Ancient battles rage in modern day Japan in Ikki Tousen.  In this latest fighting anime high schools fight for dominance while showing a lot of fan service.

There are seven high schools in the Kanto region of Japan that are fighting to rule the area.  Into this arena comes Hakufu, a young, dumb, and very well endowed girl.  She's also an excellent fighter.  Her mother gave her a sacred bead before sending her off to school, and many of the fighters wear beads also.  They contain the souls of ancient Japanese and Chinese warriors, and the fighters are settling age old grudges.

Due to her fighting skills, several people think that Hakufu is the "warrior from the West," a legendary fighter who is supposed to fight and defeat many opponents.  This leads many of the players both in her school and other institutions to attack her.  Can she withstand the all these attacks coming from every corner, and is she the legendary warrior?

The was a lot of humor in this series, which nicely off set the violence.  Hakufu is dumb as a box of rocks, and her idiocy is the source much of the humor.

On the down side, there is a lot of fan service which just gets in the way.  I've never seen the point of this type of stuff, to tell the truth.  I have nothing against a little skin, but seeing animated breasts jiggling or drawn panties just seems a little silly to me.  While I can usually ignore the fan service in most series, they take it to ridiculous lengths in this show.  In most of her battles the first thing that happens is Hakufu's clothes get ripped off show she's often fights in her underwear.  Referring to Hakufu as the "Boobie-bomb girl" gets old pretty quickly, and do we really need a guy whose talent is to accurately guess a woman's bra size just by feeling her up?

As for the plot, there isn't much new here, but they do a good job presenting it.  The show moves along at a good pace, and there is a good mixture of fighting and humor, along with some intrigue.  If they would just tone down the fan service, this would be an okay show.

Audio:

This DVD has stereo soundtracks in both Japanese and English.  I watched the disc with both audio tracks and I enjoyed them equally.  Voice is a little higher in pitch in the English dub than I'd prefer, but it wasn't irritating.  Both audio tracks were clean and crisp with no distortion or hiss present.  There was good range and both the quiet sections and the louder areas sounding nice.  A good sounding DVD.

Video:

The video quality for this DVD was very good.  There is some aliasing in the background and some of the fine lines shimmer, but this is a minor issue.  The colors are bright and the lines are tight.  A very nice DVD.

Extras:

Extras on this disc include a non-credit opening, an art gallery, and previews for Ai Yori Aoshi, Dante, and Mahoromatic.

Final Thoughts:

The show was pretty average.  The plot of ancient battles being fought in present day Japan isn't anything new, but it is done well in this show.  Though there aren't any surprises, the fights are mostly entertaining.  If they would only tone down the gratuitous sex, which I found rather annoying, the show would play much better.  As it is, this is a good series to Rent.