Kengan Ashura & Omega

Yep, with the dreadlocks.

Good guy Seki. salutes

His fights are among the most celebrated in the series.

Hey Muffins, how far did you make it in manga?

I had to stop around the fight between Razor Hands and Sideburn Supreme because I had a ton of college stuff to do this week (I think I slept a total of 12 hours the last four days) and didn't have the time to read it, or anything else besides legal codes.

I was planning to get back into it tomorrow.

So almost all of the 1st round at The Beards fight.

hey slim, you and me can discuss latest Omega chapter...in spoilers of course.

Thoughts on Carlos vs Gaolang fight? I think Medel might lose. He's gotten pretty arrogant. They're both great, and this is one of those times where I'm genuinely unsure who I want to win. It's gonna be epic next chapter when they unleash other techniques against each other.

Edited by Dhiruxide on May 8th 2020 at 4:33:40 PM

I think Gaolang’s got this. This is the perfect opportunity for him to go beyond his limits & overcome his barriers especially after Agito.

Plus Carlos is challenging a kicking match with a Muay Thai fighter. This shits Gaolang’s bread & better.

Man i got confused, i thought Karate Hobo vs Wolverine was the last fight of round 1, lucky i looked it up, otherwise there would have been a major spoiler from me... It´s interesting seeing Kurokis "middle" design, in his fight against Rihito he doesn´t look quite so much Karate Hobo as during his introduction, but his face still looks weird compared to later. Rihito on the other hand already looks mostly like later.

Omega Spoilers: Hard to say who´s going to win. Right now i would say Gaolang is ahead because he forced Medel to give up on pure boxing and Medel is so extremly arrogant right now. But it´s not a sure thing, capoeiras completely unorthodox style could be very difficult for Gaolang to fight against.

Sidnote: the explanation why Gaolong couldn´t react to Medels jab was bullshit. I would buy it if they said that jab gave up any kind of power and was pure speed, but a punch lacking "hostility" making it harder to react to... The explanation would be almost exactly the same, but one is grounded in realism and the other in mindreading (can anyone read the raws and tell me if that issue comes from the translation?)

Edited by Samaldin on May 9th 2020 at 12:37:27 PM

I'm unlikely to finish the right block of fights anytime soon, so I might as well give my impressions of the left block fights:

Favorite Fighter: Despite my well-documented hard-on for Badass Grandpa characters, that anyone who visits the Fate/Grand Order thread is well and sick of by now, my choice has to be Sawada the ballet guy. Perharps an unorthodox choice, but not only is his fighting style the most visually unique for me, I fully expected him to be nothing but a joke, so his showing of brass balls in the corrider came as a very pleasant surprise.

Just please give him a haircut, for the love of God.

Favorite Fight: Gonna have to be Robinson vs Saian, which, and I know this might sound weird, really caught be by surprised with the sheer brutality of it.

But this comes with a qualifier, because I felt very cheated that the doctor (which I assume is made of magic) somehow saved his life.

I'm willing to forgive it for now because there's a sequel and Robinson might get a big role in it, but if that doesn't happen I'm retroactively giving this one to Ryo vs Ohma.

Favorite "awww": Gotta be the flashback with Ryo and the two other lads, which genuinely left me with a dumb smile on my face. That's some great bromance right there.

One particular thing I want to highlight is this series of panels, I don't remember from which fight exactly, where the background slowly whites out until there's only the two fighters, ready to lunge at each other. Really gave me goosebumbs.

You putting Ohma vs Ryo as your second best fight, i must say that surprises me. That one was probably the one fight i least enjoyed of the whole series (the whole Inaba style just looked and felt too ridiculous to me). Left block first round my favourite would probably be Seki vs Kiozan with its whole theme of conviction (which is also ridiculous, but i can connect to it)

Okay, I'm back with the second round.

Imai vs Akoya and Ohma vs Raian were fucking fantastic, but thus far my favorite moment was Yamashita growing up a giant pair and trying to manipulate the Kure patriarch.

Not bad, old man, not bad at all.

And for the record, my favorite round one fight is now Gaolang vs Kaneda, I'm a sucker for the Worthy Opponent thing.

And the recent chapter in Omega, damn Carlos fucking won through his deceit. Poor Gaolang.

Though Rihito is up next, fighting the Falcon who is a fucking ninja & apparently the Purgatory fighters have no idea who Rihito is. Presumably it’s the same for the Falcon so this could prove advantageous to Rihito, as they have no idea how strong he is, especially after his Beard-training.

Edited by slimcoder on Jun 4th 2020 at 1:25:41 AM

The part about this series I am most consistently impressed by is the narrative weight the author puts behind the fights.

As someone mentioned on mangadex there's really no ovearching villain in the series, so each fight has to give us a reason to care about the outcome in its own merits.

And sometimes it's a bit one the nose (like Wakatsuki vs Julius) and some are done better than others (Setsuna being the student and murderer of Kuroki's chum comes really out of left field and feels like a very artificial way to add a connection between two characters that have none), but it's always there.

I think my favorite in this regard (though not my favorite fight overall not that I have one, I haven't finished reading Ashura yet)) is Mikazuchi vs Saw Paing: both fighters are there for the sake of their loved ones, but there's not really any negative consequence for Mikazuchi if he loses besides wounded pride, he's already getting his dick wet and at worst his company will have spent 5 billion yen.

Which they don't need to win the tournament to recoup, there's enough deep pockets in the audience to dig a second Mariana trench, plenty of possible business deals.

Meanwhile, if Saw Paing loses, goodbye to his home village. This fight has a lot of stakes for him.

Which makes him loses, because his concerns slow him down and doesn't let him fight to his fullest potential. Very unfair, true, and he is the most sympathetic party of that brawl, but that's how it works IRL: the whole "thinking about my loved ones gives me the strength to win" only works in fiction, ask any professional MMA fighter what happens to your performance if your mind isn't fully in the fight.

Great fight, even if I fight the Mikazuchi fighting style rather visually uninspired.

Man do people hate Mikazuchi for being a Sasuke-ass looking motherfucker.

I find his motivations weak.

Even Mutenga, which is far from my favorite fighter, is more compelling, and he was literally just fighting for the paycheck.

Hey he just wants some pussy.

Simple but ya know that’s how a lot of people work.

Ch 226: HOLY SHIT!!!

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY WOLVERINE BEARD!

Damn, I got a giant lump in my throat, here.

Well, it was a wild ride.

And here's to you, Tokita Ohma. ;_;7

Yeah Ohmas death hit hard but it was a perfect ending and i love that panel at the end with him against the tree. Now you can try Kengan Omega and then suffer like the rest of us when you go from binging the whole series (or one chapter a day) to waiting a week between chapters. I swear the pacing of Omega felt terrible to me at first until i reread it all in one go...

Dont read this Hailmuffins! GIGANTIC SPOILER FROM PRETTY LATE IN OMEGA! How did you guys feel about Ohma not actually being dead? I just hate it so much! For me it´s the worst aspect of Omega so far (and i´m sad that we´re not going to see Koga fight for a long time. I find him, after his initial character development, MUCH more interesting than Ohma...)

I have a feeling there's gonna be a running theme with Purgatory gladiators losing against Kengan fighters, and have to rely on Ring Outs to win, or at least try to do that to win. Even Rihito will be unpredictable as the gladiators know nothing about him. So I think every gladiator will be a pushover in the end. Carlos Medel in the end was not impressive, but I might be calling it too early. Gaolang is among most skilled of Kengan participants

Opinions on this?

and another question, any theories about The "real" Niko Tokita? He's an enigmatic figure and I have this sneaking suspicion he might appear in the present in Omega.

I don't mind it tbh. It is pretty early in the story, things will change most likely

Edited by Dhiruxide on Jun 7th 2020 at 1:22:04 PM

At the very least Evil Fang is most likely the real deal considering you can’t be the Fang with just talk. The questions being is he weaker than the 2 good Fangs if he even fights them at all considering he’s trying to avoid them.

Also whether the Wu’s, Edward or not, are a match for Rain.

@Samaldin: I'm used to it, I did it with MHA, One Piece and Demon Slayer already.

Shit I forgot about him. I do think and believe he might be on equal footing with Agito and the current shrimp, maybe even more powerful. As for weaker and avoiding, it's not because he's afraid. He's trying to deny them the satisfaction of fighting him. If forced, he'll go all out on them

I'd like to see Julius fight the guy with Prophet Eyes bigger than him. I hope he's learned a lot since and applies martial arts to complement his frame

Edited by Dhiruxide on Jun 7th 2020 at 4:29:06 PM

Seriously, why bother with picking 13 fighters at all?

Just sic Kuroki on Purgatory and the beard shall take care of the rest.