Rooster Fighter

Episode 1

In a world of evil, demons, and crippling insecurity, there must be someone brave enough to stand up against them. Someone who can face them head-on, look them in their hate-filled eyes, and risk their own lives to save the world. And sometimes, that someone is just a humble rooster.

Rooster Fighter is the newest addition to a proud anime history of raging monsters and steely-jawed heroes. Spiritually, it takes inspiration from such macho classics like Fist of the North Star and Dragon Ball, with an obvious modern dash of Attack on Titan. From its art style, which fuses a grungy aesthetic of smudged shading and thick lines, to its cheesy mid-episode needle drops of saccharine ballads, it perfectly encapsulates that era of pre-normie action flicks where the idea of heroism went hand-in-hand with a toxic vision of masculinity. Men who went around the world subduing their feelings with their fists and leaving trails of jilted women behind them.

It's what makes Keiji, the hero of Rooster Fighter, such an on-target protagonist. He embodies all of those traits, from his rippling chicken thighs to his relentless womanizing (he's a migratory bird, after all—he simply can't be shackled to one coop), but he's also… well, he's a chicken. The clash of absurdity completely makes Rooster Fighter, and it lands from the first second Keiji appears on screen to take down a towering titan—and again when the very first post-OP scene is him bedding a very eager hen. We also soon learn his origin story: he was once a simple rooster like any other until his sister was cruelly taken away from him by a tattooed titan. It was in that moment that he learned his secret power—an ability to KOKEKOKKO at the exact sonic frequency needed to explode Demons from the inside. Now he's on a lifelong mission to track down the monster that took his beloved Sara.

What gives Rooster Fighter an extra dimension is also the Demons, whose origin we don't quite know yet. What we do know is that they're somehow transformed from regular humans who have been overwhelmed by internal anguish, whether it's a grieving mother or an overworked salaryman. Are they being created by the tattooed monster, or is that just happenstance? Can the monsters return to humans on their own, or can they only be defeated? All these questions will have to wait until further episodes, but until then, it's always nice to see that the bad guys have an additional layer of humanity beyond just being rampaging randos.

By far, the best thing about Rooster Fighter is its deadly accurate humor, which threads the perfect balance between absurdity and parody. The simple fact that Keiji is a literal rooster does most of the heavy lifting, but the comic timing that the team injects into the anime is wonderful. You see it in every decision—the dramatic pauses, the smirks, the eye glints, the music, and even the ominous way a little girl offers a fried chicken drumstick to Keiji for consumption. It helps that every single animal movement and behavior is impeccably crafted—if you have chickens (I am a proud chicken owner) or have spent any time at all watching them, you'll recognize the startling accuracy of every claw curl and full-diaper run. It's one thing to be able to depict these poses in manga panels, but another entirely to bring them to life in a way where that same rooster can seamlessly transition into action sequences. I can't imagine how many staff meetings it must have taken for all the animators to agree on how best to storyboard a chicken's bulging muscles.

We also need to give huge props to the voice actors in both Japanese and English. Keiji is played in Japanese by Kenta Miyake, who has decades-long experience playing heaving studs like My Hero Academia's All Might; he's joined in the English cast by Patrick Seitz (My Hero Academia's Endeavor!), whose voice also lends the perfect gravitas to our buff bird. There's a necessary seriousness to both of their performances, which again makes this entire concept work. The entire premise of the show relies on everyone involved taking their task seriously, when the content itself is deeply unserious. It's a team effort where everyone needs to understand the assignment, and in this case, it's a direct hit.

Ever since I started reading the Rooster Fighter manga, I haven't been able to shut up about this dumb property (and yes, it's genius, but it's so, so stupid). It is the most excited I've been about a new show in a really long time. It reminds me of what it used to feel like waking up as a kid on Saturday mornings to watch Dragon Ball Z, except now it's on at midnight, and there's also chickens moaning during sex. It's just joyous and exciting and effortlessly funny, and the perfect antidote to a world that's increasingly filled with sadness and dread. Yeah, maybe Rooster Fighter won't fix all of your problems, but it's the closest I can get to a free 20 minutes of therapy.

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Rooster Fighter is currently airing on Toonami and streaming on Disney+/Hulu.