Rooster Fighter

Episode 3

One of my favorite things about Rooster Fighter that I will never get tired of are the various chicken “boks” that are a constant throughline across every episode. Chickens are noisy birds. They are constantly chirring and cooing and singing long, warbling notes that sound like a distant motorcycle. It's thus very fitting that any time the birds are running around in the anime, they are accompanied by a constant chorus of “kukukukukuku." Even the silly way that the stereotypical “bakaw!” is used by the characters as exclamation marks and other emotive punctuations is funny and precious, and I think it all just goes back to how wonderfully dumb and great this entire premise is, and just how charming our bizarre little bird friends are.

The third episode introduces one of my favorite characters, the cool, sophisticated, and weirdly alluring Elizabeth. Raised in a giant manor as a pampered house chicken, she was accustomed to all the finest things in life, including nightly bath soaks with a glass of wine. Her life was changed when Demons began appearing—not only because they ripped apart her family (RIP to the family dog and cat), but because it brought Keiji into her life as the dashing hero with tales of grand adventures… and an aloof one-night stand. It's salt in the wound that he doesn't even remember this, or her.

Whereas Keiji brings gritty, gravelly-voiced machismo, Elizabeth brings a calm demeanor and a knack for technology. She doesn't have a Super Saiyan power move like Keiji, but she is extremely skilled with a battery-powered voltage rod. And she actually knows about human technology, allowing her to access a database of Demon sightings around the country. (Of course, she can read—she can paint and play the piano, too.) It's through this registry that we learn a few more key nuggets about the monsters—there are a lot more variants than was previously thought possible. Not only are some of them retaining their human emotions and characteristics, but some of them also aren't even villains—we briefly see a Demon who spends his time painting, while another helps firefighters put out fires. What, then, could be the trigger for their transformation, if not insecurity? Or is it less about the transformation than it is the mental process and intention once you've been turned?

We also find some initial clues of the tattooed Demon that Keiji is hunting. He was apparently last spotted in Tokyo with a phoenix (or is it a chicken engulfed in flames?) emerging from his fist. This begs the question for me—can Demons switch in and out of their forms on command? Or are humans just so ill-equipped to deal with Demons that one can just roam for extended periods of time without ever being shot down by a military aircraft? Is Keiji really the only thing that can stop these titans?

Before we can answer any of those questions, though, it's time for a Hot Springs Episode. Don't get too excited. There are definitely chicks, but… well, you know. We do finally get a taste of Keiji's aversion to water, but the highlight for me is the visual gag of Elizabeth skulking up to Keiji and Piyoko covered head to claw in a mud mask. I don't know how they got so much mileage out of a single shot of a chicken encrusted in mud, but that really is one of the show's fortes. The series is very efficient with its animation budget, in that it relies on a lot of extended panned frames to chew up screen time. I was actually a little stunned when they used a single shot of a camera POV looking up through a thicket of trees, and they didn't even bother making the leaves move. It feels a little audacious in its nakedness, even for a medium known for its budgetary efficiency, but the chicken animation itself is so consistently good that I kind of forgive every minute the show burns up with static imagery. The fact that the animation team is even able to answer questions like, “How exactly would a chicken fight with a baton clutched in its talons?” is impressive. And if you think drawing hands is hard, I can't imagine how many animators suddenly had to grapple with the need to animate scaly chicken claws. If the trade-off is seeing a suspicious amount of extremely long and unrelated background pans… I suppose we can let it go.

We can't end the Hot Springs Episode without a little tension, though. Our bratty little chick has suddenly gone missing, although maybe I'm the only one who wouldn't mind if Piyoko was lost to the winds. Everything about her shtick, I'm done with. Fortunately, the longer the show goes on, the more feathers we add to the flock, which is great for the group dynamic overall. Keiji and Elizabeth are like fire and ice, and they perfectly anchor opposite corners of this tent of absurdity. I didn't even miss not having any Demon fights this episode, because I think the best part of Rooster Fighter is just following our chickens around. Give us more of this, please!

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