Well, if you’ve been following some related reviews, then you know I’m a huge mixed martial arts fanatic, so this anime really interested me and see it would play out. I thought the pacing and characters were standard, but the execution just progressively got worse and the only way I could describe how this anime was played out was irresponsible. The only other time I could apply how bad an anime was executed in that fashion, is Gundam SEED Destiny. The characters were really nothing special, though they are likable at some capacity. Maybe you could connect to them and relate to them, I can’t discount that possibility, but you couldn’t help but feel this is stupid the more you watched this. I thought it had some good qualities at first, but as they finally got into the Prime Mat fights, it just went to hell in a hand basket.

I feel one of the good qualities it maintained was that it did cover that there is some corruption within the political structure of the prime mat such as Da Han and Chun Yan fixed fights so it covered some motivation to why Fu Shen wants to re-purify his martial art, etc. But other than that, I’ll get into the heart and soul of this anime.

The character design to me looked like a mix of some of Fujisawa Tooru’s, the creator of GTO’s as well as the character design of Hammer Nao from the Hajime no Ippo manga with how he draws noses and mouths sometimes. The uniform that Lan wears kind of reminded me of how the GTO school uniforms look (I got nothing against taking influence from other manga artists). If I made this a bad point, I’d be a hypocrite. But in terms of the coloring and resolution, it came across as more stream line and flat.

For the fights, I thought the build up and the training and sparring sessions were a whole lot better, and most of the actual fights are anti-climatic and flat out stupid and insulting to those who know mixed martial arts. The fights rely on throwing one big power shot after another and there’s no rhythm to the fights. And remember how I said the execution of the fights were irresponsible? Well, if you ever give this series a chance, you’ll know what I mean when they get to the semi-final of the tournament. Plus, what made this totally bull shit is the introduction of dim mak techniques called Hakken or as they call in Bloodsport, “American Shit Head who does trick with brick.”

Well, the only voice actor I could recognize at the top of my head throughout watching this anime was the voice of Ishizuka Unshou, the voice of Miyata-san in Hajime no Ippo, Jet in Cowboy Bebop, and Bunta in Initial D as the voice of Da Hen. I thought he brought a unique charisma to the character where he’s of course suspicious and corrupt. The acting on the other hand was pretty much standard, but not to a point where it really helped make you over look the other bad qualities I mentioned. If you watch this anime, you’ll notice that some of the characters have a rougher accent since it’s kansai dialect they are speaking and the setting is Osaka. I’m not sure if I should give the anime merit for the obvious, but it is some what rare to have an anime take place in Osaka most of the tim,e and usually in other animes, Osaka characters are Token Characters. The only other anime I know of that takes place in Osaka is Tough.

But as for the music, it’s something nice to listen to. It’s feminine and energetic so it suits the atmosphere appropriately. I just felt if the music sucked, I would have had a better indication this anime was going to.

Well, some people have disagreed with what I considered bad, and some have disagreed with what I considered good. I understand that not all of those who view this review or this anime are probably not MMA fans, so they might be able to get past that I flat out think this anime sucks. I really have nothing left to say except that yeah, you can watch this. I’m not stopping you, but there’s way better martial arts anime than this like Grappler Baki, Histroy's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, and Tough/Shootfighter Tekken.