The King of Fighters: Destiny

Bebelman★ 7

Funny story: the one who wanted to watch this was my mom, she chose it initially because of the avatar-profile-picture or whatever that's called (guy with a clenched fiery fist). I was just glad she wanted to watch anything in general, so we hopped right in. It wasn't what she expected, but she enjoyed it nonetheless. It's silly, it's lighthearted and so cliche it's actually funny. There is a scene at the beginning where it opens with main trio walking on the street, then suddenly, next shot, bunch of guys in black get kicked out from a club, they leave one of them behind, and as thatguy hops on his motorcycle to rejoin the rest, one of the guys of the trio just punches him in the face for no apparent reason and then chaos ensues. It was so random that it made us laugh hard and we rewatched the scene over and over again. That's just the first one at the beginning, many more silly moments like that one happen. You'd think that would have a negative impact on the story, but just the contrary, it was hilarious. Anime never takes itself seriously and it's reminiscent of 90's action comedy shows. In fact, I believe it originates as a video game made in early 90s, I remember playing a version of the game called Fatal Fury or something along those lines for DOS system in Europe back when I was a kid. I'd never say that 15 years later I'll watch an anime with the same characters in it. Small world isn't it? Music's awesome, very high energy funky rock music, art's very video game like, not anime typical art at all, I don't mean it in a negative way, just don't expect conventional artwork. Anyways just as I finished the anime I can say it's a satisfying anime with some clear flaws. Cliches are still cliches, and sometimes they don't get away ignored, they ruin the overall picture when occasionally anime tries to be something more. Story and characters are generic, and you can never say it's a masterpiece with a straight face, because it's not and this type of show never will be.