Part of the frustration, as you've pointed out, comes from visual language. For the rest of the tournament, it's pretty clear that if a punch looks like it hurt and/or did real damage, you can be confident it hurt and/or did real damage. Raian breaks that rule, which makes his resilience seem arbitrary and his opponents seem weak.
Like, compare it to Sekibayashi. We know he's not going to go down to anything short of one monstrous shot he doesn't see coming, but just by looking we can tell he's taking a gargantuan beating and just powering through it as opposed to "lol that didn't hurt." The imperfection of his indestructibility makes it a lot easier to swallow and, critically, makes it abundantly clear how strong the guy hitting him is.
Meanwhile, Ohma just spent an entire chapter playing Hot for Teacher on Raian's face and it might as well have been patty-cake. Just bad storytelling.
Unfortunately for the Kure, things immediately complicate. Unbeknownst to anyone to his family, Kenzo apparently somehow had hidden superheavy plate armour integrated into the house and ready to deploy at the push of a button. I struggle to conceive of the kind of secrecy that could manage the kind of reconstruction that could facilitate this frankly, even in this kind of heightened reality.
Jokes aside, why did Kenzo do this? A quick google search indicates that modern anti-materiel rifles are capable of piercing about an inch (a couple cm) of solid steel. Add in the motors and controls and stuff to extend and retract the armor, plus labor, plus extra surcharges for stealth installation, all of which obviously also increase with armor mass...even for a top-tier CEO, that's got to be a huge expense.
And it only works against a very specific kind of threat. (Someone shooting Kenzo with a gun, while he's inside his house, after giving him a heads-up that he was under attack.)
And sure enough, a significant proportion of what seemed like bystanders were actually more Kure, somehow hiding their eyes in the process. It's a whole-ass fucking crowd too, dozens of the fuckers.
I'd call this absurd overkill, but they're trying to apprehend a secret CEO who installed several centimeters (a few inches) of retractable steel plating in his walls.
Amusingly, these guys aren't actually plants, the disguises are just that.
On one hand, it seems odd that they wouldn't try to plant members in Tokyo's police force.
On the other hand, it's easy to explain why they might not like cops. The Kure clan might perform extrajudicial executions for Japan's bourgeoise class, but at least they're honest about it!
Noone's bothered, this is all business as usual, to the point some of the normal Kure are just doing small talk. Someone's getting married soon, and everything!
I like this part of the Kure clan. They're superhuman living weapons, trained to kill from toddlerhood, but that doesn't mean they're obsessed with violence. It just means murder is mundane to them.
I think Karla's the most interesting Kure, because she mixes that with some other effects one might expect a childhood in a murder cult to have. Specifically, she's internalized the idea that she needs to bring strong genes into the Kure gene pool, hence her latching onto the first hot strong guy she meets like a limpet. And Raian is the least interesting Kure, in part because he is obsessed with violence.
Now, I do kind of wonder why they're even bothering with all this? They're superhuman assassins, surely they could just slip through the windows in the dead of night and whisk him away with noone the wiser?
Which, incidentally, would prevent Kenzo from activating the armor. Or any other traps which might exist, which I assume are usually off, since Yamashita doesn't know about them.
Anyway, we end this scene with the ground team lead ordering his goons to prepare for Removal, which seems excessive, and to capture the target alive.
What, are they gonna punch through the inches-thick armor plating?
And as he's thinking that we get a fucking hilarious panel of the Kure assassins trying to get through Kenzo's defenses. These advanced, modern assassins with access to all kinds of tech and explosives are crawling over the building trying to pry it open with their bare hands, a couple of them stomping on it like pantomime yakuza.
Ohma winds up into a leaping knee kick and grabs Raian by the head and neck, wheeling him about into a Redirection Kata throw. It honestly resembles how Raian's face got planted into the floor against Mokichi, but Ohma doesn't stop there.
Presumably because he was Mokichi's match and knows Raian won't be stopped by damage to a nonvital organ.
Up in Metsudo's box, he's talking up the Kure clan to Rama, who muses on how weird it is for someone to take that much punishment and be unharmed. ... He then hilariously claims that 1300 years is long enough for Evolution to kick in, which…maybe for a shorter lived species, mate.
I hate to give Kure "I am the everything-proof shield!" Raian any credit, but 1300 years is plenty fast enough for selective breeding (aka "artificial selection") to kick in, depending on what you want to achieve. Assuming the Kure had some objective way to measure someone's genetic fighting potential and bred their sons and daughters like livestock, it's plausible that they could make some measurable progress.
Of course, getting that objective way to measure genetic fighting potential in the 21st century would require some high-grade BS, let alone in the 8th century. It's one thing to compare, say, the wool growth of several sheep grazing in the same pastures and figure out which would make the best parents for the next generation and which are mutton. It's another thing to compare something as abstract as innate fighting ability, when one's combat skill is extra-dependent on external factors like training, and when environmental factors vary so much more between humans in the same community than sheep in the same flock.
He wants to see Ohma's transformation, or he'll kill him. I thought the idea was to kill him either way, but whatever.
Better Raian: "I want to see you transform and I'll kill you!"
Ultimately I'm definitely going to be ending this match with a discussion of Raian as a character and how he could be done better, but there's still time for the match at least to have a little impact.
The young master comment actually hit it on the head for me what makes Raian feel weird. He's not being punished for his flaws as a character. And I don't mean that in a bad guy getting away with until they get their commupeance way, it's just a fundamental disconnect between what we're told of Raian in his hype and what we actually see. He's supposed to be the hot shit of his clan, their biggest and baddest fighter in the current generation, but I just can't buy that he is.
Because Raian's mental is dogshit. He's at the most important series of fights he's ever likely to be in and he's playing around, holding back to get his rocks off with some sadism, underestimating his opponents, and getting visibly thrown off his game when they talk shit back. It's hard to believe he's supposed to really be more then just brute strength when he clearly doesn't actually give a shit or put in real effort towards his goals. He's the arrogant young master but without the usual follow up to that trope of them thinking they're hot shit while really being mediocre.
Even buying the genetic freak hype Wakatsuki is right there and we've seen that to compete at the level of Kengan he's put in serious dedicated training for his entire life still. It's just hard to buy that Raian is really that big a deal when a first round that matches him up against Wakatsuki, Agito, Julius, or even Kuroki all would have just had him get rocked trying to pull this shit.
I always interpreted the whole 'very blatantly gather around the target's house and fuck with them like they're gorillas' plan was just to send a message. Like, yeah, they totally could have just snuck one assassin in and slit the guy's throat, but that's boring, normal means of sending a message. No, they have to organise into a platoon, apparently, and tear that house down with their bear hands making a very visible scene before vanishing, to establish how freely they're able to do this if they're tricked on a deal. Mileage may vary on how convincing you find it, but it made enough sense for me when I first read it.
I just really love the idea that the Kure Clan is large enough that there are several dozens of these guys with the fucked up Gambit eyes who are just mid-ranking family members and are all trained in the esoteric hidden techniques of their clan as well as a power-up state that's literal magic but they can only do like 30% Removal so they're considered mid at best by Kengan standards. It's inherently funny to me.
Honestly, with the Kure, the Wu, and the Western faction, I wonder if there's like, a Kenganverse documentary about the "history of this unusual feature" and it goes on about how they're all related thousands of years ago, with interviews with Erioh acting like a kindly old grandfather and being appropriately shocked and surprised at the extent of his 'extended family'.
I just really love the idea that the Kure Clan is large enough that there are several dozens of these guys with the fucked up Gambit eyes who are just mid-ranking family members and are all trained in the esoteric hidden techniques of their clan as well as a power-up state that's literal magic but they can only do like 30% Removal so they're considered mid at best by Kengan standards. It's inherently funny to me.
Basically everything about the Kure family so far has landed for me. It is inherently funny to me that there is a secret, global family of invincible assassins...and they are 100% superfluous to the main plot, which is about CEOs doing lawsuits via gladiator fights. Like, the violation of 'don't make up more nonsense than you need to serve the plot' has wrapped all the way around to become great. It's like if in a godzilla movie they just off handedly mention that people fly by flapping their arms, and everyone relies on one particular mongolian family who are the best at it, and then the movie just went on back to the JDF getting stomped by a big lizard.
The young master comment actually hit it on the head for me what makes Raian feel weird. He's not being punished for his flaws as a character. And I don't mean that in a bad guy getting away with until they get their commupeance way, it's just a fundamental disconnect between what we're told of Raian in his hype and what we actually see. He's supposed to be the hot shit of his clan, their biggest and baddest fighter in the current generation, but I just can't buy that he is.
Because Raian's mental is dogshit. He's at the most important series of fights he's ever likely to be in and he's playing around, holding back to get his rocks off with some sadism, underestimating his opponents, and getting visibly thrown off his game when they talk shit back. It's hard to believe he's supposed to really be more then just brute strength when he clearly doesn't actually give a shit or put in real effort towards his goals. He's the arrogant young master but without the usual follow up to that trope of them thinking they're hot shit while really being mediocre.
Even buying the genetic freak hype Wakatsuki is right there and we've seen that to compete at the level of Kengan he's put in serious dedicated training for his entire life still. It's just hard to buy that Raian is really that big a deal when a first round that matches him up against Wakatsuki, Agito, or even Kuroki all would have just had him get rocked trying to pull this shit.
Maybe it would work better if Raian was a genetic freak?
Imagine an alternate Raian who was born with some incredible fluke of genetics. (Maybe the same thing as Wakatsuki, maybe something with the Kure removal technique, maybe something that justifies him walking off the "I'ma plant a dumbass tree!" maneuver.) The Kure clan, eugenics fanatics that they are, treat Raian with an entirely unearned level of respect, because they want to spread his gift to future generations of Kure assassins. So Raian gets the idea that these gifts are all he needs, which gives him a specific reason to try and win fights on brute strength alone.
And of course, when fighting someone who can match him, he tries to draw on his bag of Kure techniques, only to realize that he can't because he's arrogantly neglected them. His fundamentals suck, so he can't make the "super normal punch" technique more effective than the actual normal punch it looks like.
Not a golden character—this kinda sounds like Julius crossed with Katsuki Bakugo—but it's something more specific than "Raian is cool and wants to win fights with his big power level because reasons".
We return to the Kengan Dome arena, where Raian has shrugged off the latest series of telling hits for no reason, and is being very smug about his arbitrary invincibility. Specifically he doesn't want to see any more techniques, he wants Ohma to trigger the Advance, or he is going to kill him. Well, I guess there's something to be said about how the only part of Ohma's skillset he seems to actually respect is the self-destructive straight power boost. Putting respect in quotation marks the size of Texas, I should qualify.
Ohma doesn't care to oblige immediately though. He lunges with a Flashing Steel: Blast, which Raian eats right to the chest, but as already noted he's activated the console and turned on God Mode so it doesn't do anything. Raian asks him if he was even listening, and Ohma uncorks a few more flashing steel moves, including one that thrusts with the tips of his fingers like a budget Devil Lance. That one Raian actually defends himself from though, catching it by the wrist. I guess that sort of piercing blow would have been beyond even Sandro's ability to convince himself Raian could tank it.
That said, as frustrated and unconvinced as I am, the next few moments actually kind of land for me. With what looks for all the world like a frustrated grimace, Raian points out that Ohma hasn't mastered his techniques, and that's why he isn't getting anywhere with them. And, well, he's not wrong. Ohma said it himself the other chapter, he's throwing out techniques completely beyond what he was capable of when the tournament began but they're too good, they're better than he expects and it's throwing him off. Body and mind are misaligned. He fully planned to work out the kinks, but there's only so much time between rounds, there's a possibility that while these techniques are amazingly powerful it's not actually that big a deal that Raian is shaking them off. Ohma's over or undershooting, and it's letting the Kure roll with the punches easier than he should be able to, maybe? Am I giving Sandro too much credit?
Either way, we're not done with the stuff that's more compelling than I remembered. From the wrist grab Raian actually pulls Ohma into a textbook shoulder throw, slamming him into the arena floor with earth-shaking force. Ohma managed to absorb most of the force with Indestructible, but not all of it, and the rippling crater beneath his back speaks to the throw's power. And then Raian follows up with a stomp, a classic move in this series, and though Ohma manages to dodge…he doesn't manage to make distance.
This, I'm tapping my desk, this right here is the most convincing moment in Raian's favour in this match so far. And I think, though it might just be my vibe on the tone and dialogue, that it's in good part because emotions other than devil-may-care smugness shine through for Raian. He's angry but more than that he's impatient, he wants to get to the slugging match that's his real goal here. Ohma is denying him what he wants, and he's acting out to try and get it. It's childish when I put it like that, but in the sense of being an unfiltered Id, which can be very scary when attached to a figure of sufficient power. It doesn't 100% have that effect here, Raian hasn't built up that kind of reputation of dread, but it's not so far off.
Check off another mark in the "Raian works best when he's expressing emotions other than smug" column, I guess.
Anyway, from there Raian gives up on pretending to respect Ohma even a little and just starts beating the shit out of him. Using the handhold on Ohma's head he just starts ramming him repeatedly into the cracked floor, occasionally peppering in punches and knee strikes. And again, it actually kind of works! Raian is comprehensively winning, but it's actually working toward the kind of tone and attitude the fight was insisting it already had. It's brutish and mean in a way none of the other fights really have been, an actual thug trying to beat money out of a mark, and Ohma is convincingly helpless in the role. His expression not defeated, but clearly panickey and gritted through the blood streaming from his nose and lips. Trying for parries and blocks, but unable to get the leverage for it with Raian's grip firmly on his skull and throwing his centre of gravity around.
And then, the twist. Agito notes that Ohma is indeed stronger, but points out that Raian hasn't used a single Kure technique yet. He's overwhelming Ohma with brute force alone, as Ohma is right now he cannot even force Raian to fight seriously. All framed around Raian football-kicking Ohma away with the biggest, most obnoxiously smug smile of them all.
If he'd earned it, it'd be a great moment. I can feel the twist this could have been, writhing under the surface. It's not even irredeemable as is, in a mechanical sense this goes back to his round one match, but emotionally…I'm just not there.
Not to be a broken record, but he looks so mad here and it's great. It's the eyes, especially, even as he keeps his mouth locked into its usual grin his eyes are still fiery little sparks of frustrated desire. And it continues into the next page when Ohma grasps at his feet and he picks up Ohma by the hair, snarling into his face with a grotesque, warped expression that he told him already. It's not going to work. Then pitches him like a cricket ball back across the arena.
Down on the floor, Ohma is at the end of his rope. The Niko style techniques he knows aren't working, and he's already convinced that he needs the Advance…but he's seen the consequences of it. And interestingly, he flat out states that he doesn't value his life, though he clarifies that he can't afford to die until Setsuna is dead. It's a compelling dilemma! Granted, it'd have been more compelling if the match so far had done more to actually sell that it might not have to be an option.
That whole initial stretch with Ohma just whaling on Raian really did do massive damage to the fight going forward, didn't it? It was such a shortsighted move. The only thing it successfully sold was Ohma's leap in strength, and that would have been sold just as well if Raian was more effectively defending himself, and Ohma only got more occasional hits in. One or two good, direct Ironbreakers, the sort of thing a fighter should reasonably feel. As is, not only did it compound the existing problems with Raian's credibility, making it way too obvious it was all going to be for nothing, but by that same unbelievability it also weakens the drama of the Advance Decision. We all know he's going to have to use it eventually of course, that's part of the drama, but when the fight flips this hard from Overwhelming Dominance to absolute defeat it's too much. It's not convincing that Ohma would be uncertain one way or the other, it denies the progressive buildup of hope that would make it all the crueller when it's torn back down right here.
And then, a shadow. A vision. Ohma's memories aren't done with him yet. A man, with the sun behind him, tells Ohma to abandon "his" Niko style already. Ohma flashes back to his teens, another man on whom his Niko style techniques failed to find purchase, tauntingly repeating the thought back to him. Then, a non sequitur. Do you want to be strong? He'll make you strong. Just keep one thing in mind.
Those who step outside the bounds of humanity will one day pay the price.
I guess the Niko techniques weren't the only thing getting cranked up by these unknown memories. That's definitely another step beyond from the Advance we saw last round, or even against Sekibayashi. Ohma almost looks half asleep, completely out of it.
The man in the memories keeps speaking to him, though. Now that Ohma has abandoned the Niko style, he says, he will grow even stronger. And hey, the Advance was originally developed to rival the Kure Removal anyway. Don't fear the price. Fight. And he says all this with a very unsettling expression. Eyes bright and uncomfortably intense, even as his smile sits languid and loose. End chapter.
Of course, chapter 132 begins in the same moment. Raian crowing in satisfaction that Ohma transformed, and that he should have done so to start with. Ohma rising to his feet, flesh darkened, veins standing bright in his skin, a flickering gesture of sparks and flame mantling his flesh. A phantom whispering secrets into his ear and exhorting him to kill.
He's happy to oblige.
Hell yeah, gimme the good shit. And I'm not just happy to see Raian getting the shit kicked out of him, I love this sort of visual beat. Sudden disappearance then massive impact panel of someone already most of the way folded in half? Excellent use of serial pacing to sell speed and power in tandem.
Now, of course, as cool as it is, we do have a problem. Why should we believe it? Yeah, Raian's expression is one of genuine pain and his physicality is selling the blow as serious, but that was true at every step of Ohma's previous beatdown. It was true all the way through his match with Mokichi. Now, having read ahead I know that this blow is in fact telling, and we're in the stage of the fight where Raian taking hits means anything, but…how is anyone to tell the first time they read it? It's a problem that the manga has otherwise been better than so far, a sadly common issue throughout a lot of battle manga, even some very high profile and well regarded ones. Part of the reason these series have such a reputation for complete, vacuous meaninglessness. The way it's damn near impossible to tell which way a fight is progressing until it's done.
Like, take one of the classics of the genre, Boruto's Dad. Early on in the manga, Boruto's Dad and his fellow child soldiers are undergoing an international exam/dick measuring contest called the Chuunin exams, theoretically a safe way to pick out ninja worthy of promotion but also textually a method of showing off how good your twelve year olds are at murder. More pertinently, during some preliminaries before the first round we find the following matchup. Our main character, Boruto's Dad, is a massive lazy dipshit who's been getting hard carried the entire manga so far by the dog demon trapped in his belly. Against him is a boy named Kiba, also a huge dipshit but he's just about never onscreen so we have better reason to believe he's serious when he says he actually does any training more specific than rote repetition of pushups and shit. He's not top shelf in the class, but in this matchup he's presented as very much the dominant party, since he like…actually knows any techniques. How does the fight progress?
Kiba fucking humiliates Boruto's Dad for ten straight minutes, absolutely grits the arena floor with his teeth, until Boruto's Dad lands a single counterattack which arbitrarily knocks Kiba out.
And that's not even the only example in that section of that arc, let alone the wider story or indeed battle manga as a whole. DBZ was fucking notorious for it. Bleach less so, since it dealt mostly in swords, but it still found a way to make the progression of a lot of fights nebulous and unconvincing. Kengan Asura has largely managed to surpass this trend, not necessarily because of its reduced scope compared to these other manga, but because of its superior choreography and fight pacing. Damage accumulates, but also characters have clear win conditions and vulnerabilities, and Sandro has a clear understanding of how a fight progresses beyond the video-game understanding a lot of people seem to have today. Of meat tanks trading hits until someone runs out of HP. Even in the fights where the characters involved definitely are actual meat tanks, like Sekibayashi vs Kiozan, there's still a clear progression as each fighter gets more fucked up and loses steam. It's very good!
And then in comes Raian, who shrugs off arbitrary amounts of punishment because he's just that bloody great, until suddenly he doesn't. Could we say then that it's so unconvincing on Raian because he stands out so hard compared to the rest of the story this way? Maybe, that's part of it certainly, this is not a good trope to be exhibiting. Yet at the same time, standing out starkly among a story's cast as an exception to this or that fundamental rule is not inherently bad, and can make for a great way to sell a character as genuinely special. Like, one of the only things the manga Fairy Tail ever really succeeded at was selling Acnoglogia as the scariest thing in the setting by the way he consistently broke the series' tone over his knee every time he turned up (until the manga pissed it all away, but that's a subject for a different essay). And as noted, it's the internal inconsistency more than that which causes ongoing problems anyway. Fuck me, that final wrapup for this match is going to be a fucking essay on Raian in its own right, isn't it.
Uhhh, anyway, wasn't there a fight happening? Right, yeah, here we go.
Ohma doesn't just sit on the single hit, he immediately follows up with a huge rush, rattling Raian's head back and forth like a little punching bag. For a moment Raian actually manages to interrupt the rush, and it almost seems for nothing as he screams at Ohma, asking if that's all he's got with a face that seems equal parts mad and exhilarated. Then as he tries to whomp Ohma with a haymaker, this happens.
I genuinely love this series of panels, for several reasons. For one, by god that fucking kick, the strange and twisty angles do wonders to sell the unnatural vibe of the blow as well as lend weight to the motion and impact. And the page before, even leaving aside the fun reversal of Ohma being the one producing the Jojo style Menacing Aura Sfx, the swerve into his eyes taking a step beyond the Kure into pure black is a wild bit of inhuman coding. Turning the tables in so many ways. And on top of that, the little cut-in side panel of Raian, unable in this moment to even sustain his grin. A man extremely buttmad that his indulgence is backfiring on him, that he can't still just overwhelm Ohma's advance.
And then Ohma continues to beat the shit out of him, and in a nicely unspoken character note, even in this berserk state it's not as thuggish a beatdown as Raian's was. Ohma isn't a child pulling the legs off spiders, he's a warrior doing his level best to break this man's face and finish the fight. And as he does so, the unnamed spirit dwelling in him celebrates. He claims the Advance gives power to those who desire it, and furthermore gestures toward an explanation for the Advance's leap in power. "His" meddling has kept Ohma from its true potential. The him in question presumably being Niko? Could be someone else, but that's what makes the most sense. Either way, now Ohma's "shackles" are off, and he can derive as much strength from the Advance as he pleases.
Up in the stands, someone else is extremely pleased. It's Kiryu, shaking, with tears of joy welling in his eyes. And sure enough, we have further confirmations. He flashes back to the moment about a hundred chapters ago when he planted his palm on Ohma's bare chest, while musing on how it took ten years to undo Ohma's "curse". All but confirming that was the moment the shackles on Ohma's mind and body began to come undone, what started the slow progression toward today. And then Kiryu thinks on how long it's been since he saw the thing that motivates him to this day. The God within Tokita Ohma.
One page is all he gets though, as Raian is beginning to adjust for Ohma's new speed, and the two of them are barely visible in the middle of the arena as the crowd goes wild. After one more cross counter, both men getting punched in the face, Raian decides that enough is enough. Can Ohma keep up with the real thing? Erioh laments his grandson's stupidity as Raian once more unleashes the Removal in front of a live audience.
Ohma isn't impressed though. He's just gonna kill you…whoever you are.
Welp, something's gone fucky. Yamashita, who can somehow track them from the stands, notes how Ohma's eyes are just like the Kure's. As we get a closer look, seeing that they're just obscenely bloodshot. And Ohma seems to have forgotten who Raian is, as they clash again. Even faster.
This is when we step away from the fight, settle into Yamashita's perspective, and today's source of exposition rolls up. Doctor Hanafusa, who grimly confirms his suspicions were correct. The source of Ohma's mysterious transformation? Is his heart.
Who's ready for some pseudoscience bullshit, folks?
Okay, so by Hanafusa's reckoning the heart is not unlike the motor of a living organism, and what Ohma's doing is basically overclocking his. Consciously increasing his heart rate somehow, which explosively increases his rate of circulation. The translation here goes on to say it "generates heat that is converted into motion" but like…that has to be a mistranslation, right? There's already the pseudoscience bullshit right there, increased circulation turbocharges all his muscles and brain with increased oxygen flow, something like that. I dunno what heat could possibly have to do with it, except as a weird mistranslation of a word for energy or something. In a mild tone, he further notes that it's actually completely different to the Removal in its underlying function, since it's overcharging a normal body rather than unlocking the latent potential of an already overtuned body. Fascinating. Yamashita, being the nervous sort he is, immediately hones in on the risks. That sounds like it'd put a massive strain on the body. But Ohma can handle it.
…right?
Hanafusa tries to brush it off as hypothesis, either in an attempt to cover his bases or give Yamashita hope, but considering Ohma's pre-existing damage? His life is hanging by a thread.
Sorry about the late post, I had it pasted into the box and ready to drop and then just sort of forgot about it in the flurry.
Was pretty distracted today, had an appointment with a doctor talking about getting checked out for ADHD. Which I'm sure is very surprising to all of you, I'm so organised and punctual.
Really well put MD. This is the best mode for Raian, he's a bully, an oaf and a brute. The terror invoked by his story is that he is so strong he's never needed to develop a warrior mentality or assassin skills or any of that. Just someone born to a clan that makes him the toughest, then handed a lotto win of 'you are even tougher because your Tough Number if 100' and riding that luck for his whole life. Losing to this kind of chump is exactly the worst thing any of these disciplined competitors can imagine, so naturally its exactly what he longs to rub their faces in.
Don't forget the visual and auditory hallucinations! Ohma has been talking to ghosts for some time now - I don't actually remember, but I think it might have started when he first uses the Advance?
So yeah, the secret to Ohma's Advance is it's literally Gear Second. Except unlike Luffy he doesn't have a rubber everything so the backlash is a lot more visceral and immediate.
The anime subs also use "heat", but the dub uses "energy". I believe the word is "netsu", which does translate into "heat", but can also mean "zeal; passion; enthusiasm; mania; craze; rage". Given the...effects, I think it's less a mistranslation and more a double meaning that got lost.
Now, of course, as cool as it is, we do have a problem. Why should we believe it? Yeah, Raian's expression is one of genuine pain and his physicality is selling the blow as serious, but that was true at every step of Ohma's previous beatdown. It was true all the way through his match with Mokichi. Now, having read ahead I know that this blow is in fact telling, and we're in the stage of the fight where Raian taking hits means anything, but…how is anyone to tell the first time they read it?
I remember that back when I first read Kengan Asura, I rationalized this as Raian having actually felt all those hits, but being a good enough actor (he is an assassin, after all, he should by all rights be good at infiltration) and fighter to make it seem as if he shrugged it all off. Which of course also carries its own problem, because if that is the intent, the manga sure never lets us know it. It continues to sell him as having legit just shrugged it all off; we never get any reason to think any hits landed or not.
But putting Raian aside for today, this little chunk of the fight makes me like it a lot more for what it's trying to do. Without getting into stuff that is more appropriate for the end of the fight, there's a thoroughline here that makes this one, more specifically its later parts, a lot more satisfying, even if as a whole it doesn't really hold together as well as it should. And it's giving us even more stuff on the story front, which is where I think this fight actually works. Even Raian is fulfilling a very important role here for Ohma's personal story, being the Vegeta to his Goku in such an obvious manner. Looking forward to the payoff.
I remember that back when I first read Kengan Asura, I rationalized this as Raian having actually felt all those hits, but being a good enough actor (he is an assassin, after all, he should by all rights be good at infiltration) and fighter to make it seem as if he shrugged it all off. Which of course also carries its own problem, because if that is the intent, the manga sure never lets us know it. It continues to sell him as having legit just shrugged it all off; we never get any reason to think any hits landed or not.
I feel like the whole thing would have been more believable if there was a cut to Seki going "oh man, he's really good at selling those hits!" or something during the beatdown. Since, if Raian was indeed actually rolling with the hits and pretending to get hit harder than he actually was, while downplaying the pain from the hits he did actually take? That's bascially what Seki already does, so he'd be in the best position to recognize someone else doing it too.
So, here's a fun fact: the Advance does have a mild grain of truth to it. In the Paralympics, quite a few events, such as wheelchair races, are between athletes who have spinal injuries and appropriately messed-up nervous systems. Because of this, their body can get confused about how much blood it needs to be pumping right now--and they can exploit this through a process called "boosting." By intentionally causing harm or stress to their lower bodies, they enter a state of autonomic dysreflexia, which causes their heart rate to skyrocket. The increased blood flow and oxygen has been proven to cause a measurable improvement in performance, averaging about 10%. However, as this amounts to giving yourself hypertension for a brief period, it's a tactic with clear health risks, and is banned (though the ban is tricky to enforce, due to the fact that simply holding in your urine for too long can cause it).
Well, I guess there's something to be said about how the only part of Ohma's skillset he seems to actually respect is the self-destructive straight power boost. Putting respect in quotation marks the size of Texas, I should qualify.
Raian clearly didn't get where he is from his forethought or care or diligent training; he's the top Kure youth because of his straight power boost (and because his base power level is high enough to ignore bone-breaking bonks). He thinks that the kind of strength he has is the only kind that matters. It's egotistical, in the end. That's what I see, anyways.
Maybe that's why he thinks he could beat the Fang of Metsudo. He doesn't see a fighter with an endless well of techniques which let him adapt to any opponent on the fly; he sees someone with an incredible reputation and a pretty high power level—though not as high as 100% Removal Raian, of course. My intuition says Raian could win a contest of pure strength against almost anyone in the tournament, with Julius being even more musclebound than Raian and Haruo being eliminated in the second match.
From within the tunnel of Raian's vision, it's easy to see why he thinks he can beat everyone else in the tournament. It's remarkable that Cosmo winning two David-and-Goliath matches in a row didn't crack the walls of the tunnel, but...
I remember that back when I first read Kengan Asura, I rationalized this as Raian having actually felt all those hits, but being a good enough actor (he is an assassin, after all, he should by all rights be good at infiltration) and fighter to make it seem as if he shrugged it all off.
