Ikki Tousen (Battle Vixens) Volume 4

As the fates collide and the umpteenth school uniform gets ruined, Hakufu finds herself cursed by Totaku’s earlier attack while the other players make their final moves. She decides to confront Totaku for the last time but doesn’t realise that Ryoufu is also hellbent on revenge”¦

You might expect a series such as this to out with a bang; this assumption is only partly right in the case of Ikki Tousen. There’s the showdown with Totaku which is made all the more interesting with a twist or two afterwards and the oft-mentioned fate vs. free will theme proves to be the series greatest strength; while there are a couple of surprises and many scores settled, it still feels rushed and open by the end. Whether it is because the manga was ongoing at the time of production or whether it was just an inferior adaptation, I don’t know. If nothing else, it mostly delivers what little it promised earlier on.

That is, more girl-on-girl fights, double crosses and enough flashes of white cotton undies to do a washing powder commercial proud. Unfortunately and perhaps surprisingly, the animation doesn’t pick up in quality towards the end so the pivotal final battles lack fluidity and panache when they need it most. That is not to say that they are not completely devoid of the show’s own take on “excitement’: there’s plenty of bloody violence, plus the usual gratuitous and not-quite-graphic sexual content.

All in all it’s an ending that suggests that, after digressing with pointless panty shots, mobile phone texting and staring matches for most of the series, the writers realised there’s a story that needs addressing before the end credits roll. There is very little comedy content this time though, which is no great loss since it was usually misplaced anyway. The emphasis is more on resolving the conspiracies and rivalries (plus the fanserive), which it does, more or less.

I have a strong suspicion that the Battle Vixens manga has more in the way of plot, so if you really are enthused about seeing what happens to Hakufu and her comrades (if you actually care enough, you’ve done better than I did) that should be your first port of call.

In Summary

While being both predictably excessive and predictably deficient at the same time, Ikki Tousen manages to throw in a few surprises as it rushes to its conclusion. There are a few untied loose ends but if you’ve sat through the rest of the series the final volume is still just about worth your time.

Final thoughts

Most action shows keep you watching to the end to see what happens next but Ikki Tousen left me wanting to reach the end as quickly as possible just so I wouldn’t need to see any more. It sets its sights quite low to start with (around thigh level for the most part) but this wouldn’t be so bad if things like production values, character designs and pacing were anything above the mediocre. Show buxom females fight by all means, but why not make the characters likeable and the fighting actually exciting?

Ikki Tousen tried to be a martial arts show, a comedy AND be sexy at the same time – it seems that this is not as easy as it sounds since none of these aims were a complete success. There’s nothing wrong with the Battle Vixens concept itself but it could have been done so much better than this.