Battle Vixens 
(aka: Ikki Tousen)
Volume 2- 
(MVM Region 2 PAL DVD)
(2004)
review by Blackgloves

This review will mostly concern itself with school girls' panties and jiggling breasts!

I probably have the attention of most male readers now; and doubtless most female readers will be sighing to themselves, and thinking, "that creepy guy off of the internet is at it again," but -- really! ... I have an excuse this time ... I have to review the latest volume of "Ikki Tousen"! (The series is released under the name "Battle Vixens" in the UK.) Now, maybe I've been missing something all along; or perhaps I'm just -- as Danny Glover would say -- getting too old for this shit; but isn't modern anime getting weirder by the day? I'd sort of got used to the anime obsession with large-eyed cutie girls, and even its faintly pervy 'fanservice' -- which mostly expressed itself in the form of fleeting panty-shots of little girls in short skirts, and dialogue full of coy sexual innuendo; but director, Takashi Watanabe, takes things to another level with this series: this is energetic, primary-coloured, zany, action-packed, animated soft-porn!

As well as three episodes of the series, this Volume also includes a five minute interview with Watanabe, which serves only to enhance the surreal strangeness of the whole "Ikki Tousen" experience: looking oddly like Dr Zeius from the original "Planet of the Apes", the director presides over a photo-shoot where he and several other rather dubious-looking, middle-aged Japanese "gentlemen" are taking photo snaps of a young girl in Japanese school uniform with short skirt, while she strikes panty-revealing Kung-fu poses! Apparently, as the orange-haired director explains to a gushing female interviewer, this is so he can make the sexualised schoolgirl fight scenes in "Ikki Tousen" as realistic as possible! Maybe so, but it doesn't change the fact that you'd probably end up the subject of an outraged expose in a leading Sunday tabloid, and would eventually be locked-up if you were caught indulging in this sort of jiggery-pokery in the West!

"Ikki Tousen" is a fight-based series. Like many shows of that genre, there is next-to-no character development (not unless you consider "character development" to be two of the regular female cast of characters suddenly getting down to some hot lesbian action in episode eight!); the difference, is that the incessant fight scenes are incidental to, and often merely an excuse for, some of the most rampant, unashamed fanservice ever produced in mainstream anime!

There have been some fairly sexually explicit anime shows produced recently -- one need look no further than the outrageous "Gantz", for instance -- but these have the look of serious action/drama anime rather than the zesty, colourful aesthetic of "Ikki Tousen". One tends to think of shows like this as being aimed at a younger demographic. In fact, the show probably is aimed at young, teenage boys; and although highly sexual throughout -- with innumerable full-screen panty shots blatantly suggesting, with every lovingly crafted crease and curve of animated cotton panty gusset, the outline of female genitalia -- whenever one of the anatomically exaggerated female characters does actually get completely naked, the animation suddenly becomes rather vague: nipples are always hidden behind copious amounts of hair, and the lower half of the female form is about as anatomically accurate as a Barbie doll!

There is a level of prurience at work here though -- belying the perky, childlike cell animation and its sub-Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop accompaniment -- that makes this series almost more shocking than the more graphically explicit anime dramas: when two female combatants clash and one is paralysed, the other lords it over her paralysed opponent by removing her underwear and masturbating her while she is unable to resist! There is an undercurrent of sexual sadism to most of the fight scenes involving females; the large eyed, pixie-faced protagonists always end up stripped down to their bras and panties and are often left injured as well. It's a curious fact that, despite the exaggeratedly cartoon nature of the visual style of the series, characters do often get seriously injured in the show: smashed faces, bruises, neck-braces and wheelchairs abound -- only the females lose all of their clothes in every round though!

The fact that the girls are drawn as doe-eyed Lolitas rather encourages the notion that this series is a pedophile's paradise: the show's main heroine, Hakufu, speaks in a childish, high-pitched speak; reacts to everything by jumping about excitedly like a pneumatic infant; and is animated with the traditional large-eyed kitten features. She also spends most of her time thrusting her peachy arse at the screen and bending over in lewd porno poses! But the pedophilia accusation is too simplistic: the huge, bouncy chests that adorn every single female character, are hardly indicative of the concerns of your average kiddie fiddler! Really, these odd female creations represent neither woman nor child, but some strange Japanese hybrid of the two -- as unrealistic as the transforming robots that are also a mainstay of the genre.

Finally, we get to the 'plot' of "Ikki Tousen". There's not much of it -- but the set-up for the series is as pointlessly complicated as you can get. Basically, the series works on the conceit that some of the greatest fighters in China's 'Three Kingdoms Period' have been reincarnated into the bodies of the students of seven High Schools in the Kanto region. The great historic battles of the past are now played out in modern times as the reincarnated warriors from each school square-up for a series of rematches, which are arranged via mobile phone. When girlie high school student Hakufu is suspected of being the reincarnation of one of The Three Kingdom's greatest warriors, a plot is devised in order to try and eliminate her.

That's basically it -- but things get very involved, what with special mystic beads with special powers and a large cast of characters who become impossible to keep track of after a while; but no one is going to be watching this show for the plot! So if you have a need to release your inner pervert, "Ikki Tousen" is a must!

The show comes with its original Japanese audio track (2.0 Stereo) and a fairly faithful English dub (also 2.0 Stereo). In the form of extras we get a credit-less closing sequence; amusing "outakes" which are alternative comedy English dubs for some of the scenes; an interview with the director of "Ikki Tousen"; art gallery and trailers.