 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | FUNIMATION ENTERTAINMENT | | | ▪ | ASPECT RATIO: | | 4:3 FULL SCREEN | | | ▪ | AUDIO: | | ENGLISH AND JAPANESE DD 2.0 | | | ▪ | RUNNING TIME: | | 325 MIN | | | ▪ | RATING: | | TV MA | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 05/26/2009 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 05/31/20079 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | DAVEY C. JONES |
SYNOPSIS:
Everyone wants a piece of the new girl in town, but there’s nothing that turns Hakufu on more than a brutal street fight. She shrugs of her shredded skirts and tattered tops with a flurry of busty badassery while fighting to unite the seven rival schools. And with no shortage of enemies, why take on one guy when you can take on ten? In this adventure where teenage brawlers are guided by jewels infused with the spirits of ancient warriors, Hakufu is content to flash her panties and crack some skulls. But like any hero, she cannot escape her destiny – no matter how dark it may be.
REVIEW:
The kick ass show based on the evilly sexy manga Bakunga Hyper-Battle Ikki Tousen (aka Battle Vixens) by Yuji Shiozaki, has all the fan service and insane babe battling action in bigger than life animation! Imagine taking the internationally well know historical romance epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms (for those of you not in the know, yes, there really is a book with this title and it is a majorly serious piece of fiction based on a pivotal historic period) and then placing it in the present. Now imagine those warriors of ancient Asia being reborn in high school student bodies, mostly badass babes at that, and fighting for domination of the school districts! It is insane! And yet somehow, the script and the animation make this one of the greatest guiltiest pleasures in martial arts meets echhi. Hakufu is the ditzy girl with major martial arts mojo and little going on between the ears. She loves to fight. LOVES it! All she wants is to keep fighting and get stronger and stronger. She uses “Booby Bombs” as an attack and a fair share of moves that have double entendre written all over them. It’s battle babes meets hard core marital arts action as she finds out she’s a key player in this reincarnated showdown that aims to reshape history in the present. Things get hard core quick when she fights the seriously nasty players in this game of death. That’s right, it’s all fun and games until someone lose and eye… or their life! There is a line up of sick sadists, usually with some kink thrown in with heavy hand and twisted obsession that would get even Freud tied up in knots! As the battles get hotter, the risk to Hakufu becomes two-fold. On one hand she could lose and that would be very, very bad (think D-E-A-D). On the other hand, her winning and being pushed to her limits is awakening the scariest warrior spirit in the bunch and if it wakes up too much, it will take her over completely and then we’re talking Armageddon time! It’s a series of awesome battles and wicked eye candy in a show that never draws a line in the sand that doesn’t get crossed either in tone or the explicit visuals! Hakufu is gut-bustingly funny a lot of the time, engaging in slick battle moves during others, but two other lethal ladies steal the show whenever they pop up. Kanu is the long purple haired lass and her long sharp pointy ‘stick’ sure catch the eye. The big scene stealing award goes to the green haired lesbian warlord Ryofu. She replays a bitter fate and it goes along with the overflowing fan service and killer action, but her story tugs on the heart strings too. J.C. Staff does the animation production on this bad babe of an anime. They’re the production that did Ghost in the Shell – both the TV and movies. It’s hard to get better than J.C Staff and Ikki Tousen overflows with the cool battles and wicked echhi moments. It is a babe fest. It’s supposed to be. There’s gratuity all around as the manga made it and the anime rendered it to be so. You see the girls grapple, kung fu, karate, and use evil blades on each other and sometimes, things get ugly! Those fights can get seriously fierce in the shock and awe kinda way. Whether it’s the “Booby Bombs” comedy or the totally intense reincarnation, final battle scenes, the show moves through it as fluid as water and as alive and vicious as the warriors depicted in the show get!
EXTRAS:
There is lusciously naughty reverse cover art and trailers of other titles.
IN SUMMARY:
Babes in action 24/7! Ikki Tousen has more fan service than is barely legal and wicked action that keeps the adrenaline pounding! |
