Tag: Netflix

Kengan Ashura – The Art of Fighting

When you are sick, and your immune system is busy waging war while you feel like crap, the best motivator can be watching someone else getting beaten up for a change.

That didn’t come out right. Let me try again.

First and foremost, I do not condone any form of violence, but whenever I’m sick, I find my favorite pastime to either involve watching or playing action-oriented anime OR button-smashing fighting games.

In the past, during an episode of viral fever, my wife (then girlfriend) stocked me up with electrolyte drinks, snacks, and soups, then left for work, expecting me to get some good rest. She returned to find me sitting on the couch, surrounded by the very same, playing God of War on my PS3. I actually finished the original trilogy that one week while I was sick.

  • What can I say? It was a sick game.

This was when I was in my 20s. Now, after breaching the 30s, the warranty on my body parts has reached its final days. Video games don’t come as easily now. The fingers cramp up, and the shoulders ache. So, I’ve chosen the easy way out: Netflix. If you haven’t caught up, this is why I couldn’t bring myself to publish a post last weekend.

Now, being sick is as much a physical battle as it is a mental one. For a guy with allergies and nasal inflammation, catching a cold is never fun. It helps to get motivated, and what better way than to immerse yourself in an imaginative world of martial arts fighters. So with watery eyes, I looked down my Netflix playlist and got down to rewatching a classic: Kengan Ashura.

The Kengan Ashura series premiered on Netflix in 2019 and concluded in the summer of 2024. I was a latecomer and only got around to watching it in 2023. The series remained incomplete, and unable to contain my curiosity, I ended up reading the entire manga while waiting for new episodes.

Long story short, as far as action-oriented anime within the combat sport/martial arts genre goes, Kengan Ashura ranks among my top favorites. What makes the Kengan series unique in its genre is the protagonist’s journey. The traditional Japanese fighting anime trope usually involves a main character with little to no skill. This individual has to work hard to get to the top. Add a pinch of “power of friendship” and a “genius rival” to push him forward, and you have a classic shonen fighting anime script in your hands.

For those older anime fans (like me) who have grown tired of this formula, Kengan is a breath of fresh air. The crux of the plot unfolds in a high-stakes underground martial arts competition to determine the chairman of the Kengan Association. Corporate CEOs sponsor fighters in brutal, often no-holds-barred matches, with the winner deciding the new chairman or taking control of the association.

  • It’s anime Gladiator y’all…minus the swords, the slavery, and a few other things.

Our protagonist, Tokita Ohma, is battered from the beginning, and not for lack of skills. Ohma is a prodigious martial arts talent, but his tourney is a brutal struggle with a healthy dollop of bodily injury, psychological damage, and lots of pain. At some point, you feel like you are watching an 80’s rear-wheel drive Pontiac driving up an icy hill without any snow tires. On several occasions, the audience is left to wonder when Ohma will gas out.

  • Get used to this…

Of course, there is a reason why Ohma is putting himself through this literal hell. I won’t spoil that particular plot thread, but what I did love is the throwback to martial arts characters from old-school Hong Kong shaolin cinema of the 80s and 90s. Ohma is a warrior, and he wants nothing more than to better himself on that path. How he gets to achieve this, and if he does, is the story, and one with a surprise ending. By the end of the series, you can clearly tell that Kengan Ashura has a lot more to give, with hints peppered throughout the series of a wider universe to explore.

Kengan Omega, the official sequel, while certainly great, personally does not touch the same peak as its predecessor.

Nevertheless, Kengan Ashura is perfect as a one-off. Aside from the writing, the art is highly applaudable. The artist Daromeon goes to great lengths to convey dynamism in the fighting sequences.

As a student of figure drawing and anatomy, I greatly appreciated the breakdowns and inspiration I found while going through the panels. It is rough work, but it flows perfectly. The anime uses 3D CGI, with mostly static 2D backgrounds, while the character models and action are in 3D. While a few may disagree, I felt this was perfect for showcasing the martial-arts choreography required by the manga.

Last but not least, Ashura is also one of the few manga in which side characters receive great characterization. A tournament-style progression to the story also makes it easy to keep the cast tight and involved at all turns. This provides ample screentime for everyone’s favorites, barring a few cuts here and there in some fights.

That settles it! Now, while I continue the good fight against my cold (almost back to 100%), Kengan Ashura awaits new readers. I highly suggest giving it a chance, and if you are not so much into reading, the anime is a respectable adaptation you can enjoy on Netflix. Until next week, toodles!

The Art and Storytelling of Stan Sakai

When I was a kid, the weekend was something to look forward to, beyond just an excuse not to do homework. The two days brought with them the excitement of reading the weekly children’s magazine delivered to my grandfather’s home. The Siruvar Malar (literally, “Children’s Flower”) and Thanga Malar (“Golden Flower”) were filled with folktales, comics, arts-and-crafts activities, and ads for local art contests.

When I was in my tweens, I graduated from these magazines to reading full-blown comics that my father would purchase on his business trips. These were the still-ongoing (mostly online now) and highly popular Tinkle Comics. Tinkle’s pantheon of characters, including Suppandi, Shikari Shambu, Ramu and Shamu, Tantri the Mantri, were my childhood heroes.

These comics were rife with cultural humor and folk inspiration. I prayed to be a lot more adept than the reckless hunter Shikari Shambu and the hilarious ignoramus Suppandi. I found inspiration in the deviousness of Ramu and Shamu in annoying my own family, and delighted in the constant failures of the evil Tantri the Mantri.

More than just a passing form of entertainment, these comics were relatable to life and Indian culture, and also helped cultivate my understanding of the English language. The nostalgia that I attributed to these stories hit me like a truck when I came across Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo in my early twenties.

As a young adult and an exam-hardened undergraduate student at university, I found Sakai’s magnum opus stacked up in a corner at the public library. It wasn’t too long before I fell in love with what Sakai had to offer. A while back, I wrote about the man who drew from memory, Kim Jung Gi. If Gi was all about the awe and spectacle of art in full flow, Sakai, for me, was the finest mix of storytelling and art in the comic form. Usagi Yojimbo, or “rabbit bodyguard,” is set at the beginning of the Edo period of Japanese history and features anthropomorphic animals in place of humans.

Our protagonist is the rabbit ronin, Miyamoto Usagi, based on the famous Japanese legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. Wandering the lands of Edo Japan, Usagi sells his services as a bodyguard while going on adventures that have him fighting off his enemies. As a Japanese-born American cartoonist, Sakai draws on both Japanese and Western pop-culture elements. Usagi meets all kinds of friends and enemies, from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Godzilla. Here was someone I aspired to be in my own ambition to be a storyteller and comic book writer. Sakai’s artwork was detailed, complemented by amazing inking and lettering.

Despite being anthropomorphic, Sakai’s character lived their experiences, and you could relate to them as though they were fellow human beings. Usagi’s growth from a battle-hardened samurai to a philosophical warrior who gains a host of friends and family, whom he would go to any extremes to protect, is heartwarming. The art was further elevated by Sakai’s storytelling. Usagi’s adventures included many references to Japanese history and folklore, featuring architecture, clothes, weapons, mythical creatures, and ancient festivals. Sakai’s ability to skillfully weave facts and legends into the adventures of his samurai rabbit is a genuine masterclass in storytelling. I was (and still am) enamored by Sakai’s art and stories. Usagi’s swashbuckling adventures brought back childhood memories of Tinkle Comics and the Panchatantra (an ancient collection of animal fables). The vivid splashes of folklore, mythology, and traditional arts that span the pages of his magnum opus also made me fall irrevocably in love with Japanese culture and history. Book 41 of Usagi Yojimbo was released in 2025, and Sakai is still going strong.

Usagi is now a cultural phenomenon with an animated series that released in 2022 titled Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles. Although the comics cater to an older audience, the animated series is perfect for kids who wish to venture into Usagi’s world, albeit through the eyes of his descendant, Yuichi Usagi. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I got the chance to attend my first online (and in general) art and animation expo, LightBox 2020. Attending the event reinforced my passion for creative storytelling and for pursuing a career in writing. It has been a rollercoaster ride since, and to be honest, I have not made much progress. That may not sound encouraging, but if there is one thing I’ve learned from Usagi, it’s that the journey can sometimes be the destination. All thanks to Stan Sakai!

In the years since 2020, what was once a dream has evolved into a coherent career I’ve now fully committed to in 2026. Where the road leads from here is another adventure that beckons.