65 replies to this topic

[Irecinius]

LOL Well, ya know Rupert, that actually sounds rather kick ass to me. Seeing him use all the techniques he's learned to really impressive ballet or that head spinning break dancing business would probably be the very most amusing turn for this series.

I like it..~
He could try save the world by dancing and singing.. and flowers and cake, just like his idealism!

Edited by Irecinius, 17 March 2012 - 12:04 AM.

[Partysan]

There's quite a bit of true things being said here.

Someone remarked that this is an arc that we should like but don't. That's exactly how I feel about it. It's, while predictable, an arc full of potential that seems to remain unused, moreover it feels wrong for reasons I can't yet explain.
I had a moment of joy when Kenichi hit Miu in the face and shattered her mask, only to see that he didn't actually hit her. I think Kenichi finding the resolve to seriously attack Miu would have been a small mark of character growth for him. But since it's in the focus of this thread, lets dive into Kenichi's growth a bit deeper.

One of the small but nice point we see in this arc is Kenichi becoming inceasingly used to the atmosphere of the underground fighting world. He might still be intimidated, but he begins to retain his ability to act. It's a small thing, but we should notice it because one of Kenichi's most crucial weak points is his mental state.

There's something else about Kenichi that we can deduce from the portrayal of his fights. At the beginning of the manga, Kenichi knew a small amount of techniques which were called out to us, and used very basic nameless punching and kicking techniques for the rest. In the newer fights, Kenichi still uses techniques, but they blend into the background, no longer being worth of being called to our attention. It has been a long time since Kenichi learned specific techniques like they were introduced all the time at the beginning.
The last technique he learned was the Korui Nuki, which isn't very interesting as a technique itself, but allows for interesting moments in the fight by virtue of pointing out the weak points in the opponent's guard. Note however, that learning the Korui Nuki required Kenichi to master his center of gravity completely. Kenichi's way of moving is beginning to transcend into the realm of superhuman, which is a clear mark compared to the very interesting scene when he and Miu entered Diego's ship and Miu just walked up the chains while he climbed. Now he probably could do that as well. It's the first really distinct step into the advanced ways of moving that the masters use.
Back to the techniques. There are more or less only two attacks of Kenichi that are still called out. One is the Mubyoushi, the other the Korui Nuki. (The Seikuken and Ryusui Seikuken might be as well, but those are rather passive techniques.) We have just discussed the Korui Nuki, but lets have a lot at the Mubyoushi, since it's actually a much more important step in Kenichi's growth.
What has been called out, and rightly so, is that Kenichi's fighting progress is divided between mental and physical. Kenichi learns stuff from his masters and uses it (and even that is getting rare now), but he does not really advance his understanding of martial arts. But the Mubyoushi is the one thing standing against this. It is the only technique Kenichi ever developed by himself and it has been by far his strongest one until the advent of the Korui Nuki. It is a technique symbolic to his growth as a fighter, since it combines the basics of all his punching styles by his own understanding of their workings. It's the first piece of the combined style we are waiting for him to develop. This is what has to happen more often, and it is behind schedule.

Note also how most of Kenichi's special techniques, save the ones he learned at the very beginning (which we don't see that much anymore), are not so much specific moves as passive ways of moving. The Seikuken and Ryusui Seikuken are about controlling his space and reading and controlling the opponent's rythm. The Mubyoushi is a way of punching that combines multiple ways of generating force. The Meotode is a way of moving both hands in a synchronized fashion. The Korui Nuki is, although portrayed as a kick up until now, the principle of forcing the opponent to guard and then breaking through the guard's weak points. These are all fighting principles rather than fighting techniques.
This very much conforms to the master's idea of making Kenichi a fighter who rules through the complete mastery of the basics. Kenich isn't supposed to learn advanced techniques, he is learning advanced principles of fighting that are expressed by using the basics more effectively.
The Mubyoushi is how every of Kenchi's punches is supposed to work at his completion. The Korui Nuki is what he will do every time an opponent guards. He will always be in the Ryusui Seikuken mode. Unfortunately this makes for less interesting fights, but that's why these new principles are shown to us in the form of techniques. If you compare an early fight with the fight against the Muay Boran kid whose name I just forgot you will see that the latter fight has a lot of very nice fighting panels without any technique being called out, simply because they all integrate passively into Kenichi's basic style.

However, to achieve this ultimate integration, this mastery of basics Kenichi himself has to step up again and further his own independant understanding of his martial arts. This isn't something he can learn (although he can practice for it). It's one of the parts of seriousness Kenichi is so sorely lacking, the drive to work and think on martial arts independently instead of just repeating his master's exercises. We know he can do it, and when he did it was a major jump in power for him. Most of his important fights were won with this technique. But we don't see any of this inspiration right now. Kenichi has been watching his master's fights for quite a while by now. Hopefully it will get him thinking.

[Ruut]

My God Partysan you explain so eloquently why I love and hate this series! I applaud you Sir!

[Rupert]

Damn... Partysan... that's some thinking there. Also, the arc comes to a close.

[crysdgon88]

Partysan that's one hell of an explaination....... truely that ever since the time Kenichi developed his own move, the Mubyoshi, all other skills are just skill he learned from his master..
he really get stronger but if it continues like this he will never be able to reach master class if he just masters all the skills he learns. he really should think more the way of his martial arts with all the references skills he learned from his masters like how he did it to develop the Mubyoshi..
while maintaining and mastering Seikuken and Ryusui Seikuken for his own defense and countering... he should develop more interesting moves that he can uses instead of Mubyoshi all the time...
it is now the time for Kenichi to start develop skills for himself and by himself... there need to be more interesting skills to be made.....

[CharlieAL]

In other sites is uploaded up to chap 468, but no recent upload here...

[ValorantX]

Partysan that's one hell of an explaination....... truely that ever since the time Kenichi developed his own move, the Mubyoshi, all other skills are just skill he learned from his master..
he really get stronger but if it continues like this he will never be able to reach master class if he just masters all the skills he learns. he really should think more the way of his martial arts with all the references skills he learned from his masters like how he did it to develop the Mubyoshi..
while maintaining and mastering Seikuken and Ryusui Seikuken for his own defense and countering... he should develop more interesting moves that he can uses instead of Mubyoshi all the time...
it is now the time for Kenichi to start develop skills for himself and by himself... there need to be more interesting skills to be made.....

Well he's still at the immature stage, I doubt becoming a master can be accomplished in that amount of time. All the other characters of Kenichi's age are not masters yet, and Kenichi did not start learning martial arts until much later than most of them. If anything, Kenichi's growth is astonishing as a result of his harsh training. (well actually, his masters keep claiming that Kenichi should be much stronger by now "if he actually had talent", but that's something else) Effective techniques come from the result of mastering a style to its peak, or by developing over long periods of time of a martial art's history. Developing new moves that even his masters could not think of is kind of an unlikely feat don't you think? Mubyoshi was developed from a need (fighting against that guy from Ragnarok, what was his name?) and as a combination of different styles of martial arts, so it's case was different.

Edited by Saphsin, 26 March 2012 - 11:40 PM.

[Ruut]

The Myboshi was developed when Kenichi was curious about combining everything he knew about punches into one punch. There was even a flash back when Sakaki called it a good punch. It wasn't because he was dealing with Ragnarok, it was just a helpful tool in dealing with Sigfried and Ragnarock's leader. He tried a move that he'd developed on his own and it worked well. That was ages ago and he hasn't shown that level of curiosity and innovative thought since, and it took only 76 chapters to see it and he actually pulled it off before then in a flashback meaning that he knew how to throw the punch prior to using it. We're on chapter 468 and we have not seen him even hint about thinking of merging all of what he's learned into one smooth action since the Myboshi. Nothing. Zip. Yeah he's grown and taken on more techniques and blah blah, but that's not the point. Many of us are waiting for him to come into his own, not just constantly pick up the scraps of his masters. The Myboshi was the very first move of his own martial arts and we're waiting to see his kick, his second punch, and the completion of his own style.

Obviously he's not a master and he's not going to reach that level until he does what Sigfried is doing and work on his own style. Akisame even said Sigfried could be a master soon with how he was developing and that was because Sigfried's perfecting his own thing. Kenichi's talent is in hard work and he's even beaten that one kid on the mountains through perfecting what he's learned through training between their two spars. If he were to actually sit down and distil what he's learned into his own thing he would mature faster and better if only through him working hard to get it. It's not an unlikely feat if he's started off learning all the basics at the same time. No matter how awesome his masters are, they started in different areas and worked on them for years, developing a bias and habit to their style. Kenichi has been learning all of them at the same time, nullifying the bias that they have, and is therefor able to develop something new from what he's learned from their combined basics as he did with the Myboshi.

[Rupert]

I wonder if his growing of plants will tie into anything... Kenichi observes his plants and gets inspired to make a move!, kinda like those old drunk chinese men who supposedly make famous poems on that one river involving lotus leaves...

[Ruut]

I swear Rupert, you're like an imaginative genius in moving this story along! I would love to see his love of plants come into play in his growth! Instead it's been only seen as a means to get drunken fist girl and cute little genius girl to befriend him. It seems his love of books and plants have been severely downplayed as of late which is a shame.

On another note, this week's chapter was... Good on a technical sense. Interesting fighting, God Fist, Demon Fist yadda yadda yadda. If ya thought this was gonna be an easy victory for either of them then you just haven't been paying attention. I like Hongo's obstinate attitude and determination especially in the last couple of pages. However, my money is on God Fist wining or Mui's dad popping in and stopping fight/killing Demon Fist. I dunno, the masters fights are good, it's just they don't always grab me as strongly as the kids, or Kenichi's fights do since the teachers fight on a level that is quite super human while the kids are still in the realm of mortals... for the most part....

Edited by Ruut, 28 March 2012 - 05:21 AM.

[Rupert]

Haha Ruut, thx but you flatter me . I just remember something from the past and connect it to the modern day kinda thingy. The author should try to make this fight useful for Kenichi though, give him more experience or something.

[Rupert]

Ugh, after reading the recent chapter I feel that Kenichi is not really picking stuff up, even though there is an educational match between masters right in front of him. Maybe the Front Kick! stuff is what he is supposed to get though (even though I feel he should do the intense eye thing again).

[Carnige]

I don't know what you guys think but to me it fells like writer ruined this whole story by trying to make everyone good guy. Miu's father the guy who is supposed to be leading a terrorist organization and trying to rule the world isn't hurting the guys who was trying to kill his daughter (it was stupid for him to come to rescue to begin with) what the heck...if you are such a sweet man why the hell are you leading bunch of people responsible for the death of hundreds maybe thousands of people.

If that was some stupid logic like he was trying to impress miu and kenichi to get them to his side well he already had miu and kenichi would follow like a puppy anyway. I'm still gonna read this manga with the hope that it gets better to me it seems like writer just messed up a great chance to turn Kenichi into evil and get some diversity into the story for god knows how many chapters all we saw was Kenichi playing around while the masters are taking care of the real stuff even though title seems like the story would be about Kenichi content is not for a while.It was fun at the beginning but now all that masters vs arch enemies on the other side seems boring and overused.To me at least

[Ruut]

You make a striking point Carnige, but I believe the author is trying to show they aren't necessarily "evil", but they just take darker and more malevolent methods to do what they do. I guess you could say they're okay with murdering thousands in order to save millions. However, unlike the Assassin's Creed series Assassins vs Templars, like you, I feel this is poorly executed because I don't sense any really evil characters in this story other than Demon Fist really. The rest are just dark good guys which sucks the fun out of rooting for the actual good guys.

Sadly I enjoy all the ideas pitched here about Kenich's character getting something new added. Dancing to save the world, his botany skills and knowledge coming into play, him going evil t better understand his own martial arts, all these feel like the story would have a very interesting twist to me. But only if executed well. At the moment. it feels like the author is more fan ficing other characters than writing about Kenichi, which is why everyone else seems to develop while he follows by his nose.

[Rupert]

Aah, I haven't signed on for a while now. Anyway, it's time for another long battle...

[Haganai]

I wonder how that pancak silat master became so young, did that big boobed woman tell him the secret, or did he force it out from her with force, i really want to know dammit..moar chapter rrrrr---

[CharlieAL]

no new chapters< where are you guys reading this manga?

[Rupert]

no new chapters< where are you guys reading this manga?

Other sites, which do not include Mangafox or Mangahere. It's only on chp.464 on the Imperial Scans site, so there must be other translators at work.

[Ruut]

Been on vacation, still outta town, but lets see... Boring. These fights would be more interesting if... I dunno injuries mattered or they didn't drag on for forever. I am certain after dislocating one's arm and friggin leg, their ability to throw awesome punch of turning their body into a fist. Oh well, ultra master class can hax anything dealing with martial arts right? I guess this fight will see saw... twice more before it finally dies a gracious death so the story can continue. I swear nearly everything in this arcs just feels pointless.

[battradio]

Wake me when this arc is over , at least the girls are verbaly fighting