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YMMV / Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple

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  • Ass Pull:
    • Shigure Kosaka's ultimate technique: Soutou Kyourenzan, which is telekinesis limited to weaponry. Even in a setting like this, such a technique is off the wall.
    • The reveal that the One Shadow of Yami and the murderer of Miu's mother was not Saiga but actually an imposter pretending to be Saiga. Fan reaction has been quite split.
  • Awesome Music:
    • Kenichi's theme.
    • Fittingly, Night on Bald Mountain plays almost every time Siegfried shows up.
    • The openings "Be Strong," and "Yahoo!" Are pretty awesome too.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Miu, many fans were not happy with the reveal that after the Miu rescue arc, Miu was once again a much stronger fighter than Kenichi. This then led to arguments about when Kenichi should become better than Miu or if he should at all. She's also the poster-girl for the amount of backlash this manga receives for its "unnecessary" fan-service as described in Broken Base.
    • The rest of the Ryonzapaku Dojo (and the evil masters, as well). Either they are extremely awesome (even the ones that could be labeled as Complete Monsters) or they are so obscenely overpowered that the author has to set absurd contrivances and unwritten rules in order to keep anybody (from the disciples to the friggin world governments) useful.
  • Best Known for the Fanservice: This martial arts story is mostly known for its curvaceous ladies frequently suffering intense Clothing Damage.
  • Broken Base:
  • Cargo Ship: Kii Kagerou x Setsunamaru (his sword). Completely canon; when he is forced to use another, he apologizes aloud for cheating on her. He also frequently calls her "beloved". It's even reciprocated.
    • Siegfried's first love was a violin.
  • Complete Monster: YAMI Master Silcardo Jenazad couldn't stand lasting peace, so 20 years ago he incited a civil war, which he's still actively maintaining, in his own country. During said civil war, one of Jenazad's servants informs him that the men, who joined his side, because they were devoted to his cause, will die in large numbers if they persist in the current segment of the conflict. Jenazad's response: "So?" For his research purposes, Jenazad causes his past students to fight and kill each other. He causes an avalanche to try to kill his own modern-day YOMI student. Jenazad also almost manages to trick fellow YAMI member Akira Hongo into killing the titular protagonist, and kidnaps and brainwashes Furinji Miu into becoming his newest cold-blooded disciple. He later supervises the brainwashed Miu's battle against Kenichi, with the expressed purpose of getting her to kill Kenichi, following which her mental state will be completely subject to Jenazad's manipulation and the brainwashing process to convert her into his thinking will be complete. Jenazad detests peace so much he is willing to kill his country's deposed princess-the sister of the "dead" YOMI disciple—who is all for restoring peace to the nation.
  • Crazy is Cool: All of the masters are crazy and awesome to various degrees. Siegfried, the guy who spins around like a top and sings while pounding his opponents into dust also deserves a mention.
    • Shigure gets a crowning moment of awesomeness in chapter 285. She and Kenichi are ambushed by three skilled assassins after Shigure's head. She takes out all three of them (two of them with her hair ribbon) and left all three alive. Awesome enough. What puts this in awesome territory is that she does all this while completely naked. Also randomly decides to terrify waitresses with shurikens and thrashes delinquents with spoons.
    • In 363 Ma Kensei just took down four female members of Yami's weapon division by Clothing Damage. Yes, Clothing Damage. He's just that good.
    • "Laughing Fist" Diego. He's that focused on entertaining the audience, that even after getting hit and defeated by Ma Kensei's ultimate attack, he first moves into the perfect camera angle to fall down.
    • Over the course of their two battles, Akisame Kotetsuji and Alexander Gaidar attack one another with sculptures made from steel rebar, carve statues out of rubble and generally turn whatever place they're fighting in into an art museum.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Renka, despite not appearing very much till about chapter 310, is incredibly popular.
  • Genius Bonus: Two with Christopher Eclair:
    • In his first appearance he casually jumped around and pulled off attacks from all directions, hinting to the fact his martial art, Savate, was originally designed to fight on sailing ships. He would point that out himself in his second appearance, when he's fighting on an actual boat and boasting of his superior balance on this terrain.
    • Sakaki and Eclair had worked together for a while in the past, and during their fight at one point use the exact same kick. This hints to the fact many of modern Karate's kicks were adapted from Savate ones, introduced in the Shotokan style by Funakoshi Gigō and spreading from there.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: If Wikipedia is any indication or the number of memes and Facebook groups, then it's safe to say Kenichi is BIG in Spanish-speaking countries!
  • LGBT Fanbase: There are many bara fans who pine after Shio Sakaki, Apachai Hopachai, and Hayato Furinji.
  • Narm:
    • Martial artists often have Glowing Eyes of Doom when they get serious, but the way the light protrudes from their eyes makes them look like headlights.
    • Many ostensibly intense fights involving women (particularly Miu) can be hard to take seriously when the focus appears to be on Clothing Damage and Male Gaze.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • The end of Chapter 524. Ogata crushes Tanaka's head with an elbow strike.
    • Hayato Furinji is the most powerful member of the Katsujinken side. Oganosuke Yogi, the leader of YAMI's armed division, is his match in every way. There's someone on the side of the badguys as powerful as the Invincible Superman. Think about that.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: Some people seem to have gotten the idea that it's actually possible for Renka to end up with Tanimoto or Takeda. This is more of a Pair the Spares kinda thing due to it being blatently obvious that Kenichi is Miu-sexual.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The entire Hachiou Executioner Blade team. They were built up as equals to the the top Yami masters, but are treated as little more than an ineffective Quirky Miniboss Squad. They have their own band of weapon-wielding disciples in Yomi for the Shinpaku Alliance to fight, only two even have names so far, but aren't as wasted in comparison because they ARE just a Quirky Mini Boss Squad, and are close to overwhelming the Shinpaku Alliance. Time will tell how effective they remain after Yomi-Unarmed's collective Heel–Face Turn.
    • And with the manga having ended, any expectations for further development for the squad (as well as any other characters) is gone.
  • Woolseyism:
    • The plot of some episodes involves the Japanese tabletop game Go. In the English dub, since Go isn't really a thing in Western territories, it's replaced with the somewhat similar Othello.
    • The Latin American dub directly mentions El Chapulín Colorado in the scenes where Honoka tries to fight the thugs with her toy hammer.

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