and then shoots a chi blast at the oil drums, igniting them. The other masters all rush in and deflect the explosion upwards. Now revealed to Shinpaku, Takeda and crew all gush over them.

Kenichi passed out for a moment, but wakes up as the Elder flies towards the ground. Kenichi has some sad thoughts about how he thinks that he wronged his friend, but the Elder just laughs at him and tells him to look down and see all his other friends who trusted and believed in him.

The rest of the episode is the full version first OP played as the ED with a generic montage from the rest of the series showcasing all the characters. Yes, 4 minutes of more recap. THANKS.

The montage ends with showing Miu recognizing the badge again from the first episode.

Kenichi and the Elder land, and he holds up the badge proudly. 

Final Thoughts:

Kenichi was a guilty pleasure for me mostly. Neither the comedy nor the action was well enough done to keep me anticipating it week after week, but I didn’t really have anything else to do on Saturdays, so it wasn’t much of a hassle to pick up. It also helped that I started covering it right at the height of the series with the Kenichi vs Hermit stuff. Unfrotunately, that was the height of the series and while they clearly had a massive influx of money around that time, it was rather sad to see the budget totally tail off for the big climax. The fight at the pool was better animated than most of this final Odin arc… and that was against two generic grunts. It’s never a good thing when grunts are more interesting to watch than your last boss.

Even as a guilty pleasure, Kenichi was still a pleasure, and it was often fun to watch so long as it remembered to try to remain light hearted and funny. Those episodes… like this one… where it tried to be serious bored me to tears and this final arc was full of entirely too many of them. That, plus the excessive recap, leaves me with a pretty bad taste in my mouth as we end Kenichi, and I guess that’s my overall opinion of the show. It’s mostly a lot of dumb fun, and there are some moments when it really did threaten greatness, but for every nearly great moment, there were at least three generic speeches about fighting or what a martial artist is or Hermit’s never ending flashbacks about his sister. Still, I’d take another Hermit flashback to seeing Miu beat up thugs in stills for the seventh time in half as many episodes.