Rooster Fighter

Episode 11

I hope we were all sitting down for this episode of Rooster Fighter because it was a doozy and a half. If we thought the episodes leading up to this week were action-packed, then this one was cranked up to 150%. Haters will tell you it's because Rooster Fighter has been inconsistently paced all season and now it's scrambling to catch up, but let's just take our adrenaline wins and delusion when we can.

This episode really has it all—family trauma dumping, adolescent milquetoast origin stories, training montages, multiple near-death blows, redemption arcs, life-changing revelations, and not one, but two major power-ups. It's a big day for the Goshikidori clan. The only thing it's missing is the big reveal on whatever happened to Piyoko, but considering how packed everything else is, it's probably for the best that we're shelving that until next week.

For now, we still have last week's Devil boy to deal with, and he is absolutely wiping the floor with Keiji. Even the buffest of roosters can't keep up with a nearly invulnerable monster with lightning reflexes and limbs that can morph into blades and daggers. And that's even with their enemy holding back—he's been given strict orders to only push Keiji to the brink of death because his Devil mother wants to “see what happens.” She does eventually get what she wants—it's these extreme conditions that finally unlock some things inside both Keiji and Keisuke—but we learn something in passing, too. The Devil, conspicuously named Hikari, still has memories of his mother being a sweet and adoring woman who genuinely loved him. Along the way, something must've changed, but we're not privy to what. Too bad, as this is a genuinely interesting nugget that we're denied simply due to time. All we know is that she only regards him as a tool in her army now, and as long as she gets her way, she doesn't care if he lives or dies.

It's a good(/terrible??) thing that Hikari's body is nearly indestructible then, because our rooster fighters eventually come to a life-or-death crossroads. Keisuke, sweet reluctant warrior Keisuke, finally recognizes in Keiji the true fighting spirit that his father has been trying to teach him all these years. He also finally makes peace with some of his own inner demons, confronting the root cause of his emotional cowardice and past grievances. It's not too different from what our wannabe ViewTube streamer learned earlier in the season, so perhaps it's a fitting full-circle moment that this episode also prominently features everyone's favorite big friendly giant Morio, this time fully healed and ripped to the heavens. If there's one thing monumentally depressing about his story arc, though, it's that even several episodes later, he's still talking about his usefulness. Capitalism and the cult of productivity have done a number on us.

I do have one criticism about the way this episode unfolds, though, and it's that I think two superpower level-ups in one episode is honestly one too many. I understand that once you write yourself into a “this enemy is impossible to defeat” trap, there is no way out but up, but when you're unable to stretch the overall battle across multiple chapters or episodes, it dulls the impact of the second, bigger, larger, this-is-the-big-one-honest level-up. Especially because both Keiji and Keisuke store and unleash their power from the same source—the Righteous Egg inside their gizzards, so it feels repetitive seeing similar things happening in parallel just a few minutes apart. Then again, when you're a chicken with limited upgrade capacity, I guess you're constrained to what you can physically do.

The upside is that now we're all set up for the finale next week. Elizabeth is back on her feet with a brand new jetpack, and both of our boys are proudly rocking new supersonic devil blasters deep in their gizzards. Now we just need to find out what happened with Piyoko, and we can put this clan of Devils to bed.

Shout out to that training montage, though. I've seen a lot of training montages over my decades of watching anime, and this is up there with some of my favorites. Never underestimate the visual impact of chickens doing human things.

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