Demon and Devil biology is interesting. I guess there’s no sense in applying real-world thermodynamics to it, and one wouldn’t expect it of any monster-of-the-week show. It does make for interesting villain design, though. For instance, this week’s Devil is probably one of the most interesting that we’ve seen to date. It’s not just the shape-shifting and the tissue expansion that we’ve seen with the previous Demons—up to this point, we’ve seen regular giants, octopus-looking giants, multi-headed giants, jellied giants, and of course, our mysterious and infamous phoenix-handed giant. This might be the first time we’ve actually seen one that fires actual artillery. As Keisuke says, “How is this fair??”

What’s really unfair is that he can also reload his bullets by dumping a box of plastic explosives down his gullet, and even upgrade his ammo to target-honing shells with giant eyeballs on them. But when there are no rules in shonen-ville, you can pretty much do whatever you want. This entire episode is basically just a showdown between our increasingly exhausted chickens and this one particular Devil, who reveals that they’re essentially evolved forms of Demons. Some are genetically blessed enough to make the cut, while others just get turned into their slaves via the mind-control tumors.

Speaking of tumors, we do get a quick glimpse of what’s happening with Piyoko, and while it’s objectively pretty bad-ass, the whole mystery behind it is pretty unsettling. What’s with those freaky blue eyes? Because we’ve only seen one set of blue eyes mentioned before… but never in relation to Piyoko. Even as a Piyoko-hater, I’m not sure I want anything bad to happen to her.

Back at the warehouse (shout out to the environment design team for rendering some truly beautiful warehouse wall slabs and steel beams), our chickens are still at it. Everything they try falls short, even Keisuke’s hereditary superpowers, which we learn is a powerful ball of energy stored inside the gizzard. Even in the middle of a life-or-death battle, we are still learning chicken facts. You have to love that about Rooster Fighter. Their commitment to chickens and chickencraft is top-notch, even Keisuke’s little feathered silkie feet. I’ll give you a random fact—not only do silkies have black skin, thanks to hyperpigmentation, but they have black meat and organs too. If that isn’t one of the most metal chicken breeds on earth, I don’t know what is. They do lay normal colored eggs though—the darkest you can get is a nice molasses brown, mostly from marans. They’re a very sweet breed too, if you’re interested in ones you can hug (is Elizabeth a maran??).

Overall, it’s one of the better fights we’ve seen so far this season, thanks in large part to the variation from the standard formula we’ve been used to up until this point. Neither Keiji nor Keisuke can use their OHKO super attacks very effectively, and the bad guy manages to evolve throughout the battle, which is a step up from earlier episodes. By the time it’s finally over, the chickens are exhausted, and so is the viewer. Perfect time to bring in… well, he’s not even the final boss, is he? But as far as we can tell, the next boss in line. How our heroes are going to make a dent is anyone’s guess.

My one last thought for the week is that Rooster Fighter really is good at drawing bulging flesh and viscera. I mentioned last week how revolting Piyoko’s journey into Morio’s butthole-pore-vessel was, but this show really has talent. It does glorby, growing flesh with some of the best of horror anime out there, and anytime there’s veins? They’re on it. I wasn’t expecting to be completely grossed out by veined eyeball missiles, yet here we are. Good job, team. You are truly sick, which is a high compliment.

Rating:

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