For the past 1800 years legendary fighters have fought an ongoing battle for supremacy, their souls locked inside small pieces of jewellery that have been passed down the generations. Now, the battle lines are drawn between seven rival schools and the students use their martial arts skills to fulfil the destinies that have been handed to them. One such fighter, Hakufu Sondaku, moves to Tokyo to live with her cousin and hone her skills. What she doesn’t realise is that she might be the Shou Haou, the prophesised fighter who has the power to unite the seven factions; unfortunately there are some who are prepared to end her life to prevent this from happening.

At first glance the premise for the series doesn’t actually sound half bad, especially since the director is that of the New Fist of the North Star series. The no-holds-barred street fighting promises some undemanding but entertaining Shounen Jump-style combat, plus some interesting politics and allegiances going on in the background. Sadly the end result is nowhere near as enjoyable: a large part of the problem is that there is fan service, and A LOT of it.

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of eye candy to hold the viewer’s attention during the slower moments, but there are enough cleavage and panty shots here to make this approach boring and even annoying. Ikki Tousen doesn’t quite match the likes of Najica Blitz Tactics in the ‘gratuitous flashing of white cotton undies’ stakes but it still features enough ground-level camera angles every time a female character throws a kick to get pretty close. Considering that there is so much emphasis on combat scenes it’s not surprising that trivial things such as character development or showing the students doing things like attending classes and having lunch in the cafeteria are virtually nonexistent, but it’s clear that Hakufu’s assets are trying to compensate for the show’s shortcomings.

To make matters worse many of the characters are not even particularly likeable. Hakufu is intended to be ditzy and inexperienced in a cute kind of way, but in the end she comes across as clueless and irritating. Many of the supporting cast are little more than bad guys waiting to get a thorough beating from our airhead heroine or other less-than-memorable street fighters, making it hard to empathise with any of them. There are a few gags thrown into the mix to balance the violent themes but not surprisingly they are based around Hakufu’s breasts and don’t say anything that other fan service shows haven’t said many times before.

So, is there anything positive that I can say about it? Pointless fan service aside, this is a straightforward fighting anime series whose background story and setting make a decent job of setting up the combat scenes which, while not brilliantly animated by today’s standards, aren’t wholly dreadful either. There are hints of a proper storyline lurking under the surface though, and since it is only in its first few episodes there is plenty of time yet to explore the bigger picture of the conflict.

In Summary

Although it’s still early days for Ikki Tousen, the series has not made a very good first impression. Gratuitous and tiresome fan service gets in the way of what has the potential to be an entertaining if derivative action-adventure. Fans of the original Battle Vixens manga will no doubt enjoy this but otherwise it has yet to show much else to recommend it to the rest of us.