Synopsis

When the divine council votes to wipe out humanity, the only thing standing between extinction and survival is a tournament, gods versus humans, one-on-one, to the death. This 5-episode ONA picks up with the gods already leading the scoreboard, and things look bleak. Then Buddha steps up to the plate, except instead of fighting for the divine side like everyone expects, he flips the script and announces he's siding with humanity. Zeus is furious, the arena goes wild, and you're locked in for what comes next. This part of Record of Ragnarok II leans hard into the drama around Buddha's defection and the fallout it causes among the gods. The fights are brutal: this is a seinen with gore themes, so expect weight behind every hit. Yumeta Company and Graphinica deliver some genuinely fluid battle animation here, and the orchestral soundtrack does serious heavy lifting during the big moments. Each mythological figure gets their own reimagined power set, which keeps the matchups unpredictable. If you liked the tournament arcs in Kengan Ashura or the mythological spectacle of Fate/Stay Night, this scratches a similar itch. It's got that Saint Seiya energy too: larger-than-life warriors throwing down with the fate of everything on the line. The tone is dark and emotional without being bleak. At only five episodes, it doesn't waste your time getting to the good stuff.