Tokita Ohma

Tokita Ohma doesn’t have a backstory worth mentioning. He fights because that’s what he does, someone pays him for it, and that’s the deal. No tragic origin, no hidden motivation. Yabako Sandrovich never bothers explaining how he got this way in Kengan Ashura—a manga running since 2012—he just is.

What Sandrovich cares about is the fighting itself. Not the yelling or the impossible powers. Just the geometry of it: how your weight shifts, where balance breaks, the moment you realize you’re already losing. That’s the manga. That’s enough.

I haven’t read the whole series, but I’ve seen enough to understand it. Ohma fights on behalf of Nogi Hideki, a businessman who bets heavily on the outcomes. The plot, if you call it that, is just the fights and the weird respect between two guys trying to physically break each other.

Netflix adapted it to anime, which makes sense. They’ve been buying up anime licenses like they personally broke something. Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, everything they can grab. Most of it doesn’t work, but Kengan Ashura should be fine. The action is clean, the protagonist just needs to understand his body better than anyone else, and the rest handles itself.

I’ll watch it when it comes out. There’s something satisfying about a man with real skill calmly dismantling someone who thought they were much stronger. That moment when you realize you’ve already lost, three moves back. That’s the whole appeal.