YMMV / Kengan Ashura

• Adorkable: Haruo, post Heel–Face Turn, due to being a loveably geeky Big Fun character.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Meguro Masaki. The authors describe him as a "tragic monster who couldn't meld with society" due to his alien values and drive to murder other people, but it's possible that he could've been aware at one point that what he was doing is wrong, due to him having a mournful look on his face when he reveals his true self to his father, and he outright states that he can't control himself anymore.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees:
  • To put it very bluntly and briefly, real-life Gurkha soldiers don't fuck around. Take Our Word for It.
  • Robinson's martial art, a two-centuries-old synthesis of western and Japanese martial arts, may seem to the average reader to be one of several examples of a Fantastic Fighting Style in this manga, but it has a basis in literature and reality.
    • Baritsu is listed as one of Sherlock Holmes' many skills in the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and defined as a form of "Japanese wrestling", or jujutsu. Sherlock was also an expert boxer and wrestler, so these styles combined would have made a martial art similar to Robinson's.
    • Bartitsu is a very real English martial art established in the Victorian and Edwardian eras by Edward William Barton-Wright. It was a system of self-defense that combined elements of western boxing, fencing, wrestling, cane-fighting and Savate with techniques from Japanese Judo and jujutsu.
    • Robinson's Baritsu seems to combine elements of both. Like Sherlock's Baritsu, it began as Japanese, not western, and Sherlock is even shown in the manga during an explanation of the style, while the real founder of Bartitsu is never mentioned. Like real-life Bartitsu, it combines Japanese and western techniques to make a complete system.
  • Yes, Pacific Islanders actually used to get as big as Toa Mudo. Centuries back, Polynesian upper classes and royalty essentially ran their own eugenics projects by only reproducing with the strongest and biggest partners they could find, resulting in humans so massive that archaeologists who found their bones initially thought they belonged to an entirely different species of humans. One standout example is Kamehameha, the first king of a united Hawai'i two centuries ago, who stood at over 215cm^note While the exact location of his body is unknown due to religious customs at the time meant that if his gravesite was known, anyone could come and take your mana, or lifeforce, so his body was buried in secret. At the time, it was considered dishonorly for a man's cape to touch the ground. Kamehameha's cape is preserved to this day and is just over two meters long, and would be hung from his shoulders, which would make the man enormous tall and weighed 140kg. This more or less completely stopped after the upper classes started interbreeding with foreigners or were forced into slave households by British and Australian colonizers, but Toa seems to be an example of one such bloodline surviving into the modern-day and getting even bigger with the help of modern nutrition and training methods.
• Arc Fatigue: The Purgatory Tournament Arc, a series of thirteen matches between it and the Kengan Association, suffered from this due to it spanning almost 18 months out-of-series. Unlike Ashura's Annihilation Tournament, it's clear from the start that won't be the entirety of the rest of the story, and the sheer number of fights in a row end up, to some fans, resultantly exhausting more than exhilarating, even if some individual fights within are still very well-liked. Not helped that Koga, the ostensible protagonist of Omega, is Out of Focus for the arc. Not helped by the fact that Ohma's story in Ashura was always based purely around fighting even before the tournament, Koga and Ryuki's interpersonal development and training were the primary focus of Omega prior to that point, and barring Ryuki’s fight with Naidan, that arc more or less grinded to a halt by the format. The ire about the tournament among fans has died down somewhat due to it now being binge-reading material, and on that the tournament delivers quite nicely.
• Awesome Art:
  • The incredibly detailed and dynamic art is one of the reasons why the manga is so popular - coupled with the unique character designs, and you have a fighting manga with some very memorable characters and fights.
  • While anime in CGI are usually panned and disliked, Kengan Ashura's adaptation does a very good job with animating the fights in CG, to the point that it actually adds more depth into the already awesome fights.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Cosmo Imai. Some readers like him for his growth and character arc and his unique design amongst the hulking bruisers of the Annihilation Tournament. Others dislike him for hogging the spotlight and see his victory over Akoya and extremely rapid improvement during the tournament as an Ass Pull.
  • Ohma Tokita himself. He has about equal numbers of detractors and fans, with the former seeing him as one of the less interesting characters and finding him not likable until over halfway through the series, and the latter enjoying his character development and thematic role in the story.
  • Rei Mikazuchi. While most find his Raishin style very interesting, readers are split over his background and characterization. Supporters enjoy and find his relationship with Rino entertaining, wholesome, and a breath of fresh air compared to other character relationships. Detractors accuse Rei of having a relatively shallow motivation and grew tired of his The Power of Love schtick, finding it tiresome and unappealing to the point where it is nearly impossible to find comment sections about him where someone doesn't refer to him as a simp. It doesn't help that he defeated Saw Paing, a huge fan favorite whose motivation (fighting to save his home village) resonated more strongly with some readers.
  • Rolón Donaire. After spending a long time being hyped up as an impossibly dangerous fighter who gave Gensai the fight of his life, many felt his fight was rather underwhelming. This is not helped by his fighting style relying on Boring, but Practical moves, which many felt that other characters (including, tellingly, Gensai) demonstrated far more effectively.
• Broken Base:
  • The anime's use of CG animation, some think it's awful (bad memories from Berserk (2016)) and that CGI animation is a waste of potential due with the manga's Awesome Art, while the other camp sees the CG animation as surprisingly good, holding up pretty well especially in the fight scenes.
  • There's quite some backlash against Ohma's return in Omega, especially as this undermines the Bittersweet Ending of Ashura and comes at the expense of Koga's role as the main character. Many are happy to have Ohma back as the protagonist, but those who have gotten attached to Koga aren't too pleased with the fact that he is to be shafted in favour of someone who is already quite the Base-Breaking Character and was presumed dead for some time.
  • The fight between Donaire and Ohma is also divisive. After over a year of buildup, Donaire is defeated without a massive amount of trouble.
  • Some felt that Raian defeating Edward Wu was a bit of an Ass Pull, given that Edward had already defeated Raian easily, and was handling the rest of the Kure and Wu clans like children. It was possibly explained by the fact that Edward had been stabbed and poisoned, but this was not mentioned in the narration.
• Complete Monster: Katsumasa Hayami, CEO of Toyo Electric Power Co. and leader of the Society of Hundreds, was an ally of Metsudo, until he tried to betray him for more power. Thwarted and disfigured, Katsumasa would take Meguro Masaki under his wing years later, and amplify his capacity to turn pain into pleasure, at the cost of his sanity, in an attempt to create a fighter capable of beating the Fang of Metsudo. Katsumasa would also create a saner clone of Meguro called Masaki "Hayami", who he raised as his son to control him. Katsumasa would train Masaki by making him train with Meguro, who would try to kill him repeatedly, and by instilling the original's brutality in him through Huisheng. After his pawns are defeated, Katsumasa attempts to have them executed and has the Heavenly Wolves plant bombs in the dome where the Kengan Annihilation Tournament takes place, while secretly planning to pin the blame on them. He threatens Metsudo to detonate them, killing thousands—including most heads of states and his allies—if he doesn't resign, while secretly intending to do it anyway to spite Metsudo. Two years after his defeat, Katsumasa starts planning another coup. When Masaki turns on him, Katsumasa attempts to detonate the bombs he had secretly planted in him.
• Crossover Ship: Ohma x Hibiki has a small following after the two face off against each other in an eating contest during an official Crossover bonus chapter.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: The series does not shy away from the fact that the greatest fighters are often not exactly what you would call normal, sane or stable and how much adrenaline and being pushed into a corner physically and mentally can change and strengthen a human being. Some techniques outright being reliant upon trauma-induced mental states to work optimally, and the consequences are not glorified at all. The Other Niko's techniques are shown to have horrific repercussions upon it's users and his Formless Style requires the user to develop a Split Personality from the extreme trauma of a Gu Ritual to optimize it's performance.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Of all the fighters in the Annihilation Tournament, Gensai Kuroki was the favorite to win on the Image Boards. His rocking beard, his incredibly badass The Stoic demeanor, and his incredibly brutal (but not needlessly cruel) methods of fighting make him a spectacle to watch. Then, in a downright absurd series of twists for Shonen genre, Gensai fights and wins against both Ohma's rival, a man who looks like Sasuke who's father Gensai killed during an assassination job, the presumed Final Boss the Fang, and then demolished the main character Ohma in the finals. Gensai's complete and utter upset of the tournament solidified him as the fan-favourite from then on.
  • Kaolan is by far the most popular character in popularity polls due to a large Thai and SEA reader base as well as his stellar performance in the second round.
  • The same can be said for his rival, Saw Paing Yoroizuka, thanks to his entertaining traits such as his Hot-Blooded personality, one-sided Friendly Rivalry with Kaolan, and his unique and interesting fighting style and gimmick of having an absurdly indestructible skeleton. Being voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama also helps him.
  • Karura Kure isn't even a competitor or a CEO in the tournament, and most of her scenes are for comic relief. With that said she was voted as the 6th most popular character in the series, right above Ohma himself, and the most popular character who's not part of the Annihilation Tournament's roster. This is thanks to her cheerful personality (contrast with being part of a clan of assassins), her potential as a fighter even among the Kure clan, and of course her over-the-top infatuation with Ohma.
  • In the additional character notes, Yabako remarks that Nawa, the captain of the Sixth Bodyguard Squad has a surprisingly devoted fanbase, despite having only a handful of appearances and virtually no lines. His Bishōnen appearance probably helps.
• Escapist Character: Kazuo Yamashita is far from an idealized character and his (mis?)fortunous turn in life only came to him when he was deeply depressed at age 56, having a hard-working but unsuccessful life with divorce and falling out with his children. But, his story arc can easily represent many people's Wish-Fulfillment, even if it also serves as a reality check that it won't all be glamorous or safe. He's an ordinary middle-aged salaryman whose life gets turned for the better when the CEO of his company picks him to be the manager of their newly hired representative fighter, Ohma. As Ohma becomes builds up fame within the Kengan Association, Yamashita gets pulled into his spotlight; and, through a combination of luck and various misunderstandings, he manages to attract the attention, and eventually the favor, of some of the richest and most influential businessmen in Japan, and is even noticed by several world leaders. In short, he is able to reap most of the benefits that Ohma's fighting career brings, but virtually none of the risks. By the end of the first series, he manages to show up his Mean Boss (who used to pick on him) when the two friends he made during the Tournament—both of whom are big-shot CEOs—personally came to pick him up from his old workplace as he starts a new company.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • The Kure Clan are a family of professional assassins, and every single one of them is a complete and utter badass. This even extends to their clan leader, who is so old he rivals the leader of the Kengan Association in age!
  • Edward Wu, due to his flashy fashion sense and cool shades, as well as his ruthless and brutal personality. Even though he ultimately died during it, his One-Man Army performance against the Kure and Wu cemented him as the stuff of legends among the fanbase.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Beard God" and "Beard Chad" for Gensai.
  • "Simp Sasuke" for Rei. "Simp-Boosted" for the power-up he gains while under Rino's hypnosis.
  • Any variation of "Monkey" or "Ape" for Yumigahama, due to him resembling one himself, which isn't helped by his long sleeved black shirt, pants and his Hot Blooded Sideburns evoking the image of their fur.
  • Markiplier for Jurota, due to having a heavy resemblance to the man.
  • "CEO of Racism" for Katsumasa Hayami.
  • Ernie for Masaki Hayami.
  • "Pinhead" for Akoya, due to his ridiculously pointy hairstyle.
  • "Ed, Edd n Eddy" for Fabio, Solomon and Edward Wu, the latter of which is already called Eddie in-series by his friends.
  • "Shark" for Togo due to her Scary Teeth.
  • "Sandrovich's Little Princess" for Raian Kure, due to his Plot Armor and negative reputation as a Creator's Pet by fans in spite of Raian being INSANELY unpopular among fans for his aforementioned Plot Armor as well as his extremely cruel and unlikeable personality.
  • "Short King" for Liu Dongcheng due to being a Pint-Sized Powerhouse.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • People who tend to read Kengan also are very fond of How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?, made by the same author and even being part of a shared universe.
  • Fans of Baki the Grappler tend to gravitate towards this series thanks to their similar premises and Keisuke Itagaki's own endorsement. The adaptations of both airing on Netflix where they are often promoted together has helped as well. Similarly, the same can be said with a lot of other Rated M for Manly anime series.
  • This series' fans have a love-hate relationship with fans of the Record of Ragnarok franchise, especially those who liked Kengan Omega. Since some fights feel similar to each other's manga, lots of comparison goes around.
• Genius Bonus:
  • All over the place. While the series definitely goes beyond what's anatomically or physically possible, both Sandrovich and his editor are longtime martial artists, and so most of the fighting styles, techniques and physiological traits on display are mostly grounded in reality, which makes the series even more enjoyable to readers who are either enthusiasts for combat sports or martial artists themselves.
  • People familiar with the world of fighting will know that "Nogi" is also the name of the modality of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that is competed without the Gi.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series has quite the following in Thailand, leading to Kaolan being among the characters with the biggest fanbases as a result.
• He's Just Hiding: Although readers explicitly saw Ohma dying at the end of the first part, there are just as many readers convinced that he'll return for Part 2 given that his body wasn't cremated and wasn't seen in the end. And as of Chapter 50 of Kengan Omega, he's confirmed to actually be back!
• Ho Yay:
  • Ohma has his Stalker with a Crush, Setsuna. He gets a full on erection thinking about fighting Ohma, and even Sleeps in the Nude happily thinking about him. While also straddling a plush doll with Ohma's likeness.
  • Himuro, after seeing Suekichi put his all on the line despite his relatively weak body, proclaims he would have kissed him if he was a girl.
  • The battle between Ohma and Cosmo in the third round was described as being akin to bull riding. The difference between their age and physique, as well as how Imai ends up sobbing afterwards makes the whole fight appear to have a metaphoric angle. It even gets lampshaded by the spectators.
  • Koga and Ryuki get this in Omega. Sandrovich even has an entire chapter dedicated to the two of them going out shopping and making it seem like a typical date from a romance manga, only for Koga to call Ryuki (and the reader) out on getting the wrong idea.
  • Adam and Cosmo's sudden close friendship is rather suspect too, especially in Omega where they're almost never seen apart at all. One omake chapter is dedicated to lampshading this, as Tomoko believes they've secretly become lovers.
  • The way Nicolas talks about the real Nicolas Le Banner, outright calling him beautiful or "the protagonist of my world" makes it very easy to read as being in love with him and convincing himself he is Nicolas after killing him in self-defense as going mad with grief.
  • With Naidan and Liu's relationship being extremely close and Liu both swearing to avenge Naidan's death and defending his behavior in face of how little they actually know about each other by claiming his feelings don't have to be logical, it is rather easy to read them as romantically involved.
• Iron Woobie: Masaki Hayami is a clone specifically designed to become his "father's" perfect Living Weapon, and spends a large portion of his life training with his Ax-Crazy "brother" Meguro, who would repeatedly attempt to throw him to death, as well as being partially brainwashed by being made to repeatedly listen to Meguro's murder confession to make him a more effective killer. Despite his messed up upbringing, Masaki remains a humble and friendly Nice Guy. The chapter that shows his past is aptly titled "Poor Thing".
• Memetic Badass:
  • The fandom took the repeated gags about Kazuo being Mistaken for Badass and inflated them to the point where Kazzy has godlike strength and can effortlessly defeat any other member of the cast.
  • The "Wheelchair Kure", an elderly and very senile member of the Kure Clan in a wheelchair, who for some reason still is in the elite ranks, is often joked to be among the most powerful characters out there. This likely came from him somehow managing to get onto the Yamashitas' roof, and being part of the fifty Kure that airdropped in to stop Katsumasa's coup, where he's shown activating Removal while charging his wheelchair into the fray. After the battle, he's shown to be completely unharmed and the Kure in charge of driving his wheelchair has to remind him there's no more killing to do.
  • Koji Kaburagi, due to taking part in the prevention of Katsumasa Hayami's coup attempt by infiltrating his side and rescuing the hostages by taking out the Guardians that were watching over them all by himself.
  • Joji Narushima's wife has become this due to the Noodle Incident of him having lost the eyesight in his left eye fighting a bear to death, but the scars over said eye not coming from that, but from a fight with said wife so intense that Katsuya himself had to break it up. It's probably just because Joji, who can put grown, trained fighters in the emergency room with a few attacks not being willing to hit a woman, but the fandom thought the alternative option of his wife being a godlike fighter on Katsuya's level who wounded him in battle was way funnier and on-brand for Kengan's occasionally really silly comedic punchlines. Depictions of her in fanart tend to go full on Onna-Musha with her appearance.
  • "Healthy Ohma" (Ohma without injuries sustained from previous fights and Advance) and "Techniques Raian" (Raian bothering to use the immensely powerful Kure-skills instead of just Removal) are stated by many fans to even be mightier than Gensai. Other similar examples include "Dodging/Blocking Seki", "Fit Haruo", "Sane Meguro", "Saw Paing with a loudspeaker", "Unblinded Muteba" etc.
    • A couple of these are actually proven in Omega. "Techniques Raian" cuts through several members of an assassin army like paper, and is on the giving end of the quickest and most brutal "fight" in the Purgatory tournament, essentially because he had more important things to attend to and wanted it over with. "Sane Meguro" gets his showing in the form of an exact clone, minus the insanity, who takes out a Judo master on the level of Gensai (though granted, the rules were inadvertently heavily in his favour). "Healthy Ohma" is able to beat the strongest fighter in Purgatory and display techniques on the level of Gensai.
    • A new one of these specifically from Omega is "Battlefield Nikaido", after finding out that Heavenly Wolf Fist is specialized for combat against multiple opponents. In-context, this was meant to explain why Ren would probably lose against Liu Dongcheng in a 1-on-1, but has been exaggerated to say that Ren's strength is directly proportional to his number of opponents.
    • Another one out of Omega is "One Year Koga", from Koga's hilariously confident declaration that he would be on Ohma's level in one year after the final fight of the KvP tournament. This one gets proven in the second arc of Omega. After two years of training and gaining experience in Kengan and Purgatory matches, Koga easily defeats Kokuro in his returning Kengan Match, holds his own in sparring matches with Ohma and Kanoh, and curbstomps Xia Ji in a one-on-one fight, right after the guy was revealed to have a similar musculature to Wakatsuki and had fought off Ryuki and Akoya.
  • Contrasting with much of Purgatory’s Memetic Loser status, Carlos Medel’s sheer absurd Instant Expert traits, leaned into for humor by the manga even after his fight, have been lovingly embraced by fans.
  • In an odd combination of Memetic Badass and Memetic Loser, there's "On Par With The Legends" Himuro. After several comments about his strength being "on par with the legends" despite his less-than-stellar showings, it is joked that Himuro will always lose, but just barely, to any opponent.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Lihito, though a legitimately competent and dangerous fighter in his own right, seems to get this with increasing frequency, between being defeated as the first real fight Ohma has in the series, then getting his ass handed to him by Gensai in the tournament near-effortlessly, and then, come Omega, despite a demonstrated case of Took a Level in Badass from training with him, still managing to suffer a humiliating defeat against Falcon. Hell, even his victory against Robinson was downplayed due to Robinson having had to recover for nearly 2 years after Raian crushed his neck. Poor guy can't catch a break.
  • Also Koga. He's a relatively skilled fighter who is forced to acknowledge that he's nowhere near as strong as he thought he is after discovering the Kengan matches. He then starts working part-time for Kazuo and trains hard to try and reach the level of the top fighters to make it into the Kengan vs. Purgatory match roster. However, 6 months isn't enough for him to catch up the top-level fighters, and Ohma ends up taking his spot as one of the Kengan Association's representative fighters, thus relegating him to the sidelines. Despite this, the other fighters acknowledge his talents and rapid growth, and believe that he could eventually catch up with them. Many readers, however, continue to see him as a bottom-tier trash, and consistently puts him in the lowest bracket in their character tier list, even below the fighter whose role is to be defeated by him. As if that's not enough, some readers even call him a jobber virus, and whoever comes in direct contact with him will be worfed in their subsequent match.
  • Purgatory in general has become one after many fans found the performance of their gladiators lacking during the tournament against the Kengan Association. To name it, so far in the tournament, only Falcon and Liu managed to get a clean victory, the first via submission (against fellow Memetic Loser Lihito no less), and the second by ring-out after giving one hell of a fight, the other winners won due taking advantage of the Purgatory rules rather than due their own strength, either by ring out (like Carlos, who still ended severely beaten by Kaolan, who by comparison only suffered slight injuries) or cause they were killed by their rivals, thus obtaining the victory via the disqualification of their opponents (like Naidan and Alan Wu), while the losers lost soundly to their rivals from Kengan. Then there's Nicolas Le Banner, who, while he didn't technically lose and gave a good fight, had his match called out due the escalating violence both he and Akoya showed during it. Among the whole roster, Yumigahama and Alan Wu are generally the most mocked by fans, the first for being utterly pummeled by Misasa in humiliating fashion and failing to deliver the hype he was given as a previous Fang of Metsudo and the second for dying incredibly quickly against Raian in an incredibly brutal way in a one-sided match after boasting his strength and power as the host of Wu Hei, all in a short span of three chapters (counting the introduction of the fight) Even Donaire, the strongest fighter in Purgatory falls victim to this, with him losing to Ohma without much serious damage on Ohma's side.
  • The Wu clan as a whole began to dip into this a bit for a few fans, given their increasingly-hilarious names and growing tendency to die extremely quickly. Alan, Fabio, and Solomon's deaths were all so unceremonious, Edward was a nasty battle but still ultimately died long before the story ended, and then Chapter 148 revolved heavily around a bunch of newly introduced members ripping each other to shreds in a full on Enemy Civil War... Including the hyped up fifth and final Wu Hei inheritor, Howard Wu. One redditor concluded that, when factoring out the massive outlier of Edward (who upped it to 17), the average number of panels a Wu clan member appeared in before dying was 10.
  • Combined with the above this has started to extend to ALL antagonists that show up. A combination of many antagonists failing to live up to their hype and others dying in their first fights, a typical fandom joke about any new potential antagonists is to guess how long it will be till they job and to who, often to exaggerated proportions.
  • Before any of the mentioned above, there was Hassad. Initially introduced as a strong fighter implied to be on the same level as Ohma or Lihito, he's soundly defeated by one of Metsudo's bodyguards then quickly dropped from the S.S. Kengan and disqualified from the tournament. The fact he was presented as a new and potentially interesting character only to be easily dispatched a couple of chapters after that caused so much commotion among the fans that they started to use his name as a synonym for jobbing. Even the writer of the manga, Sandrovich, noticed this, and stated in one of the special character sections of the volumes he was proud to create such an "important" character.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Ginji Nagashima's "They Must Be Judged" pose achieved near-memetic status among Japanese readers, and has been used consistently for Ura Sunday's volume release promotions since volume 3. These promotions replace "They Must Be Judged" with "The Books Must Be Bought", and often photoshop a different character's head onto Ginji.
  • The team representing Purgatory in Omega is becoming this amongst Western fans, with Carlos Medel's Smug Snake phrases and The Falcon's ninja infatuation and hidden Chuunibyou tendencies. In particular, Medel's reveal of "the real Carlos Medel" and that he learned Capoeira in 20 hours using a book that got 3 and a half stars on Amazon is the frequent subject of jokes.
  • Yumigahama's face has quickly become this, with every new panel of it highlighting some new horrifying detail or making him look even more like a monkey.
  • "You were awesome, [X]."^Explanation Ohma praises Rolón's skills as "awesome" before swiftly beating him. Because of Rolón's immediate defeat after Ohma's compliment, fans joked that complimenting an opponent's fighting ability as "awesome" turned said opponent into a Jobber.
  • "You've got it all wrong". ^note This meme became a mainstay of image edits involving Kengan due to the sheer Narm Charm of the hulking Lightning Bruiser Lu Tian abandoning his stoicism entirely after sticking his Worm-tattooed tongue out and saying the previously mentioned line when provoked. Now, you can expect to find an edit of every character since then edited to have Lu Tian's tongue and saying his iconic line.
  • "Tough Guy Town" ^note During Seki and Okubo's fight, Seki passes out from a triangle choke halfway through powerbombing Okubo, resulting in Okubo landing at a bad angle and concussing him badly. When Okubo gets back up, he refers to Seki as "The Mayor of tough guy town" before immediately asking what the hell that is. Fans have joked that Tough Guy Town is anything from Chiraq to Osakan dialect for The Inside.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • From what little we knew at the time they were clearly villains already, but the Worm organization lost any chance of being sympathetic in the slightest when it was revealed what they did to Agito: a ‘Gu’ ritual with humans, locking him and dozens of other people in a sealed-off, pitch dark chamber and forcing them to kill each other until one remained. All this, seemingly just to create a powerful fighter.
  • Seishu Akoya has already crossed it twice in his backstory by killing a teenager with a whole future ahead of him just because he was a delinquent as well as murdering an innocent man and his pregnant fiancé just because the man's father was a violent criminal.
• One-Scene Wonder: Naidan Mönkhbat had exactly one fight to his name, where he has Ryuki at his complete mercy the entire time, and ended up dying in the match to complete his mission from Worm. He was so beloved by fans that the author released his and Liu Dongcheng's character profiles as some of the first in Omega, and involved him in several other Purgatory fighters' flashbacks.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Everything about Worm's impersonation tactics. They are scarily good at taking over people's lives via Dead Person Impersonation, or even just temporarily assuming a person's identity for information, as seen with Nogi's secretary having been absent from meetings involving Classified Information and replaced by a Worm impersonator for over two years. It bears repeating that during a meeting with mafia bigwigs from around the world that they were all sweating bullets when they saw the list of how many of their own subordinates had already been replaced.
  • Here's the real kicker though; This is all just grunt work for when the top brass goes on the move. All their freak-of-nature martial artist prodigies and leaders instead adopt Hidden in Plain Sight and their identities are Classified Information from a majority of their subjects, meaning you might literally find yourself sitting next to and slamming beers with the World's Strongest Man one day not knowing who he is. This exact thing happens to Kazuo when Shen Wulong plonks himself down in the next seat over at the Berserkerbowl with no one the wiser as to who he even is.
• Periphery Demographic: The series has a sizable female viewership, especially in Japan, for very obvious reasons. According to Word of God the team behind it intentionally courted this demographic, and it shows.
• The Scrappy:
  • It's really difficult to find anyone that likes Seishu Akoya due to his extreme vigilante tactics, which makes even The Punisher look like a reasonable person by comparison, and because he has little to no character development or interaction with other characters besides Hiyama. His role in Omega has mitigated this somewhat, though those who like him still do so in a Love to Hate way.
  • Raian Kure also counts. He has nothing likeable about him, and is a cruel asshole to even his own family, whom he frequently threatens to kill. This wouldn't be so bad, if he were written as a Hate Sink, but the writers of the manga seem to consider him to be an anti-hero at worst, treating his refusal to use techniques as his most negative trait, as opposed to that trait being... well, everything else about him. Even from the perspective of him being a fighter, the fact that Raian's strength comes from a gift born of eugenics that borders on outright fantastical makes him rather difficult to root for. It doesn't help that he's only lost on-screen once to Ohma about halfway through Ashura, making fans desperate to want to see him get his comeuppance. Him killing off Alan Wu, who is popular due to his character design, as well as Edward Wu, who is extremely popular due to his Evil Is Cool factor, has made the fandom loathe him even more. This has led to fans derogatorily calling him "Sandrovich's Little Princess" and other variations of that name due to his obvious Plot Armor and constant victories, as well as him having an increased amount of screen-time in Omega in spite of his unpopularity. Pretty much the only people you can find who like him are powerscalers and fangirls (and fanboys) who like him due to finding him attractive.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Yumigahama. He doesn't have ANY friends due to his extremely self-centered, rude, and hostile personality, and even his own fellow Purgatory gladiators dislike him. However, the fandom loves him to shreds and he is practically a Fountain of Memes due to his monkey like-appearance and expressions, and the fact that he's basically a harmless goon compared to some of the nastier antagonists.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Debatable for just about any cast member, given the story's formula and just how distinctive and memorable pretty much everyone is, but even then there are some standouts.
  • Though every single character tends to get at least one fight to show their stuff, even those who get completely bodied, Masami Nezu gets perhaps the worst short end of the stick. Though given a lot of depths and background as a fighter and a dreamer, his sole fight in the tournament is ended near-instantaneously with none of his fighting style shown, during Hayami's attempted takeover there is a single panel of him uppercutting some mook, and then by the time of Omega he has retired from fighting.
  • The sequel series blows this out of the water. At the end of Ashura, a trio of villains are established as major threats to come, playing a large role in the intrigue of the first massive stretch of Omega. Xia Ji is a noncombatant, but the most consistently-used and long-lasting of the three, while Edward Wu is arguably the Arc Villain for the Purgatory tournament, ultimately being defeated as its Climax Boss after the final match, both well and good for the roles they serve. The third, however, was the most intriguing, not shown explicitly at all: The "Tiger's Vessel" and final student of Niko Tokita. Finally, the penultimate battle of the Purgatory tournament unmasks who he really is: Fei Wangfang, providing an awesome battle where he's so clearly above Wakatsuki that he screws around and still maintains equal footing for much of the fight. Then, he screws around so much in his Dangerous Forbidden Technique stance that the most hyped-up and mysterious of all the Worm antagonists ends up... Dead after a single fight. So much for all that buildup and intrigue.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: A big parallel it shares with Baki the Grappler in this regard, as despite the series running in a shounen magazine it features many graphic scenes one would see in series aimed at older audiences, such as many brutal portrayals of highly detailed violence and in the middle of that some quick shots of sexual intercourse.
• Woolseyism: The Latin American Spanish dub is notorious for adding raunchier and coarse language compared with the original Japanese, or even the English dub. The most notorious change is during the first fight between Ohma and Karura: While in the Japanese version much what she said to Ohma is mostly tame, in the Latin American dub she sound more like a character straight out from a Hentai anime.^note According with Luis Leonardo Suarez, who is both the ADR director and the voice of Setsuna Kiryu, he choose to make Karura’s dialogue more rauncher than the English (from which the Latin American dub was translated by proxy) and Japanese versions because not only the original dialogue sounded too lame for someone like Karura, whose nickname is "The Succubus", but also using something more erotic was more adequate in order to make Ohma sound really scared of her.

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