Kengan Asura

[dannythm]

Ryuki is more fosued on survival and Koga is a sprotsman, and they are in a sports event with limits and rules, so he is 100% in the right, if they were in the inside, Ryuki would be the one in the right.

That said, we are in a situation like Kenshin, where the no killing rule forces the character to be far stronger to demosntrate superiority to his opponents, so let's see how that will work for Koga.

[ungora]

That's interesting in Omega how they worked Koga and Ruyki, the whole Koga story was a redemption one : from that moronic thug he evolved into a trained fighter with some moral sense thanks to his interactions with the Kengan crew.

Then we got Ruyki thrown into Koga's evolution but this time this one is a redemption story that failed : Ryuki with his past as an assassin got "attached" to Koga that was becoming the big brother he never had, showing him the path to becoming a decent human, but ultimately it failed and Ryuki fell back into his path to murder.

But in the same time Ryuki had much heavier horrible baggages than Koga : life treated him very badly as from his cloning birth he was "educated" in some hellhole by some huge asshole(s) into murdering people, such a big brainwashing from his childhood isn't easy to dispell.
And Koga focus on his own training also didn't leave him as much time for Ryuki as he should have to guide him, so it was not unexpected that when another giant manipulative piece of shit (Setsuna) showed up , he could push Ryuki buttons easily and send him back into the trainwreck of his past assassin life.

Will Koga be able to punch some sense back into Ryuki ?

[shenlong]

Nov 10, 2022 16:46:51 GMT dannythm said:

Ryuki is more fosued on survival and Koga is a sprotsman, and they are in a sports event with limits and rules, so he is 100% in the right, if they were in the inside, Ryuki would be the one in the right.

That said, we are in a situation like Kenshin, where the no killing rule forces the character to be far stronger to demosntrate superiority to his opponents, so let's see how that will work for Koga.

Well, Ryuki did work, barely admittedly but still, within the limits of the sport to secure a victory over someone who was outclassing him in most aspects. It's like when you have fighters who exploit the rules and walk the line of what's legal in a ring, it can be ethically questionnable and it goes against what many people would consider the spirit of the sport, but if it is effective, the question of is right or wrong is really a question of what values the different people are ascribing to.

Koga is mad at Ryuki because the reason he fights in Kengan matches is because he has an ideal of what a fair and honorable fight is, and modelling his life around that framework is really important to him. Kengan matches, which are an extreme form of combat sport, but still operate within defined rules, tend to promote this ideal, or at the very least pay lip service to it. They try to create controlled conditions to see who can prevail between two trained fighters. Koga is right in the sense that he is speaking from the perspective that the general ideal that the Kengan matches try to promote is the important thing here. To him, winning a tournament serves as a proof (to himself first) that he is the better fighter.

But the Kengan matches' ruleset have its limitations. The aesthetics of fair-play and respect for fighters' respective strengths will always come second to the economic interests that allowed their existence. The stakes of the Kengan matches dictate that their must be a winner and a loser (because they are first and foremost a way to settle disputes between corporations), meaning the rules will have to account for that first, and for the martial artist's ideal second. It's only very recently that the no-kill rule was put into place in the Kengan Association. It wasn't the case before that, and that's reflected by like a third of the corporations hiring litteral assassins to participate in them. Ryuki wouldn't have been out of place in the KAT in Asura, honestly (I mean, ethically, that tournament was a shitshow). Now, the rules have changed, and have made the matches closer to the ideal of comparing the fighting arts prowess of two opponents, but victory still is achieved under explicit conditions, and as long as they meet those conditions, a fighter is in the green. To Ryuki, as far as I can tell, winning a tournament has no intrinsic value, as he doesn't care about the recognition or the money.

Now, if Ryuki were to make a career out of this, it might end up being a bad call. He might end up building a reputation that would make corps not want to hire him. But I'm not under the impression that Ryuki is really attached to the idea of staying in this business for a very long time, so Koga's arguments will always miss the point. They're just arguing past each other here, their values and priorities are different. Koga is going to have to find an argument that hits home for Ryuki, something Ryuki will care about. Maybe he'll manage to sell him his point for view on fighting, but it might be something entirely different, in the end.

[dannythm]

I agree shenlong, the morals of the characters are, in general, shit, everyone looking for their own interests or the organizations they belong as well, the only reason the Worm is targeted, it's because it's not aligned with the kenga interests... yet.

I still feel that Ryuki got way too much plot armor in this fight, it was clearly defined that the no killing rule includes the intention of killing, and him not being disquialified when he purposedely targeted the artery of Adam is stretched out, even more than him not having his lungs punctured in 5 places bu his own ribs after all the beating Adam gave him.

In Ashura it's true that it was allowed to kill, but, nobody went for the kill, specially the assassins, as Muteba argued "this is only a one time job, not worth risking my life on it", and/or all the characters where strongest than the assassins so it was never an issue.

[shenlong]

About people not going for the kill, I disagree. Masaki definitely went for the kill, forcing Muteba to do the same. Raian absolutely tried to murder Mokichi. Setsuna had no problem going for fatal blows. Kuroki (who is an assassin) absolutely tried to kill Setsuna. I'm also pretty sure Akoya was perfectly willing to kill anyone in his path if he felt it necessary to win. Hanafusa was explicitly hired to kill Bando and Bando approach to his fights were all about killing (he snapped Hanafusa's neck and was trying to kill Hatsumi).

Now, I'll agree that very few people actually died, but honestly, I'll say that's mostly plot armor (I'll include Hanafusa's absurd medical skills in plot armor) and the author not feeling like killing too many of his characters. People absolutely were going for the kill in the KAT. It rarely stuck for various reasons, but they were.

I'll also disagree that intent counts. I just don't see any evidence for that. The two occurrences I see can be explained in other ways. Alan pulling a knife did cause a discussion between the refs, but the point wasn't Alan's intent, it was to know if Raian's killing him could be justified as self defence and looked over. But as we know, in the end, they still decided to disqualify him (and posthumously award Alan the victory despite his pulling a knife). The second instance was Akoya vs Nicolas, and, really, it seemed more about them basically refusing to listen to the referee. The ref realized they were trying to kill each other, tried to stop them, and ended up disqualifying both when they wouldn't listen. It wasn't a post-fight decision of invalidating a win because there was killing intent.

And I mean, if we're going to argue that Ryuki should be disqualified for going for Adam's artery, then what about Rihito slicing Myers open and leaving him to bleed out on the floor ? Thing is, regardless of the no-killing rule, there really doesn't seem to be much of a list of moves that are fouls in this competition. The UFC, despite its image, has a very precise things of things you are and aren't allowed to do, for instance, in an effort to protect fighters' lives. This really is the only realistic way a promotion can set limits. The Kengan Association and Purgatory have rules against killing, but if you don't ban striked to the jugular, then it would be inconsistent from them to disqualify a fighter for going for a legal move when a death didn't occur.

[ungora]

Looks like the next match didn't wasted time in the presentation, Rihito and Saw Paing are already going at it
I liked the focus on the rules change in comparison to the original Kengan tournament with Robinson commenting about how it basically gave a slight advantage to Saw Paing for this match


Though Saw Paing eyes seems much less lively than in previous matches, it looks like the author took in account his accumulated damage.

[dannythm]

I still don't know if feeling proud of Lihito for keeping to his own style, or his lack of apparent progress after 4 years training with the beard.

ungora you got that right, I think that will make Lihito take the fight, but he won't be in top condition for Koga, not that he will come unharmed with his fight with Ryuki either...

[ungora]

That fight is a very good slugfest , it's been a while there wasn't some really cool fight like this one with.
And it looks like Rihito is finally managing in the end to incorporate whatever he learned from Kuroki into his own techniques, wonder how it will go on the next chapter, hopefully Saw Paing will have something in his sleeve too otherwise that could be it for him.

[ungora]

Now that Rihito vs Saw Paing just ended, that was a very good fight.
Let's see the next one, hoping it will continue on this good fight trend.

[dannythm]

I think we just finished the best fight from Omega so far, which may be on part with the average fight of Kengan.... how the times change.
So the finals will be Koga vs Lihito in a narrative rematch of Ohma vs Kuroki.

[ungora]

But will we see finals in this tournament, or will there be something wormy coming this way, after all out of drinking with his new found pal there's probably a nefarious reason the Connector guy is there and he has a scary living martial godly monster reputation to live up to.

[dannythm]

I think the tournament will finish and then something wormy will happen, the kengan vs purgatory was already plagued with worms so I don't think this one will be as well.

[dannythm]

Aaaaand it's started, and same as the Woli vs Ricardo fight, I'm missing a good counter right off the bat against the inital charge of the "aggressor".

[ungora]

Ah the classic "i know your moves so you can't beat me anymore" ...
Hmm, yeah i know manga trope, but honestly that always meant nothing.

It's not because one have seen and know how to do or how to guard against a straight direct punch or an uppercut that the opponent will not be able to just knock you out with a direct straight punch or an uppercut...

It happens a lot in boxing despite every boxers are expert in dealing or defending with direct straight punch and uppercuts.

[dannythm]

Will the fight be over next chapter or Gaoh will take the upper hand once again? Oh boy... I guess they really want to showcase the growth of Koga.