The semifinals bring about some of the strongest fighters yet for Team Hokage to take on.
What They Say:
A ninja must serve a lord, and Recca Hanabishi has sworn to serve the person who can defeat him in battle. But despite his martial prowess, a penchant for traps, and his family’s fireworks, his battles amount to little more than schoolyard brawls. Ninjas died out long ago, and though he’s always felt a connection, it’s all just pretend. Or is it?
When a mysterious woman confronts him and tells him he’s the last survivor of an ancient clan of ninja – the chosen one born with the power to control fire – his whole world is turned around. A battle ensues, and he finds out just how true her claims might be when he summons flames from his hands. How much does she know, and what does she want with Recca? Is he really the last surviving member of the Hokage? And what about Yanagi, the girl with the power to heal any wound? Might she be the princess Recca longs to serve?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The semifinals have us watching Hokage against the latest Uruha group and there are three fights that play out across this batch of episodes. With it moving through as many as that, it allows the Hokage side to get in a good number of their team on the fun and the variety is welcome. Too often you can end up in a sequence where it’s just the same two fighting on for what seems like forever. Here, the first two episodes are quick fights that lead to a much more problematic third fight. The opening one has Recca taking on a goofy looking ninja wannabe but the guy has the ability to replicate Recca’s powers, using his flame against him in a way that he hadn’t expected outside of someone like Kurei. As short and gimmicky as it is, it does introduce us to a new flame dragon and that alone is worthwhile since each dragon has its own attitude and style. This one seems to be the most lighthearted of the group so far.
Fuko gets in some nice time as she takes on Gashakura, a really interesting looking opponent who is essentially faceless. This is something we’ve seen in a couple of previous villains and it’s something that I like even though it takes away any real sense of emotion from them. Fuko’s gotten increasingly better as the matches have gone on and this one brings us to something that every show needs, something cute and fuzzy. The madogu are basically open-ended devices that have no real limit on them as we’ve seen but few of them have had anything that’s alive outside of Recca’s dragons. But even that has a somewhat different feel to it. Fuko’s madogu gets a bit of life here and while it does allow for something easy to be done to get her out of a tough situation, I have a hard time really grousing about it since the wind spirit is both cute and a nice twist.
The more interesting fight, one that’s got a gimmick to it that’s been used in other fight series like Yu Yu Hakusho, is with Gashakura’s older brother Magensha. Hard to see what he’s like because of the big mask and overflowing cloak that he wears, he’s creepy personified since your imagination runs wild with what he could really be like. What’s worse is that he seems to have a couple of madogu under his control, from one that sends his opponents off permanently to another dimension where there is no food or water to a demon cannon that we’ve seen used earlier. That particular flashback is gruesome since it had his opponent’s body being torn to shreds like old paint curling under heat. While Domon takes on Magensha, there are other things going on with him that cause Recca and a couple of the others to deal with an aspect that is after Yanagi. Domon’s scenes are good and he finally shows some growth in his strength that’s been long hinted at but the real strength of the episodes is that it’s not just a one on one fight.
In Summary:
The show is definitely a guilty pleasure that’s being made all the more so because I’m enjoying the manga. Seeing how close the two are up through this point is reassuring though since I had always wondered how far this might have strayed. This batch of episodes gets us close to the end of where the anime goes and sets things up in the final minutes for the final fights with Kurei, something that’s been long in coming and very much anticipated. Good stuff but definitely not for everyone.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Viewster
