A son fighting a much stronger opponent to defend the honor of his father is the basic premise behind Shootfigher Tekken: Tough, the first chapter in a three part OVA series.  Being a fighting anime, they really don't cover a lot of new ground, but the show is fine for what it is.

Kiichi has been trained by his father from birth to become a master in the secret and deadly Nanshin Shadow style of martial arts.   But when Kiichi stops a professional wrestler from beating up on someone in an alley, he finds that his father, Otan, has a secret.  In his younger days Otan was in the ring and fought the wrestling star Iron Kiba in a death match.  The match ended with Otan being seriously wounded, but not before he plucked Kiba's eye out.  The wrestler has held a grudge all these years, and wants to learn the secrets of the Nanshin Shadow style.  So he sends a deadly assassin,  after Otan, who easily knocks the older fighter out cold.

When Kiichi sees his father defeated, he vows to fight the assassin, but can he stand a chance against an opponent who easily bested his father?  Kiichi trains hard for the fight, but is it enough?

In Japan this was released as High School Exciting Story:  Tough, but the title was changed for the US release.  I guess they wanted to let everyone know that it was a fighting show, so they melded the names of two well know shows in the genre; Street Fighter and Tekken, altering them only slightly to avoid litigation.  It's always a bad sign when the powers that be feel they have to stoop to something like that to sell a show.

This is your fairly standard fighting show, with a lot of splattered blood, flying teeth and broken limbs.  Though most of the most gruesome acts take place off camera, there is still a good amount of violence shown.  The thing that I have against shows like this one is that the fights themselves become the reason for the show, with the plot being almost an after thought.  You never get to know the characters, they are just the 'good guy' and the 'bad guy.'  Any plot feels like filler between the training and fighting scenes.

Some of the concepts are a little odd too.  Kiichi and his father are highly trained martial artists, but the professional wrestlers are able to give them a run for their money.    Not because they are well trained fighters too, but because, as Iron Kiba says as he narrates a fight, a pro wrestler is used to pain and can withstand numerous injuries without slowing down.  Okay, whatever.  In any case the fights seem to last just as long as the writer wants them to, with both sides taking a lot of damage, though the winner is always miraculously healed after the battle is finished.

I don't mean to imply that the show has no redeeming values, because it is just as enjoyable as other shows in this genre.  The biggest thing I have against the show is that I've seen it all before.  It's not any worse than most of these type of shows, just unoriginal.

This 45 minute DVD contains the first episode of the three in this series.  It comes in a clear Amaray case with the chapter stops and cast credits on the black and white back of the cover.

Audio:

This DVD has both the original Japanese soundtrack and an English dub, both in stereo.  I listened to each audio track and the Japanese was vastly superior.  The English soundtrack was boomy with some of the lower bass sounds coming through too loudly, and the DVD really suffered because of this.  The Japanese track didn't have this defect, sounding clear and natural.  I recommend avoiding the dub track.

Video:

This show is presented in a widescreen (nonanimorphic) format, and looks good overall.  The image was a little soft in spots, but the colors looked fine.  The black backgrounds were not as even as they should have been, and there was some aliasing present.  These were fairly minor problems though.

Extras:

There are trailers for all three episodes of this series included on the disc, as well as previews for Gall Force New Era, The World of Narue, Black Jack, Cyber City the Vampire and Odin Starlight Mutiny.  U.S. Manga Corps included something new and interesting too: Manga previews.  These were pretty neat, not just scanned in pages, but characters from the books superimposed over a series of different panels.  A text synopsis of the story is provided on screen to give you an idea of the plot.  It worked really well.

Final Thoughts:

If you are a big fan of fighting shows, you'll probably like this one too.  The biggest thing I had against the show was how similar it was to other shows in the genre.  There is a lot of blood and violence so this isn't suitable for younger viewers.  With a retail price of $19.99 for a mere 45 minute show, this is a fairly expensive disc.  That makes it easy to suggest this as a rental.