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seanquistador 's review for:
Rooster Fighter, Vol. 1
by Shu Sakuratani
The premise for this book gave me high hopes for absurdity on par with One-punch Man or The Devil is a Part-timer, but didn't quite achieve them. The story relies heavily on the ridiculousness of an extremely powerful rooster, Keiji (which means "the rooster's will"), which is a convincing and enjoyable premise, though the joke doesn't have the strength to carry the story by itself.
Interestingly, the demons the rooster repeatedly encounters are all former humans, warped and mutated by the most salient shortcoming in their lives. One demon is a former salesman trying to meet a sales quota, another is someone who didn't feel welcome in their own home, and another is a jilted lover who couldn't convince a married man to leave his wife. It was a curious mechanism for demon creation (the demons from One-punch Man, by comparison, are generally normal creatures or humans who sought greater power for one reason or another).
The story itself is a series of locations in which the rooster finds itself during its travels, culminating in encounters with demons, all stitched together by the suggestion that the rooster is searching for a specific demon who ate his sister. This event presumably occured before the rooster developed its tremendous power, much as a sea turtle explained it had done to avenge itself on seagulls who devoured its fellow hatchlings. Curiously, the sea turtle said it took three years of training, which is the same amount of time Saitama trained using his daily regiment of a 10-kilometer run, 100 squats, 100 situps, and 100 pushups.
There was far more chicken sex than I expected (my expectation was, admittedly, none), serving as a comical comment on chicken relationships rather than poultry porn, but I didn't sympathize with the rooster in the same way I did with Saitama, who wants to be a hero for fun and is perpetually overlooked in spite of his heroics, or Lucifer, who is painted as the great and terrible adversary of his own world but proves empathetic and human despite his desires for world conquest. The rooster, by comparison, is a brooding, cocksure (pun), ronin samurai type, who repeatedly indicates his dislike of children--which is understandable if you've only ever met horrible children. Other than an urge to fight demons, the rooster projects little in the way of likable characteristics.
The sole weakness of the rooster seems to be his stomach. He struggles with rich foods, and more than once finds himself disabled for days after running afoul (afowl?) of what one imagines are delectably rare bugs. Then you can chuckle at his gastrointestinal distress. His obsession with sea urchins is a running joke that improves over time.
The rooster's strengths are his speed and an apparently face-rupturing sonic cock-a-doodle-doo. This is the basis for most of the rooster's confrontations: dodging, pecking (with what appears to be normal chicken strength at extremely abnormal chicken speed), then exploding the opponent's head. There's never much drama or doubt about the outcome, so you don't have the same comic anticlimax as there is with Saitama accidentally destroying an opponent with a single blow and learning the real reason he appeared distressed was because he missed a coupon day at the supermarket. The fact that the combatant is a super-powered rooster does all of the comedic work, but it's not a gimmick that holds up beyond the first confrontation.
I wanted to enjoy this story more than I did, but I didn't, and I can't help wondering what went wrong. I suspect it comes down not to the overarching quest, but the repetitive encounters and the unlikably stoic chicken. That said, the promise of a chick sidekick and another super rooster have piqued my interest.
Congratulations to Shu Sakuratani for making me explain why I don't empathize with a chicken. I hope you're laughing your head off.
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UPDATE:
My middle child, who never reads on his own, asked if he could skip a play date in order to finish the book. If he ever has a goodreads account I'm sure he will give Rooster Fighter 100 stars.
Interestingly, the demons the rooster repeatedly encounters are all former humans, warped and mutated by the most salient shortcoming in their lives. One demon is a former salesman trying to meet a sales quota, another is someone who didn't feel welcome in their own home, and another is a jilted lover who couldn't convince a married man to leave his wife. It was a curious mechanism for demon creation (the demons from One-punch Man, by comparison, are generally normal creatures or humans who sought greater power for one reason or another).
The story itself is a series of locations in which the rooster finds itself during its travels, culminating in encounters with demons, all stitched together by the suggestion that the rooster is searching for a specific demon who ate his sister. This event presumably occured before the rooster developed its tremendous power, much as a sea turtle explained it had done to avenge itself on seagulls who devoured its fellow hatchlings. Curiously, the sea turtle said it took three years of training, which is the same amount of time Saitama trained using his daily regiment of a 10-kilometer run, 100 squats, 100 situps, and 100 pushups.
There was far more chicken sex than I expected (my expectation was, admittedly, none), serving as a comical comment on chicken relationships rather than poultry porn, but I didn't sympathize with the rooster in the same way I did with Saitama, who wants to be a hero for fun and is perpetually overlooked in spite of his heroics, or Lucifer, who is painted as the great and terrible adversary of his own world but proves empathetic and human despite his desires for world conquest. The rooster, by comparison, is a brooding, cocksure (pun), ronin samurai type, who repeatedly indicates his dislike of children--which is understandable if you've only ever met horrible children. Other than an urge to fight demons, the rooster projects little in the way of likable characteristics.
The sole weakness of the rooster seems to be his stomach. He struggles with rich foods, and more than once finds himself disabled for days after running afoul (afowl?) of what one imagines are delectably rare bugs. Then you can chuckle at his gastrointestinal distress. His obsession with sea urchins is a running joke that improves over time.
The rooster's strengths are his speed and an apparently face-rupturing sonic cock-a-doodle-doo. This is the basis for most of the rooster's confrontations: dodging, pecking (with what appears to be normal chicken strength at extremely abnormal chicken speed), then exploding the opponent's head. There's never much drama or doubt about the outcome, so you don't have the same comic anticlimax as there is with Saitama accidentally destroying an opponent with a single blow and learning the real reason he appeared distressed was because he missed a coupon day at the supermarket. The fact that the combatant is a super-powered rooster does all of the comedic work, but it's not a gimmick that holds up beyond the first confrontation.
I wanted to enjoy this story more than I did, but I didn't, and I can't help wondering what went wrong. I suspect it comes down not to the overarching quest, but the repetitive encounters and the unlikably stoic chicken. That said, the promise of a chick sidekick and another super rooster have piqued my interest.
Congratulations to Shu Sakuratani for making me explain why I don't empathize with a chicken. I hope you're laughing your head off.
--------
UPDATE:
My middle child, who never reads on his own, asked if he could skip a play date in order to finish the book. If he ever has a goodreads account I'm sure he will give Rooster Fighter 100 stars.