Ikki Tousen: Shuugaku Epic Battle

If you think about it, Ikkitousen has been around for a while. It's inception into anime form started with JC Staff in 2003, being amongst other action oriented ecchi shows like Tenjou Tenge, Air Master and Grenadier. After that first season, the series was given to Arms and they produced Dragon Destiny for 2007, Great Guardians for 2008, and Xtreme Xecutor for 2010. So here is Ikkitousen: Shuugaku Toushi Keppuuroku which is supposed to be a sequel to Xtreme Xecutor. But honestly, I feel as though this edition of Ikki is either a little misplaced in the timeline, or it just could have done morethan just more Ikkitousen for the sake of it. Shuugaku is touted as the sequel to Xtreme Xecutor, but to me it feels more like an abridged retelling of the series. The story is more of a callback to Ikki season one, where it's pretty much about rival schools fighting all over Kanto. Since Shuugaku only lasts for about 45 minutes, it doesn't go into a long exposition about Ikki's Romance of the Three Kingdom mythos as it has previously, but rather just reminds you the show to loosely based off of the novel. So most of my understanding of the story can be summarized by saying "Oh yeah. That's what this series is about. I remember now." as opposed to introducing a new conflict or bringing a conclusion to something that has a few lose ends, and I feel as though Xtreme Xecutor left a few things open for further exploration. I guess I should mention that the premise of Shuugaku is that everyone is on a class trip, but it's in all honestly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The characters in Shuugaku remain largely unchanged. Hakufu is still silly, Ryomou is still serious, and Kan'u is still kind to her allies and aggressive to her opponents. So the star femme fatales and few male leads that you've met in a previous season of Ikki haven't changed at all for better or for worse, through probably for better given the scope of Shuugaku. But I still stand by my saying that Shuugaku doesn't feel like a fulfilling continuation or conclusion to the events of Xtreme Xecutor. The interactions between certain characters feels like two steps back after taking a step forward in a previous season. Either I'm just missing something or refusing to accept the reality, but I still dare to say that if certain characters weren't present, Shuugaku would be a better continuation or side story to Dragon Destiny. One of the draws that Ikki has is its action, which in my opinion hasn't been super fantastical but still pretty interesting and satisfying. Shuugaku features two main battle royals that are satisfying to a certain extent. Personally I feel as though the martial arts action Ikki peaked in Great Guardians, which by comparison makes the battles in Shuugaku feel somewhat stale. But the tropes of the series are still present: Two or more hot babes battling it out until their clothes are torn up to the point where they're piratically topless. No complaints in that regard, but I still yearn for the return of the more action heavy high octane fights that happened in Great Guardians. And lastly, the ecchi. No special amount of nudity, but there's enough service to say that it's in there. Ikkitousen: Shuugaku Toushi Keppuuroku is pretty much more Ikkitousen. It could have done more to feel like a true continuation of the series as opposed to just reiterating the original plot points. Despite my relative disappointment with Shuugaku, I still somewhat like it for what it is, but it leaves me with wanting Ikki to go on for at least one more season in hopes of getting a satisfying ending. So hopefully there's more to come and that this is just the beginning of the series' final conclusion, because this alone is not enough, especially when there's the potential to push things forward in a meaningful way.