Battle Vixens a.k.a. Ikki Tousen
Publisher
Geneon / MVM
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
13 episodes / 25 minutes
Year
2003
Battle Vixens a.k.a Ikki Tousen Volume 1: Legendary Fighters
By otaku_kei
31st Oct 05  One may be led to believe by the currently high standards of anime being released in the UK that, as an art form it promotes and rewards engaging plot lines, intriguing characters and requires the viewer to think and look back upon hidden messages within the show. Paranoia Agent, Haibane Renmei, the Ghibli films, Barefoot Gen, GITS: SAC, Last Exile and others all have at least part of this. But then we get a show like Ikki Tousen – a show so superficial and painful to watch that if I didn’t find the need to warn you all of then I would have switched off long before the first episode had even finished. This is show that revels in its shallow imagery of big breasts, panty shots and smutty humour! Now I have nothing against fan-service, one of my favourite shows is Kiddy Grade, but Battle Vixens uses it as a foundation stone on which to build the rest of the story. A story that unfortunately is as boring and shallow as the rest of the show. So then what is it all about, eh? For more than 1800 years the souls of great warriors have reincarnated to carry out a long running battle for the supremacy of Eastern Japan. This never ending battle is taken right up to present day where the high school students of modern Tokyo have taken up the rallying cry and wage war on one another in this continuing battle. Enter Hakufu Sonsaku, an incredibly strong 15-year old girl, with phenomenal fighting abilities. Oh yeah and breasts each bigger than her head and an inability to have a fight without losing all her clothes in the process. She must battle her way through all the obstacles in her path, meeting many other great fighters in her way. And that pretty much accounts for how this show flips between ultra-violent action with lots of nudity, to scenes where all that is mentioned is Hakufu’s gigantic breasts. The breasts in fact almost become one of the central characters of the show. Not only do they move in completely impossible ways – suggesting the animators have never actually seen a pair of breasts jiggle! This is yet another issue with the show, the characters are either all the stereotypical anime perverts, or the stereotypical hardened psycho’s! There is little with this show to engage with and for me I found it a very painful chore to watch! But this show must have some redeeming features right? It’s done well in the U.S., and for anyone who wants a mindlessly violent show, with zero character interest and fan-service in every other shot then this show is going to be exactly what you are looking for. It just turns out that I found this show was interminably dull. If you want my advice try a show like R.O.D. The TV Series if you want action and fan-service – at the very least it is worth giving up the precious minutes of your life for.
R2 DVD Notes
Features: English Language 2.0; Japanese Language 2.0; English Subtitles; Textless Opening; Outtakes; Art Gallery; MVM Trailers
Release information: Coming Soon - 14th November 2005
Notes: Battle Vixens will be being released as two different sets. First up will be the dvd only, or if you can track it down there will be a boxset with volume 1 of the anime packaged alongside volume 1 of the manga, currently being released by Tokyopop. Nice bit of cross-promotion.
Otherwise this releae is absolutely fine. Audio and visual presentation is what we have come to expect from MVM and Madman, and the extras are the standard fare that we get on UK releases.
-- otaku_kei 31st Oct 05
Battle Vixens a.k.a. Ikki Tousen Images          
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