The Summer 2024 Anime Preview Guide

Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc

Prince Kinnikuman, who came to Earth from Kinnikusei, a planet at the end of the universe, was always ridiculed by humans as a useless Chojin. However, by chance, he was given the right to participate in the Chojin World Cup, a tournament to determine the world's best Chojin, and by a miracle, he won the championship. The following year, he even won it again. Since then, he has become a central figure among Seigi Chojin, who protects the peace of the universe with the power of friendship with his friends, including Terryman and Robin Mask. In recognition of his achievements, Kinnikuman wins the "Survival Match for the Kinnikusei Throne," the final test of his career, and is crowned the 58th Great King of Kinnikusei. He returned to his home planet from Earth, got married, and said goodbye to eight years of fighting. About a year and a half later, the entire universe was supposed to be at peace...

Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc is based on the Kinnikuman manga series by Yudetamago. The anime series is streaming on Netflix on Mondays.

More than asking yourself if you're familiar with the larger Kinnikuman franchise, the question you ought to be asking yourself before diving into this latest series is, "How much do I enjoy complete and total insanity?" If your answer is "lots," this may be your show. To be clear, it's not My Deer Friend Nokotan-type lunacy; this episode (and likely show) has the energy of a group of eight-year-olds playing an increasingly unhinged imagination game, where each child keeps trying to outdo the rest. Your superhero is infant-themed? Well, mine wears a toilet on his chest and has poop on his head! And I bet my Dalmatian-themed guy can beat up your tile-and-grout-themed guy! It's a smorgasbord of elementary school humor, and I'd be lying if I said that my inner fourth-grader didn't love every second of that.

Beyond that, though, things are pretty run-of-the-mill. On one side, we have the good guys, helmed by Terryman the Texan, who are dedicated to world peace now that Kinnikuman has returned to his home planet, busy greeting the kiddies and signing iron-clad peace treaties. On the other, we've got the bad guys, led by Strong the Budo, who think that peace treaties are worth less than the paper they're written on and very nearly proving that for one actually to be "iron-clad," it probably ought to be printed on iron and bind its signatories with a geas or something. And then, to prove that they're better than all the other chojin peoples, they demonstrate that they can turn chojin into regular humans – and as you know (or can infer), a regular human stands almost no chance in a fight against a chojin. It's standard battle action, and while it's fun, it's also nothing particularly special on that front.

I strongly suspect, however, that a new entry into as storied a franchise as Kinnikuman doesn't need a gimmick for its fans. It's like Pretty Cure in that respect – give fans a group of teenage girls who transform on a theme and fight evil, and I daresay we're pretty happy. Kinnikuman just needs burly nipple-less men in wrestling gear to fight each other, and I think fans will be content. It's not quite that simple, but there's a clear formula involving attacks that follow each chojin's costume and pitting those who value humans against those who believe chojins ought to rule over all. It's fun, but it's likely to have a special shine for people who love the original manga or earlier anime incarnations.

With this originating in a different time and place, there are a few issues. While the Nazi-themed chojin isn't present thus far, Geronimo is, and I have a few qualms about him. While the episode doesn't mention that he's meant to be Cherokee rather than Apache, like the historical figure, the fact that he's closely allied with Terryman is uncomfortable, given the American historical context for who Geronimo was and who and what he fought against. I don't believe this is intentionally insensitive, but that doesn't make it okay. But if you're looking for big guys beating the crap out of each other, this is likely to fit the bill.

As somebody who didn't really know anything about Kinnikuman before this, I'd like to thank the show for providing a recap episode that more or less got me up to speed on the broad strokes. Granted, watching Episode 0 made me feel like I was going insane as it nonchalantly dropped lines like "The devil fully took over Buffaloman's body!" and "Super Phoenix was being tricked by an evil god." amid a parade of increasingly homoerotic pro-wrestlers from space beating each other up. Yet that's just how it works when you're explaining 36-odd volumes of '80s shonen storytelling in 20 minutes.

Perhaps it's the whiplash from returning to sensible story pacing that made the actual episode one feel, well, kind of slow and dull. Part of it is surely my distance from the show itself. I may know who Terryman is, but I'm not attached to him or any of the other extended cast, so watching a bunch of new villains show up and trounce them all doesn't mean anything to me. It doesn't help that there are still mountains of exposition to climb over before they arrive, as the various characters all tell each other about what's been going on since Kinnikuman went off to be Space King, despite all of them knowing what happened already. It's not fair to say that nothing happens in this episode, but what does happen is all preamble to establish the REAL Perfect Chojin, and it all happens rather slowly.

Visually, the show looks pretty good. Making these exaggerated designs work for a modern audience was always going to be a struggle, and there are a few moments in both episodes where things look a little shaky, but on the whole, the adaptive team has done a great job bringing these cartoony musclemen to life. The highly theatrical and staged nature of Pro Wrestling also gives the action scenes a lot of leeway to work with. You don't necessarily need highly fluid animation or complicated choreography when your fighters are defined by big, iconic attacks, grapples, and ludicrous super moves like holding dudes down against the giant tractor wheels on their shoulders.

All that put together makes for a comprehensible premiere to newcomers, but probably not all that appealing. This is obviously for existing Kinnikufans who are familiar with the original and, more than likely, have been reading the 2010s return series this is based on for years already. However, if you're into old-school shonen storytelling or want to see some solidly animated cartoon wrasslin', enough access points have been set up to where you can, if you want to, get on board.