Shin Ikkitousen

Today's world is a victim of a detestable sickness: The sickness of the airhead people who cannot understand a good story only because they see fan service. They are probably scared about boobs, and that's why their brain cannot follow the story of ecchi animes.

Please don't misunderstand me. There are a lot of simple and boring ecchi animes (as well as in all the other genres). But Ikki Tousen is an example of an old-school ecchi anime with a great story.

Not all the chapters of Ikki Tousen have been good (Western Wolves was a complete disaster). But after waiting for three years, we finally have a story that really works. Intriguing twists in the story and great new characters make justice to the legendary Ikki Tousen. Anything to complain about this new chapter.

I recommend Shin Ikki Tousen if you are already a franchise fan. If that is not the case, now you will have an excellent pretext to introduce yourself to this incredible universe.

Shin Ikki Tousen is an extraordinary comeback for this franchise. I am sure that the fanbase will love it.

Finally, I want to clarify that not enjoying fanservice is entirely valid. But what is not reasonable is to underscore a great anime, only because ecchi is not your favorite anime genre. For example, I don't enjoy the genre of Slice of Life, but I am not dedicating myself to underscoring those animes.

These comments assume people have seen previous instalments of Ikki Tousen; if you haven't this series is unlikely to make much sense.

This three episode series opens with the arrival of a new student at the Nanyo Academy; she is looking forward to training there but feels intimidated when she sees the fighters at the school. Inevitably when fighters from another school turn up she is caught up in the turmoil. It turns out she is the younger sister of one of the series' main protagonists. These events lead to that character going on her own dangerous training mission.

This is typical Ikki Tousen; plenty of fighting and plenty of fan service... so if you enjoyed previous seasons you will want to watch this. The animation is of the same standard as previous series and thankfully no attempts were made to 'modernise' the character designs. It ends with many questions unanswered; in fact in many ways it feels like an extended set-up for a new story... fans of Ikki Tousen will certainly be left hopeful that we may get more.

I Watched the series in Japanese with English subtitles.