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Click here to return to the main site. DVD Review
Can this weak-kneed boy become the greatest martial artist of all time? Yeah, Kenichi's a total wimp. He's always getting picked on and doesn't have a lot of friends to stick up for him. The guy needs motivation if he hopes to graduate in one piece. Well, Miu's the perfect motivation. She's hot, she accepts him, and she just so happens to live at a dojo with six martial arts masters. You could say fate has led Kenichi to their door, or you could say he was just following the hottie. Either way, he's about to get whipped into serious shape. If he can survive some hard-core training, he might survive another day at school. He might even score with Miu. Yeah, you could call Kenichi a wimp. But let's go with underdog instead... Taking the shopworn premise of a hundred action movies best known to Western audiences from The Karate Kid – unassuming teenager seeks martial-arts instruction from a wise mentor to defend himself and his would-be girlfriend against bullies – Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple starts on seemingly familiar terrain, yet soon ups the ante in typically overheated anime fashion. The half-dozen eccentric martial-arts masters of the Ryozanpaku dojo (a name, incidentally, with some cachet: it's the Japanese transliteration of the heroes' secret hideout in the Chinese classic The Water Margin) waste no time in subjecting poor Kenichi to the most extreme and torturous training imaginable, with frequently questionable results. Realism is dispensed with in short order, as the physical feats displayed by Kenichi's masters - and by the amiably bubbleheaded Miu, who requires no protection from her would-be boyfriend whatsoever – routinely verge on the superhuman, yet Kenichi stands out from many other contemporary fighting series in having no supernatural elements at all. The incredible abilities of the characters are always attributed to talent and hard work (or just the latter, in the unfortunate Kenichi's case) and in the era of the byzantine origin stories and complex superpowers on display in the likes of Naruto or Bleach, Kenichi's relative simplicity and humility are rather refreshing. The inverted ziggurat structure of shounen manga is present and correct, however – as Kenichi advances, he attracts and must defeat, or defeat and win over to his side, progressively stronger and more outlandish opponents – and with the second half of this first season the shadowy fighting syndicate Ragnarok, replete with numerical rankings and goofy Norse mythological thematic motif, show up to provide Kenichi and company with their first truly deadly challenge. As far as its strengths as a TV series go, Kenichi doesn't escape the number one pitfall of longer-running action anime, a restrictive budget, and regrettably many of the fight scenes fall back on blurred motion and inventive still shots to convey the impression of action. While not impressive visually, the witty script and dynamic cast – the lead performance on the Japanese dub by the always recognizable veteran voice actor Tomokazu Seki being a hoot – make up for the lack of polish. It's safe to say that Kenichi isn't aiming to push the boundaries of cliché in some areas: Miu and taciturn ninja Shigure, the only female cast members of note, are continually on display on the most revealing of outfits and poses, while the Chinese and Thai masters – a sly pervert and an enthusiastic simpleton, respectively – give away some unfortunate prejudices towards their Asian neighbours on the part of Japanese audiences. It's a shame such an otherwise uncynical and winning series can't avoid such lazy stereotyping. Kenichi is still a very enjoyable series, however, and its straightforwardness and lack of knowing pandering, while occasionally leaving it feeling dated in today's trope-satured anime industry, is its strongest point. Like its main character, it has no axe to grind or emotional angst to work out, and despite its simplicity often shading into crudeness, it's quite satisfying action anime fare. 6 Richard Hunt Buy this item online
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