In Ikkitousen: Xtreme Xecutor, we pretend that Ikitousen:GG never happened and go crawling back to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms with our heads down, asking humbly for it to take us back.

On the positive side, the main characters are the women and they are strong – very, very strong. On the negative side, we have to look at them from the ground up to remind ourselves repeatedly that women are no more than breasts and vaginas. However, you can see that even the animators are getting tired of this and whole scenes pass without a single panty shot.

Bachou appears and does something odd – she asks Hakufu to teach her. Although she knows that historically she served Ryuubi, she’s impressed by Hakufu’s power. (And the scene in which Hakufu takes Bachou in as a student may well be be the best scene in the current series.)

We’re introduced to two evil psycho sisters from Nanban  – and yet *another* person claiming to be Kantei fills in the quota of plot complications.

Overall, the story has been as de-Yurified as it can be. If there’s any tension that surpasses the historical context this time, it is that we’ve been seeded with the idea that Kanu and Ryomou have some unfinished business from both their historical past and their current lives. But for the most part, the focus is on the fighting – which is perfectly fine with me. Honestly, if we could lose the service altogether, I’d think this was one of the best series ever. :-)

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8 (Am I projecting? Yes, yes I am)
Yuri – 1
Service – 14 million

Overall – 7

I’m not taking one for the team when I watch this – I actually really like this series. ^_^