History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi – So Passes Junazard, Master of Pencat Silak

You can tell it’s serious because they would never have cropped out Miu’s ass if it wasn’t.

…Junazad…Jenazad…how do you spell it? Eh, I’ll just go with that for now.

Ever since this fight began, I was being reminded more and more of something I saw in another series. I played the GBA port of Final Fantasy V a while back, and the scene that most people remember is how one character died. He was holding back an enemy nobody else could hurt, taking attacks that should have left him with 0 health. He was still able to power through all of that and only died when the enemy was driven off. That felt a lot like the situation Hongo Akira was in for the last few chapters. The impression you get from Junazard is that he’s miles ahead of anyone else present in terms of physical power, and it was getting difficult to see Hongo winning. He still managed to recover from each ridiculous attack he was hit with, but that only made the FFV comparison stronger.

With most of the main characters of Kenichi being the kind who fight without killing, the thought of a villain as big as Junazard getting killed somehow never came to me. It really felt like he was getting set up for a fight with Old Man Fuurinji, after all, so this seemed like a fight he would just escape from rather than outright losing. It turned out I was underestimating Hongo’s tenacity, as he managed to score a lethal blow after everyone thought he was already dead. This still leaves just enough room for him to die as well, since they still need to get past the military before they’re home free and we don’t know how bad his injuries really are. Until this storyline is officially over – not just once the fighting is done – we should still consider him potentially dead.

I still don’t know why they would kill Junazard off this way. I suppose he might be only mostly dead or something, but it’s a pretty big shock that he could be decisively beaten at all. I can’t say I feel sorry for the guy, since he’s pretty clearly been defined as a bastard whose care for the lives of his associates is around that of Darth Vader. He was being built up as the kind of person you really want to see beaten, which makes this even more surprising because his eventual defeat should have been a lot more brutal than just getting a hand shoved through him.

With this and the possible death of Hongo, we’re quickly running out of people for the main characters to fight. The appearance of Fuurinji Saiga not long ago might be implying that the different story arcs will start to get more important as time goes on, and while Junazard was important in terms of power, he didn’t have as much involvement with the main cast as the remaining members of Yami are shown to have. So maybe this truly is his time to bow out, if not in the murderous fashion he would have liked. I’m just looking forward to whatever the series has that can follow a fight like this.