Review of Ikki Tousen (Battle Vixens): Complete Box Set

Introduction

Boobs and knickers for everyone!

Yup, Ikki Tousen is all about the boobs and knickers, particularly those which belong to Hakufu. The naive youngster moves to Tokyo at the behest of her mother and finds herself caught up in the rivalry between the various schools in the area. The students at these schools are `fighters`, blessed with sacred gemstones handed down over generations, and rumoured to contain the spirits of ancient feuding Chinese warriors. Imbued the power to kick major arse and the natural ability to jiggle lots while they do it, the student factions are destined to repeat history and battle fellow fighters in an attempt to rule the entire district and become the `Ikki Tousen`, or `spirit with the power of a thousand`. Not that Hakufu would know a whole lot about it, as the sweet little thing is as dumb as a bucket of mud, and has trouble grasping that her own gem may contain the essence of the legendary warrior who reputedly re-united the ancient clans. She probably wouldn`t care much anyway - all she wants to do is beat people up wearing as little clothing as possible, much to the secret delight of her cousin Shuyu, who seems to harbour an incestuous desire for her.

Although very, very loosely based on events and characters popularised by the 14th century novel `Romance of The Three Kingdoms`, from top to bottom `Ikki Tousen` is a 13-part show designed for those who get a kick out of lewd content in their anime, and is vehicle for fanservice if ever there was one.

Volume One: Legendary Fighter (4 episodes)
Volume Two: Historic Battles (3 Episodes)
Volume Three: Water Wars (3 Episodes)
Volume Four: Fighting Fate (3 Episodes)

Video

4:3 full frame treatment, and although the show is reasonably bright and colourful, it appears a little soft at times. The animation is often stagnant when there`s little in the way of action, and the character design is of the sparsely detailed variety.

Audio

Both the Japanese 2.0 and English 2.0 are clear and distortion-free, with decent separation. The native language track comes out on top in terms of voice performance, with the voices much softer and less brash than their US counterparts, and fitting better with the overall style of the anime. The English subtitles try their best to keep up with the frantic pace of the Japanese dialogue delivery, often at the expense of valuable reading time.

Features

The box set features all four previously released volumes in a cardboard sleeve. Each volume features reversible cover sleeves, one side with the English title `Battle Vixens`, and the other with `Ikki Tousen`.

On the discs:

Volume One: Textless opening, `Art Gallery`, trailers for the awesome `Paranoia Agent` and `Full Metal Alchemist` and a rather odd (in a tasteless yet highly comical way) section entitled `Outtakes`, in which scenes are played with an alternate, and rudely knowing English dub.

Volume Two: Textless closing, art gallery, more trailers, more messing around with scenes from the US voice cast in `Outtakes` and a short interview with director Takashi Watanabe.

Volume Three: A promo reel for the show, more art galleries trailers and poking fun of the show courtesy of `Outtakes`

Volume Four: TV spots, trailers, art gallery, more `Outtakes`, and a photo shoot segment which sees some real women showing off their kecks while they perform high kicks. Yay!

Conclusion

If Russ Meyer made anime, it`d look a little something like this. If hit videogame series (and recent live-action wobble-fest) `Dead or Alive` was turned into an anime, it`d look a little something like this. If Smirnoff made anime, and it was the best anime in the world... it would look nothing like this. It might be strictly adults only stuff, but `Ikki Tousen` is heinously immature in terms of style and content, and underneath all the fan-pandering with "boobie bombs" and the roving panty-cam, it`s actually a desperately dull anime series and serves as a notable example of an antithesis to the pop-feminism Western TV has embraced over the past decade. Trust your reviewer, as an anime fan, the last thing you want is for your mother/girlfriend/wife to walk in on you watching this. You`ll probably never have seen so many gratuitous shots of animated panties - long shots, near shots, close-ups of lady bits bursting through cotton undergarments. And the bouncing boobies, oh lordy - it`s no wonder one of the characters wears an eye patch. `Ikki Tousen` was clearly made with a certain demographic in mind - the same one who would spend time and effort getting a pixelated Lara Croft into provocative positions on their PlayStation back in 1996.

Now that the details of the fanservice are out of the way, surely we can get down to the real meat of the series - the story, the action and the characters? You`re having a laugh. In terms of narrative, to say it`s light on the ground is an understatement - there`s little if anything between the ears. While it takes facets from the ancient `The Three Kingdoms` tale, they`re quickly put out to pasture after the opening set-up narrative from the first episode, and rarely rear their head with anything interesting until an attempt at a semblance of narrative with the tail end of the arc during the final volume. To its credit, the show has a distinct knowledge of where it belongs in the fastly-becoming-polarised anime market, and while the other end is getting by on artistic flair, `Ikki Tousen` is happy to flounder in the shallow end. And although there are some pretty questionable sexualised scenes - including full on groping - it`s far from hentai. Take out all the OTT fanservice elements, and you`re left with an anime that isn`t a million miles away style-wise from the likes of broad-base appeal shows like `Naruto`, only far less interesting.

`Ikki Tousen` had the potential to be a right rip-roarer of a series. Stories of rival schools battling for dominance as students invoke the powers of ancient warriors could have been full of great characters and steeped in ancient mythology, but it`s been brought to fruition as mere light and fluffy bubblegum anime with extra helpings of T & A and a natural alienation of the core younger audience with the `18` certificate. A 90-minute movie version may have been perfectly palatable for many anime fans, but a 13-part series of this variety is simply a little too much to stomach, and a bit of a chore to wade through.