Introduction and Chapter 1 - Asura
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
I cannot in good conscience recommend Kengan Asura. Not really in general, and certainly not to anyone not already deeply immersed in manga/anime as a medium. It touches on a dozen different flavours of problematic, even before you get into how a whole-ass half of the cast are CEOs. Without a guillotine in sight! The fucking nerve of some people!
And yet, of the manga I've read in the last five or so years, it's one of the ones that's stuck out most clearly in my mind. Even more so than its arguably superior sequel, Kengan Omega. One of the few I've gone back to reread several times, even if I skipped some parts and read others through the gaps between my fingers in the moments my eyes weren't rolling so hard they threatened to pop out of my skull.
Why is that?
Well, I already have something of an idea for myself, but by making this
So with that in mind, let's leap right into the first chapter!
Hm. On reflection these early chapters are usually ones I skip when rereading, but…eh, I'm sure it's fine.
The very first panel of the Manga sets a deliberate mood. It is dominated in halves. By the vibrant, twinkling neon sea of a bustling main street, suggesting a tide of noise and lives with the busy slivers of advertisements, lanterns and storefront loiterers on either side. And in the centre of the panel by the unwelcoming maw of a dark alleyway, that nevertheless every line in the panel seems to be guiding the reader toward.
It's simple, but clear. We're moving beyond the surface, into society's pelagian murk.
And we aren't the only ones, someone has been drawn in by its gravity. A small, weedy, japanese salaryman - glasses, poorly shaven chin, receding hairline, the works - unsure whether he peered down the alley of his own will or if his eyes were drawn there. Either way, he finds a scene familiar to anyone who's read a martial arts story before, modern or not. Two men are stood in the Alley. One a giant, "easily over 190cm tall", with muscles so developed that they're clearly visible through his shirt, and scarred hands that speak to experience with bareknuckle slugouts. The other, some guy in a tracksuit and hoodie, a full head shorter than his opponent.
I remember seeing rocks shaped like that guy's face in Wales one time.
We all know the score here. But mister Salaryman doesn't, and is understandably concerned for the younger man. And while he's not concerned, per say, the big guy makes a little speech along similar lines. He points out his various intimidating qualities, notes how obvious they are, and flat out calls the man insane for challenging someone so clearly stronger than him. And, interestingly, notes that the madlad was the one to challenge him. No mugging to prevent, no defense of an menaced innocent or perfunctory revenge, our protagonist(?) just up and picked a fight for no apparent reason.
Tellingly, as the big guy is making his speech, the other guy is hopping in place. Loosening up, barely paying attention.
The young- oh fuck this, until we get his actual name I'm calling him Seaweed - Seaweed says his first words in the manga so far. Basically confirming that, well, yeah. Duh he knows all that, the guy's obviously Yakuza. Obviously big, strong, a fighter. But he wasn't right about everything. And then, uh…
Definitely well adjusted. No damage there, no sirree.
Well, big guy takes that personally. He rips his shirt off, Salaryman waxes lyrical a bit more about how fucking scary he is, and then seaweed pivots to complimenting big guy's physique. It's not even sarcastic either, he's smirking but it seems genuine?
And then big guy throws his torn shirt at seaweed's face. The fight is on.
As introductory fights go to establish a protagonist's chops, it's a really good one. Big guy is far from all talk, he's much faster than he looks and while his actual attacks are linear he pulls more than one dirty trick like the shirt thing. For all that Seaweed dances around his attacks, Big guy is a smart, canny opponent with clear experience in street fights. Really highlighted when he pretends to overextend a punch, stomping on a broken bottle and then kicking the glass at Seaweed.
Yeah, I'd probably react like that as well. How long under the needle was that tattoo?
His followup attack craters the wall. We aren't in high shonen power levels, but this manga's clearly leaning toward a stylised Charles Atlas sort of capacity for property damage.
Seaweed is fine, obviously, the next page he's several feet away from the impact point sardonically noting that he sure wouldn't want to be on the business end of that. As they quip at each other a bit, Salaryman chips in again with his internal monologue, once again reinforcing the importance of size and strength in combat and spinning off into more general musing about how "the soft are overrun by the hard…that's what happens in the real world!"
It's extremely heavy handed, is what I'm saying (much like big guy, ohohohohohoh~).
But then the break for banter is over, as big guy calls out Seaweed for wasting time when he was the one who picked the fight. And he obliges, immediately landing a cross counter that breaks big guy's fucking nose, sending him reeling.
This is where big guy the savvy streetfighter kind of ends. Whether it's frustration with Seaweed's attitude, anger at taking such a clean hit or just Seaweed giving him no opportunity, no more tricks follow. Big guy charges right at him and just takes blow after blow, taunted by Seaweed as he laughs that muscles alone aren't enough. The poor, confused Salaryman finds his perception of them inverting as Seaweed keeps taunting big guy, who's temper finally breaks completely. He throws a massive haymaker and, well…
No joke here, I just really like this panel. He's clearly caught the strike right at its end, as its force is spent, and the two layers of afterimage is a fantastic trick.
This time the overextension wasn't a feint. Seaweed fucking obliterates big guy's arm, dislocating it at the shoulder and elbow, leveraging his opponent's massive strength against him. And then the page afterwards we get a really clear image of what his arm looks like afterwards and I'm not posting that shit. God, arms should not be that shape.
Anyway, big guy insists he isn't done, but the fight's over. Seaweed pulls a finishing barrage, ending in a massive donkey kick into the guy's face, knocking him clean out. After a brief victory smirk, Seaweed wanders off, his face immediately dipping into a bored frown as soon as the fight is unambiguously done. He passes the Salaryman, who's now standing gape-jawed with his office coat hanging half off, and completely blanks him.
That is, until Mr Salaryman about faces, clicks his feet together, arms and back straight like he's addressing a CEO, and tremulously shouts for Seaweed's name.
By his own internal admission it wasn't a conscious act. He's overwhelmed, jittering and consumed, oddly enough, with respect for "this man young enough to be my son." Seaweed looks back, expression unchanged since the fight ended, and gives his name. Tokita Ohma. With a faint light of interest returning to his face, Ohma returns the question. Still frantic and nervous, the Salaryman responds, shouting much too loud, that his name is Yamashita Kazuo. And then…
…we'll come back to how he pronounced Yamashita's name later, put a pin in that.
It's an extremely interesting response. Well, to me it is. To poor Yamashita it's mostly just terrifying. The sheer implication of Ohma's placidly intense question sends him into cold sweats, and his teeth chatter violently. Between that and his chest seizing up with fear, he almost can't speak. Fortunately for him, he does manage to just about squeeze out enough air to say no. Ohma is visibly disappointed, bored once again, and stalks away into the bright city night.
Oh, I wish that were where the chapter ended.
Yamashita flees the scene, once his legs start working again, and over several panels we get a few details about him. He's 56, with a wife and kids. A "real straight shooter"...despite also living for nothing but drinking, gambling and shopping. But it's fine, this'll all be retconned anyway.
And then the next page is him fucking a prostitute. Followed by several pages explaining how it was his "survival instincts", sent into a frenzy by an apparent near death experience.
Fucked if I know! This brief summary of Yamashita's character won't even be relevant going forward, half of it gets fucking retconned in the very next chapter. I'd almost call it early installment weirdness except this won't be the last time we get a really bizarre swerve into what-the-fuck city.
Anyway, then we get one last page of Ohma wandering alone, a single dark figure in the radiance of late evening Tokyo (I assume) and that's the end of the chapter.
Okay, so I definitely remember why I usually skip these early chapters now. That last bit with Yamashita is… what can I even say? Weird? Gross? Kinda exploitative? Maybe just cringe? Cringe seems like a good word, that's definitely my physical reaction to it. We'll be seeing more of Yamashita in the future, and this is the only time we get any reaction like that, thank god, but it's still just a really fucking strange addition.
That…thatness aside, as first chapters go I rate this a firm meh. The action, as will be a theme going forward, was very good (I'll discuss it in more detail in later chapters, which showcase it better). For all barely a word was said about him outside of unfavourably comparing him to the beefcake, we also got a surprising amount of insight into Ohma in pretty subtle and understated ways. And also in some super blatant and slightly offputting ways, but you can reasonably argue that moments like Ohma's "tub of lard" panel do their job by contrasting his quieter, moodier moments. It might be retroactive, but there is something being set up here.
What's less justifiable is the chapter's pacing. Inefficient is the byword of the day.
While the action itself is very well drawn, with clear lines of action and fantastic communication of motion, and doesn't repeat itself the same can't really be said of the rest of the chapter. Did we really need a whole fucking fifth of the chapter dedicated to belabouring the point that the Deva King is a whole ass heaping helping of manmeat? No, it's obvious, we could easily shave that down to like two pages to set it up, and the "that's what happens in the real world" page later on to setup Ohma's following victory. And while I'm not of the opinion that long fights are necessarily bad (which is good for this story, there'll be a lot of them later!) I do feel like there's a number of redundant pages of Ohma dipping and ducking strikes that could have been better spent on something more directly relevant to the plot going forward.
Because yes, this chapter literally only introduces our protagonists. That's it, nothing else about the premise has been established or even gestured toward. For what it is it's fine, it's a fun fight and we have a basic idea of who the absolute mainest characters are, but if I compare it to real powerhouse introductory chapters? Major league openings like those of Bleach, Naruto, and maybe even some that don't subsequently waste the potential of their first entry? It falls desperately short in terms of how much is done with its first 50-odd pages.
So that's the first chapter. Kind of a disappointment, really. But then, as noted, I skip this early stretch for a reason. I'm not sure why it didn't put me off the first time, but…well, it clearly didn't. And I won't be stopping this time, either. I hope you'll stick with me as we find out when this manga starts to pick up steam.
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